jslegacy

I know a lot of cyclists dont like tri geeks for whatever reason but I will come out and say this was my first year of doing tris. I started riding back in May of 2008 to and from work then started group riding and went from 218ish down to 154 this past summer.

Over the winter I decided to start training for triathlons and competing them along with TTs on the side this season. I competed in 3 sprints, 3 olympics and 4 TTs: 12m, 40k, 15m, and 11m. The bike portion of the tris was always my strongest event consistently posting the top 10 or higher overall bike split. In the TTs I always did well in the Cat 5; 6th, 4th, 5th, 3rd.

I ordered two powertaps from psimet back in august and have been training with them. Ever since my last tri on the 13th of September I have stopped swimming and running to let some bruises heal and have been training with power exclusively on the bike even though the season is over. In my last tri I crashed on the bike just after 4 minutes into it because of gravel on a left turn and got some nice road rash on my left side. Even with the crash and stopped once more to adjust a rear-derailuer that would not shift to the bottom 4 gears I did the 40k in 59:43.

Now judging from my power profile I am definitely the TT type as my sprint is rather weak at 13.44w/kg @ 5 seconds. But my 1 min is 8.86w/kg, and 5min is 5.74/kg, and estimated FTP is 4.4w/kg based off of a 30 minute test this past weekend which was 4.63w/kg. Yesterday I did do my highest hour at 4w/kg but that included at a stoplight and putting my chain back on after a noob mistake.

Now I am thinking that I should start focusing on road races and TTs because that is obviously my strength and running is not. I am a masochist as I love doing 20 and 30 minute intervals, hill climbs and TTs to push myself to limit.

Now on to my question, can any one here recommend a team in the NoVA area, specifically Fairfax? I know that in Cat 5 it can be useless but I would like to have the team aspect on rides and to know other people at races and possibly travel with.

wanders

bdchueng or nomadvw (and some others I can't think of right off)could help find a team. With those numbers, you should do well.

Good luck and don't forget to report.

waterrockets 

Man, that was a long way around to that question. Congrats on the progress. Good to narrow down your likes/dislikes along with your strengths/weaknesses. Still lots to learn.

Just go join some group rides that are mostly racers.

Treefox

And no mankinis in cycling!

I started out in cycling, drifted into Tri for a little while, then came back out the other side (with a TT bike to boot).

Tri guys often do well in Cat 5 races that lack strategy.

seanmdo

Maybe you can just tt off the front in road races or crits in Cat 5. Some of the stronger 5s do this routinely and then upgrade... Then they run into people who have equal or petter fitness, but like someone else said, lots to learn... You can always improve all of your skills. I'm a 3 now and just built up this thing...



Sorry for the non-deep dish front It's a 303 from my road racing set. I'm doing a few sprint tris to help me justify the purchase. I was sharing my buddy's tt bike for stage races and the first sprint tri I did. But road is where its at! I look forward to adding the new easton ec90 TT (90mm deep) when they become available at the end of the month I can't wait to rip some legs off!

seanmdo

Oh well. I can't post the image, but trust me, its HOT!

seanmdo

https://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e223/seanmdo/Mobile%20Uploads/?action=view&current=utf-8BSU1HMDAwMjctMjAwOTEwMTQtMDczN.jpg

jslegacy

nice bike, I have a pedal force TT2. Lots of questions about in the transition area. Although it is great being once of the first ones back to T2 and knowing I beat the tons of cervelos i see at the start.

I have been doing some searching for local teams and found one that seems to be pretty active, Evolution Cycling. I will try and check out some of their rides if I can.

seanmdo

Haha. I did my first sprint tri about a month ago and I had the best bike split of my age group 24-29 and 5th out of 531 total. I was on my buddies aluminum tt bike but I was flying past cervelos including a p4 ridden by a guy I met a couple days before. Those tri folks dont know the meaning of LT, they are all base miles! I did a hundred mile ride two weekends ago with some tri people and I was hurting them on my pulls... on my road bike... they were like "Nice pull, please don't do that again." Good stuff.

skipmcne

The following thread (Team Choices in the NOVA/DC area) will be useful to the OP. Both in terms of locating teams, and their rides.
https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bike-racing/556929-team-choices-nova-dc-area.html

DrWJODonnell

Cliff Notes version: Blah blah blah, I am a TTist cat 5 looking for a team in the NoVA area.

Good luck and report back.