My Routine for Riding

In my last post I talked about the routine maintenance I do on my bike after I put a certain number of miles on my bike. I normally do that check down between every 50-100 miles which normally takes me a month or two and sometime longer depending on how much I actually get to ride. Lately because of COVID-19 I have been able to ride a whole lot. Good thing mountain biking follows social distancing! For the past couple weeks, I have had the chance to ride at least once a week between homework and the parks being closed due to the rain and the trails being too wet. So, when I head out for a ride, I have a routine that I normally go through to prepare for it, and it goes something like this. First, I get dressed I wear the same thing riding almost every time because its comfortable and I do not get too hot after I start riding. I wear a pair of black Columbia shorts that are very light weight and flexible so I can move around without being uncomfortable, I usually wear a dry-fit shirt  which I have multiple of so that changes almost every time, I have several pair of riding compression shorts that are padded in specific areas to make sure I’m comfortable for an entire ride, and finally my clip in shoes. My clip in shoes are specific for my pedals and they lock my feet to my pedals which makes my pedaling more efficient because instead of only getting power from pedaling downwards I also get power from pulling my feet back up and it also works out different muscles in my legs which is nice. After I get dressed, I pack my riding bag which has a water bladder in it so I can hydrate while I ride. The items in my bag are the same every ride. I carry the water bladder along with a multi-tool and tire repair kit for quick trail fixes, a small lightweight first aid kit in case I crash and then a snack which is normally a granola bar or a pack of peanuts. The next step is loading my bike on to my bike rack and head to the trails. Once I get to the trail, I do a mini check down on my bike just to make sure everything is in proper riding condition then I head out to start putting in some miles. I normally aim for ten plus miles a ride because after ten I am normally pretty tired, but I try to ride as long as I can. I also track my rides with an app called Strava which has a GPS that tracks what trails I ride, my speed while riding, my heart rate and even compares my performance to other that have ridden that trail. I love Strava, here are some of my results!

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