Time Trial Weekend

Saturday was the makeup date for the 4k State track time trial.  Unlike the previous weekend the forecast was clear and there would be nothing to stop the event.  I had thought the 3k sucked and was already hard enough,  the 4k wasn't going to be much better.  I am still not much of a track rider, my peddle stroke is not smooth enough to be fast on a fixed gear bike.  I think this winter I will have to buy a used track bike to do velodrome workouts next year.  Maybe try a few scratch races. The benefits from track workouts can greatly increase your sprinting speed, and peddling speed in general.  The track will make you a faster bike racer, just take Mark Cavendish for example. 

Since the velodrome is 200 meters around I would be doing 20 laps today.  The main goal is to keep the bike on or below the black line, to ensure you are doing the shortest route possible.  This is the one thing I am actually good at on the track.  The hardest part about doing these events is I am using a borrowed bike.  All setup is done at the track and it always tends to be different from one day to the next.  Also your gearing selection is very limited.  For today's event I was using at 48/15 T combination.  If I build a track bike I am going to put a crank bigger then 48T on it.

Maybe the hardest part of this time trial is the standing start.  In a regular TT you can start in a easier gear and slowly shift up.  On the track you are stuck spinning the big gear.  The first lap can cost you tons of time if you have a slow start.  So when you stat the first few peddle strokes require a ton of muscle.   After that you can settle down and get into a rhythm.  20 laps is a long time.  My run wasn't to bad,  my lap times stayed fairly consistent.  The problem was I just wasn't fast enough.  I finished 7th/8 in category.   The funny thing is I can do a 20k time trail with a faster average speed then a 4k on the track.  Hopefully after some more track work next year I can master this skill.

State Track Results @ Bloomer

Sunday was the big event for me.  The Hines Park Time Trial.  Two years ago I had raced my first bike racing event here.  Seems like a long time ago but since then I have had a lot of fun.  I have also been able to push my fitness to new levels.   The race is a 20k out and back race against the clock.  Seams easy right?  Well Hines runs East to West and has a bad habit of being a wind tunnel.  Time trials hurt, and to add insult to injury this race starts heading East with the tailwind.  So, the last 6 miles can be summed up by how much pain your able to withstand. 

Luckily my start time was 8:47 am, meaning I could race in the cool morning air for a change.  My previous times were 34:49 and 30:13 last year.  My training had indicated that I was on fitness to run around 29 minutes flat, so I was hoping I could break into the upper 28's.  Being the engineer I am I had my splits planned out on how fast I needed to reach the turnaround to meet my goal.  However there was one small glitch in my plans, the wind was light and not heavy.  On a bike your biggest enemy is air resistance.  This force increases exponentially once you reach speeds over 20 mph.  So bike position becomes everything.  I had worked a lot on my aero position and felt confident that I could slice through the head wind.

Back to the race though, so how is a light wind bad?  Even with a light wind at your back it still feels like a headwind because your going so fast.  Also it would mean my pace estimates were are worthless.  So I started out smashing my pedals turning them over at an average rate of 95 rpm.  Everything felt awful, my speed wasn't what it should have been and I was falling off pace.  So I just kept gunning it.  I reached the turn around point well off my mark.  In fact it caused me to panic some because I didn't want to miss my goal.

First off I will say biking into a head or cross wind is never fun, there is no coasting.  You have to constantly maintain momentum and just power through it.  That's were the pain element factors in,  as the lactic acid builds the legs just burn and hurt.  Cause of the wind I had started to hard, I was actually ahead of my pace based on the wind.  Halfway through the return trip the pain finally caught up with me.  To make matters worse I hit a pothole and almost crashed.  Its at this point a sane person gives up, there is no point in deliberately making your body hurt.  However I just kept turning over those pedals at 95 rpm.  I think the grimace on my face showed it all coming down the finish chute.  However I stopped the clock at 29:02 and some change.  Right on pace after all, funny how that works out.  My time was good enough to grab me 6th/15 in category and 31st overall.  Not to bad considering I do not have a real time trial bike and rear disc wheel.  Those items alone could make me more aerodynamic and save me an extra 10-90 seconds over this distance.  Next year I will have to break into the 28's.

Hines Park TT Full Results