Juan Foote

I have to share my story from last weekend. I pulled my fastest "open road" ride on a segment overtaking some folks that didn't know I was racing them.....lol, thread is meant entirely in levity, as I am a really slow (SLOW) rider.

My normal loop on the trike is just under 20 miles with my turn around point being a recreation area at a local lake with facilities. As I was coming back up from the lake I noted three riders in my mirror closing at a pretty good clip. Knowing that the route gets steeper up the road I decided to play a game with myself and see if I could stay ahead of them till the stop sign coming out of the park area, which I did. I turned and expected the riders to go another way when within a few minutes I notice them closing on me again. The hill I was on at the time was too much for me to stay ahead. Just as they were about to close on me they opted to take a turn which is a shorter, but much hillier, route to the same area. I decided to try and beat them to the cross street in spite of the mile difference between the two routes. I wasn't expecting to catch them or really even see them again but up the road a couple of miles I see them resting at the stop sign ahead of me. Game ON! They pull out a good way ahead of me but I had a couple of advantages over them at this point. We were catching a headwind well into the 15's and the whole segment is a false flat just slightly uphill.
I close the distance to them fairly quickly at first until they realize I am trying to close on them. I wouldn't say they were "racing" me at first but certainly picked up their pace when they became aware. I swapped into the 3rd drive on my SRAM DD3 and the big ring and was giving it everything I had. The wind took its toll on them and I was able to get around all three of them. I made sure to appear as if it were effortless as I came by, none of the exertion I was actually under allowed to show...at least until I was past them. One of the three riders accepted the challenge at this point and made a concerted effort to keep up with me. Once again, for the luck of wind direction they really had the odds stacked against them for the segment I had chosen. I was able to stay ahead of them for the couple of miles back to the end of the road pulling just under a 20 mph average for those few miles.

Lol, I was so stoked to have caught a beat them at my imaginary race. I just hope next time they don't see me coming earlier.

Grishnak

Next time un-clip one foot as you go bylike you were doing a single leg drill.

rydabent

Great post. Bents are not as slow as some of the DF racer boy crowd would have you believe under certain conditions.

crazyb

A group I was with a couple years ago got passed by a fully enclosed (streamliner?). We were doing 26-28 in a paceline. He must have been doing 35-40. When we got to the next town, we ran into him and got to talking, He had an 80 tooth big ring on that thing.

delcrossv

lol. Yeah, don't mess with the 'liners. He was probably just cruising along . At the big streamliner race in Nevada, you have to go over 50 just to qualify.

BlazingPedals

Isn't Rick Gritters from Iowa?

wbuttry

where can I get that big of gearing for my recumbent at 80 tooth

BlazingPedals

Trisled - Alloy 80 tooth chain ring 110 PCD

VegasTriker

Do expect to choke on the cost: Hostel Shoppe Recumbents - the world's largest source for recumbent information, bicycles, trikes and accessories.

I have the 65 tooth 130 bcd chainring with Schlumpf Mountain Drive on a Greenspeed GTO trike and have been putting off replacing it because the price keeps going up. It was $135 last year and $170 now. I have 27,000+ miles on the chainring already. It still works OK.

Tractortom

I had a similar 'race' on the way home a week ago. There is a fellow who lives not too far from my office, rides a cheap diamond frame road bike, and tends to ride on the sidewalk as I'm headed home on my Bacchetta Belladare long wheel base commuter. So last week I was headed south on Hwy 441 towards Okeechobee, and the fellow comes out on the corner. Now he's easily 25 years younger than I am, but looks to be just starting out riding and was wearing a tee shirt and sports style shorts (I commute in my spandex). Anyway, when I went by in the bike lane at 15 or so, he ducked in behind me, and was quickly drafting me. So, I hooked up a gear, and got up around 16.5. He hung in there, in the draft and was down on the drops, going with me. I decided to see how dedicated he was, so I hooked up the next gear, and was cranking about 18-18.5 (I have a fairing on the bike and have an advantage). That was too much for him, he began to drop back, and quickly was out of the draft and well behind me. I gave him a wave, and kept on towards home... The old man wins!

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee

BlazingPedals

I've done that before: bumped up the speed by 1 mph until they drop. Of course, it only works when you've got a LOT in reserve, like when you've just started from a stop.

How often has anyone passed a paceline and had someone abandon their group to try drafting you?

wbuttry

shoot with that I would be wore out trying to get going good with that gear but once I got started I don't know if I could stop without toasting my brakes

jyl

When you're on a conventional bike, trying to draft the more aero sort of recumbent is kind of a waste of time. That was my conclusion after riding on my DF with some guys on LWBs w/ windscreens and socks. Whatever draft they produce is too close to the ground to help the DF rider.

On the flats, as a DF rider you just have to get into the drops and work a good deal harder than the bent riders.

On the downhills, tuck into the big ring and spin as hard as you can, while hoping that the bent riders will coast.

But you get your revenge on the uphills.

delcrossv

That was the conclusion of my DF riding co-worker when we were doing a ride. I got in front so he could avoid the "chainring of doom" and asked him how fast did he want to go. He said 19 and off we went. After about 10 min he was complaining that he couldn't get a draft off me on the M-Racer. I replied, "That's the idea".