I’m going to just dive right in.
My name is Jem. I’m a local Vancouver Cat 3 racer going into only my second full season of racing bikes. I’ve got loads of enthusiasm, at least a reasonable amount of potential, a bit of background in exercise physiology and some lofty ambitions for how far I can push myself in all this. This will be something of a training & racing diary for the 2016 Road season and beyond.
My idea for this blog is to be an outlet for whatever philosophizing & theorycrafting I’ve not already bored my friends & teammates with. When I get interested in something, I go deep. Broadly, I like to deconstruct and optimize systems. Whether that be analyzing and imitating biomechanics of world class athletes, figuring out combat systems in games, backtesting stock trading algorithms, or optimizing training and lifestyle on and off the bike. I’ll stick mostly to cycling related discussions here, but forgive me if a couple off-topic posts find their way in.
I plan on recording as many of my races as possible and experimenting with on-bike footage. Look for those on YouTube in the near future. Also, apparently social media is a thing. I’ll make an effort to have a presence on Twitter, Instagram and of course, Strava.
What I don’t want this blog to become is a fluffy, feel-good, meaningless meandering of words. I’ll try to be precise with my opinion and accurate with my facts, and properly referenced where able. This isn’t an anonymous journal, but I want to keep this somewhat separate from my personal life.
I want to start with a summary post of where I’m currently at with training for 2016 and use that as a jumping off point for exploring how I optimize process in order to improve performance and realize my desired outcome. Expect that soon. No promises on hard timelines for now, but I’m eager to put pen to paper.
Jem
Spare Cycles 