Beat the heat - ride at night

Too hot... yesterday it was about 32C in Port Moody for most of the day... So I ate supper and then just went out at midnight... Still very warm, about 25C, but with no sun actually very pleasant.

Did some easy hill climbs on Westwood Plateau. That kept me close to home and on mostly residential streets. Low traffic, good pavement, well lit.

Legs where still sore from the sprinting at the track on Wed...

Tomorrow we will be out to VVV 10k ITT in the morning. Then up to Squamish to pre-ride the BC TT course. Hopefully it won't be too hot up there... I'm just hoping that the good weather lasts at least another 8 days. Last year we had a thunderstorm roll through and I did my 53 minutes soaking wet... Started in the worst part of the deluge.

Back to the track

With the current heat wave it has been hard to get motivated and go outside..

But at least it is not too hot at the track.... So tonight I was out and got some practice time in on the pursuit bars... Managed a 2:45 for 2k. So still need to get another 10 seconds off that. Aero helmet and skinsuit etc will help.

Also did some practice starts, a flying 200, and some tempo riding.

Track Nationals only a month away....

WarpSpeed

WarpSpeed went ahead reasonably well today... Mostly because of the various volunteers knew what they where doing.... The race organizers mostly just got in the way and helped as much as we could....

Once everything was finished and cleaned up I managed to get out and do a ride for my own time. Managed to finish in 26:52, only a second slower than last year... Would have put me first in Cat 4 by a minute and about 3rd in Cat 3.

Heritage - Hour of Power - 12x2.5m L5

I have been incredibly busy this week getting ready to put on WarpSpeed ITT this weekend... Running around getting signs and safety vests, make sure we have enough volunteers.. Make sure someone will show up with some stopwatches (my backup was using my iPod.... it has an absoultely braindead StopWatch app, only does "lap" times and looses about 30 seconds in an hour... probably not a great option...) Anyway missed the Crit last night...

And tonight I got a really late start, not out until about 8:00PM... with only an hour before dark... No time to ride anywhere, no time to warm up... Wasn't properly motivated, hungry (actually ate some energy "beans" that I got a race somewhere, they where sitting on the bench...) Anyway, pretty much the only option was to just zip around my Heritage Mtn. loop. Its only about a 4-5 minute ride from home, and when I'm finished only a couple of minutes back...

Suprisingly as I got going I got going... actually started feeling better after a few laps... My goal initially was maybe do 10 laps in an hour and head home... Ended up doing 12 in reasonably good time (under an hour) and with reasonably good climb times... Best 2:30, worst about 2:42... so not too bad...

Not quite an NP Buster... but possibly close... Over 100 TSS points in 60 minutes.. But the offical definition needs > 105 :-)

The composition of my training and racing over the last six months seems to be making this type of workout a little easier compared to a flat out TT style workout... Normalized power today was 288 for 60 minutes... Last Saturday doing a practice TT NP for 60 minutes was 266.

I have been using 290 for FTP... Which for todays workout seems about right... But doing a TT workout, which is the official way to test FTP, makes that seem high... But if I reduce FTP to match the TT workout, then that would make todays workout an NP Buster...

So I may reduce FTP to 280, that would put todays workout close to an NP Buster, but not quite.... And be closer to what I managed last week. We'll be out to Squamish next week to pre-ride the TT course. That will give me another data point.

Ford Road - 20xL3, 5x2 Cadence Drill, 15m HC

Back to the grind... Ford Road, 20m L3... then coming back 5x2m high cadence (>105RPM) drill... Finally, as the sun set and it cooled down a bit, a fast (well not that fast) climb up Westwood...

The weekend was busy, no time to blog...

Sunday I spent about 4 hours following the Cat 1/2 Mens peloton around the Tour de White Rock RR course.. I take absolutely NO responsibility for the mistakes made in counting their laps... Jen and I tried, yes, really tried to tell the comissars that we had only done 100km (10 laps) and therefore they shouldn't be going onto the short course... but no one listens to the service vehicle people...

Saturday I did a one hour TT practice on the Neaves Rd. practice course. Averaged 42.1 kmh, but that was with seven turn arounds at about twenty seconds each... Taking out six of the turn arounds would give me an average speed of about 43.5kmh. Average power was low, about 260 watts... I have not done enough efforts like this this year.

Hopefully I can still do well in the BC TT champs in early Aug. Goal is to get under 52 minutes. Or perhaps 53 minutes, the race organiziers may extend the course by about .8km this year (a cattle guard has been removed allowing the course to be extended 400m...) I have had two bad years at BC TT, flat two years ago, and starting in a deluge last year... Both years I did a pre-ride faster than the actual race... As a bonus the new organizers may also seperate out age classes, so I could even hope to take the 55-59 prize...

Tomorrow night hopefully back to the track.... pursuit practice and some tempo riding to keep the legs used to track cycling... maybe I can convince Mike R. to do some motor pacing.

Thursday its out to Richmond with Ryan to do the crit... hopefully no crashes this week.

This weekend is WarpSpeed TT.... Unfortunately I'll be unable to ride in it as I'm the Race Director...

BVC Workout - motor pacing and practice 2km pursuit

Quick workout at the track...

Two motorpace sessions. The second was fun, 5 laps @ 40kmh, 5@48, repeat three times, with the last ramping after 5 to a sprint finish...

Also did a practice 2km pursuit, non-aero, about 2:54. Which is only 18 seconds off my goal time for Track Nationals (2:36). PAvg was 381 watts. I suspect that with aero gear (helmet, bars, skinsuit etc) that this would get me under 2:36.. I'll try that next Wed.

Comox ITT Results

Some results are in... [updated, Don Gilmore got me his correct time]

For the Comox TT, I was third overall in real time and second in age adjusted time for BCMCA riders. STill can't believe Dave Mercers 25:11... He was just a minute behind me in the hill climb too.

• Time Standard Rider Age Time Standard STD +/-
• 1 8 Don Gillmore 42 21:12 25:22 04:11
• 2 7 Ray Wagner 50 22:47 26:54 04:07
• 3 2 Stuart Lynne 55 23:03 27:54 04:51
• 4 18 Shane Savage 33 23:32 23:54 00:22

• Time Standard Rider Age STD +/-
• 10 1 Dave Mercer 66 25:11 30:14 05:03
• 3 2 Stuart Lynne 55 23:03 27:54 04:51
• 7 3 Duane Martindale 58 23:48 28:30 04:42
• 8 4 Ray Morrison 24:18 28:56 04:38
• 5 5 Bill Yearwood 57 23:41 28:18 04:37

Update: Don Gilmore let me know that course record was 21:27... now 21:12 So I'm only 1:51 off that. So not too bad.

BCMCA Comox RR, TT, HC

Great weekend... Hot... but lots of fun.

Saturday was the Dove Creek RR. This was the Comox Cycling Club's race weekend, so BC Masters riiders fit in with their catagories. Up to age 54 raced in the A catagory, 55-69 in the B catagory and 70 and up in C.

Dove Creek is a 16km loop with a single short climb and some rolles (about 100m total climbing per loop.) We did four loops. I spent a large amount of time at the front... Which was a lot of fun, but I ran out of fluids (two bottles...) and ended up with leg twitches in the last lap, which made the final sprint a bit difficult. Pretty much everybody sprinted over me... But I had a good time regardless.

This morning was the 16km D0ve Creen ITT. Same course... I was hoping to beat my time from two years ago, 23:15. Managed 23:03. Average speed 42.4 which is not bad given the 108m of climbing. That was good enough to win the B catagory, the 55-59 Masters and 3rd overall masters.

This afternoon was the Mt Washington HC (abridged version.) This was 10km, 607m of climbing. But unlike Cypress or Seymour Hill Climbs which have a very steady and consistant grade, this has everything from short downhills up to 10-11%... I did it in 35:30, which I think was a couple of minutes faster than next over 55 BC Masters... 1st in B catagory, 1st 55-59 group.

While not an exact comparison, I looked up my climb from two years ago and last year... And then looked at the equivalent last 10.13km to compare times... Remember though that those had 6.3km and 427m of climbing BEFORE doing the last 10km that we did today...

• 2007 - 36:54/59:37 - fresh legs,
• 2008 - 41:08/1:07:37 - tired legs, RR day before
• 2009 - 35:30 - tired legs, RR day before, 16km ITT same day

So I would say I probably was on about the same form overall this year compared to two years ago, and definitely better than last year.

Also interesting is to compre to the Cypress HC a few weeks ago...

• Mt Washington 2007 - 58:37, 298PAvg, 306NP
• Cypress HC - 36:54, 288 PAvg, 299NP
• Mt Washington HC - 35:30, 266PAvg, 274NP

From this it looks like the tired legs cost me probably about 25watts overall. So estimated time to do this ride with fresh legs would be about 2:00 minutes faster.

The HC was fun, it started fast with Dave Mercer jumping to the front (except for some of the young A guys...) I stayed on his wheel for not quite a km... Mike Sevcov then went to the front and picked the picked the pace up a bit... He lasted almost 2km... seven minutes.. but I could see he was getting tired. Just as we where coming up to a slightly flatter bit (5-6% grade instead o 9-10% we where on..) I jumped past and got a good gap, pushing up to some juniors. I then worked with them to pull away from everyone else in my catagory (B and 55+ masters.)

I don't have the rest of the finishing times, I'll update when they are available.

Thursday Crit

Had a fun time at the Thursday Crit. Upgraded to Cat 4. They race with the Cat 3's. So starting was about 50 Cat 3/4 riders. The race was 17 laps of the 1.3km course. Other than the Preme laps I spent a whole bunch of time up at the front really enjoying myself... Average speed about 41-42kmh. This is supper flat course with broad curves. So easy to treat it like a track race.

For the last of the three Preme laps I ended up doing a nice lead-out for Ryan Cousineau who then managed to sprint over and take the Preme... Great work!

The commute over went well. I picked Ryan up in New West near Douglas College and we parked just off Westminster Highway in Richmond. Easy half hour ride through mostly flat and rural roads over to the venue. After the race and easy half hour back. Worked well. Just using the 4-Runner to get over the bridge and through bike unfriendly New West and Coquitlam... Saved about a half hour each way, of unpleasant urban cycling..

IFAC - International Federation of Apparel Conformance bust

The IFAC busts Speed Shop... video at 11:00...

"Cycling is supposed to be miserable, it is a natural obstacle of the sport ....."

Lance's new TT helmet

Did you notice the Giro LiveStrong TT helmet Lance was using for the Stage 1 TT.... aka GT 248 TT.

BikeRadar has a nice write up here.

Not quite as long a tail and Giro claims it is the "fastest" now available... Well available to us the unwahsed public in 2010...

VVV Iona 10km ITT - new PB 13:47

New PB on the Iona course... 13:47...

Previous best was 13:48 2007-07-14...

The wind was about 10km from the west, so big advantage going out, and clawing our way back. Average speed on the way out was just under 49kmh, and barely over 40kmh on the way back.

I had a bad turn around with a car insisting on passing between me and the turn pylon... Not quite sure what goes through the mind of a driver following somebody on a bike doing 50kmh who slows down and changes course coming up to an orange pylon with a couple of people standing around it.. But it shows why you have to do that shoulder check.

N.B. The speeds in the above graphic are too high, I forgot to set the wheel circumference. The correction factor is 2080/2133 or about .97.

Thursday Crit

Finally got enough spare time on a Thursday to head over and do the Thursday Night Crit...

Did the Cat 5 race. Managed to stay towards the front and get lots of work in... Next week (assuming I can get away) I think I'll upgrade to the Cat 4 race. It is a much bigger field (tonight 12 versus about 30) as they race Cat 3 and Cat 4 together. Tonight Bruce Denis got into a break away with another cat 3 rider...

According to google maps I'm 44 minutes away from the Thursday Crit, 43 from the Wednesday Crit (Mission) and 54 minutes from the Tuesday (UBC) Crit...

With the UBC number probably being optimistic as you get to crawl through Vancouver .... Going to Richmond I have to get through New West and onto the Queensborough Bridge, after that its 100+ the rest of the trip... Mission is farther, but depending on traffic across the Pitt River bridge and through Haney could be faster.

Riding to the venue is almost possible... UBC is 36.6km, Richmond 38.6km, Mission 46km.

Mass transit can help.... I can get about a 10km boost to either Richmond or UBC using Skytrain (Lougheed either West or South...) Or to Mission I can take the WestCoast Express, at least to get out there. Next year after the RAV line opens I would actually be able to get to within about 5km... (but its a bus to Lougheed, Skytrain to Commercial, another Syktrain to Cambie and then Rav to Richmond...)

In the end it means I have to be on the road or bike or bus by 4:30-5:00....

Anmore Tour - new PB

Skipped doing the Canada Day randeneur ride... Shoulders get too sore after 2-3 hours... 140km takes about 5+ hours... Hurts just thinking about it.

Did my Anmore Tour (Buntzen, Whitepine, Belcarra, Thermal Plant...) and managed a PB. Slow start, 50 seconds off my time at Buntzen (18:10 vs 17:20); almost 2 minutes at WhitePine (36:40 vs 34:40); but 20 seconds back at Belcarra (45:30 vs 45:10); and 40 seconds ahead by the Thermal Plant (57:30 vs 58:16). Then 25 seconds ahead at the finish (1:35:36 vs 1:36:00).

Probably could have done better with a proper warmup... Didn't actually go out with a plan to do a PB... Kind of clicked around WhitePine... Some of the speedup was due to the nice weather... But then the previous PB's where in June... so probably not too much.

I've been doing this route for years.... my spreadsheet goes back to 2002, although those where on a mountain bike. Back then times to the power plant where about 72 minutes.. I broke 60 minutes for the first time in 2006 (once) and then a couple of times in 2007. Getting down to 57:30 is pretty good. Although, some of that is nice weather and fast descents.

Notes from the blogosphere....

Robert Chung uploaded this interesting graphic to the wattage list. It shows an estimated wattage to CdA to speed relationship.

And in another post Alex Simmons has posted an update to his famous Seven Deadly Sins called The Sins of Sins (Testing FTP #2).