Now that a day has gone by and I've collected my senses, I figured I'd write something about yesterday's group ride.
Here's the set-up. I drove up to Onomichi early to take the ferry boat across to start my 165 km ride. I hopped on the bike and was off and riding at 7 am. I expected to be pretty tight on the bike after a trainer ride on Saturday night and a long week of riding so I kinda tooled away right at the top of L1 to get the legs warmed up. The first 40km was on my own and I wanted to get a good feel for the bike on longer distances in the "new and improved" lower bars position.
The great thing about the century route of the Shimanami Bridges is the climbing on the second island. I hit the first climb on the big ring. In the previous 4 or 5 times I'd hit that climb, I was all the way down the cassette getting over it, so the ride started off well. I got through the climbing in great form and was stoked to get to the bottom and slide into a solid tempo. It's hard to go really hard in some of the sections because of going over toll bridges and city traffic, but I finished the first leg with a good 15 minutes @ 320-330 watts.
The group ride on the way to the halfway point was chaos from here. 8 of our riders decided to take an uncharted route without telling anyone which way they were going. We waited 50 minutes for them before I pushed on solo to the halfway point. Next 40 km leg had two good climbs in it, and solo makes it a little simpler to push yourself without wondering what others are doing. Second leg still normalized @ 291 watts, avg 250.
Finally, we met up with the full group at the halfway point and it was time for the hammerfest back to the group ride start (from which I'd have 40km to finish up my ride). Starting off with me in the front on a hill, we took off. Again finding that my sitting power was just feeling great, we set a stiff tempo up the hill. I knew I'd get relief on the other side, only to find out that I crested the top with the group some 100 yards behind me. I coasted and dropped back into the line knowing we had the second murder climb coming up.
I was 3rd/4th wheel starting up the second climb, but let the others drop off doing 300-320 watts. When the road really tipped up I was pulling onto the front and sat back and pedaled. Pulled over the top at just over 410 watts and dropped down the hill to hop on the back again. From here it was a steady change of leaders to the next stop.
The local club racers decided we'd do a navigation of that particular island for the purpose of hitting the really great climb there. It's about 1.6 km at a steady hard climb, according to Google it should average out to about 7% which sounds just about right - some steeper toward the top, some not so steep at the bottom. Masaki and I raced up the hill, trading pulls and came over the top together - both of us spent.
We pushed back at a solid tempo effort, I was avg'ing 250-270 on the whole until we dropped off the group for their trip back and I pushed back to the end of my ride on my own. I settled down into L1 with expectations of the 3 hard climbs to come. The first climb hit and I pretty much exploded on the way up and felt like I'd come to a stand still. 8 hrs and 20 minutes since I'd left in the morning with too much waiting around and some very high tempo group riding and my legs were done. I pushed over the last two climbs which are minuscule compared to the one I'd just finished, settled onto low L1 to cool down.
I got back to the ferry 9 hours after I'd left, and only 6 hrs and 15 minutes of that was riding. I HATE having that much time off the bike in a day of riding.
The vital stats for the day wound out something like this:
Entire workout (219 watts):
Duration: 6:15:49
Work: 4915 kJ
TSS: 384.1 (intensity factor 0.784)
Norm Power: 271
VI: 1.24
Distance: 185.127 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 816 219 watts
Heart rate: 55 185 145 bpm
Cadence: 20 114 86 rpm
Speed: 0 64.4 29.6 kph
Pace 0:56 0:00 2:01 min/km
Hub Torque: 0 53.7 9.6 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 99.5 30.6 N-m
Woosh.. that's some TSS right there! That plunges me drastically down with a couple days to recover coming up. With 384 TSS, I probably won't be positive TSS from the Kirara Crit coming next week, but honestly, I don't care. I'm just looking forward to racing again with childlike glee.
Word has it from USCF that I will be able to submit my results from my races here for upgrading to Cat 4, so my goal for the year is to get 10 starts in before we're done with 2007. That way I can go back to the states and start at Cat 4 races and maybe make Cat 3 in 2008.
You heard it here first! Cat 3 in 2008!
Here's the set-up. I drove up to Onomichi early to take the ferry boat across to start my 165 km ride. I hopped on the bike and was off and riding at 7 am. I expected to be pretty tight on the bike after a trainer ride on Saturday night and a long week of riding so I kinda tooled away right at the top of L1 to get the legs warmed up. The first 40km was on my own and I wanted to get a good feel for the bike on longer distances in the "new and improved" lower bars position.
The great thing about the century route of the Shimanami Bridges is the climbing on the second island. I hit the first climb on the big ring. In the previous 4 or 5 times I'd hit that climb, I was all the way down the cassette getting over it, so the ride started off well. I got through the climbing in great form and was stoked to get to the bottom and slide into a solid tempo. It's hard to go really hard in some of the sections because of going over toll bridges and city traffic, but I finished the first leg with a good 15 minutes @ 320-330 watts.
The group ride on the way to the halfway point was chaos from here. 8 of our riders decided to take an uncharted route without telling anyone which way they were going. We waited 50 minutes for them before I pushed on solo to the halfway point. Next 40 km leg had two good climbs in it, and solo makes it a little simpler to push yourself without wondering what others are doing. Second leg still normalized @ 291 watts, avg 250.
Finally, we met up with the full group at the halfway point and it was time for the hammerfest back to the group ride start (from which I'd have 40km to finish up my ride). Starting off with me in the front on a hill, we took off. Again finding that my sitting power was just feeling great, we set a stiff tempo up the hill. I knew I'd get relief on the other side, only to find out that I crested the top with the group some 100 yards behind me. I coasted and dropped back into the line knowing we had the second murder climb coming up.
I was 3rd/4th wheel starting up the second climb, but let the others drop off doing 300-320 watts. When the road really tipped up I was pulling onto the front and sat back and pedaled. Pulled over the top at just over 410 watts and dropped down the hill to hop on the back again. From here it was a steady change of leaders to the next stop.
The local club racers decided we'd do a navigation of that particular island for the purpose of hitting the really great climb there. It's about 1.6 km at a steady hard climb, according to Google it should average out to about 7% which sounds just about right - some steeper toward the top, some not so steep at the bottom. Masaki and I raced up the hill, trading pulls and came over the top together - both of us spent.
We pushed back at a solid tempo effort, I was avg'ing 250-270 on the whole until we dropped off the group for their trip back and I pushed back to the end of my ride on my own. I settled down into L1 with expectations of the 3 hard climbs to come. The first climb hit and I pretty much exploded on the way up and felt like I'd come to a stand still. 8 hrs and 20 minutes since I'd left in the morning with too much waiting around and some very high tempo group riding and my legs were done. I pushed over the last two climbs which are minuscule compared to the one I'd just finished, settled onto low L1 to cool down.
I got back to the ferry 9 hours after I'd left, and only 6 hrs and 15 minutes of that was riding. I HATE having that much time off the bike in a day of riding.
The vital stats for the day wound out something like this:
Entire workout (219 watts):
Duration: 6:15:49
Work: 4915 kJ
TSS: 384.1 (intensity factor 0.784)
Norm Power: 271
VI: 1.24
Distance: 185.127 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 816 219 watts
Heart rate: 55 185 145 bpm
Cadence: 20 114 86 rpm
Speed: 0 64.4 29.6 kph
Pace 0:56 0:00 2:01 min/km
Hub Torque: 0 53.7 9.6 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 99.5 30.6 N-m
Woosh.. that's some TSS right there! That plunges me drastically down with a couple days to recover coming up. With 384 TSS, I probably won't be positive TSS from the Kirara Crit coming next week, but honestly, I don't care. I'm just looking forward to racing again with childlike glee.
Word has it from USCF that I will be able to submit my results from my races here for upgrading to Cat 4, so my goal for the year is to get 10 starts in before we're done with 2007. That way I can go back to the states and start at Cat 4 races and maybe make Cat 3 in 2008.
You heard it here first! Cat 3 in 2008!