Harpoon Indoor TT

Awesome event, especially for February. 160+ racers, 16 computrainers, 2 complimentary beers, and some great techno to spice things up. Not to mention my favorite announcer in New England. Very spectator friendly for a data geek like me. The guys at Harpoon and Fastsplits did a great job.

The whole idea of an indoor time trial seems kind of like a video game. You get weighed, put your bike on the trainer, and a computer tells you if you're going fast or not. Info for the current race is displayed on two giant overhead projectors and is updated continously. A pre-programmed course changes the resistence of the trainer to resemmble an uphill or downhill. The course for this time trial was the last 8 miles of the 148-mile B2B ride. Most of it is flat but there's a good 5% gradient hill near the finish. I wonder how long it will be till Nintendo makes the Wii compatible with computrainers. It's gotta be coming.

I weighed in before the event wearing my bike kit and no shoes or socks. 185 pounds! Ouch! Thats up 22 pounds since GMSR last September. Probably a combo of weightlifting and not eating less after 2008 season ended. After my weigh-in I realized I had my ipod in my back pocket though, so the official let me race as 184.

The race itself was less eventful than an outdoor time trial. Just close your eyes and take a journey into the pain cave. No worrying about crashing in to stuff like pot-holes or maybe a car. On the hill towards the end I cranked away in my 53x26 @ 75 rpm seeing as my front derailleur won't let me shift into the little ring right now. I guess that wouldn't have been so bad if I were out of the saddle, but I stayed seated. Not a whole lot of faith in the trainers holding me in.

Finish time was 22:12, 270W average (3.23 w/kg) according to the computrainer. That was about 1 minute back for my heat. Winning time was Cort Cramer in 19:11 @ 362W average.

Interestingly there was quite a descrepancy between the computrainer and my powertap. My PT said 261W average and that I went 8.3 miles in the 22:12. Either way, watts are down, kg are up. Good thing it's February. A little more than 2 months until Battenkill which will be the first time I have to go uphill in 2009.