I haven’t ridden with my club yet this year. Scheduling and getting in shape didn’t allow it until Saturday so I was looking forward to seeing how much fitness I had lost being off (and getting fat) over the winter with injuries. I had a head cold so was a little apprehensive as my preceding training ride on Wednesday was a disaster. Anyway … I went.

I actually won the first sprint (and since I don’t do this often), thought I would share it with you guys. I have no idea if you guys like my little charts and data so if you don’t, let me know and I won’t bother (and no, it won’t hurt my feelings ).

First, I roughly remembered where this one was so I positioned myself in the pace line and was well rested just before the sprint with a heart rate of only 82%. The first break happened with me about 4th deep and I just had to kick the watts up a little to hang on to the pack of that break when the leader soon realized he went too soon and had too many people on his wheel and slowed up. It was windy.
I was still feeling pretty good with 89% heart rate when one of the strongest riders made his move on the second break. I was a little slow in reacting and had to goose it pretty good to catch his wheel (600 watt range).
Then when I had him, I pulled out and made my attack. You can see my speed drop as I pulled into the wind. Peaked at 635 watts and was just able to hold him off with a 550 watt effort.



First ride back with the guys and got lucky with positioning and won the first sprint by a wheel. I know these aren’t big numbers and it's not a legitimate race or anything but I was happy to win it.