Mike's Bike Blog

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

After a 1 week rain delay yesterday brought an end to the RunFar Time Trial. The conditions seemed perfect, low wind and NOT 104 degrees. The night before I readied my bike by replacing the front tire with a new tire and put on my 11x23 cassette. I was a little worried that I might have sabotaged my race with my lunch. It's not very often that my wife and my paths align during the day for us to meet for lunch, but yesterday such alignment did occur. I very rarely eat out but this would be one special occasion and what do you do on a special occasion, you eat Indian buffet of course. As we left the Indian Palace I was well under the "roll me out" limit so I felt somewhat good that I hadn't over done it. I kept telling myself that the extra calories would come in handy during the race, but knew deep down I was just kidding myself for we all know that carbo loading is somewhat a myth (the time carbohydrate consumption is valuable is 0-60 minutes after a workout i.e. recovery. That's when the glycogen synthase enzyme which controls glycogen storage is most active. Any excess food you eat leading up to the race is going to be passed through the bowels.)

When I got to the veloway I did 3 warm up laps and was quite pleased with the way my legs felt and didn't have any stomach issues so I was as ready as I'd ever be. I rolled up to the start and let it fly. On first 2 miles I thought I might have went out a little too hard so tried to stay around 300 watts for miles 2-4. It's hard to say if this helped, but on paper it looks like it hurt me in the long run. For this 2nd stretch was my slowest time split, my average speed dropped to 21.6 mph, but I did average 299 watts. The time split for this section was 5:32. Looking back at it I rode all the other sections soundly and if I had not had pulled up here I could have crushed my previous personal best time on the course. Actually there's something else that affected my time in this section that might have been more of a factor than my pacing. As I approached the turnaround point I caught 2 other riders and had to slow down to 9 mph well before I would have as I made the turn onto 1826. I caught the 2nd rider right at the turn forcing me to slow again and maneuver around a 3rd rider on the other turn back onto 45. This is what probably cost me the most time on this section.

In the end I beat my previous best time by almost 10 seconds with a time of 19:47 (previous best time was 19:56.6). This last TT I finally held the power that I knew I could hold for 20 minutes. All other times I would try for 300 watts but failed on all other attempts, which left me scratching my head as I've held 295-300 in other 20 minute efforts while doing FTP intervals.

I really like Time Trials and had a kick in the pants doing the RunFar TT's and I already can't wait till next spring when they resume. Next year I'll be shooting for an average speed of 25+ mph. It sure would be nice to have the full time trial set up, dedicated TT bike, aero helmet, skin suit and the booties. I also wish the RunFar results would distinguish TT set up riders versus those riders that do the time trial Eddy Merckx style (regular road bike, helmet and no fancy aero nothing). It would be nice to see how I stack up to the others doing the TT Merckx style.

Here's the breakdown of my efforts this season (Best time splits are in green):

I drove a different route to the RunFar Time Trial course this time, instead of going down MoPac from 183 I drove to 360 and took that to catch MoPac. It was so much more enjoyable, yes there were stop lights on 360, but there was no stop and go traffic. Plus I got to the veloway in record time. As it turns out too fast, normally I do 2 warm up laps around the veloway and when I get done the RunFar truck is there and ready for sign ups. This time I still had 30 minutes till they get there, so I did another warm up lap. With even more time I sat around till they finally showed up and got set up.

Since my goal for the race was a good 20 minute interval I had to either start my time early or keep going after the finish in case I finished the race in less than 20 minutes. This turned out to be wishful thinking. I started out on LaCrosse by the school slowly getting my power up, about a minute out from the start. Thus when I hit the start I was near my power level I wanted to maintain for the 20 minutes.

Around mile 2 I knew I was in for a long ride, my legs felt heavy and I felt like I was struggling. My speed was not where it needed to be either. At the turn around point I got my second wind and started to feel good. It could have been the motivation of catching up to others out of the course who were probably doing their warm ups but I'll use them for motivation anyway. Warm up or not I passed about 3 or 4 guys. One took exception and passed me back but wasn't able to hold his speed or want too so I passed him again. It was a hard 20 minutes. It wasn't my fastest time on the course and 7 watts off on the average watts between the 2.

Looking over the numbers from last night compared to my fastest time I definitely had a harder time with the 1st half of the course. Not sure if it was due to wind or what, I know my legs didn't feel all that great. I'll have to look at my training log to see what my fitness & fatigue levels were at going into the race compared to last nights. An oversight on my part for last nights race I forgot to take any Endurolites. I normally will take 2 capsules when I leave the office to the veloway and then I take 2 to 3 more after my warmup. I forgot them this time. Checking out the results I came in 10th in my age group.

As you may recall when I started racing the RunFar Time Trial that my goal for this year was to get a sub 20 minute time. My first time I did the TT I raced it in 20:35:55, the second time I came in at 20:11.90. Tonight was my third try and it was a charm. My official time was 19:56.6 and I averaged 24.1 mph.

There are a few factors for meeting this goal. The bikenoob was there with a video camera filming, so of course I had to rise to the occasion. Unfortunately I was too fast and Ray might have missed my personal record setting race as I didn't see him with his camera again till I was leaving in my car. So much for 15 minutes of fame in a psychology class project.

The other contributing factor was a Super Squadra sandwich. When I started there were 2 Super Squadra members in front of me. Anyway they turned and started down MoPac while I went up La Crosse to flip around and come back down and make my approach onto MoPac that way. On the first 2 mile stretch I passed a few riders and had the Super Squadra in my sights. Could this be, could I be actually closing the gap. On the hill 2 miles in they were starting to separate. Flabbergasted I caught and passed one, not sure if there was a problem with his bike or what ailment was allowing me to close and pass him.

At the turn around point I had closed the gap to the leading Super Squadra rider. I began to think something must be up. Could I really be kicking this much butt, had somebody slipped something into my tea? Maybe it was my Fat Cyclist jersey giving me super human powers? These thoughts ran through my head especially when I passed the 2nd Super Squadra rider. I couldn't maintain my 28 mph speed and dropped down a bit to 24 mph. It could have been the loss of speed and the realization that he had just been passed by a Cat 5er on a straight up road bike with no aero anything but he passed me back. But he dangled out in front of me just enough to keep pushing me. In the last 2 miles it finally dawned on me what was happening, no I had not entered an alternate universe where I was suddenly faster, but the Super Squadra riders were doing a warm up lap. I blocked all thoughts and focused on the finish, this warm up theory was proven when the AT&T rider I caught at the line didn't go over the electronic timing pad thus proving that the big dogs were out there warming up. In any event the Super Squadra sandwich helped push me to meet my goal, but I don't think it was the main contributing factor.

For the past month I have been working on raising my FTP by doing the plan laid out by Jesper at training4cyclist.com. I did his 4 week plan last July as well with great success. A month of hard work paid off raising my FTP up a few watts! Now to come up with a new time for a goal. There are 4 more time trials this year, I'll go with an outlandish goal, but I think I can do it. I want to take 10 seconds off my time each time and at the end be below 19 minutes.

Mile 0-2
Time: 5:07.44
Avg Watts: 289
Speed: 23.5

Mile 2-4
Time: 5:13
Avg Watts: 290
Speed: 23

Mile 4-6
Time: 4:34.68
Avg Watts: 265
Speed: 26.3

Mile 6-8
Time:  4:54
Avg Watts: 293
Speed: 24.5

Yesterday was my 2nd "official" run at the 8 mile Time Trial and I recorded my fastest time. Last week I did a practice run and was a bit disappointed as my time was slower by 5 seconds and I totally died around mile 6. My speed dropped to below 20 mph, but luckily I got my second wind and was able to finish somewhat strong. Looking at the data it appeared I did a poor job of pacing as I went out too hard from the beginning. WIth that in mind I made every effort to do a better job of pacing.

Last nights TT was the first time with my new aero bars that I got for Fathers Day. The theory is the aero bars will get the rider into a more aerodynamic position thus cutting through the wind. The amount of watts to propel the bike is suppose to go down as the drag coefficient is reduced. That's the theory anyway.

It was a hot one, still in the 100s when I got to the veloway. I warmed up with 2 laps around the veloway, the first at a moderate pace and the 2nd lap in the small ring with high cadence. This was my second ride of the day, during lunch I went out for an easy 40 minutes.  A couple weeks ago when I did my first TT I followed this protocol of riding during my lunch time for a light effort. Last week when I had trouble I did not do my lunch ride as I thought the effort might hinder me. Going forward I'll keep the easy lunch spin in the game plan as at the least it doesn't seem to contribute to any negative effects.

Besides the aero bars I also tried one other new piece of equipment. Instead of a standard water bottle I used my CamelBak RaceBak. Even though the race is only 8 miles in the extreme heat I need to take a drink every 2 miles. With the bottle I have to fumble around getting it in and out. Not a big issue but when every second counts it's a lot easier to drink from the RaceBak than a bottle. With the RaceBak I noticed I was able to get in a couple more drinks than with the bottle. With the bottle I strickly followed my 2 mile hydration plan, but the RaceBak seemed to not disrupt the pace so I was able to get in more drinks when I needed it on the back side of the course on the return.

My power was down by 10 watts on this attempt compared to the previous. However I averaged .3 mph faster this time at 23.8 mph. There would appear to be something to this less drag thing. I think my pacing was pretty good, I finished with nothing left in the tank. On the hills in the 1st 1/2 of the race I made a conscious effort to hold back a bit, keeping my power in check until almost to the top and then I would raise my power and effort to crest the top and be able to catch my breath on the other side.  I passed 2 riders again this time. The first rider around mile 2 and the second one was in my sights from the turn around point. I finally passed him within the last mile. Having him as my carrot was probably the real reason I beat my time as it gave me the motivation to keep pushing on. I was surprised I didn't get passed again because as I was starting there were 5-7 people at the light waiting to turn left onto the course and they looked serious with full TT rigs, skin suits and aero helmets. Catching the last guy was quite gratifying as he was on a TT bike with aero helmet.

My official time is 20:11.90 and averaged 23.8 mph. That's a whopping 24 second difference in my previous fastest time! I'm still amazed that I was able to cut that much time off my ride while having a lower power average. There's probably more tweaking that can be made to my TT position. I slapped the aerobars on and adjusted my seat back a little and played with the angle a bit for comfort. Looking at the guys riding full on TT bikes their seats seem higher which appears to flatten their backs out thus giving them a more aerodynamic position.

Results page

FunFar stages a bi weekly time trial on an 8 mile course down MoPac. Tonight was the first time for me to throw my wheels into the hat. It was a little on the windy side and very hot, 95 degrees. Lucky for me the Bike Noob showed up and gave me advice and pointed me in the right direction on getting my chip and explained the concept of riding over the mats. I was glad to have the seasoned time trial veteran to lead me through the process.

My plan going in was to break the 8 mile course into 4 segments of 2 miles each. The first 2 miles I wanted to start out at a conservative pace and ratchet it up every 2 miles. Having not done the route before the closest I could compare it to is a 20 minute threshold interval. Whenever I do these 20 minute tests I go out too hot and struggle the last 5 minutes.

There was one problem, I failed to set up the distance to be displayed on my Garmin for the lap! I knew the first 2 miles point was around Escarpment Road. The best I could do was keep an eye on my watts and speed. I figured the 1/2 way point was the turnaround point and I would just try to keep my speed as consistent as possible and hope for the best.

On the first 2 mile stretch I had a carrot to chase, the rider who started 20-30 seconds before me was in my sights. After I passed him I felt relieved that I wouldn't be last. I was worried about the turnaround point as you have to cross the 2 lanes. I could see some other riders up the road make the crossing early instead of waiting till you get at the turn and have to negotiate the cars making the turn at the light. With no cars behind me I moved over into the shoulder on the left side of the road. When I made the turn I came in a little too fast and almost came into the head on traffic. I'll have to be more careful with that turn.

Coming back in I just kept an eye on my speed, I knew I needed to be around 24 mph to have a 20 minute time. I passed 2 more riders but I don't think they were doing the time trial as they were riding side by side chatting. When I saw the finish line I turned it up another notch and caught another Time Trialist on the hill leading up to the finish line.

My official time was 20:35:55 and averaged 23.3mph. How did I do with my pacing?

Mile 0-2
Time: 5:17
Avg Watts: 300
Speed: 22.8

Mile 2-4
Time: 5:32
Avg Watts: 288
Speed: 21.7

Mile 4-6
Time: 4:53
Avg Watts: 264
Speed: 24.6

Mile 6-8
Time:  4:57
Avg Watts: 305
Speed: 25

I'm not sure if my pacing was very good when my ending watts were the same as the beginning watts. Next time I might try to not go so soft of miles 2-4. I think I was way to conservative on this hilly section. Bottom line I had fun and it gives me a benchmark to cut my time down by 36 seconds. I passed 2 riders on full on time trial bikes with skin suits and aero helmets. I felt good about that plus I was not passed by anybody.

Me warming up at the Veloway, photo courtesy of the Bike Noob.

Today after work I headed out on Limecreek road down to Volente and back. I passed several other cyclists enjoying the afternoon. As I came up to the 3 Sisters hill I really didn't have a plan, at least I wasn't out to try to break my personal best of 3 minutes and 23 seconds that I set back on Christmas day. On the first sister as the climb started I got out of the saddle and proceeded up. I think I went a bit too hard on this sister as I got to the top I took a little rest and let my power drop to 245 watts (Avg). The rest is short as the second sister looms.

Once again I got out of the saddle to attack the second sister. Again I paced myself and felt good on the way up. As I crested the second I looked down at my Garmin and was surprised to see the timer was at 2'20". This lit a fire under me as it seemed the 3 minute mark was put into perspective.

For the 3rd and final sister I rose out of the saddle for the final attack. About 1/2 way up I did sit back down to catch my breath for a few revolutions and then attacked one last time. As I got to my finish line I hit the lap button and the Garmin displayed 3'15.96". That's 7 seconds faster than my previous best.

I plugged my data into the Hill Climb Power Calculator to play with the numbers a bit to see what kind of power I'll need to get down to 3 minutes for my years goal.

Working the the Power Calculator there's 2 values that I can control, my weight and Power. My bike weight is something I could play with but about all I could do is spend at least a couple grand on lightweight wheels to get the weight down 3 or 4 pounds or so. The weight savings isn't enough to spend that kind of money. I'll just have to shave the weight off me plus improve my power.

What kind of power will I need to produce and what will I have to weight to do it? I plugged some numbers in and came up with this combination that seems realistic.

As you can see the main thing I'll need to increase is the power that I can hold for 3 minutes. As I sit here and write this I went back to the data for today's climb and looked at the 3 hills, in particular I looked at just the climbs not where the hills crest and turn into short decents. On the 1st sister I averaged 454 watts. On the 2nd sister I averaged 440 watts. Finally on the 3rd sister I averaged 488 watts.

From this data it would appear I can output the required wattage so it's not so much about boosting my power I think the better approach is to increase my anaerobic conditioning so I can sustain the required power for the full 3 minutes and not take the 2 breaks at the crest of the 1st & 2nd Sisters.

Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions on a short hill time trial such as this? Word on the street is there is going to be one in June, father's day weekend to be precise. The race would be a hill climb TT and a circuit race. The hill in question very well could be the new road across from Jester that leads up to the newly finished apartment buildings. I haven't had a chance to ride up there, but it probably has a very similar profile to Jester.

For today's lunchtime workout I did my Greystone/360 route as a 30 minute Time Trial effort. The time trial starts after I cross Mesa Drive on Greystone. For the 30 minutes I averaged 18.14, my normalized power was 292, average power was 258.

The only notable thing on the ride was when I was heading down Mesa towards the end of the Time Trial, I see a rider ahead of me which gave me a nice carrot to chase. As I was approaching the light at Spicewood Springs he slowed at the red light and then ran the light. The rider nearly got run over as he went right in front of a car making a left hand turn who had the turn arrow. I caught him shortly on Mesa, get this he was in full Garmin/Chipotle kit. Not only was he in full kit, but he had a team issued Felt along with a Garmin 705. I was going to say something to him about the light, but kept on going as I was still going on my Time Trial effort and passed him at 23 mph so didn't want to slow down to chat. He did sure look the part though, besides the fact that I caught him and passed him. You never know the pros might be in town for the Tour de Gruene. Word has gotten out that local rider Lance Armstrong is signed up for the team time trial this weekend.

On further investigation it could have been Garmin-Chipotle rider Pat McCarty who resides here in Austin. Pat if that was you, don't run red lights, APD is out enforcing bike related traffic infractions plus it's dangerous and gives us all a bad name. Second if you want a rematch let me know, however I prefer it be on your recovery day.