Mike's Bike Blog

I'm inching closer to my new goal of 27 mph in this installment of the RunFar Time Trial on my first loop I averaged 25.7mph. The first obstacle will be the 26 mph barrier. The ride was almost flawless, there was one hiccup however, when I turned around to head back in on MoPac there was a car that turned onto Mopac as well and when I looked back to check for cars I saw them. I think they knew I wanted to move over to the right so slowed up but I didn't want to cross and have them speed up. So I waited until they passed. But looking back a few times cost a little bit of time.

I was happy to see my results actually come out this time. I didn't mention it but the last time I did the TT there was some type of malfunction with the timer boxes and my start didn't get recognized and I ended up with an erroneous time of 34 minutes with a 14.1 mph average. According to my Garmin I did it in 18:44.

 I have been wanting to take part in the 2nd loop competition that is part of the Time Trial the last few times I've been out there. The 2nd loop is a separate category for those that go out for seconds on the course. When I got done with the first effort I rode back down to the veloway entrance to catch my breath before going out for seconds. My plan for loop 2 was to keep my power at my Sweet Spot level. Figured by doing that I wouldn't blow up on the course. This time I had trouble getting over to the left hand shoulder as I approached the turnaround point with all the traffic. I kept looking back checking for an opening adequate before froggering it across the lane. As it turned out the opening wasn't as big as I thought, I made it across fine but it was a lot closer than I would have liked.

The only noteworthy point on the 2nd loop was on the back stretch, that was into the wind I had some yahoo drafting off of me for a good mile or so. I finally had enough of this so pulled up to let him pass. He dangled in front of me and made a good carrot, but with 2 miles left I passed him for good.

For the first loop I ended up 22nd overall and 4th in my age group. For the second loop I ended up winning with my 25 mph average. NOTE: When the results were first posted today I was sitting 20th overall and 3rd in my age group. At least I'm still 1st for the second loop.