Mike's Bike Blog

If you're familiar with the Austin bike scene you'll know what the Tuesday Nighter is, but for those of you not familiar it is the local World Championships, the hammerfest ride. It's not a real race, no prize money handed out, no photographers, no follow cars and no wheel trucks. It's just the opportunity to make your buddies suffer. The Tuesday Nighter has lost a little of it's luster over the past couple years as the roads had deteriorated, the suburban sprawl has reached out to the once country roads that  now see a steady stream of traffic on them. The potholes aren't a problem any more as most of the course has been repaved and the traffic is low on a Sunday.

As if we don't have enough options for a Sunday ride Austin Bikes has put a new spin on the Tuesday Nighter. They have introduced their version named SUMO (SUnday MOrning) which meets at 9am at the shop and departs to the Tuesday Nighter start line for a 10am unofficial start.

This past Sunday I made my way down to Austin Bikes to partake. I've never done the Tuesday Nighter on Tuesday so I wasn't too sure of the course and what to expect. There were some familiar faces in the group though. As we were waiting for the roll out a group of AT&T riders were discussing about Scott who was en route to the start. They good hearted banter was about how he would probably get lost. The statement was made that Scott mainly rides Parmer because that's the route he knows and won't get lost on. We had a good laugh ribbing him in his absence while we waited.

We meandered through downtown Austin making our way to the start. There were a handful of riders waiting, we rolled up to wait a few minutes for the 10am start. As we were waiting I looked back to a rider behind me and see he is popping the top to a Red Bull. I tell Chuck this is not a good sign and we both figure we'll be dropped before we can even get clipped in. Luckily for the first lap the group stays together for the most part. A few riders seemed to have formed a small breakaway a few minutes ahead of us. Or dare I say the A group had separated from the B group.

On lap 2 on the hilly section on Thaxton Road the group slowed as we negotiated the incline and a small crosswind. I got caught out of the protection of the pack as I was to the left of everyone and was unprotected from the wind as the pack organized. I was about to slow down and drop to the back and get into the group when a rider broke away and was going to try to bridge up to the group that was ahead of us. It sounded like a good plan and I was positioned well to attack as well. I quickly caught my fellow attacking rider and passed him. This left me all by myself to bridge the gap. I was making progress but I was quickly burning out. Just about this time Scott passed me and I grabbed his wheel. We each took pulls as we made our way to closing the gap picking off a few riders in the process.

We had the last few riders within our sites and would catch them in about 40 seconds at our current pace.  Then everything unravelled, Scott was pulling but instead of making the right turn on Old Lockhart Road the people we were chasing continued straight and so did Scott. I shouted up to Scott that I think we missed our turn. We came to a complete stop and looked back as the chase group rounded the turn onto Old Lockhart Road.

We turned around and tried to catch back on. At this point the wind in my sails had gone out, we never could quite catch back on and I slowly started losing Scott's wheel. The gap was only a few seconds between me and Scott but I couldn't close it down. On Old Lockhart we caught a couple riders that were off the back as well, however they didn't make the right turn on Nuckols Crossing but continued on Old Lockhart and so did Scott. I followed Scott trying to put more of an effort in to tell him we missed the turn and finally caught him but we were way off course and near William Cannon Road. Since we missed the final lap we decided to just head back to Austin Bikes and call it a day.

The SUMO ride is a great ride near race pace, just be careful on whose wheel you follow. I told Scott I'd give him a few weeks of learning the course before I come out again.

If you haven't seen the latest contest put on by the Fat Cyclist here's the skinny:

• The winner gets an Ibis bike of his or her choice, color and size.
• We’ll fly you to the best possible riding spot in the US, according to you (and ratified by us).
• You’ll get to ride with Chuck, Fatty and Andy Hampsten

Pretty cool, bike, airfare and a great ride with 3 legends. What I propose if I win is I would have them come to Austin and ride here in Texas. I would then invite all my friends that donate to my LiveStrong challenge page to come ride with us. So if you want to be a part of this, go donate to my LiveStrong page.

You're probably asking yourself, wait Mike's already won a bike what would he do with another bike? Good question, I'd have it built in a size for my kids, Jack is starting to race and a Silk SL would more than make a decent race bike to say the least. Once Jack has outgrown it Ethan or Zeb will be waiting in the wings to take over ownership so we'll get 3 boys use of it before donating it to a team/club.

Every $5 donated at my LiveStrong page gets us a raffle ticket and a chance to win, but hurry the contest ends at midnight the 20th. This will be a great invite only group ride with the Fat Cyclist, Chuck Ibis and the winner of the 1988 Giro d’Italia and two-time winner of the Tour de Suisse, Andy Hampsten.

On Sunday's ride I caught up with the Southwest Cycle Sport gang and in honor of my attendance Peter announced we'd go North. He'd astutely observed that whenever I join the group we do the same route. This time we'd head North to 620 and to the Spa in Steiner Ranch [ROUTE]. We rolled out 6 strong, but instantly lost 1 as Greg was not feeling up to the hills and he headed South on Bee Cave Road. This had me a little apprehensive as I've never ridden in Steiner Ranch and my legs were still seathing from Saturdays 3 Sister VO2 attack. I've seen the road from a distance, I'd heard it was a good climb but didn't know what to expect. When we turned right into Steiner Ranch from 620 we soon lost 2 more that left Peter, Joe and me. The ride down is fun, my top speed was 45.73mph. The road starts out as a 4 lane at the entrance and gets narrower and narrower the closer to the river. At the river we didn't stop and site see, but proceeded to keep our momentum up and head back up.

It's aproximately 6.58 miles back to 620 with 869 ft of climbing. We didn't stay on Quinlan Park Road but turned right on Steiner Ranch Blvd and climbed that up to 620. As we were heading up Steiner Ranch Blvd. Peter said it wasn't as bad as the 3 Sisters. Luckily it wasn't but I was waiting for it to pitch up at some point or offer up some type of fight. As it turns out it's just a long climb, 2 miles to be exact. I kept waiting for the knockout punch but it never arrived.

On 620 we made our way down to the gas station at the corner of Bullick Hollow and 620. As we were eating our bars and gels there was a violent explosion and the release of air from my front tire. I had a blow out while my bike was leaning against the ice machine! I replaced the tube and proceeded to air it up and as I was about to take off the CO2 the new tube exploded as well. Upon further investigation I had a side wall puncture!

Joe gave me a new tube and Peter gave me his used gel packet to fashion a boot out of. I folder the packet in 2 length wise and covered the puncture hole. I then seeded the tube in and we put air in, not the fully recommended PSI but about 80-90 PSI. The tube made it back to the shop and I was able to finish the ride.

When you're in a pinch you can use discarded gel packets to boot your tires. If Peter wouldn't have had the packet it would have been a dollar bill.

After my 48 hour waiting period I joined the Southwest Cycle Sport team ride on Sunday. It was quite fun to get out after 2 days off and with the drama of the past couple days behind me. We did the southwest route heading out on Bee Caves Rd to 360 to MoPac to William Cannon and then looping through the neighborhoods and coming back out on MoPac/45. When we reached the turn around point we headed back down MoPac. I was sitting about 3rd or 4th wheel behind Peter who was pulling the train along. From the back Jeremy, the current Cat 4 Time Trial champion and on his wheel was John. They passed us like nobodies business. I pulled out from the train when I saw that nobody was going to even attempt to catch the express train. I gave it a good hard effort to catch John's wheel. Luckily I got on and was pulled along at 32 mph. Towards the end John got burned up and dropped out what there was of Jeremy's draft. I moved up to Jeremy's wheel. After a little bit he started to slow up a tad and I moved ahead, that delusion of grander lasted all of 10 seconds as the headwind and the hill just sapped any bit of strength I had and Jeremy passed me back. We finished up the last .4 miles at a more sane pace and waited for the rest of the crew.

Some numbers of interest, when I was bridging the gap to John and Jeremy my max watts was 1052 and averaged 895 watts. Sitting in the draft I averaged 32.3 mph and 293 watts.

The other fun part of this route is the hills on Lost Creek Road. Only John and Greg from the group decided to partake in the hill joy. Not sure about Jeremy, he dropped us all on Southwest Parkway betting everybody back to the start. Everybody else opted for the easy route back to Bee Cave via Barton Creek Blvd. My strategy is to bomb down the hills getting a gap so I can ride up at my own pace. I made it almost to the top of Lost Creek before John caught up to me.

The 48 miles was a good way to get back into the swing of things and as always it's fun to ride with the Southwest Cycling Team.

For Monday Jeff and I decided to meet up in Bastrop to ride through the state parks. It's been almost 2 years since I rode through the park and that was part of Pedal Thru the Pines. You can't ask for better scenery and the hills are great. In fact the total climbing was 2917.98 feet for the 30 miles we rode. I must say this time through the park was a lot easier than what I remember. Jeff showed up sporting his snazzy Bike Pure jersey, very impressive.

I thought last years Le Burrito ride was well attended, but throw in free beer and the numbers went through the roof. I estimated last year that 70 people were at the ride and this year they more than doubled that number. Chris Carter @Roostertx sent out a tweet that 324 people had RSVPed for the ride. At the start Ray said that one of his buddies tried to RSVP but they were not taking any more reservations.

This year I was going out on the 60 mile route or the "Advanced" route. The 60 mile group was fairly large we had at least 30 people in our group and I'd say that number was very conservative. We rolled out pretty neutral, the ride leaders had asked that there be no racing till we got out of town.  The demographics of the group was made up of a lot of racers, apparent from their team jerseys and non racers I presume from solid jerseys or non sponsored jerseys. With the mix of riders it made the roll out somewhat interesting and I really had to be on my toes. There are a number of lights we had to stop at and the there were some issues of people not being able to get clipped in. Once we got out of town the pack sketchiness just got worse. Guys were bouncing off each other, when the pace picked up past 24 mph it got down right scary.  Not sure if  people were not accustomed to going that fast in a large group or what, but when the guy in front of me locked up his brakes and started to fishtail I decided a free burrito was not worth crashing for. I eased up and let the madness pass.

Up the road the pack was starting to get strung out so it gave me the chance to run down riders. I got into a pace line and we were cruising at 21-22. As we caught up to a few others it got disorganized and the pace slowed to 18-19 mph and I pulled out and made my way up to the next group of riders. After bridging up to the next 2 riders, I took a few minutes to catch my breath before launching off. I soloed to the rest stop. It was good to see Joe at the rest stop and catch up a bit.

After the rest stop the pace was a bit more relaxed, there didn't seem to be any extended sprints. The group seemed to calm down as well, it could be because I was more up to the front and at some point we lost a lot of folks. There was one crash in our group. I didn't see what happened only heard, but someone in the back of our group lost it on a sharp right hand turn. After the crash the pace really slowed, which was good because the roads were down right terrible. The entire route was littered with potholes and huge cracks in the road. At one point I thought I saw a Honda Civic down one of the gorges that ran down the middle of the road. When we were approaching Bicycle Sport Shop we hit some more gnarly roads. I was on the far right, up against the curb when the road took a turn for the worst. The guy next to me pointed out a pot hole and then went right into my line. The road in front of me was cracked and the shoulder dropped off. I swerved off the road way and tried to come back on but there was a lip. I momentarily hopped my front tire back on but then were good sized cracks of 3-4 inches that wouldn't be good to get into. I got back off onto a driveway and then road a short way in the dirt until I could get safely get back on.

Once we got back to Bicycle Sport Shop I quickly got my bike in the car and made my way to the burrito line for my much deserving burrito. They didn't have any chicken burritos only veggie. I think I was lucky there were only 3 burritos left when I got in line. I didn't partake in the beer drinking so I can't speak on how good that was or if they had enough.

Ride Stats:
    Duration:      2:59:49 (3:19:51)
    Work:          1852 kJ
    TSS:           192.4 (intensity factor 0.801)
    Norm Power:    233
    Distance:      57.265 mi
    Elevation Gain:        3794 ft
    Elevation Loss:       3772 ft
        Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    1065    172     watts
    Heart Rate:      87    177    143     bpm
    Cadence:         1    180    77     rpm
    Speed:           0    37.8    19.1     mph

For my Sunday ride I was looking for a good option, Austin Cycling Association (ACA) had 2 rides the Krause Kruze and the Pfinally Pfluggerville. The Krause Kruze promises a lot of hills so of course I was very interested in this one. However, I've been having some shifting problems and while I've been doing some intervals this week on the 3 sisters the chain would slip. I figured until I could get it into the shop I shouldn't go out of my way for hills. That left the Pfinally Pfluggerville. The start location turned out to be relatively quick to get to via 45, about 20 minutes from my house so that was an added bonus. To put the route into perspective it is billed as flat to slightly rolling farmland. I have ridden on a few of the same roads we would be hitting during the Ronde Von Manda race.

At the ride start there were quite a few people, one of the more attended ACA rides I'd been too. Most everybody was doing the 47 mile route, I on the other hand wanted to throw down the 67 mile route at a steady pace of 70% of my FTP so about a 20 mph pace. There was one other rider doing the 67 mile route and he was going to be going slower, but said he'd try to keep up. The 47 and 67 mile routes ride the same route for about 25 miles, the 67 mile route takes about a 3 mile diversion before the water stop in Coupland.

After a 15 minute warmup with the group I picked up the pace and quickly dropped the guy who was doing the 67 mile route with me as well as everyone else. Not that it matters but the other 67 miler was a Tri guy. I would look back at turns to see where everyone was at. It appeared that the ride was splitting into 3 groups, a faster 18-19 mph group a medium group and a slower group, not sure how fast the last 2 groups were going. Then there was me off the front.  Since I was off the front by myself I figured I'd get in a good session of sweet spot training in. I concentrated at holding my power at 90% of my FTP for the next hour. At this point I rode away from the group and instead of being a 2-4 minutes ahead of the fast group I was getting 3 or 4 miles ahead. I didn't see them again till Coupland at the watering hole.

When I was pulling into Coupland the 47 miler fast group was just getting into the gas station that was the pit stop. The other 67 miler said he was going to only do the 47 mile route. I decided to join them on the 47 mile route so I could get back home a little earlier, plus I wasn't sure if there was any water stops on the rest of the 67 mile route and it was getting hot and I knew only 2 bottles wouldn't cut it. It was fun to ride with them, I knew one of them and had ridden with Bruce several times on Sunday with the Austin Road Riders group. I chatted with the Tri guy who was suppose to do the 67 miler. In fact I rode with he and his wife on another ACA ride, the Perdenales Pedal (not the same Tri guy from that ride though).

There was no organization to the paceline, for the most part we rode 2 up with 6 or 7 in our group. There really was no sharing of the work, whoever was at the front would be up there pulling for however long they felt, The hills would reshuffle everyone. I tried to keep my speed constant at 19-20 mph so i was the first one up and would soft pedal till we regrouped. I would try to pull as much as I could and I think I did a good job of pulling everyone at a 20 mph pace.

At mile 44 as we were  going down a small hill (29 mph) the tri guy goes flying by me. Instinct takes over and I'm like oh hell no. I kick it in and grab his wheel. I start to pass him as we start up the next roller and then I go into overdrive and fly up the hill and totally leave him in the dust. At the top I think how big of an ass I must have looked and felt a little bad.

When we got back to the parking lot as I was putting my bike away one of the guys that was in our group came over and introduced himself. He asked if I was on a club or team and said how inspiring it was to watch me ride away from everybody at the beginning and to watch me ride up the hills. That made my day so I stopped feeling bad about chasing down the tri guy.

The course is really good, very low traffic once you get out of Pfluggerville, which takes about 5 minutes. I would recommend this ride through the rural farmland. And it is flat, I used my small ring once or twice and that was only to stay within a power target zone. I rolled with standard cranks and a 11x23 cassette no problem. It is a fun route.

A father in my son's Jack's cub scout den, Ken, a fellow cyclist invited me out to the VOIP Saturday group ride. He meets the group in front of Rudy's BBQ on Hwy 360. On Friday night I emailed Ken saying I was on for the ride. We didn't have a set plan, I knew he left his house at 6:15 as he rides down from Cedar Park. I tried to get to his house at 6:15 to meet him, but I got there a little late at 6:19. I checked my email and saw that he emailed me to meet him at the corner of El Salido and 620 at 6:25. There was no way I could get there in 5 minutes but I took off. I got there at 6:29 but no sign of Ken. I wasn't sure if he was running late so I waited till 6:40.

Running this far behind I couldn't take my normal route to 360, I was going to have to take a direct route. Ken said he takes 2222 to 360, I've never went down the big hill on 2222, in fact it is something I vowed I would never do. Riding along side cars going 65-80 mph  with no shoulder never appealed to me. Although the shoulder was widened last year on the stretch approaching the hill, but the decent down the hill you still have to take the lane. Luckily it was early morning still and the car traffic was light. I bombed down the hill reaching 50 mph and thankfully not one car passed me.

I still had to navigate 360 and climb the hills. It was going to be close as to whether or not I would make it to the rendezvous point by 7:30am. I passed quite a few cyclists on the hills and I was passed by one rider as well. This guy looked the part on his Cervelo and matching kit. He was an older gentleman with graying hair, wafer thin. He was probably 5'6" and 135 pounds. I debated if I should grab his wheel, but I was already teetering on my red line and figured I'd be completely blown if I did.

I got to Rudy's at 7:35 and luckily Ken and a small group was waiting but the damage had been done, I'd spent the past hour going full throttle to get there on time that I was spent. I would guess there were about 18 people in the group as we rolled down 360 heading to MoPac. This version of the Dam Loop is probably a bit closer to the classic version as it goes down Southwest Parkway to 71 and down 71 to Bee Caves. I've never ridden this portion of the Dam Loop. I typically will go up Bee Caves Road to Bee Cave and I've never ridden on 71. I was a bit skeptical about it as I wasn't sure how big the shoulder was. For the most part it is quite rideable I think there was only one short bridge section where I felt it to be a bit questionable.

Back to the ride. As we hit the longer climb up Southwest Parkway, before Barton Springs Road my legs were already protesting. We hit this hill maintaining 20 mph going up. Close to the top the speed knocked up a mile or two and I couldn't counter. I slowly drifted off the back, but kept the main group in sight.  The group was already split in 2, the main group that I just got dropped from and then another group. I was between the 2. I rode by myself to Bee Caves picking off a few riders here and there that got dropped from the main group.

I also got dropped on 620, after a light of all places. We stop at the light and I'm expecting a slow roll out, so I'm not paying close attention, getting clipped in. I look up and everybody has taken off. I did catch up to the 2nd group and rode with them down 620 to the next regroup stop at the Walgreens on the corner of 620 and 2222.

The home stretch was fairly mild as we rode 620 to Anderson Mill Road. Ken and me departed from the group from there as they turned down Anderson Mill to head back to 360 and we headed the opposite direction into Cedar Park.

Next time I will have to roll to the start at a better pace so I'm not shelled before I arrive. Looking at my overall power file my average watts were below what I expected. The entire ride only averaged 201 watts. That could be partly do to sitting in at the back of the group. But looking at key efforts the average was still below what I would have thought. The effort felt harder than what the file indicates.

Stats:
Distance: 56.73
Kj: 2202
Power: Avg: 201 Max: 849

This was my second Tuesday Nighter with the Lake Travis Cycling club. This time I wasn't going to misjudge the traffic to get over to Lakeway. I got to the start location 30 minutes early. We rolled out at 6 pm with 12 riders.

The group stayed together as we rolled out onto 620 making our way to Bee Cave Parkway and over to Bee Cave Road. There were a few spirited sprints as we turned the pace up to 30 mph at times. The hills on Bee Cave started to thin the group out. By about the 3rd or 4th hill I found myself in the front group of 4, Sue, Jeff, Wooly Mammoth rider and me. On the next hill the Wooly Mammoth rider dropped his chain so it was just the 3 of us. The next hill it was Jeff and me and his bike overshiffted and he suffered a chain suck. So I was off the front soft pedaling. The Wooly Mammoth rider caught up right before the Knollwood turn and we strolled through the neighborhood and surprisingly we caught the light to get back on Bee Cave so we pulled over in the shade and waited for the group.

On the way back the Wooly Mammoth would attack on the hills so I made sure I stuck to his wheel. It seemed whenever I'd get a gap off the front I'd hit a red light. One problem was I didn't know where the Bee Cave City Limit sign was. I knew it was out there somewhere so the best I could do was be prepared to go whenever. Peter from Southwest Cycle Sport, Jeff (Lake Travis Cycle Club) and an AT&T rider started winding it up. I was boxed in as they came up on my left and the Wooly Mammoth was right in front of me. The Wooly Mammoth didn't initially react and the other 3 riders were off and by the time we reacted the sprint was for the most part over. It was a 1/2 sprint for me and as I roll pass I see the green city limit sign nestled in with some trees. Now that I know where it's at hopefully next time I'll have better results.

Everybody must have left it all on the city limit sign sprint as I was able to keep going and build up a sizable gap for the rest of the way in. I thought there was suppose to be 1 more sprint to the top of the hill by Lakeway High School, if so I won it uncontested. I got back to the start with about at least a 3 minute lead. I was able to get my bike in my car and my shoes changed before the next person came in.

On the return I averaged 22.5 mph. Normalized power for the last hour was 284 watts. My max watts was 919, I really wish I would have had a chance on the city limit sign to see if I could throw down quadruple digits. If you want even more numbers check out the route and more stats on TrainingPeaks.com. Fun time!

I don't have a lot to report from the past week, it was a recovery week for me as I was winding down from the Build 2 week 4 phase. I did start working onsite at a client location that is on the North East side of Austin, just off of Cameron Road. This has given me the opportunity to seek out new routes for my lunch time rides. The terrain is definitely different than what I've been riding in. The East side is mostly flat, there are a few rollers here and there but they average about 3% compared to the 8% to 12% for the hills around the headquarters. Coming up with new routes has been fun and I have several other routes to try out. I did make one mistake for a recovery week, on Wednesday I answered Joe Doyle's invite to play hockey. I'm a sucker for either a ride announcement or drop in hockey invitations. It had been about 6 months since I last grabbed a stick and strapped on the pads for hockey. I was sore for 3 days after, hockey muscles and riding muscles are similar but obviously don't use the same ones or in the same proportions. Whatever it is I was sore.

The weekend riding was good, on Saturday I did a 1 hour threshold test. No big jump in numbers, it basically confirmed that my last jump in FTP was warranted. I could have jumped it up again as my Normalized Power for the hour was 301 watts and my average power was 289, so for now I'll leave it at 291 unless I'm finding intervals to be too easy at those levels.

Sunday I caught the Southwest Cycle Sport group ride again. This time the turnout wasn't as strong, there were only 4 of us this time. Even with the smaller number of riders it was still a blast. There wasn't as many attacks, I think the route kept that in check. We headed North this time and ended up doing a dam loop of sorts so we had the climbs around the dam, 360 and Bee Caves. The only other thing worth reporting on the ride was as we were on 360 just after the 360 bridge we got passed like nobodies business by a guy on a tribike. We weren't going very fast, we had just stopped at the light before the bridge, maybe 20 mph. The guy on a tri bike goes whizzing by us. I was a little surprised nobody reacted to this blatant challenge. I guess the seasoned racers knew better, whereas myself I was ready to launch into a full on pursuit. As we reached the first hill we kept our pace steady, looking up the hill it was obvious the tri guy was in difficulty. He was laboring with each pedal stroke. He was soon standing, rocking the bike from side to side with his legs pushing the pedals in slow motion. About 1/2 way up the hill as we were about to overtake him, he pulled off and unclipped for a break.  It was a good 40 miles at an average speed of 19.5 mph.

I brought the head unit to my PowerTap and kept it in my jersey pocket to record the ride just incase the Garmin 705 crapped out again. I'm having data drops as the difference between the 2 was about 4 minutes or 1 mile! I adjusted the wheel magnet a little as it was a bit off, I'll give that a try. Next I'll swap out the battery in the speed/cadence sensor.

I made my first group ride with the Southwest Cycle Sport group from their Bee Cave location. I didn't know what to expect, from their website it just said there would be a Memorial Day ride with an 8am roll out. There were about 10 guys in the group as we rolled out they mentioned 50 miles was on tap. We rolled out at a social pace on Bee Cave Road down to 360. As we approached Loop 1 a spirited sprint started and I geared up and met the acceleration at 30+ mph. The group got split and I managed to stay with the lead group as we turned onto Southwest Parkway. A light split the group again with me and 2 others. We continued on till around William Cannon and stopped to regroup.

On Hwy 45 we got the fastest paceline going that I've ever been in, we motored along going 35-40 mph. Jeremy one of the Southwest Cycle Sport riders, pulled us along. Somewhere around here we stopped for a water break. After our refueling and we got back on the road on a hill leading up to Southwest Parkway Jeremy attacked again. This time there was no answer as he got a sizable gap on everyone. There was some discussion in the group about who would give chase, I thought there would be a spirited chase so I went. I bridged up to Jeremy and we continued on to the light.

Shortly after getting onto Barton Springs Road another attack materialized. I was in mid pack and saw the attack coming so I got ready and made my jump as the group answered. Again we were attacking at nearly 40 mph, I would sneak quick peaks down at my Garmin 705 to see the speed. I made my move as I approached the front of the group. I pulled around to the left and found myself in the front. I pulled up as we hit the rollers and the group came around. I got onto the back but was completely spent and found myself starting to lose contact with the wheel in front of me. I hunkered down on the hill before the turn onto Lost Creek to catch back on with the guys.

I love Lost Creek Road, it was one of my favorite routes I'd take when I worked at Keller Williams for my lunch time rides. Normally I'm not much of a decenter, I seem to get passed, but the technical and winding hills on Lost Creek were to my advantage. I was able to get ahead on the docents that would then allow me to climb up the hills at my own pace and not lose too much ground. That is until 1/2 way up the final climb up Lost Creek. I wasn't able to stay in contact with Jeremy and one other rider. I knew there were still plenty of hills on Bee Cave that still lay ahead so I was content to ride with the second group and let the other 2 go. We got caught at the 360 light so Jeremy and the other were gone and we didn't catch up to them till the Southwest Cycle Sport parking lot. When we got onto Bee Cave we got a paceline going all the way back to the store.

I had a great time with the group and they invited me back. My legs held up faboulously, I was a little worried as I was coming off a heavy week. Last week I put in 297 miles so I wasn't sure what to expect from my legs. I was really excited to get home and see what kind of numbers my Garmin 705 would have there for the route and for my power. The route was of interest to me as it covered a lot of new places I'd never been to. The power always interests me but this one I really wanted to see what my numbers were for the sprints and what my overall power would be as I put in some race efforts. Imagine my pissed offness when I plug in the 705 and there is no history file. I've been bitten by the file corruption bug that I'd heard about on the wattage group. It appears there is a bug in the Garmin 2.70 version of the software where a lap gets corrupted. The lap file was there but I couldn't get it off the device. After plugging and unplugging it a few times a blank history file showed up, but my lap data was gone!  Stupid Garmin! I should have known better when others have had problems. I guess if I'm going to go out for a ride and I absolutely want the power data then I'll have to bring along the PowerTap head unit as a backup. I'm not sure if the corruption happens only when the device is recording power or if it happens when not paired to a power device as well.  Sorry I can't post the route, once we got off of 360 I was on all new territory and I have no clue how we got to Hwy 45 or how we got back to Southwest Parkway.