hand drawn portrait of Christof Dorner in black and white on a violet background

amble.blog is the personal space of Christof Dorner, he/him.

Who, recreationally, is periodically finding new obsessions; most recently sustainable mobility advocacy, geohashing, urbanism, bicycles, specialty coffee, photography, and lots and lots of books.

Professionally, he has been a software engineer for close to twenty years and counting.

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Christof Dorner

📚 Finished listening to The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

I feel this one was a bit too complicated for listening to the audiobook while doing chores or exercise. Might be worth re-reading in book form.

Christof Dorner

Weeknotes 24-07

I have never really considered getting an indoor cycling trainer. It's not so much the monotonous side of indoor cardio, I kind of don’t mind being on a rowing machine, at least not with some entertainment on the side. But given I’m heading to Norway later in the year with what looks like days after days of more than 1000 meters elevation gain. I thought I’d better be training for this a bit, because living in the flat north of Germany, there’s hardly a hill in sight. So I got myself a Wahoo Kickr Core from a local bike shop (that experience tops getting one delivered from an online store), loaned my partner’s cheap-ish road bike that was mostly just sitting in the basement, and off I went cycling on Zwift.

Turns out my love for cycling doesn't just come from being outside in the fresh air, I just love spinning my legs, anywhere, even indoors in front of a computer screen and a fan blasting air in my face (it gets so sweaty without the airflow on a moving bicycle).

I set up the trainer, the bike, and put on a brand new chain on Tuesday night and already racked up 223km of virtual cycling in the last six days. Riding in Watopia or Makuri Islands, some virtual worlds in Zwift, the climbing portal with a ever-changing roaster of climbs mimicking their real-world counterparts in profile, or joining robot-pacer-led group rides. I’m starting Zwift’s Gran Fondo eight-week training plan tomorrow, and in preparation I did a functional threshold power (FTP) test today. FTP measures the maximum power one can sustain over an hour, and oh my lord was this hard. After a warm up the test started at 100 watts relentlessly adding 20 watts every minute, all while cycling along a futuristic verson of New York's high line. It feels super easy for the first three quarters, but then gets incredibly hard incredibly fast. I still managed to hold on at 320 watts aiming for a cadence of around 85 rpm, but both cadence and power went haywire with 340 watts, at which point I stopped. The test theoretically continues until 600 watts, but I don't think any human can actually finish this test. Zwift estimated my FTP at 242 watts, and I’m curious to see how that will change after the eight weeks.

And for something non-cycling related; this week my partner and I finished rewatching the American version of The Office. It’s funny, every time I start watching this show it’s usually that at the same time I’m irritated by various levels of management at my job. Maybe me starting to rewatch The Office is a foretelling that I will be handing in my resignation in the weeks to come. It happened twice so far.

Christof Dorner
Screenshot of the Zwift virtual cycling game at 85% through the climb.

Jesus christ those climbs on #Zwift can be hard. Climbed Col du Platzerwasel today, 7.82 km, 592 m elevation gain at an average grade of 7.3% all in about 55 minutes.

At least this should get me ready for the coastal climbs of Norway ⛰️

Christof Dorner

Weeknotes 24-06

I quit my day job on Monday, starting off the week with a bang, of sorts. With ample notice, I will still be working there until the end of March. It's been on my mind for a while, but thinking about it and actually doing it are two entirely different beasts.

This means that my preparations for the 6+ months long sabbatical are kicking into overdrive. Mostly the planning and preparations for my cycling trip to the North Cape in Norway. The rest of the sabbatical are very much going to be unplanned by design.

I want to document my sabbatical in some ways, so might as well have a go at weeknotes before the sabbatical starts.

In other news, the first Wednesday of the month was this week and I made it to my first Respect Cyclists demonstration this month after skipping the January one. The weather held up for the most part, although it was a bit chilly on the feet and hands even though temperatures were hovering around 5ºC. And on Sunday there were Natenom tribute / Vision Zero demonstrations across all of Germany, I went to the Berlin one, aptly starting in front of the elephant statues at the entrance of the Berlin Zoo before heading through the city to the transport ministry.