Charlie Baker Time Trial - 5/28

The weather was awesome for this week’s Charlie Baker Time Trial, clear skies and 65°F. Warmer weather probably would have meant faster times, but it felt nice at least. It looks to me like outside air temperature has an impact on CBTT times of somewhere around 1 second per degree Fahrenheit. Air temperature and moisture content both affect air density, and lower air density means lower wind resistance. So when I say 1s/°F, I’m assuming that moisture content will change proportionally with temperature, which is probably a bold assumption. I just haven’t paid much attention to it thus far. Maybe I’ll want to take that back eventually, but for now, 1 second per degree Fahrenheit is pretty simple. Wind was out of the WNW at around 8mph. Any wind out of the west is probably ideal seeing as the course finishes further east than it starts. I don’t really have a feel yet for how much an easterly wind would affect times. I’m sure some weather geek somewhere has all this stuff figured out already and has some formula to normalize times.

Bad weather on Tuesday afternoon left me strapped to my trainer for a workout. Trouble is I hate the trainer and can never seem to produce the watts that I can outdoors. Tuesday was no exception. By my second interval I was struggling so badly that I ended my workout early. This left me fresher for the CBTT than I have been in my prior attempts this season. My two previous CBTTs this season have followed long tempo days.

Erica came out for her first TT ever, and I was supposed to go off 3 racers before her. Somehow I managed to miss my start (I thought I was 5 minutes early?), and ended up going off 1 minute behind her. I don’t think she liked being my carrot.

Official results aren’t posted yet, but I think I finished in 24:55, a new PR of 38 seconds. This week I sported my new skinsuit and shoe covers, but no real aero equipment. Average watts were up substantially from previous races at 285W. I started too hard, and my 5-minute average power intervals went something like: 320W, 280W, 265W, 270W, 285W. Even pacing is a lot harder that it seems.

Saddle discomfort really sets in for me near the end of 225 just before the turn to Monument Road. Every week without fail it’s the same thing. By that point I’m pushed so far forward onto the nose of my saddle it feels like I’m sitting on the point of a construction cone. This pressure creates numbness, and numbness creates bad thoughts like whether or not I’ll be able to have kids some day. At this point I look down at my PowerTap and it reads something like 180W, and it’s time to start going hard again. Luckily there’s a nice little hill not long after turning onto Monument Road and I can come out of the saddle for a few seconds. One of these weeks I’ll have to try a TT saddle with a nice plush nose.

Rich showed up for the end of the race, and we went out to do a team time trial effort out on the course. We finished in about 25 minutes even, so about the same as my race time. When Rich came through to pull for the first time coming up the hill into Carlisle I nearly got dropped. Looked down at my power meter and I was at 450 watts, so who knows what he was putting out. By the end of the loop I was destroyed. What a great way to get a second big threshold interval in. Legs are sore today.

Cyclonauts Criterium

Cyclonauts criterium is held on the Stafford Springs Motor Speedway. About two-thirds of the lap is on the race track, and the remaining third cuts through the infield. The section through the infield is narrow, twisty, and technical. Today there was a pretty consistent breeze coming out of turn four (by motor speedway counts). This made for a stiff headwind on the back straight of the course.

I raced the 4/5 field today because it started at 8 AM and I was trying to make it up to UMASS-Amherst for my brother’s graduation right after the race. I would have liked to stick around to race the 4’s, and maybe try the ¾’s, but it just didn’t work out today.

38 pre-reg’d for the 4/5 field, and 47 started. We got to the track later than I would have liked, at 7:40 AM, 20 minutes before the start. I’ve never reg’d and hit the bathroom so quickly, still had time for a few laps of warmup.

Being windy, I figured no breaks would stick today. Given this and my short warmup, I stayed on the very back of the field for the first 20 laps of the 40 lap race. The pace was a little peaky early on, and a few riders got shelled. There were a few times that soon-to-be dropped riders let a gap open up and I had to come around.

There was a racer that stayed about 10-20 seconds off of the front for somewhere around 25 laps. I spoke with him after and he was a friendly German guy that is training for NJ state time trial championships next week. I’m sure he got a good workout in today because he ended up being off the front for most of the 4’s race too. Our field was pretty content to let him sit out there until the Mystic Velo (Junior?) team came to the front and pulled him back in.

The pace on different parts of each lap was pretty much the same. We dive-bombed the first corner without braking, then braked hard for the second turn that immediately followed. This created a little bit of accordion effect and hard pedaling was required through the 180-degree turn before the back straight. The back straight was pretty slow because it turned into a stiff headwind. Coming around turn four into the finishing straight had a tailwind, and this was the ideal place for an attack. There were several break attempts here throughout the race.

With 15 to go I moved up from the back of the field to see what was happening at the front. German TT guy was trying to go off the front still every chance he got. I made the mistake of dangling off of the front with him for a lap or two, but refused to pull through when he eased up.

During the last 8 laps (~9 minutes) of the race, I felt stuck at the front of the field. I wanted to be near the front, maybe 10 wheels back, but I was pegged to the very front, never back more than 2 wheels. I wasn’t burying myself in the wind, and my perceived effort was low to moderate, so I didn’t worry about it. With two to go everyone started really easing up. A Cambridge Cycles racer and myself were on the front doing light tempo pace, and no one was coming around. I could feel people behind me getting anxious for the finish. Thinking back to my Palmer race, I was happy I wasn’t sitting in the middle.

My plan going into the race was to launch an attack 1-minute out from the finish. On this course that would be almost exactly a lap. Trouble was that being on the front was taking a toll on me, and I didn’t think I had the legs to give a 100% effort. Instead I went to plan B. Racers had been launching attacks all day coming out of turn four, and I figured someone surely would with one to go.

Anticipating an attack, I went down to the drops and shifted up a gear on the back straight before one to go. Coming around turn four I was on the front and really easing off the pace. Sure enough, a Quad Cycles guy comes attacking around with another rider on his wheel. I was ready for this and got in place on third wheel and we flew through the technical part of the course.

Coming down the back straight, I think the Quad Cycles guy opened up a gap on the second wheel guy. Entering turn three (of the motor speedway) I went to move to the inside to sprint, but just as I did the Cambridge Bicycles racer shouted at me “ON YOUR RIGHT!!!” He snuck by the inside of me at a pretty good speed differential with a BRC racer on his wheel. After the pair went by I went with them.

By the time I squeezed through the inside CB & BRC were already in full sprint mode and I couldn’t catch them. The two ended up catching Quad Cycles right before the line in first and second, and Quad got third. A rider came around me and nipped me right at the line to take fourth, the last spot in the money. I finished fifth.

Sitting in for the first half of the race was pretty easy, average watts were 202W and normalized power 229W. Average heart rate was higher than I expected given low perceived effort at 171 bpm. I think this may have been due to the non-existent warmup.

Average watts during the last 15 laps or whenever I moved to the front were much higher, 265W and normalized power 294W. Average heart rate was also 182 bpm, which again is higher than I would have thought. In the past my heart rate has been as high as 185-190 for ~30+ minutes in a crit, but that usually means I’m hanging by a thread. Average speed for the race was just shy of 25 mph.

Finishing efforts looked like this:

20s: 629W (after squeezing through the inside)
1min: 430W (last lap)
9min: 286W (last 8 laps being no more than 2 wheels back)

629W for the last 20 seconds really isn’t very much at all, and my heart rate pretty much maxed out at 197 bpm (200 bpm max) during this. I couldn’t have gone much harder. The reason for this is the last 9 minutes of the race, where I felt stuck at the front. 286W over 9 minutes is a little above threshold, and making a big sprinting effort is a lot to ask after such an effort. Ideally I would have been able to sit in 5-10 wheels back during the last 8 laps and exert far less energy. Sprinting power would likely have increased significantly but at the risk of getting blocked in.

Another option would have been to block out the inside lane at the end of the race instead of keeping it open and laying out a red carpet for an attack. The lane was small and it would have been easy to block out that space. The first two finishers squeezed through here so this would have had a big impact on the outcome of the race.

Sunapee Road Race

This year’s Sunapee race turned out to be completely the opposite as last year in terms of weather. Instead of 45°F freezing rain we had 65-70°F with clear skies, and it was a pretty ideal day. We stayed at the Newport Motel Friday and some bird that sounded like a car alarm (maybe it was?) was on a rampage all night long. Breakfast was a little tricky in the room eating mostly breads instead of my usual eggs and oatmeal. Still had plenty to eat though.

I’ve been struggling so far this season on pretty much any course with a hill. My plan for Sunapee was to carefully manage my efforts before hilly sections and avoid starting climbs in the red zone. With any luck I hoped to stay attached to the lead group and play a roll in the finish.

Yet again I managed to almost miss the start of the race. I was sitting around talking to two teammates about 5 minutes before rollout with another 10 or 15 racers in our field when we realized that the real field was on the line. Officials were yelling out “Cat4’s on the line!” and we were all out of position. After moving up I lined up at the back of the 100-man field, not the place I wanted to be.

Starting at the back of the field, the big challenge was to avoid mishaps that were happening in front of me. Almost immediately on the initial descent down the finishing climb, the rider if front of me locked his brakes up. Less than a mile after that, I notice the field slowing significantly and riders scrambling to the sides, and a racer gets spit out the back with his chain dropped. We raced to reattach to the main field. Four miles in, two riders in front of me locked up handlebars and swerved violently to the side, again causing us at the back to come to a halt. Again we raced to reattach to the main field.

About 8 miles in is the first significant climb. It may have the most vertical gain of any climb on the course, but is much more gradual than others. Coming into this long climb is a fast descent through a small village at a junction of roads. There were cones set up on the yellow line and sure enough, one of the riders managed to catch one of them head on, and went flying over the handlebars. This took out at least 10 racers. I was just far enough behind it to avoid going down, but I still had to stop. Once again this left me scrambling to reattach to the field. I did manage to rejoin the field near the top of the climb but this effort was significant, requiring 320 watts over 5 minutes, very near my mp5.

Shortly after I rejoined the field, there is a fast 50mph descent. I was still hanging onto the very back of the field when I realized that a significant gap had opened up about 10 wheels in front of me. There must’ve been an attack on the descent because the field was really moving across this flat section. I came to the front of the split and closed the gap, but just as I did we came to a small, steep hill that did me in and I couldn’t hold on any longer. I rode solo for the next 10-15 miles.

Near the end of the first lap I joined three other riders, which quickly turned into 10, and before long we were closer to 15. We were mostly a 50/50 mix of cat4 and masters 45+ riders, although other fields could have been in there and I wouldn’t have noticed. A couple of us were making efforts to paceline but I think we got big enough that we just ended up winging it. The chase group was big enough to make things fun and kept the race a race.

After making the turn by the lake, 2 miles from the finish, the pace was kicking up and it looked like the others wanted to compete for the finish. Coming into the rotary I was about six wheels back and in good position. Heading into the finishing climb everyone in front of me basically stopped which left me to lead up the hill. I didn’t really want to be the lead man going up the hill and gave it what felt like 90% effort. It took somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes on this finishing effort, which is a difficult distance to gauge. I blew up pretty badly about 200m from the finish allowing one rider to come around. To my surprise, he was the only one to pass me.

While I was frustrated about getting dropped, especially so early on, I still ended up having a lot of fun at this race. Being in the chase group really helped. We also finished in just over 2 hours which doesn’t really mean much, but it’s much nicer to finish averaging 21.Xmph in a group than 19.X finishing solo.

Saturday night I was exhausted thanks to that stupid car alarm bird from the night before and slept in Sunday. I opted to skip Wells Ave this week to get in a long endurance ride of 95 miles at 200W average . The last 10 miles were torturous ; I haven't felt so exhausted in a very long time.

Wompatuck Training Race, 5/14

Wednesdays always present the most options for cycling. Head up to Concord for the Charlie Baker Time Trial? Up to the Loft for the Hill Climb ride? Or drive down to Wompatuck for the training race? Driving to Wompatuck takes up valuable daylight time that could be spent riding, so the CBTT or Hill Climb are a higher priority when I don’t have anyone to make the drive with. Last night, Rich and Jess wanted to do it up at Womp and I made my first appearance of the year there.

Unlike last year we left plenty early and were actually ready to go at 5:30. Every time I went last year traffic was brutal and we started a few laps in with no warmup. Rich and I were riding around for warmup about 2 miles from the course when his rear tire developed a slow leak just 10 minutes before the start. I raced back to his team car and we got it fixed in a timely fashion. We sprinted back and made it to the start just after the field completed its first lap. Maybe some day we’ll be able to do this race from the beginning!

I think we may have actually expanded more energy rushing to the start than we would have sitting in the peloton for lap 1. I spent the two laps or so sitting on the back to take a break (already!) and scope out the race. The turnout looked pretty good, and I think we may have had a field of somewhere around 50. There were a couple of NEBC racers in the field, but the only person I recognized was cat3 Justin Howe.

After two laps of resting on the back I was amped up and ready to race. It was way easier to move around than I expected on this narrow course. I was able to move right to the front with minimal energy and immediately launched an attack. Attacking seems so useless with 22 laps to go but hey, I didn’t come here for a recovery ride. Stayed away for ¾ of a lap or something before getting eaten up.

I made more useless attacks like this than I could count, and almost none of them ever had a real chance at anything. If I got eaten up and a counter went off, I would go with it if I could. When I got tired, I’d float to the back to rest.

Sitting in seemed to make things easier than usual. At one point I went to the back to see how Jess was making out in his first race. The drafting benefit was so great than my heart rate went as low as 125 (LT is 175-180) at times, into my recovery zone! What a change from last year when I was excited/relived during the few times my heart rate would drop out of the 170’s.

After Rich got settled in (it was his first race of the season) he came to the front to work too. I launched an attack with maybe 10 to go and he stuck with me. I led for about a lap and he pulled through to help. It was a pretty decent attempt and we stayed away for almost 2 laps. With another two guys we might have been able to stay away.

With five to go a rider attacked and I grabbed his wheel. We were fading after a half a lap and I was considering sitting up when I heard someone shout from behind that we had a big gap and to stick with it. Turns out another group had bridged up to us and we were now about 8 strong. We were really working hard but things finally slowed down as we passed the line for 2 to go and we were rejoined by the field.

Immediately after being caught 2 NEBC riders, Justin Howe and another rider, launched a very serious attack immediately getting a significant gap. I couldn’t get back in line and dropped back almost all the way to the back of the peloton. Not the place to be with 2 to go. I hate it when I can’t get back in the draft after being off the front. After a very short rest I made a quick move up the side to get about 10 wheels back. The peloton was really winding it up at this point, maybe around 28mph, so this took a little bit of an effort.

As soon as I got my position in line the pace really lifted with just over one lap to go. Being 10 wheels back, I knew I had an excellent position if the guys in front of me were to make a lead out train as they seemed to be doing. We were stretched out single file. I noticed Rich was ahead of me at this point about 6 wheels back. The NEBC pair was still up the road as we came across the line with the bell ringing.

A few riders fell off the train coming up the one small rise on the course and suddenly I was sixth wheel. We caught the last NEBC rider just before the hard left-hander and the pace continued to charge. The lead-out train was beginning to really fall apart as we came by the parking area and the larger MRC rider in front of me made his move up the inside and I continued to hold his wheel. As we made the final left-hander before the finish a Bicycle-Link train flew up the outside at a large speed differential. The finish line was too close and I couldn’t make acceleration in time and I finished in sixth. Rich was right behind in tenth.

I was very happy to finish sixth but with my perfect positioning I think I probably should have been able to at least take a podium spot. The finish line comes up very quickly at Wompatuck and it is difficult to know where to kick from. In hindsite I should have started my move closer to the parking area but I was afraid I would blow up in the wind. My heart rate only reached 181 by the finish. Normally finishes take my heart rate well into the 190’s, and as high as 200 (max HR). I do think I finished the race with too much reserve. Looking at my power data in the final moments of the race confirms this as well.

Power during final durations of the race:

10s- 720W
20s- 520W
30s- 424W
1m- 338W
2m- 287W
3m- 285W
4m- 282W
5m- 261W
10m- 267W

None of these numbers are very close to my max power figures. Ideally I would like to see at least one of these numbers close to my maximal power duration curve. The hard part is making a decisive decision during the race as to what effort will be successful. For example, I don’t think a 330W 5-minute effort would have ended up with a better finish than 6^th place as the field averaged 30mph over the last 2 laps. Ramping up to 650W for the last 30 seconds would probably have been my best shot as the pace never exceeded 33mph.

In practice I’ve achieved good sprinting power in the range of 1300W for 5 seconds, and 1100W for 10 seconds, but it’s totally different trying to make that kind of power in the midst of a 35mph field sprint with a heart rate of 180. When I came out of the saddle just before the finish line my 5 second sprint power was a pitful 800W, 60% of my best efforts in the past. I do recall thinking I was in too high of a gear to pedal smoothly and was cautious coming around my leadout man while being chased by other riders. I obviously need to practice this more if I’m ever going to reach full sprinting potential. Being able to produce high watts in rested state during training does not make a person a good sprinter.

Looking at the Powertap data for the night shows a high average speed, 25.2 mph, but Womp always seems to be on the fast side relative to other crits. For example, the Wells Ave B Race is rarely as high as 25mph, despite feeling somewhat harder. Perhaps the prime laps at Wells Ave just make the race peakier and harder? I spent a lot of time out in the wind during this race yet never really felt very fatigued. Power numbers show decent effort, but certainly not the highest ever. I'd like to try the Tuesday night race one of these days with the big boys. Imagine that'd be a lot of work just to sit in.

Sterling Road Race / Wells Ave

The Sterling Road Race was originally the only race on my schedule for this weekend, however some tactical errors on my part at Sterling left me feeling totally unsatisfied and I made a last-minute decision to do Wells Ave on Sunday.

Sterling Classic Road Race
Sterling was Erica’s first race of the season, and the cat 4 women went off in the ~11AM wave with the cat 4/5 fields. Cat4’s went off in the 8AM race. I’ll take an 11 AM start any day over an 8 AM start if given the choice.

Warmup, breakfast, etc. was good before the race, and I felt ready to go at the start. I was feeling optimistic about doing some longer efforts today and my plan was to establish a break early on. Wind was coming out of the north at nearly 20 mph, so I thought the best place to launch an attack would be right around the turn onto route 12 south.

Nuetral start for this race seemed like it took forever, the pace car was painfully slow going 15 mph over the flats. We get to the finishing hill (we don’t go live until the top of the hill) and the pace car continues to go 15 mph. 15 mph at 8% grade is over 400 watts for me, not so neutral. I think some bigger riders got dropped here and we weren’t even technically live yet.

The pace was quick once we went live, and one attack went off after another. Nothing lasted more than a minute or two as the course is rolling and was into a headwind. Lots of people were shifting around looking for position which was a little sketchy given the narrow winding roads with rough shoulders. Maybe I was just nervous having totaled my bike in my last race.

Route 12 comes up after what feels like no time at all. I felt great so I went to the outside and made sort of a half-hearted move. No one went with me so I put my head down and went into time trial mode. Two riders soon came up to me and we were flying across the flats at 32 mph with the tailwind. At the very least, I really wanted to stay away long enough to get a head start up the finishing hill.

We ended up getting sucked in by the field just before the hill. This was bad news for me because it was just after a hard 5-minute effort and my heart rate was well above threshold before beginning the short power climb. Going up the hill I went from the front, to the back, and off the back by about 10m coming across the finish line. Cresting the top of the hill my legs were filled with lactic acid and when I hit the headwind it felt like I hit a wall.

I learned a good lesson in that. Starting the race I felt super strong and was sure I couldn’t be dropped. Being a heavier than average RR rider (today’s race weight was 172lb) I need to be more careful managing my efforts. Today I wasted my strength powering through wind right up to the only hill on the course. Making it over a hill intact at above-average weight should have been my primary focus. In the future I will be more careful in road races and avoid using power to fight wind without ample recovery time before significant hills. This is a stupid problem to being having.

Wells Ave B Race – 5/11
Originally I had no intentions of racing Wells Ave on Sunday. We had dinner plans with friends and getting up early to race after a late night and a few drinks is not ideal. I really didn’t get my competition fix at Sterling so I decided to do Wells anways. Big Time even decided to come out and race even though he’s ridden about 4 times this year and it worked out well.

The B race was bigger than usual, probably somewhere around 50 riders. I rode down to the race and got a plenty big warmup in, but I felt losey because I couldn’t sleep the night before. Once I got riding I felt a lot better.

The pace started out harder than usual for the B race. Our average speed ended up being 24.8mph, and I’m pretty sure the first 10 laps or so were faster. After those 10 laps a successful break of 4 established that stayed away for the rest of the race. MRC and especially Cambridge Cycles were very effective in breaking up any attempts to pull the break back.

Racers seemed much more aggressive than usual to get position within the field. I felt like I was constantly being cut off by people squeezing in tiny little gaps. Out of nowhere a racer pushed me on my rear, I must have done something he didn’t like. Later on the same rider moved into a small gap on my right and locked handlebars with me. We were extremely lucky not to go down.

At some point 2 riders got in a verbal argument that escalated into physical violence. Apparently a Cambridge Cycles rider was riding too aggressively and a BRC rider ended up punching him. These guys had a good dispute after the race too. I’ve heard about violence at Wells Ave before but this was the closest I’ve ever come to seeing it. Enough about all the unpleasantries of this race though, the point is that there was too much testosterone today for a training race.

With all aggressive riding going on, I found myself riding at the back way more often than I had planned on. I wasn’t even really racing, just hanging on for a joy ride watching other people race. Some BU cycling guys were doing a real nice job taking the primes. Their trio would come out of hiding each time the prime bell rang. It seemed like the first rider’s job was to move up to the front, the second rider would lead out from there, and the third rider would take the line. Simple and textbook, yet very effective. I don’t see this very often at the Wells Ave B race.

At some point after the break of the day went up the road, I went up to the front to race a little. I was having a slight mechanical issue; my handlebars had slipped down probably because my stem wasn’t tight enough. They weren’t super loose, and I couldn’t get them to move by forcing them with my hands. I didn’t want to quit so I decided that I’d be best off spending a lot of time in the drops. Eventually riding in the drops did cause my handlebars to come back to the normal position but I was hesitant to do any unsafe full-out sprinting efforts.

There was a pack prime with maybe 18 to go or so. The BU train was leading up the outside that I had missed but they were blowing up maybe a little too early this time. A MRC rider made a late but strong move up to them and I was fortunate enough to be on his wheel. With 200m to go we caught the BU guys and it was really my race to win. Normally I would have sprinted out of the saddle but with my handlebars situation I felt restricted to my saddle. I couldn’t match the power of the other riders and was beat.

With 8 to go the prime bell rang again, this time for a $10 pack prime. I was in decent, not great position at the time, probably 6 wheels back. Coming down the back straight the BU train was no where to be found, so I made a sharp move all the way from the far right of the road to the far left. I figured this was probably a suicide move, but given my handlebars situation I figured this was my only shot. Coming on the final straightaway I looked down through my legs and no one was on my wheel. I cranked away all the way to the finish to win my first prime ever! I looked back after crossing the line and no one was back there, just the field still half way back the straightaway. I was surprised that no one else even tried for it. My power data shows that while it was a good effort, it was nothing ridiculous, 630W for ~30s with 33.X average speed. Unlike yesterday at Sterling, I think this time I used my power more wisely. I was pumped to win $10.

Nearing the end of the race Cambridge Cycles had really become effective at blocking. Four or five of them were sitting on the front just doing medium tempo. If a racer came by to drive up the pace, CC would leave him off the front. If a racer moved up to bridge, CC would chase down the attempt. My teammate Geoff Martin made several efforts to bring the break back, but it seemed impossible. The break was just dangling out there maybe 30 seconds up the road, well within site, but were never caught.

On the finishing lap I found myself on the far inside, somewhere in the middle of the field. My only glimor of hope was that a hole would open up for me on the inside but it never happened. With all the shakey riding that had been going on I was content to let the finish go rather than try and force a meaningless 10^th place field sprint finish. I noticed Big Time had better position than me (that he held consistently throughout the race) and was able to finish closer to the front.

After the race, Erica, Big Time and I went out for some long easy miles. It was a perfect day, sunny and just warm enough. Lunch at Panera afterwards out on the patio was great. I ended up getting 75 miles in overall. Wish every race day could be this nice.

Charlie Baker Time Trial - 5/8

Probably as nice as a day as you can get for a time trial, and the results seem to show it. 72F @28% RH, clear skies, and dead calm. Times were as fast as they have been this season. I’m guessing that warmer temperatures (thinner air) could speed things up even slightly more. Winning time was by Ward Solar of NERAC at 20:17.4, which is getting close to the course record. Fastest non-aero time was Peter Bradshaw (who was staged right behind me) at 22:05.7, which is just seconds off the non-aero record.

The TT was my first race and third day on my new Cannondale six13. Turns out I bent my drivetrain side chain stay on my Orbea at Palmer, and her racing days are over. No aero bars or equipment today. I’m just getting my road position set and haven’t had time to play around with an aero position.

Crashing forced back to back low volume weeks so since the six13 came in on Monday I’ve been on it as much as possible. Monday and Tuesday were each 3-hour days. Goal for the time trial was to get a good 20+ minute interval in. Without big hills in the area I have a tough time keeping the watts high for durations over 5 minutes. Racing the time trial really helps.

Goal for the time trial was to average 270 watts. I made a big effort to start off slow (or at least low perceived effort) to maintain a more consistent than on 4/16. The plan was being executed perfectly until Peter the rocket Bradford comes flying by me just one mile into the race. Cat 1 hopeful or not, that’s pretty frustrating. It did however, give me a good boost to step in up a notch. Minutes 5 through 15 were my highest average power for the race.

About 50% of the race was spent in a time trial position with forearms resting on handlebars. The remaining time was spent in the drops for stability over the rough roads. Twice I crashed through a pothole while in TT position. Stability wasn’t really an issue but man did my forearms take a beating. They still hurt today.

I faded a bit coming onto Monument Road which was after about 15 minutes. Sensitive parts were numbing up and any comfort that I started with was gone. Average watts suffered for the last 10 minutes. The $30 saddle that came with my bike is going to have to go, although I don’t think a Specialized Toupe will be much better for time trials. Those TT specific saddles with the soft noses are sounding pretty good.

Finishing time was 25:33, 53 seconds faster than on 4/16 when I used aero bars. Average watts were only 1% higher on 5/7 too. I’m trying 44cm bars with the new six13 that make me feel like a kite and I was expecting that I would surely be slower. Weather conditions must have made things much faster or maybe my aero position on 4/16 was really that bad. Whatever the reason I was happy to better my time and get in a good interval.

Sterling is coming up for Sunday. I’ll be racing in the cat4/5 field instead of the cat4 to score an extra couple hours of sleep.