I haven’t been in the groove much lately, not sure exactly why though a lot of life stuff has been going on. The groove is a funny thing. When you’re in it the ride has an effortless, almost slow motion flow. Blissful, relaxed speed — lost in the rush of moving forward as they say. When you’re not in the groove though you’re often just banging around, struggling, cursing, locking up, hanging on.

Can’t do much about the life stuff going on, but I can tinker with the bike set up. I’d made a few small changes a while back, to the saddle position and headset spacers in an attempt to sharpen things up a little and wondered if either or both of those changes had inadvertently messed things up a bit.

Turns out tweaks of a few mm here and there made a noticeable difference on todays ride, including moving the saddle back slightly, changing the tilt, and also raising the stem by a few mm. Results felt like increased power/reduced effort, more relaxed body position with less weight on arms. Most importantly the groove seemed huge, had a great ride, speed on rails. It’ll be interesting to see if it carries over to the next one or if it was all placebo. It’s got me thinking even more about getting a Body Geometry FIT done sometime soon.

I ride past the spot in the photo a few times a week easy. It’s one of the few places around Castlemaine where you get a reasonably unobstructed view over the town to the surrounding hills. If someone asked what is it like around Castlemaine I’d show them this pic and say well, it’s kinda like this. More than that though, you know when you get to this point you’ve well and truly escaped the burbs and the ride is on.