What a bike, what a ride, what a fail. I totally let the Krapf bike down today but it certainly did it's best to make the club. Today was the third straight day of zone 4/5 riding for me and this old man just isn't up to that right now. That said, for most of the ride this beautiful bike was moving.
Some observations made on the bike today. The drivetrain is soooooo quiet and easy to keep things trimmed. The times I got it up to around 21 mph the bike just lightened up and cruised effortlessly, even on some minor uphill's. Acceleration was something pretty dang good also. When the legs would bog down and the speed would drop it would only take standing a few strokes to punch this 40 year old beauty up another 5 mph. Probably the short, tight rear end going to work. My position felt great whether on the hoods or in the drops. The bike occasionally felt skittish on a couple rougher sections as I was hammering it but for the most part was smooth and planted. The only negative is a few times the tires seemed to scrub off speed in sharp curves, something I've felt on my other bikes running the latest version of the Vittoria Corsa Graphene 2.0 tires. I like how they look on this bike but may swap on some GP 5000's since they feel faster to me.
For the attempt today, I did get a clean ride. A late start with temps around 55 and totally calm. I hit the turn around point at a little over 12 miles in with the avg pace at 18.7. Normally the first half is the slowest due to all the minor uphills. Should have been easy to get it over 19 mph on a normal day. But about 14 miles in I felt the afternoon headwinds begin and they just got stronger the farther along I got into the ride. Yet at no time were they really that strong. Average pace was at 19.0 with about 6 miles to go. But from there it's a lot of rolling hills and uphill. The pace kept bouncing between 18.9 and 19.0 but was a solid 18.9 with two miles to got. That part is mildly uphill with today's headwinds. I knew the legs just didn't have it so turned off the gas and cruised home. I was the fail point today.
Quick snapshot from the turn around point, beautiful day out.
Not to make excuses but I still don't feel normal when I ride. There's no real smoothness to my legs through the stroke and I still have the sensation of making a lot more power with the right leg than the left. It's been six months now since the left knee replacement so I don't know if I can blame that. Although the calf on that leg always feel funny and I still cannot get even close to normal flexibility of my quads on that leg. Normally when I stretch I use both hands individually to pull each heel up to my buttocks. I can't even get much beyond 90 degrees doing that on the left leg still. Curious to see what happens with the right leg get's done next month. Maybe my days of sort of fast riding are over...