Powertap Withdrawls...

NOT!!!

Today I did 4 loops (from sign at low point to top dip in road) of Tripler in pretty windy tradewind conditions:

1 - 9:05 high cadence tempo climbing
2 - 9:05 med-high cad tempo climbing
3 - 9:00 bigger gear where possible
4 - 8:35 1 min on / 1 min off (standing 15-20 seconds each on)

I remember that I usually do this climb in 9 minutes ??? flat...so the first one was OK in 9:05 since I was just tempo climbing.

I went a little harder on the 2nd climb, but could only manage the same time - making me a little perturbed.

The third time, I tried to go faster.....but was only 5 seconds better! That 3rd lap made me mad, so I decided to do 1 on/1 off to the top on the forth lap...8:35...more like it!!!

Unfortunately...I don't have NO POWER DATA cause that d@mn Powertap is on the blink, so I've got no idea of whether the windy conditions had anything to do with the times :-(

Oh well.....just need to keep the faith...

From Last Weeks Cambio Stage Race Time Trial

Steven, originally uploaded by IF Darin.

This just in...Wow!!!...the D-man's photo skills are starting to make me look good...i think he may be selling his bike and taking up a new hobby!!!

Here just hitting steep parts near the bottom of the 850' Pupukea Climb.

Thank goodness I had 650 wheels + 39 small ring + 27 cog on the rear. Made the climb much more manegable...being able to spin to recover.

Cambio Stage Race - June 16th and 17th

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This past Sunday, June 17th, was the Kalaeloa RR. The only difference from last years race was that this year, a short time trial was added on Saturday, which made it a 2 day stage race.

Since I wasn't feeling all that "chipper" last week, I only decided to do the race on Friday - after getting taunted by my bicycle insider guy. Luckily now that I have a dedicated TT bike, all I had to do was change my wheels out. Instead of using my Spinergy rear wheel, I used the rear wheel that came with the bike, since there was going to be a 850 ft climb at the end of the TT and the Spinergy rear wheel is very flexy.

Stage 1 Map: http://www.hawaiicyclingcup.com/alohastate_stage1_tt.pdf

There was a lot of guessing by everyone whether to use a heavier TT bike or a lighter road bike. In my case, my TT bike is almost 3 pounds heavier than my road bike - but I decided to just use my TT bike since I only used it once so far.

Saturday morning brought wet roads for most of the TT and my bike ended up looking like a mess.

Since I decided to race my 4 pound overweight ar$e in the 1-2-3 field, instead of the 4-5 field, I would say that I did OK (27:40) in the TT as the first 13 or so minutes were fast and pretty flat, then I took another 14 and a 1/2 minutes on the Pupukea climb. Ended up placing 4th in the Master Men field about a 1-1/2 minutes behind the big hitters in the MM field who ended up all doing it in the 26 minute range.

Me motoring along from Haleiwa to the Pupukea Safeway store: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0007000038&po=38&c=

Sundays road race was another tooth puller as I only decided to do it at 6:20am on Sunday morning. I mean, since I wasn't feeling it and all, a slug fest 50 miler with the 1-2-3 field was not something I was really looking forward too.

This years race was a waaaayyyy harder than last years!!! Now this is what bike racing is all about...really hard repeated jumps and very high speeds. I would say that bad positioning (and not enough conditioning) caused me to get popped on about the 13th lap.

It was a subtle attack that I didn't think was going to really pan out...so I reacted a little to slowly, and once I realized they weren't slowing down, I went balls to the walls for as long as I could to try to get on. I was just praying that I could keep my speed up until they slowed down...but this time, they didn't slow down :-(

Oh well...live and learn...

In the other big race, my friend Mark did really good and took 2nd overall in the MM4-5 field. Mark decided to use a pure road bike for Stage 1: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0007000012&po=12&c

Results to be posted on: http://cambiamento.wordpress.com/

My 16 pound race machine I used in the 15 lap, 50 mile, Stage 2 race.