Being in "Sync" with the road

[Mr. Bloom]

You know that feeling where sometimes:

Your cadence is perfect
You're able to actually accelerate on the uphill roller with little effort (and maybe even pass your athletically superior SO:rolleyes:;))
Your shifting is precise and on queue
You feel strong and in sync with conditions


Then there are times when it seems that no gear, no cadence, no tailwind seems to work...:(

Why is that?

[Tri Girl]

I think we have bad days so that we can appreciate the good days like you just described. :) Yesterday when I was doing a hilly tour and slogging up some hills at 5 mph, I was thinking that I had to suffer through those uphills to appreciate the joy of the downhills. Yin and yang, I guess. :) *you passed silver going uphill? woo hoo*

[arielmoon]

I think that is the quintessential question. How to get in that zone at will and be consistently there.

In dressage training, we ask the horse to come and stay 'in front of the leg' by engaging their hind end and achieving 'self carriage'. Oddly enough, I have come to recognize a similar 'feel' when riding my bike. I call it, in my head, 'getting over the pedals'. It's that powerful feeling where you gain with every crank and I try to get it as much as I can.