globecanvas

Are you the guy who crashed because he didn't install the new cleats he bought?

tetonrider

muddy? what were the circumstances?

wens

Mud and leaves. In retrospect I should've stopped to clean stuff up some, but I didn't want to give up the time when I was battling at the front of the race. Would've been a good day for a pit bike, but that's behind a mtb, a tt bike, and another track bike at the very least on the list of frames I'm going to buy at this point, so...

aaronmcd

Yep, I'd be that procrastinator. At least I'm fairly certain a bent hanger can't throw me off the bike.

waterrockets 

Tour de Gruene 2-man TTT last week: raced Merckx and got 48/191. 11th in Merckx.

Blah. It was a fun race, but I went out hard, in spite of telling myself that I wouldn't, then couldn't push the pace on the hills. This is a really beautiful course though, so that was really nice, and something I look forward to every year. We were about 5:00 off my planned pace though. My usual list of teammates couldn't ride it this year, so I snagged a friend from Houston, and we had no training time together. We were pretty smooth in spite of that, although he surges on pulls a bit.

ridethecliche

Serves you right for choosing to do that instead of coming out for beer.

rkwaki

Hey lover, you are alive...

waterrockets 

So... freaking busy. Too much volunteering commitment to cover some changes at work. On the bright side: work trip to Egypt coming up!

So, you're alive too? Probably looking a photos of someone else's bike?

Hermes

I raced the Santiago Canyon ITT on Saturday in SoCal - M60+ Cat 1-5. I rode Merckx and finished 8/9 with others riding TT bikes. I set a PR on the course and a 19 minute power record and it appeared that the times were in general about 1 minute slower due to ambient conditions. Realistically, I may have moved up a position or two if I had my TT bike with bigger gearing based upon the time spreads. I have a road bike with a PT wheel that I keep in SoCal and used it as configured. It has a compact crank 50/34 with 12/27 rear cassette with Williams System 30 wheels.

The course is approximately an 11 mile one way course that commences on a bike path switching to a canyon road. The course features a 3.1% climb followed by a descending route on excellent pavement with wide bike lanes. The wind was head to cross climbing and cross on the faster section after transitioning off the bike lane.



I tried to make every pedal stroke count, know the course and execute.

Since I was riding Merckx, I did not have much equipment to worry about. However, I wanted to bring an 11/23 cassette from home and forgot to pack it. 50/12 on the descending part of the course is not big enough. If I were to race my TT bike, I would use my 54/11.

Below is the power, speed and cadence file from Cycling Analytics. I raced this course previously and pre-rode it on Monday. My goal was to ride in the drops and to put in the most power on the climb and use the initial steep descent for some recovery and then get what I could get riding around FTP on the flat to descending and go harder on the slight climbs for the rest of the course.



One is supposed to warmup via a protocol in preparation for a TT. Well, my wife and I arrived and after registration, pinning on numbers and setup, we got about 15 minutes of warmup without much structure.

When it was my turn to start, I decided to go out easier for a minute since I did not have a good warmup. At the start, my legs felt great. Okay, WTF, let it rip. I rode the first 19 minutes at 110% FTP. The drop in power halfway into the climb is a hard right turn left turn on a narrow bike path under Santiago Canyon Road. Right before the turn was a sharp climb. I knew that coming in and hit the climb hard and recovered on the right / left turns.

I got to the top of the climb and hit the fast descent and hit 41 mph. I started pedaling again at 117 rpm. I do not do well at higher cadences in TTs. My sweet spot seems to be 83 to 85 and 70 to 75 climbing.

I tried for 95% FTP on the slight downhill sections without spinning too fast and 105% FTP on the slight uphills and did whatever I could on anything that looked like a climb.

I finished and felt pretty good but I would have liked my TT bike.

I rode tempo back to the start and felt pretty good. This was a great off season race and a fun, challenging course.

Racer Ex 

I did a single speed cross race Saturday. Well, I was on a single speed. The other guys had gears. Fair fight judging by my heart rate file.

echappist

So basically you are a hipster and a weed smoking hippie?

Racer Ex 

Can you tell the difference between flannel and tie dye?

Given that all the beards finished in back of me I'd say I was a bourbon drinking, hipster smoking curmudgeon.

In my day all we had was one speed and it got us 20 miles to school and back in the snow over a mountain pass. We wore flannel because we couldn't afford new clothes and my mom would take old blankets and make them into shirts. We had beards because we couldn't afford razors. We didn't need tattoos because we had real scars.

Hermes

Hipsters have the dye on the skin.

Doge

The first part of the TT @Hermes reported on was the 2008 USA National TT course. I pulled out some old video. Camera technology has improved!

aaronmcd

Low Key Hill Climb, Mt Hamilton
A bit over 18 miles, 4200 feet of climbing.
25' @5%, short descent, 12' @5%, short descent, 34'@6%. (subtract a few minutes from each climb if you are Fudgy).
13th (I think) out of 170-something.

I've never done this climb, but I was hoping for sub-80 minutes. I had no idea where to line up - I knew there would be times everywhere from sub-70 to over 2 hours. Lined up front 3rd, which was ok but a bit far back.

First climb felt super easy, but I've never climbed this long so I just sat in (turns out I was in zone 4 but I guess the adrenaline made it feel easy). Fudgy and a couple other took off the front, the pack let them go (they took 1-2-3). The pack thinned out a bit by the end of climb one, but we were still a good 30 guys I'd guess.

Second climb I see the front starting to string out so I start making my way up. I get to the front and Costa, Wohlberg and 2 others are off the front. I follow a couple guys chasing them (well, one guy chasing and 3 of us hanging on). Guy behind me pops. A few minutes later I drop off as well.

I start the 3rd climb solo. After a while 4 guys catch me and we stay together for a bit until they drop me, so now I'm in 14th. When I guess I have 10 minutes left I turn it up a bit. I caught who I believe was one guy from that last group a few seconds from the finish.

78 minutes, around 13th place. Happy with my time and effort.
115 TSS
1333 kJ

Ygduf

Well, now I can say I raced Adrian Costa, Ryan Sherlock, Eric Wohlberg, Andrew Biscardi, Brian Lucido, Hans Detlefsen and Stefano Profumo, and 160+ other guys heads up and won.

Stefano is my teammate and probably was the stronger climber today. I attacked with about 2k to go and told him to make Hans chase me. Hans didn't chase, I won, Stefano took second.

The three of us rode otf of the pack on the first climb, maybe 5 minutes into the race. Too much disrespect. They gifted us 2:26 by the bottom of the first short descent. Hans won Diablo Challenge this year, Stefano is a top-10 Nats 35+ climber, and I am OK on this 4-5% stuff.

109:49 @ 350AP. Winning 1k move was just 375w AP for 3 minutes.

mattm

FTW!!!!

Nice job man - I always give you a lot of **** for not training, but whatever you're doing is working!

revchuck 

Fudgy - Well Done!

shovelhd

Good job, man.

globecanvas

Great way to work off the turkey ygduf!

Sounds right... "no way are those guys staying away"... feels good to prove them wrong, doesn't it?


BTW maybe you mean 1:09, or else aaronmcd's time doesn't make sense?

rkwaki

Good job fudgy.

Wylde06

Ygduf

yeah, 1:09:50 or whatever.

I played the disrespect card heavily in convincing Stefano and Hans to really really go. I started the move and when there were only 3 of us, I said I'd be delighted with 3rd and that I'd pull every flat and downhill, where the pack tends to slow down. Who wants to ride threshold at the front of 20 guys? It's where time can be gained by a 180lb dude drilling it. Anyway, I said I'd be stoked with 3rd and Hans said "there's no way that's happening with Adrian and Ryan back there"... I had to get in his head. Telling him "you beat 460 guys at Diablo. Ryan and Adrian don't even know who you are! They're spotting you MINUTES right now!"

Ahh, so fun.

here's the time gap to Adrian, btw. Guy gained back a minute on us in the final mile! Strongest guy doesn't always win; you just have to be strong enough to grab the opportunity when it presents.

globecanvas

And that right there is the topic sentence for bike racing!

Ygduf

don't get me wrong, you have to be pretty strong sometimes. And somedays you have to see how overmatched you are and throw caution to the wind and attack 1mi into an 18-mile hillclimb because it creates the only situation in which you have even the slightest chance.