Mike's Bike Blog

This year one of my goals is to ride up the 3 Sisters in under 3 minutes. Throughout the year I've been whittling away at that time. I started 2009 with my best time at 3'24 and set times at 3'16, 3'11 and finally I had gotten it down to 3'09.

My last few times when I set out to try and beat the 3 minute mark something would happen. On one attempt I got almost all the way up to top of the 1st sister and I came unclipped. Another time I went to shift from the big ring to the small ring 1/2 way up the 1st sister and it didn't shift thus I lost my momentum. Today, I got a good warm up riding out to the water treatment plant and back to the base of the sisters.

On all past rides my time up the 1st sister is 1'20, today I was surprised to see it at 1'06! I knew with a good split at this point the goal was well within my grasp. I was feeling good, I hadn't overcooked myself at this point, I averaged 516 watts and 12.6 mph on this section. For the second sister I tried to keep the effort consistent but also to pace myself a bit so I have enough in the tank for the final sprint. I averaged 420 watts and 7.8 mph. On the last sister I averaged 473 watts and 8.6 mph for the final 36 second sprint to the top. For the entire effort I averaged 424 watts and 10.5 mph.

Now that I've beat the 3 minute mark (2'53) next year's bar will be set at 2'30.