Keep On Bloggin' In the Free World -- Log

Wowwee - busy week for me, bike-wise! 4km Pursuit on Monday, 19km TT on Tues, and had a couple track races tonite, feeling good and tired!!

Let's break it down:

4km Pursuit

I'm starting to get the hang of these i think..today, i went out a bit too hard.. Kevin was out, and being the superstar he is, recorded my lap times: 31.37, 27.67, 29.22, 29.94, 29.90, 29.96, 30.29, 30.56, 30.24, 30.07 and 29.67, for a total of 5'58"71 - primary mission of getting under 6mins accomplished!

Seems pretty consistant, tho i went out too hard. I should be aiming for a 33 sec 1st lap, blew it, and then kept it up on the second... Silly me, i 'felt good', so i layed into it. Assuming the "each second 'saved' in the first laps results in 4 lost in the final laps" rule stands true, those three seconds prolly cost me 12 seconds...which would have landed me below 5'45...which is where i need to get. (Goal is to get it down to 5'30...)

Otherwise you can see i held it well, and picked it up in the final laps.. The Xero aero bars are starting to feel pretty good. Really enjoying this event!!

New Clothes!

We interrupt this report to let you know that The Shish has his cool new OA gear, and here's a quick shot. =)

Sydney TT

It was a cool, but nice evening. Not much of a breeze, which is rare... My aero bars haven't arrived yet, so did it in the drops (it's my understanding aerobars save about 30 seconds on this course.)

Got an early spot, so started 6th, to try and ride in some of the remaining warmth! About 25 people showed up, nice to see so many out! TT's are great, everyone should do them!

So i started out, nice and easy.. Legs felt totally clogged...achey and slow...not good!! My plan was to get my HR up to ~175bpm, and hold that for the first lap.

Luckily, after a couple minutes, my legs 'cleared out' and were firing well. I also kept my cadence really high, up around 120RPM - it felt really good riding there. Legs and lungs were both pushed, but neither were hit harder than the other...a good balance!

First lap (there're two laps of the course) i clocked around 13'27 - not a record time at all, but on target to keeping my time below 27mins.

Just before crossing the line i started picking it up, got my HR up over 180 and held it there. Still felt pretty good, and maintained this pace. There were also several riders visible ahead, and kept working to catch 'em - yip!

Come the final corner, i started to hammer, and was given'er 100% for the last 400m to the line - this *hurt*...ouch!! Finish time was ~26'45, which i'm happy with. It's good to know that i went faster in the second lap, looks like i'll need to pick up the pace a couple more BPM in the first lap for next time....with any luck, should be able to hit or get below 26mins.

Nice to accomplish two mini-goals this week!

Tragedy Strikes!!

So, i'm riding home along Lockside, and i hear the familiar 'crunk' noise my handlebars have been making for the last six month, and then there's a new 'snap!' and i see a bolt fall off my stem, and suddenly my handlebars are JELLY! AHHHH!! I grab my stem, and manage to nab a brake lever and slow down...

So one (of the two) bolts holding my stem to my handlebars broke!! ARRGH! And i'm in the middle of nowhere...luckily my buddy Andy was home, and came and picked me up at a nearby Coop gas station..not fun. (Thanks again dude!)

Spent the day today (Thu) dealing with this.. I tried to get my stem off, but wasn't budging a *bit*. Walked over to Oak Bay Bikes, where Hugh (exceptional guy) helped me with trying to get it under control.....after trying half-a-dozen different things, and essentially destroying my forks, the best we could do was rotate it a bit..it wasn't coming out at all.

So, it was time for Mr. Hacksaw. A few minutes later, and it was free!!! hahahah..

I went with this option because Hugh offered his old pair of used carbon forks, just my size, for an amazing $40!! (So wasn't too concerned about my old ones - i've been wanting to replace 'em for about a year now, and this worked out perfectly.)

Got everything back together, but they didn't have an appropriate stem, so pedaled up to my bike shope, Performance, and set about finding a quill adapter to threadless, and an appropriate stem. Now that i've got a new stem, i can also use my new Specialized bars (got 'em off eBay for a stupidly cheap $10, *new*!!)

Spent the afternoon throwing it all together, as you can see on the right. It all feels *really* nice. The fork absorbs the shock in a very different way, and i gotta say, i like it a lot. The bars are awesome too - man that bend in the middle of the drops is *comfortable* to be in, i gotta get some bars like this for the track too.. Only thing i gotta do is trim down the steerer tub, it's too high..

Also gotta see how it handles...feels a little less twitchy than the previous DeRosa forks...but might also be that the bars are about a half-inch higher than i'm used to.

After getting it all together, i raced out to the track (in record time, 36mins despite headwinds) to race!

Track Night!

Oh goodness, where *have* all the A riders gone? Only Sarah showed up, so we rode with the B's in their races tonight.

I had a lot of fun, i got to the front about four laps into the 24 Lap Scratch Race, and powered up to 50kph - looked back and no one was with me - ooopie!

A lap and a half later, the pack caught me, and i dropped back in. Next time i got to the front, accelerated again, and this time a rider stuck with me, but no luck staying away again... Did this a couple more times, keeping the pace nice and high.

Second race was a 12 Lap Snowball, and i just sat near the front of the pack, attacked a few times with no real 'stickers', but after several laps David M attacked hard, and so i jumped on his wheel, and worked with him to stay ahead. Jim caught up with us, and the three of us maintained our 'escape' for the last bit of the race.

Yay! Lovin' the racing. =)

One more pic - here's my old fork and stem - you can see where it's been Mr. Hacksaw'd, and the arrow is pointing at where the bolt busted off. TTT - you're on notice!! This is the third failure i've had from your stem! I had to replace the bolt-on section a year ago as it was cracked where the bolt is..and now the bolt just busted off! (And it had cracked in the same spot again, i noticed on inspection.) Not cool.

Here's the regular Logbook details:

* Sat (May 6th) - 2hr EM ride w/Kevin, also first ride in my new OrganicAthlete gear - yay! The shorts are too heavily padded, but i've actually been liking them a *lot*. Especially since they say 'GO VEGAN!' on the back. =)

Kevin keeps insisting that the way they stretch they say GO EAT A VEGAN, but i haven't been able to detect this at home.. ;)

* Sun - 2hr EM w/8x10s HSS - went out to the track, and basically did 8 200m sprints with 6-7min recovery in-between. Holy crap that killed me. Doing one 200m is a breeze...it gets pretty harsh after a while! Did it in a lighter gear (47x15) as well, to work on spin.

* Mon - Pursuit, as above!

* Tue - Sydney TT, as above!

* Wed - very much-needed rest!!

* Thu - Track racing, as above!

Tomorrow (Fri) is gonna be another rest day...unless i get out for an hour and take Sat or Sun off. I'm feeling pretty beat right now, lots of intensity...

Three big races are coming up *really* quickly - Trackfest on the 20th (our own event), Bastion Square crit on the 28th (assuming i can still corner with the new forks!) and the third installment of the Burnaby Velodrome Challenge the following weekend, June 2nd-4th.

Very excited about all this. =)

Happy riding!