Power and BGC

Nothing major to post other than I finally got my powertap and its awesome. Possibly the best thing I've bought for my bike......ever. I've got a few days worth of files, and in time I hope to use the data to form trends and track my progress. Not to mention having power at your fingertips all the time helps train more consistently. I'm more than happy.

The Burkes Garden Century went a lot better than I thought it would. I was simply hanging on for dear life for the first 36 miles, and then after 10 miles of cruising by myself, I hung on for another 20 miles. The Coca-cola hincapie team was driving the pace at 27-30 mph constantly. It was possibly the hardest I've ever pushed on the bike. But they made the efforts so smooth it was almost easy. I can't wait to get away from Cat 4 racing.

90 miles in a little over 4 hours. Not too bad. Next year I'm going to try to hang on for the entire ride.

Hats off to MattP who did hang on for almost the whole ride. He was pinning down, and taking pulls. Hats off to Harne too, he was riding really well too.

2 Weeks since the last one....

Its been about two weeks since my last post. I thought it was about time to just throw some updates out there. ...

This coming saturday is the Burkes Garden Century. This is a 100 mile event that has become tradition on freshman move-in day at VT. We all meet at Narrows, VA and ride to Burkes Garden and back. The best thing about it is its all flat except for one climb. We'll try to close in on 4 hours for a finishing time as best we can. It'll be the longest mileage I've put in this year, but since its flat I wont consider it the longest. It should be fun though.

Too, I'll finally be picking up my powertap wheel this friday. I'm going to head up right after work on friday and try to get it installed before the BGC on saturday. It seems like I ordered it two months ago.......oh wait I did. But we got a really good deal on it, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Thanks to Bontrager, and East Coasters bike shop for working out a deal for the team.

Training has been going better than ever. Every time I go out and ride I feel even better. It could have something to do with not really getting started till June, but I'm hoping it carries over into cross season and into next year. It would be nice to upgrade to Cat3 in cross and road by mid-summer next year. If everything goes real well, I might even renew my NORBA, I know its not norba anymore, license next year and try to upgrade to expert. We'll have to see about that though.

Stay tuned for a BGC post.....

Crossroads

This weekend I headed down for a few races at the crossroads classic in north carolina. Here's how it went.

Thursday- In Salisbury, NC. I had raced here before during the 2006 crossroads. I hated the course then, but they've really changed it towards the better now. A figure 8, with 8 turns. The race started fast as balls and stayed that way till the end. (They mixed in the masters with us). I felt good the whole race, but just couldn't get towards the front for the finish. Those guys were fast. I started my speedometer about 3 minutes before the race, and my average speed was still like 25mph. So I'm guessing the average was around 26mph. That's fast for a 4 field.

Friday - In Statesville, NC. Carlson and Frink came down for this one. A L-shaped course, with some tight turns and two small false flat sections. This race started fast, but had a bunch of accelerations. There for the finish, but I just didn't have any punch for the end. These guys were fast too......I'm seeing a trend.

Saturday - In Harrisburg, NC. This course was not very special. It had two tight turns, and several other wide turns. The down side to the day was the heat, it was like 96 degrees without the heat index. I was feeling pretty drug out from the past two days, and that combined with the heat saw me dropping out after roughly halfway. What a wimp.

I guess three days in a row might be too much for me. I know I've never done well in the heat, but I should at least be able to hang on. Too there were fresh guys signing up for the races each day. That's why I think the Crossroads are the toughest series of races all season. But they were a good time, and I can still tell an improvement in my performance.

Hats off to the team, they all did well at the races as well.