40k - Post Race Analysis...

"May be" was right...as I mentioned in my previous post...due to the extremely high tides caused by the new moon and, due to Mars, Jupiter and Venus being 5 degrees out of alignment, my race this past weekend DIDN'T go as planned :-(

First of all, I didn't break an hour, clocking in at 1:00:47.
Secondly, my average power output, 252 watts, was the lowest in 3 years for this race. I held 258 watts outbound, and only 244 on the return.

Considering I felt my aerodynamics were definetly better than last year.
And considering that I had good legs coming into the race.
But most of all, considering the fact that I really HURT myself as I could hardly pedal my bike during my warm down and I could hardly walk all afternoon!
I was sort of dissapointed...to say the least...

After analyzing my power data, even if I had held an average of 259 like last year, I would have still done about 1:00:05 or so - according to the formulas on this site Analytic Cycling.

To me, the conditions this year were a little worse than last, but I'm not using that as an excuse since several people went faster this year too. I guess it's back to the drawing board to find about 1 sec a kilometer.

40k TT Time

Due to all kinds of excuses and other things, this coming Sunday is going to be my first race of the year. It is going to be the Team Quick Release 40K Time Trial. I'm looking forward to really CRUSHING my last year's time...considering, last year I had a flat that took over 9 minutes to fix...Hahaha...

Results:
2004 - 1h 2m 24s @ 264watts and 38.9kph.
Unofficial 2005 - 59m 40s @ 259watts and 40.1kph

Even though I put out more power in 2004, I went faster in 2005 due to using a Syntace Streamliner aerobar. In 2004 I used Cane Creek Speedbars which are just not that aero and for the same power output I found them to be just over 1kph slower than aerobars!

Remembering back to last year, I could tell during the warm up that I just didn't have it and during the ride I was really struggling to hold my wattage. Hopefully this year I will feel better, but judging by how I felt over the last couple of days...things look mediocre to me! I think I'll be keeping my workouts to the short and fast variety till Sunday.

Here's a short footage that Darin took from last years TT:



I like to ride back and high and my last year TT position was what most people would consider to be really high. So in order to get some "free speed" I've dropped my bar position by 1cm and my stem is now down on the headset. I'll figure out by Thursday whether I can comfortable ride this low. If I can, it should pay some dividends during the race...hopefully...if the wind is not too strong, and I feel good, and the moon, stars, and planets align, I can "offically" break the hour...maybe...

2006 Metric Century Mud Fest

This past Sunday was Honolulu Bicycling League's annual Metric Century bike ride.

On any sunny day, imo, this is HBL's best ride, even better than the Century Bike Ride. Starting at Haleiwa's beautiful Kaiaka Beach Park and running to the 100km turnaround point at Swanzy Beach Park in Kaaawa, the scenery of Oahu's North Shore, with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other can't be beat. But unfortunately, not this year!

The ride started under cloudy skies, but a couple of miles out of Haleiwa town (and for essentially the remainder of the ride), the roads turned wet and muddy for all the 700 or so participants. Had I known the entire ride was going to be that way, though, someone would have had to pay ME $30 to do the ride! But being the good HBL supporter that I am, I coughed up the 30 bucks and signed up as a late registrant, sans Tee, that morning.

But the show must go on and luckily for me, I was the SMARTEST guy of all!!! Just prior to the start, I decided to put on my SKS Race Blade rear fender and it truly saved my day...no irritating wet dirty road spray stripe painted up my a$$ and back! Just look at how clean my ride number is! I can tell you that no one else had a cleaner number than me! I mean, if it functions and makes life more pleasant, who cares how dorky a fender looks!!!

And as prevously mentioned, my new Ti bike performed purrrrfectly...except for the fact that I had my seat TOO and very PAINFULLY high on the way out. Once adjusted properly, the bike was flawless.

On the way out, some of the islands fastest tri guys were on the front driving the head pack to cover the first 46.5kms in a slippery and dangerous, but fast, 1h 12min 30sec. (If your wondering, the ride is NOT a true 100k but closer to 92k.) On the way back, I hooked up with my friends Mark and Darin and we got back with a slower than usual ride time of 1h 17min 40sec and covered 45.4kms.

Our return trip from Swanzy was not as easy as we were expecting, thanks to absolutely NO help from the usual trades that are suppose to really usher you back to Haleiwa. Mark was strong and doing fine for the entire ride, but D was not feeling all that great for the last 15kms or so.

Shortly after standing on the side of the road to fix the second of 2 flats, all wet and dirty, D contemplated taking a (don't tell anyone) "short cut" back to the finish in Haleiwa. Luckily for him, under threat of "exposure," he sucked it up and covered the entire distance on the official course route. If he didn't, though, this lack of intestinal fortitude would have to have been recorded for all prosperity...somewhere...maybe online??? Hahahah...lol..

Here is some of my power data from this year's ride and how it compared to 2005 and 2004. In 2005, I took more than a few really good hard pulls on the front of the pack on the way out, but this year, I just sat in and didn't take any pulls on the way out. Hence last year, I had more time in the my highest power zone.

2006







2005







2004