Attempt #3 of the season at the Charlie Baker Time Trial. This week I added my race wheels in hopes of achieving Levi-like speeds. Actually 25+mph would be pretty cool too, as long as there’s improvement over the box rims. Conditions looked to be pretty ideal with the daily high temperature hitting 81°F, it was still 78°F at 6:30 PM. A gentle breeze out of the southwest seems to be perfect for this course.
I made a few more adjustments to my handlebars as well. I was a little hesitant because I wanted to quantify the savings of the race wheels, but I just don’t have enough time on the calendar. CTSR is only 10 days away at this point. During signups I got to meet my long time race report hero. The only aero gear he was running was inconspicuous clear packaging tape over his colorful road helmet. Nice. Looking forward to reading that report.
Just before the race I realized that my bike wasn’t shifting below the 14or 15T cog. Something must’ve gotten bumped when I was installing the disc cover. Instead of warming up properly, I spent most of the last 20 minutes before my start resetting my rear derailleur cable. It was completely random and lucky that I happened to have a 5mm hex wrench with me. I got it shifting pretty well and I was only missing the 11T. That’s not really something for a guy looking to average 25mph to worry about so I went on my way.
My plan for the race was to start easy, keep it steady, and avoid any efforts of threshold. It drives me nuts that my average power for 2 hour tempo rides on a road bike is within 5% of my average TT power. Lactic acid just destroys me and going too hard for the first 5 minutes really makes for a miserable ride, especially in the last 5-10 minutes of the race.
Keith does his countdown and off I go, starting real nice an easy at what feels like ~300W but is probably more like 400-500W. After getting up to speed I sit down and look at my Powertap to find that it’s off. Great. I turn it on and it reads 2000W. Awesome!
About 5 minutes in I had Nega Coach’s voice in my head saying that I shouldn’t be under stress in the first 3k. I thought I had started around 270W-280W average, but in review it was closer to 300W average. I was targeting 285W average, so I really wasn’t all that far off. Trouble was, I was hurting. My legs already felt heavy and my heart rate was at 186 bpm. Average heart rate has been around 180 bpm, but it was running high today and I’m not sure why. I knew it was going to be a painful route to the finish.
As I approached Carisle Center a cop cruiser pulled out right in front of me coming off of Rt. 225. He went through the rotary painfully slowly and slowed way down to make a left hand turn shortly after. I had to soft pedal at 150W for 25 seconds, and slam the brakes when he made his left hand turn. It was really difficult to find a rhythm after that.
Monument Road was torture and I was just holding on for dear life. I got over the triple rollers by Turning Mill Road and died a painful death. Heart rate hit 191 bpm and power dropped big time on the downhills. I saved just enough to get over the last hill without totally self destructing and pretty much coasted the rest of the way to the finish.
Official results aren’t up yet, and I’m missing the first 100 meters of data from the race, so I pieced together the first 100 meters from last week to get an idea of how I finished. My unofficial recorded time was 23:31, which is usually about 5 seconds less than the official time. Despite average power being a pitiful 266W (season low), that’s a new personal best for me by 20 or 30 seconds.
Power required to go 40 kph was 262W, which is an improvement in the right direction. Hopefully that’s due to the wheels and not the narrow handlebar position, because those are definitely getting moved out ASAP. I think that may have had a lot to do with my low power and high heart rate. It’s hard to tell if these position changes will have a negative effect on power output until you actually do a real TT effort.
The “POI” figure below compares my actual time to my theoretical time if my power was always exactly equal to my normalized power. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it above 1, so I think my pacing over the rollers is getting better.
Aerodynamically I think I’m pretty close to being as good as I can get without spending another $5k on equipment, but power output is still lacking. I’m getting a good idea of what works for me now, so hopefully next week will be a big improvement. One more chance before it counts.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Charlie Baker Time Trial, 5/20/09
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Charlie Baker Time Trial, 5/13/09
I rode up to the race from my office in Wellesley, registered, and got three 2-minute efforts in at 70-90% of target average power. There was wind coming out of the south that would make coming back on Monument St. a little slow. When I got to the start line I had about a 4 minute wait. It was a pretty ideal warmup. My legs were a little tight from doing intervals on Tuesday, but I don’t think it had a huge impact on my performance.
My goal for the race was to improve my pacing by starting off at a pace that I would perceive to be extra easy for the first 5 minutes. With the headwind on the back side of the course it may have been ideal to save even more for the later half, but I’m not good enough at pacing yet to pull that off.
Within 0.1 seconds of my start time, a car came through the 4-way stop and pulled off to the side of the road with his flashers on. I had literally taken no more than 2 pedal strokes when this happened. In the racer’s meeting the promoter said never ever pass a car on the left, so with that in mind I pretty much just sat there and yelled “PLEASE GO!” The car did move before too much time was lost, but my average power for the first 5 seconds was a whopping 73 watts.
After the shaky start I settled into an unusually good rhythm for me, especially for riding the evil torture bike. 5 minutes into the race I felt just a hint of warm lactic acid building up, and I only spiked my heart rate by 2bpm or less.
Unfortunately the traffic was not so good. I was pinned against the side of the road and I don’t think I could have hit more potholes if I tried. Shortly before Carlisle Center the traffic may have played slightly to my advantage. I was passed by a School Bus and then a UPS truck. After passing me they stayed only about 100-200 feet in front of me. It could have been this or it could have just been the wind from the south, but I was going faster than usual for this part of the course.
Carlisle Center was a disaster. Traffic was backed up by at least 10 cars and some were extremely close to the side of the road. This forced me to soft pedal at less than 100W while I made a few very sweet cross moves off the side of the road.
After turning onto Monument Street I really began to suffer, but I was able to maintain a pretty decent power output unlike last week. I felt as if I was just crawling along, and my average speed really wasn’t good at all. I figured it was just the wind coming out of the south, but when I got overtaken by Lou Salemy who started 2 minutes behind me, it was really crushing. That guy was going so much faster than me, especially on the last two downhills of the course.
My official finish time was 24:05, and I felt good overall about the effort. My average power was 11 watts higher than last week, but with my handlebars lowered by a centimeter I was hoping for a faster time, maybe in the 23:35 range. Traffic slowed me down a little, but I can’t imagine it cost me more than 10 seconds total. My next thought was that the wind could have accounted for the remaining 20 seconds, but looking at the results I don’t think many other people were slowed down that significantly. Average power was a step in the right direction, but that was mostly due to better pacing. I’d still like to pick up 12-20 watts.
My CBTT model estimates my average CdA to be 0.279, up from an estimated 0.268 last week (updated 5-15). If anything this probably should have been lower due to my handlebars position change, so the difference is most likely due to the wind. I don’t account for wind in my model because wind speed is not constant, the effect is difficult to predict with certain parts of the course more sheltered than others, and the direction likely varies somewhat over the course of the race. Wind or no wind it didn’t appear that dropping the handlebars by 1cm had a big impact on my aeroness. I’d like to try moving my aero bars closer together to see if that has much of an impact. That will probably be the equipment change that I will make for next week. I still haven’t used my race wheels, mostly because I don’t like taking the time to put on the disc cover (which means taking off my cassette).
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Wells Ave A/B Race - 5/10/09
I went down to Wells Ave on Sunday to get a race intensity workout in seeing as Sterling was cut short a bit. It was a sunny day and a nice temperature, but wow was it windy. On downhills where I’d normally be gliding over 20mph I was kept at 15mph or so. It was gusty too which would catch me by surprise and knock me off balance.
The A and B fields were combined by 945, most likely because of Mother’s Day. It seemed like a good turnout though with at least 50 people on the start, possibly more like 75. The field included a good mix of racers with a full range of cat1-4 men and a handful of women (NEBC elite team). NEBC had about 15 racers or so.
I was feeling a bit weak once things got going, most likely from having too many margaritas the night before. Stayed out of pretty much every prime, and spent more energy chasing down attacks throughout most of the race.
The half way prime came and went in what seemed like no time at all. It doesn’t seem like very long ago that 16 miles could qualify as a race. That’s most likely the difference between paying attention to attacks versus sitting in and holding on for dear life.
With about 16 to go the field was intact at there was a lot of activity amongst the strong riders at the front. After a series of strong moves and counters, the right mix of 6 or 7 finally got up the road. Landen got in the move and the rest of NEBC went into defensive mode. The move got away quickly and was nearly out of sight after just one lap.
In the final laps there were a lot of individual efforts to bring back the break or bridge, but nothing that would bring back the entire field. Alain Ferry started dragging everyone around at 30mph for what seemed like forever, but without someone else to pull through it wasn’t enough to bring back the break. With a few laps to go I think the break was on the verge of lapping the field and had orders to wait it out until the finish.
Somewhere along here I started losing track of all the people that were going up the road. I would have said it was only a few in addition to the break, but afterwards I was told that there were nearly 20 people up the road over several chase groups.
Coming into the bell lap I was in good position, maybe 5 or 6 wheels back or so. For a final lap we pretty much crawled around turns 1 and 2, and by the time we crested the little hill on the back straight our speed was only about 24mph. I don’t know if that was because so many people were up the road or if everyone left in the main field was just tired. Justin Howe (NEBC) attacked up the inside on the back straight, and he was chased by another rider on the outside. I was 3 wheels back at this point, and held my position as we accelerated hard. It was 800W for 8-10s to get up to Justin’s speed but he had a gap.
When we got around turn 4 I was still third wheel and a stiff headwind killed all chances of Justin’s Cancellara/Hausler-like move from succeeding. We overtook him with about 300m to go. Our speed was decreasing significantly, and racers were starting to come by on the outside. I looked to the inside and had room, and I opened up my sprint just a little earlier than I otherwise would have liked. My form was bad, and I took too much weight off of my rear wheel causing my tire to skip a bit and my bike to feel bouncy. I came around the two racers in front of me quickly, but there was a guy that had attacked up the outside who was out in front. My legs were good and I thought I could reel him in as he blew up, but his sprint was strong all the way to the finish and I wasn’t able to overtake him. I crossed the line 2nd out of the the main field.
My finishing sprint was 920W for 15s. It felt stronger than that I thought, but then I remembered that the reaction to Justin’s attack sapped my legs a bit. The final 45 seconds were at 665W average which is a longer harder effort than other recent races. I had the average speed for the race at 25.5mph, avg power 244W, and NP 291W. I really need to fix my laptop so I can just paste the power file screenshots. The internet is still dead on it.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Sterling Road Race, cat3/4
Sterling was a mostly uneventful race for me. I’m focusing more on time trials for the next few weeks, and when I got on my road bike Friday night to spin on the bike path it felt a little unfamiliar and awkward. I probably would have skipping this one if it weren’t so close to home, so I showed up to race with no specific plans.
It was a mild and sunny day, temps around 60 and just a little wind. The ¾ field went off in the 1 PM wave so it was a nice relaxed morning too. We had a strong group of guys in the race and were looking to get into a break. I wasn’t too excited about doing 7 laps and 8 times up the finishing climb.
From the roll out I was pretty uneasy. Had trouble clipping in and nearly got sandwiched between the two guys in front of me. Forced me to put my foot down and I lost a few spots. I didn’t really settle in until after we went live and the pace picked up.
The race goes live after we crossed the start line and someone up front must’ve been attacking because we immediately strung out. I was planted somewhere between half way back to the back third of the bunch and couldn’t really tell what exactly was going on. The roads on the back part of the course are narrow to begin with, and they were in pretty rough shape on the right part of the lane making the course even narrower. This made it difficult to move around more than a few positions here and there. We stayed strung out until shortly after turning onto route 12.
A headwind on route 12 slowed up the pace significantly. It was a good thing too because I was a bit gassed from hammering along the back section of the course. I needed a break before turning back up the finishing climb. We weren’t allowed into the passing lane along Rt 12, and the wheel car was honking repeatedly at the offenders. I found some space along here to move up on the inside.
On the gradual uphill leading into the center of Sterling there was man-eating death hole on the far right of the road. I was lucky and had just tucked into the field when we got to it. A few of the guys were not so lucky and ended up with flats.
I hate the turn onto the finishing climb. Everyone wants to carry their speed into it and we’re guaranteed to bunch up elbow to elbow. It must be so much nicer at the front for this turn. I’m a lousy climber, and wasting energy on climbs is something I can’t afford to do. At the end of lap one I was lucky and didn’t need to brake despite touching people on both sides.
The climb itself was surprisingly manageable, but the pace stayed hard well after the climb as attacks went off. It seemed like a new group broke off here on pretty much every lap until the right mix was finally established. On lap 2 a large group of maybe 20 split off the front and it was a mad dash along the back to catch up.
Somewhere in the midst of the lap 2 chaos I got caught behind a split, kind of similar to Turtle Pond. I didn’t freak this time, and waited for someone else to bring it back even though I was only 3 wheels behind it. I waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity, but it was probably more like 3 or 4 minutes. When we turned onto Rt. 12 again I dive bombed the outside and pulled us back together. It wasn’t until passing under 190 that I finally got to sit up and recover. The group of 20 that had snuck away on the climb was back with us too.
Starting the finishing climb for lap 3 I knew I was in a bit of trouble, not very well recovered from my previous effort. Coming around the turn I was forced to brake and slow way down. I came by the finishing line hurting but I still had some reserves. As we came up the second part of the climb a lot of riders started getting dropped. I found a good climbing rhythm and passed a lot of them until we got to the top. At this point the field accelerated significantly, and there were still gaps in front of me. I couldn’t close up the gaps as easily at the higher speeds and that was that, race over.
Sterling was the last race of the spring road races for this season. I’m off the next two weekends, and the next race up is the CT Stage Race. After that it’s pretty much nothing but crit races for all of June. It’s been sort of a long early part of the season with very few races that really suit me. All of the pure cat3 races have been hill road races and the only crit I’ve done was a stacked p123 field. I’m ready for a change of pace!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Charlie Baker Time Trial, 5/6/09
Over the winter I built up a used Cervelo P2-SL. Nothing fancy, but no more converting my road bike into a TT bike every week. Constantly making adjustments to your main racing bike is a recipe for mechanical problems in races. I’ve only ridden the new TT rig about once per week since the beginning of March, but mostly just on recovery rides to get comfortable. I have it set up fairly aggressively and it has not been as easy transition. I figured I could just hop on a TT bike and be 2-3 mph faster than my road bike, but it is not so easy. TT bikes are evil death machines and are not fun to ride. Maybe some day it will get more comfortable but for now I am hating last every second that I have to spend on that torture machine.
That being said the only time I’m ever going to really be able to do any training on that bike is if I pay $5 to race the Charlie Baker Time Trial (CBTT). The fear of having a bad time posted forever on the website is motivation enough to keep pressure on the pedals all the way to the finish. Think I’m kidding? I’ll loan you my TT bike for the day so you too can have the most horrible cycling experience possible.
So that brings us up to last night, my first shot of the season at the CBTT. Last year’s first attempt was brutal, and I was a little afraid of a repeat. It rained in the morning, but the sun came out early enough in the afternoon to dry things up. Dry bulb/dewpoint temperatures were 66/52°F and wind was from the SSE at 7 mph.
Warmup was casual riding with Erica who had her p2c on its maiden voyage. We stopped a few times to make adjustments to her brakes and shifters. Total warmup time was 30 minutes with a few 1-2 minute efforts at ~70% of TT pace.
Usually when I do this race the guys behind me are decked out with Cervelo/Trek/Specialized p3c/TTX/Transition with aero helms, discs and deep dish carbon rims while I’m on my road bike with a nice orange flag on the back. That’s what I like to think anyways when I get passed before Carlisle center by the three guys in back of me. I didn’t look too carefully tonight but there was at least a decent amount of carbon bling both in front of me and behind me. At least I didn’t have a knife in a gun fight this time.
After waiting around a little longer than I would have liked, I was off and running. Adrenaline will always get the better of me in these things. Even when I think I’m starting off super easy I end up averaging 400W for the first minute. Tonight was a little better than usual but still not great. I looked down after 30 seconds and sure enough my Powertap read 400W. I backed off a bunch and only averaged 330W for the first two minutes. My target power for the race was 300W. After 5 minutes my legs were already burning with lactic acid and my 30-second man was nowhere to be seen.
I arrived is Carlisle Center at right around 10 minutes even which is by far a new best for me, even including the times when I went out WAY too hard. My heart rate was 188 bpm, which was a little on the high side for this point. I backed off a bit and tightened up my position coming down 225 and passed my 1m30s man.
Shortly before the turn onto Monument Road the course rolls upwards just a bit and I started ramping up the power again. I caught my 1-minute man just before the triple rollers when I wanted to be savings just a bit of strength. I came around to make the pass just a little faster than I should have, and I think this caused me to be totally gassed by the time I got over the triple rollers.
The remainder of the race was pretty brutal. My power output for the last 7 minutes was only 234W. Mike Rowell came around me on the downhill before the last riser like I wasn’t even moving. To make things worse, there were two cyclists dangling out in front of me that I couldn’t seem to close the gap on. I came out of the saddle to climb the last hill which kind of felt good, but I have to keep my butt awkwardly far back to prevent my knees from hitting my armpads. Does anyone else have this problem? After getting over the last hill I was completely blown and I was spinning on the descent at 150W. Cars and racers were all piled up right on the finish line. No accidents, but it made for kind of an awkward finish with a slamming of the brakes right before the line. The Concord Police department had a radar set up right on the finishing climb that registered when cyclists came up. Kind of a cool touch for the end of the race.
My computer had me at 23:51 from the time I started pedaling to the time I finished. Results have my official time as 23:59, so I just cracked 24 minutes. I ran my power file through my CBTT excel model, and figure that my CdA was 0.254. I might be able to lose 0.01 with race wheels instead of the box rims I ran. I figure that’s worth about 15 seconds. 0.244 would be a good CdA, so the big area to improve will be my power output. When is it not I guess?
My average power for the race was 268W, including the 234W average over the last 7 minutes. That seems so bad relative to a road bike. On the road bike I’ve done more than 40W higher for that duration, so there should be plenty of room for improvement as I close up that gap. For 17 minutes last night I was at 285W, and I feel like I should be able to extend that another 7 minutes without a miracle happening, maybe even in the next attempt? With practice and a few minor adjustments I’d like to see average power improve to 290-300 and my time drop to the 22:45 range by the end of the month.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Jiminy Peak Road Race - cat3
The New England spring classic road races are quickly coming to an end for me, with only Sterling still to go after racing Jiminy this past weekend. No Sunapee this year due to family plans. My training in late March and April focused around these hilly road races so that I could improve upon my lousy climbing ability. Battenkill and Turtle Pond hadn’t been complete disasters, but certainly didn’t play out as well as I had hoped. At Jiminy my goal was to survive the first two times up the major climb so that I could be a factor in setting up the finish.
The cat3 race was 90 kilometers over three laps. Each lap included a long gradual grind up route 7 that averaged 2% gradient with a few ~5% kickers. After passing what used to be Brodie (Snowy Owl) there is a brief but fast descent before turning off of route 7 around a narrow 60° corner that leads into the finishing climb. The finishing climb is a 1500 meter rise at 5-6% average gradient. It levels off ever so slightly about half way up before going to just around 8-10% through the feed zone and to the finish. The back side of the course is all fun with a 50+ mph descent and mostly rolling downhill. It was partly cloudy with temps in the 50’s for most of the race with a moderate amount of wind.
NEBC had three in the cat3 field of 93 starters including Dave, Brian and myself. We did not expect a successful break to form and our plan was to be conservative through the early parts of the race. I figured we had one of the best climbers in the race with Brian and I wanted to do what I could to set him up for the finish.
Staging was on a pretty narrow part of the parking lot. I tried squeezing in about half way up on the side, but got yelled at by an official. Instead I took a comfortable spot on the back. I was afraid the course would be tight and I would be unable to move around but it ended up not being a problem.
Attacks went off pretty much from the gun as the early break established. I thought the first several miles would be all downhill, but there was a longish false flat that actually hurt pretty good. I hadn’t warmed up at all, and the quick early pace did make me very uncomfortable, maybe more so than the climbs even. It didn’t last too long and before long we were cruising along fast but easy.
The early break of 5 or so hovered off the front by about 20 seconds for most of the first lap. I was able to move up in the field without any trouble by taking some risks along the right side of the road in the breakdown lane. One rider got pushed off road, but then proceeded to ride in a grass field a solid 30 feet from the road. He did this for at least 200 meters. Not sure what the thinking was there, just keeping it upright I guess.
After turning onto route 7 for the first time I continued moving up along the inside. The breakdown lane randomly disappears at parts which forced the field to sandwich to one side, my side. I was forced to ride about 2 inches from the guard rail at times but it was just enough space. By the time we made it to the finishing climb for the first time I was comfortably about 1/3 of the way back.
Making the turn onto the finishing climb was aggressive. Everyone bunched up through the narrow turnoff, and the guys on the front absolutely hammered it coming out of the turn. I didn’t have my power meter but it easily felt like a 500+ watt effort. Luckily this only continued for 30 seconds or so before the pace eased off. The rest of the climb was smooth and more reasonable. We picked up the first breakaway somewhere along here. I made it over the first lap climb mid-pack and without too much difficulty.
Over the top of the first lap I think another break went up the road, this one including Chris Bailey (Pedro’s) and maybe three others. There were a lot of attacks going off on the back part of the course with riders going up and coming back. I don’t know exactly who went off when, but the break of the day did go up the road somewhere along here.
Once again I jockeyed for position over the back part of the course and was able to get within 5 wheels of the front by the time we were climbing on route 7. Not having to worry about position on the climb took a lot of the pressure off and I climbed with much more ease than in previous races. By the time we were coming up the finishing climb I had floated back to the last 25% of the field. I picked up a water bottle in the feed zone (thx pro feed) and crested the top pretty close to the back. I hadn’t intentionally sag climbed but in hindsight it did kind of end up that way. Either way I was happy to be relatively comfortable and in contact with the field. Coming over the finish line Bailey was at the side of the road with a flat. I thought this meant that the break had come back.
On the back side of the last lap my legs were showing signs of cramping and tightness. I took in 2.5 bottles of fluids over the race but I may not have eaten enough, around 600 calories. I forced some food down but my stomach wasn’t too happy either. Normally I would have tried to bring back the break, but my legs needed serious help and it didn’t seem like we were totally crawling along either. I rested up until we got to route 7.
After turning onto route 7 for the final time I found Brian in the field and let him know I was still there and willing to help. We started moving up the outside and found Dave. I figured this was my time to help out a bit so I led the three of us up until I was within the first 5 wheels. I rode out in the wind for a little bit but when the pace picked up a hair I went for shelter. This may have been a mistake on my part. Lot of swarming ensued as we approached Brodie and we lost all sorts of position. The field was spread out to the yellow line over the breakdown lane and both climbing lanes. We really weren’t going all that fast and it was elbow to elbow trying to get a good position before the turn onto the finishing hill. I was able to work my way up to the third row but I had completely lost contact with Brian and Dave and they were nowhere to be seen in front of me.
As expected, the pace went crazy fast right after the turn for a short period before getting easier again. I was in about 20th position when the pace eased off, but my legs were pretty fried. When we started going hard again I knew I couldn’t hold it and I went far right to get out of the way. We were half way up and I was losing all sorts of positions when Brian finally came by me. He must’ve had a terrible position at the start of the climb but he was moving fast and managed to finish 12th somehow. I rolled through feeling pretty beat up in 67th.
Overall I was happy to finish with the field as I don’t think this course suits me very well at all. It’s more than 3 minutes to the finish after turning onto the finishing climb, and I think I would struggle to do any better than top 25 or so even if feeling my absolute best. On Thursday I had done a 2,500 kj tempo ride, and I think may have been just a little too much. It didn’t matter so much for Jiminy, but for long races with a flatter or shorter finish I will need to be more careful.
Next up is Sterling and then I am off until the Connecticut Stage Race.
