Mike's Bike Blog

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.