Mike's Bike Blog

I'm not one to shy away from getting out on the bike when there's water on the streets or a downpour. Really the only thing that makes me think twice about the weather conditions is if my bike is clean and how much I want to clean everything afterwards. If it looks like the bad weather is here to stay for a few days I'll get out and do my rides for a few days in the elements and clean it up when the weather clears up again.

This approach has worked well for me, no crashes or even close calls to speak of. That is until 3 weeks ago, it had been raining heavily the night before and the roads were still wet when I went for my lunchtime ride. While I was out on the ride it started to rain a bit, but not monsoon conditions. I was on my second 20 minute Sweet Spot Training (SST) interval for the day. In fact I had about 1 minute left on the effort and I had 1 hard right turn to negotiate. I let up on the pedals and applied pressure to the breaks. I wasn't slowing, I then realized I was hydroplaning! The back time started to slide to the left  and fishtail. Just about that time I hit a dry patch of road. When the back tire made contact with the road it catapulted me straight into the air like a bucking bronco. I went down hard onto my left side and slid a good distance. Luckily the pavement was wet, I hate to think how tore up I could have been. As it was the only damage suffered was to my Clear2Go bottle, it got totally mangled, I think a car ran over it as I didn't noticed it came dislodged and rode off before realizing it was missing.

Well that was 3 weeks ago, then today once again it had rained the night before and the roads were wet, but when I went out for my ride the skies were dry. I had another set of 20 min SST intervals to do and given the wet conditions I thought doing them on the Twin Creeks circuit (1 mile loop) would be the best option. I've done this workout on this same course in similar conditions and I know to take the roundabouts with caution. In wet conditions when I enter the roundabout I gently apply the brakes as I stop pedaling.  Before I started the ride I let some air out of my tires to compensate for the wet pavement.

About 13 minutes into the first 20 minute interval I entered the roundabout, stopped pedaling and as I started the turn the tires went out from under me at 24.4mph. I slid across the road a good 10 feet or so to the curb. I didn't sustain too much new roadrash, I seemed to land in the same exact spot as the previous crash so re-tore up what was just starting to heal. I landed on my hip pretty hard so along with the fresh roadrash I'm sporting a rather large lump

These 2 crashes got me thinking about my tires and how they might not be the best selection for wet conditions. Back in August I bought 2 Vittoria Rubino Intrepids from bonktown. Giving a quick search it would seem others aren't too fond of their handling in wet conditions. Another factor in this last crash could have been my speed, the other times I negotiated thru the roundabout this morning I averaged 23.9mph, 23.5mph, 24mph and 23.6mph. When I crashed I was going 24.4 mph, a bit faster than the other times. I felt like I was in control and nothing was different that is until I hit the pavement.

One thing I'm coming away from this experience with is that when it's wet out I'm not going to do SST intervals or anything with intensity. When I'm attempting to hold certain wattages, especially wattage around threshold it's too much for the conditions and it's not worth the risk. Next time I'll just do a regular easy ride and complete the intervals on the trainer or forego the interval all together. Seated hill repeats would have been a good alternative for a day like today too.

Actually it's 3 crashes in 3 weeks, I nearly forgot about the crash on Monday on the inline skates. I was skating around the neighborhood with Zeb. He was up on the sidewalk and I was in the street, we were going up a slight hill so we weren't going fast, 3 or 4 mph when I hit a pebble. I stumbled a bit and wasn't able to recover and went down. Again on the same darn side hitting my hip and tearing open the scap on my knee.

On Sunday I had a slight change of plans. I was scheduled to partake in the Super Squadra Advanced Race Tactics and Skills Clinics. But with a change in employment status I backed out at the last minute. Dave Wenger was understanding and quickly refunded my money.

My plan now was to ride over to City Park Road for the fitness testing that Team Austin Cycle Camp (AC2) was putting on. I'm having some serious car problems, check engine light has come on and it sputters and chunks along. However, not getting up in time put the kabash on that and I was lucky to get to the start in time driving.

The fitness test comprised of a weight in, body fat composition and VO2 testing. I've determined my VO2 by a 5 minute power test and plugging it into a formula so I was expecting this type of test. AC2 was not performing this kind, instead it was using Polar watches and heart rate straps. I guess this is a sub VO2 max test, I opted out of it and only did the body composition. In hindsight I wish I had so I could have compared my VO2 testing to the Polar watch method. I must say using the Polar method looked a lot easier, all it involved was pushing buttons on the watch and sitting and relaxing for 5 minutes. When I did my VO2 test I had to ride as hard as I could for 5 minutes!

I did opt to do the body composition test to see if the number I get on my home scale would be consistent with the commercial grade scale. You might recall one of my 2010 goals is to get my body fat down from 16% as weighed on my scale to 12%. The number returned on the AC2 scale was 6.5%! Woot! I've already beat my goal! I'll keep at it to drop down to 12% on my scale and that should see a drop on the AC2 scale the next time I weigh in. I think they said the next Fitness test would be April.

Up next on the Fitness test was a 3 mile ride up City Park Road. We all parked in the free parking before the Ranger Station so we rode down to the Ranger Station and up 3 miles to Pearce Road. This first time up was at a leisurely pace to get warmed up and to get accustomed to the course. The second time up was going to be a mass start but timed. The 3rd time up we'd do a time trial start with 15 second gaps between and the order would be close to how the placing was in the mass start, but reversed. Meaning whoever came in first in the mass start would get to go last.

As we started the mass start we stayed together for a little bit, but Zach Horne (Team AC2) and Trey Steele (Team AC2/Hotel San Jose) started to push the pace and get a little gap. Soon there after the pack started to string out. I wanted to maintain a consistent power output going up the slight grade (1.8% for the 3.03 miles) and was shooting for holding 315-320 watts the entire 3 miles. Before the 2 mile mark I caught up and passed Trey. Right at the 2 mile mark I passed Zach, that meant I was on my own the last mile with nobody to chase down. Interesting on this effort the 1st 1.5 miles I had a higher wattage then the second 1/2.  Here's my numbers for the Mass Start effort:

Time: 9:59:00
Avg Power: 318 watts
Normalized Power: 334 watts
Max Watts: 791 watts
Avg Heart Rate: 171 bpm
Avg Speed: 18.2 mph
Max Speed: 36.9 mph
Cadence: 85 rpm

We coasted back down to the Ranger Station, I stopped at the parking lot to drop off my second bottle. Since I wasn't drinking on the way up at all I didn't need to carry the extra weight, I should have left the other one there too. Since I won the mass start I had the luxury of going last. About .4 mile to the finish I caught up to the main string of riders and unfortunately there was a mini van trying to pass. The van passed me but they were stuck behind the string of riders on the winding road. I had to slow down a little to negotiate around the van and riders as well. With the finish in my sights so was my 15 second guy, Zach. I stepped on the gas for the last minute to catch Zach. I averaged 411 watts in the last minute and caught him at the line. This last effort was done properly with a negative split, so my 2nd half had a higher wattage then the first, part of that could be because of the 1 minute sprint to the finish. I didn't do that on the 1st effort. Numbers from the Time Trial Start effort:

Time: 9:57:00
Avg. Power: 321 watts
Normalized Power: 336 watts
Max Watts: 674 watts
Avg. Heart Rate: 168 bpm
Avg Speed: 18.3 mph
Max Speed: 36.4 mph

Next time I'll be shooting to ride the 3 miles under 9 minutes. Yes that's correct I want to shave almost a  full minute off my time. To do it I'll need to average 2 miles per hour faster and go 20.3 mph. To achieve this I'll need to weight 160 pounds and I'll need to average 335 watts. That plays right into my progression plan for the season. Also for next time I'll do a little bit more warming up and only do 1 real effort and leave nothing in the tank and approach it as a true all out effort.

Here's my ride file at TrainingPeaks.com

When I first got my power meter last July I did the rider profile testing which includes a 5 minute test. Basically you go all out as hard as you can for 5 minutes. Since that initial test I never went back and retested. I mainly test in the 20 & 30 minute ranges to get my FTP.

I haven't thought much of it until a thread on the Wattage google group came up regarding VO2Max and a formula was presented to get an approximation based off of the 5 minute power result. People started throwing out their numbers and how accurate or inaccurate their computations came out to versus a lab conducted vo2max test with drawing blood.

I pulled up my power profile up on trainingpeaks.com to find my 5 min power at 353 watts. This seemed low, just like my 1 minute power. I looked at the ride that this number came from and it was a hill route I did with Jeff, Joe and Scott. It wasn't an overly hard ride and not one that I went out of my way to ride hard on.

Beforehand if I had to guess what I'd do on my retest I was thinking 390 to 400 watts. Well after retesting my final was 358, not the big jump I was expecting so what went wrong or what was different with this test?

After analyzing the effort I did too much at once. For this test instead of doing 5 minutes I did 6 minutes. I did this because some of the workouts use the number from the 6 min critical power effort. I figured I'd do 6 minutes and have both numbers. The surprising thing was my 6 min and 5 min power numbers were identical, my 6 minute number held steady at 358. That seemed very odd, I was expecting some drop off. On the really steep sections of Ladera Norte I was running out of gears and had to stand on these sections compared to spinning at a higher cadence. This is due in part to changing out the compact cranks for standards a couple months ago. Plus I had on my 11x23 cassette, not the ideal choice for the 20+% grade sections.

I thought one more test was in order to see what would happen if I just did a flat out 5 minute test and with a 12x26 cassette. Well that test happened last week. I lined up at my start point and let it all hang out on Ladera Norte. The taller gear felt a lot more manageable and it allowed me to hold a cadence of 72 rpm which was faster than last time which was only 67 rpm. At the end of the 5 minutes I was ready to poop a lung. I didn't have anything in the tank to make it up the last tenth of a mile climb to the top of Ladera Norte. So I turned around and went back via 360.

On this last test I came out with a number of 380 watts for the 5 minutes. Plugging that into the formula:

VO2 max= 1.8*((P5min*6.12/Kg)+3.5)+3.5

My VO2 Max comes out to 62. What does that number mean? Well according to this site  I would be at the low end for a male bicyclist. I'm on the high end for hockey players, I guess I  made a good choice in my sports growing up.

Jesper over at Training4Cyclists.com has posted  How to Increase your VO2 Max in 14 days  I will have to give this plan a go. Jesper has a good post on why training at VO2 Max that's worth reading. Not only is a high VO2 Max the prize for cyclist but also building up your body for a faster recovery after such efforts. Not only is my VO2 Max a limiter but I don't think my body has gotten accustomed to recovering quickly from such efforts. Anybody want to join in on the fun and join me in doing the 14 day VO2  Max test? I'll probably start next Tuesday. If you don't have a power meter you can do it the old fashioned way and ride up a hill for 5 minutes and record how far you get for your base 5 minute test.

Just in case I use some terms that might be unfamiliar to you check out the glossary.

Yesterday my training plan called for Crit Sprints, which are sprints at the 1 minute Critical Power (CP) or CP1 power level. The goal is to do these sprints on straights and corners and after the 25 second interval the recovery between each one is as long as it takes your heart rate to drop back down to zone 2. For me my best 1 min power was 516 watts that means I should be holding the 25 second sprints at 516 watts. My one minute and below power numbers are on the low side, it doesn't look like I'll be making it on the track or have a great sprint. My numbers start to rise after the one minute mark, it's like it takes me a little while to get going but once I do I can hold it.

I had no problem reaching the 516 watt range, in fact I was well over on all efforts. My heart rate while doing the intervals was not maxed out and I recovered fairly quickly. This got me thinking that maybe I needed to retest my 1 min CP. Most of the critical power numbers that make up my personal best in my power profile are from the early races this season, but that is slowly starting to change as I haven't raced in almost 2 months. My best 20 and 30 minute numbers were from 1 1/2 weeks ago when I was testing my FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and a 30 minute Time Trial I did on Saturday. Another CP test I need to do is the 5 minute test. The 5 minute test is a good indication of your VO2 max when plugged into this formula:

VO2 max= 1.8*((CP5min*6.12/Kg)+3.5)+3.5

I'll go over this in another post, so back to the 1 minute test. I went out on the Twin Creeks hill to perform a 1 minute Critical Power test. The idea is to go as hard as you can for 1 minute. At the bottom of the hill I got some momentum going, I was in my big ring, 53, and stayed in the big ring the entire effort. For the 1 minute effort I averaged 569 watts. The entire effort was very consistent with the wattage range I held, no sharp spikes and it didn't fall off at the end. For the first 40 seconds I averaged 587 watts.

Once my heart rate dropped back down to zone 1, I was going to give another effort. This time start out in the 53 and to shift down to the 39 and finish out on the 39. For the second effort I started out with higher numbers but at 44 seconds I completely died, for the first 44 seconds I was averaging 602 watts and then I lost all power and finished up with an average of 503. It was like a switch had been turned off, I was going great and then bam! It was all I could do to turn the pedals at 200 watts. Those final 16 seconds were rough, who am I kidding I still had to ride up the rest of the hill. This leads me to believe that I might have been holding back on the 1st effort so it would be prudent to test again in a month.

I think I've fallen victim to focusing a bit too much of my testing for FTP, the 20, 30 minute ranges and neglected the shorter tests. Part of my problem with the shorter tests, especially the 5 to 12 second ranges is I can't seem to hit high numbers unless I'm riding in a group or races. I've went out and tried to do a 12 second test and my numbers are nowhere near the numbers from a sprint in a race or a sprint for a city limit sign with a group. For example my best 5 second number during a test might be 980 watts and that's on a very good day, typically it might be in the 800s. But get me out in a group and fire off a sprint for whatever reason and I can go up to 1100 watts without thinking about it. On the second test I did set 20 and 30 second peak power records, but it was the first attempt that I set the 1 minute peak power on.

Tomorrow I do a 5 minute all out test on the backside of Ladera Norte to come up with my VO2 Max.

Today concluded my 31 days of Training4Cyclists.com's Power Meter Projet 2008. Jesper gave me specific workouts and wattage ranges to hit for each of the 31 days. At the beginning and end I performed a 20 minute Time Trial to come up with my Threshold Power. The first test my power was 246 watts. Today when I did the test I was able to churn an average power of 276 watts for the 20 minutes. Not too shabby of an improvement, especially considering I lost 5 pounds over the 31 days, so my watts to weight ratio is 3.25. I was shooting for a range of 280-290 watts, next time.

My average speed today was 21.43 compared to 19.73 for the initial test.

I've wanted a power meter for my training for quite some time. However a new PowerTap is $1,500, well out of my bike budget. I had been cruising eBay for a used PowerTap, even placing a few bids on a few. All the auctions went well past my limit. Until one fateful day I played it cool, waited for the last 15 seconds and placed my bid. Low and behold I won and well within my budget!

I received my new training device last week, it included everything I needed, the PowerTap hub was already built on a wheel. I do find it funny that I have a piece of equipment that retails new for more than I paid for my bike. The only draw back to this PowerTap is that it is an older model and the download cradle is serial based. I've been PC free for a couple years now, so it's taken me awhile to find a PC with a serial port that still works (I'm Mac based). The first system I hooked it up to is in the final stages of a hard drive meltdown, I couldn't get the Link software to recognize the device. I did try a serial to USB cable but couldn't get that to work. Today I finally found an old laptop that had a serial port that everything works on. Now I can download and analyze my workouts while I wait for my USB cradle to come in.

There are several different tests you do to gauge your power levels that is the basis for your training. One of the tests that the Chris Charmichael system uses is a Field Test. This is a 3 mile time trail that is performed on a relatively flat course. Finding a flat 3 miles that does not have stop lights or stop signs is somewhat tricky to find, at least near my house. I have carved out a 3 mile course that I use to for this purpose, there is 1 small hill and there are some sharp turns. In the past I've only been able to test with Heart Rate.

The full training session includes:

WarmUp 10:00

PowerInterval 01:00
Recovery 01:00
PowerInterval 01:00
Recovery 04:00
Field Test Effort 08:00
Recovery 10:00
Field Test Effort 08:00
Cool Down 10:00

This morning I set out to test my power, the conditions were perfect. After the warm ups and the intervals I started my field test. I was flying, I turned in my best time yet (8:51). I rode back to the start for recovery, I didn't look at my power readings, I went to set the computer to another interval which is a press of the 2 buttons on the computer. Here's where my day went south, the PowerTap computer only has 2 buttons, to clear the unit you press and hold the 2 buttons until CLR is displayed on the screen. In the process of trying to get a new interval I pressed and held to long and the CLR showed up on the screen. At this point I panicked and released the buttons. It cleared my data. I stood there dumbfounded, I hoped that the device would have an internal storage that would keep the ride data until I download it, like my Garmin. No chance, when the PowerTap clears its memory it doesn't mess around as I later found out when I got home and didn't have any data except the recovery ride home. So all I can report back is my max power on the recovery ride was 801 watts.

I'm not sure if the newer models are a little more user friendly or if they have onboard storage so more than 1 ride can be stored on the computer. Anybody with a newer PowerTap know?

Other Miscellaneous Stuff

I won't be riding this weekend, I took my bike in for it's yearly tune-up. Hopefully the knocking in the bottom bracket will be fixed as well. I know Jared will appreciate that. This is also the weekend I'm heading over to College Station and playing hockey.