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Tour de Samsø

03.08.2018 | Cycling/The Tour

OK. We are back in 1996. Spring time, and I'm visiting my friend Rolf. I'm biking on my 12 speed mountain bike. Two kilometers from the village I lived in (Brundby) to the village he lived in (Ørby). Past stretches of yellow, rolling rape and steady golden wheat. On a poor road shattered with small craters. Horses running on a paddock along a wooden posts fence and the blue horizon. Lazy cows grassing clovers in the pasture dotted with gray rocks and brown mole holes. In front of me on a small hill the local church rises, the desolated graveyard with a few leaning tombstones and the small tower. Behind that is located Ørby with at most 100 residents. And above all of this the sun is bending over me like a sunflower in that vast field called the universe. Think of a bumbled road to a small french town. Think of a dehydrated sunburned man, hands covered in oil kneeling in front of a well midst of the town square. Think Chabrol. When I reached Rolf's home and his room upstairs I met him pretty much wearing this

Rolf to the left. Or it might as well have been.

At that point in time I had never heard about Tour de France. But that sure did change. We biked on to the seaport Ballen and to the beach located by the port. So fast rewind the scene above. I'm pretty sure we raced each other on that ride.

That year the tour was won by Bjarne Riis. He became a national hero. I bought the yellow jersey. We were Team Telekom, Samsø. My older brother gave me his old Benotto racer, something along the line of this

Benotto 12 speed rock'n'roll

And I even won a time trial once against Rolf.

Now Bjarne has lost his title due to doping allegations. He has been restated but with a doping remark. Anyway. Some 7 years ago I bought a Canyon racer. And duo to heavy pollution and insufficient world resources we have had a record summer in Denmark this season. So I have been on my bike riding around Samsø as we did more than 20 years ago.

My Canyon. Since they did not have the simple version when I ordered, this is equipped with some 30 gears. I have never used the small front blade.

What's new is that I have bought a heart rate watch/monitor. A very simple on. It can handle heart rate, it has a stop watch. And it can show time when not monitoring the heart. All I need.

I have always just biked on how my body felt. When doing that a lot one gets used to the level of stress one can put on the body given the distance of the ride. But this seems more fun.

In order to use the heart rate monitor you need to figure out which kind of intervals you train in. I have made an application for that. It can be found here.

I can't reach my max heart rate. It's too warm I think, before reaching max I'm overheated. I got it to 165. At a hill I got it to 170 in a glimpse. But the monitor did not have proper contact and stopped monitor. My rest heart rate is some where between 45 and 50. I have seen it as low as 44.

All in all: I can train in the zone 135-145 for longer rides. And in the zone 145-155 for smaller rides or bursts. This is quite useful, I think.

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