My weekend of racing (Road/TT content)

You’ll all be pleased to know I found my Powertap in time for the UK Corporate Games this weekend – this will come in handy for the TT tomorrow and some of you expressed curiosity as to my power output during the RR on Sunday.

For TTing I have fitted the clip-ons I have, but to get them low enough I have slammed my stem and turned it upside-down for mega low bars. I’ll be wearing tights and long sleeves to minimise drag, and I’ll see if I can find some socks to cut up to make shoe covers…

I’ll post and let you know how I get on 🙂

Long sleeves perhaps, but I reckon any aero benefit of tights will be far offset by how hot you’ll get!

Shave your legs and bare arms should be ok also duct tape on helmet vents and take the peak off.

Good luck, cheers for all the advice on my road wheel build thread.

Good luck. Put Watts on your head unit display as big as possible. Set it to 10 second average. Keep it at 260-280W for the TT. You won’t even look at it in the RR. I tend to glance at NP and think how soon before I die.

No gloves, tape vents on helmet, jersey two sizes too small. One bottle, gel on the line and every 40 minutes. Oh and take care pinning the number on nice and tight.

Forget the tights, and unless you have a compression top, short sleeves.

Good luck. Shall keep an eye out for the race report.

Pissing it down and cold this morning, I may wear longs just for warmth!

Target power for the TT is 320w

OK so your entertaining the kids now but what was the final outcome?

Oh & why did you have to bring the wet weather with you 🙁 out on Wednesday evening it was bone dry under tyre.

Tt Ws this morning. Powertap didn’t work, probably as a consequence of water in the wiring, so given my lack of actual testing experience I wasn’t sure about pacing. Went off a little easily maybe but finished strongly.

Bike setup wasn’t the most comfortable but was reasonable for a first guess, and seemed really fast, surprisingly so. Don’t know my final time as did not wait around in the rain but I had to wait at one roundabout and went the wrong bloody way at another, wbt a pillock. Thatmihjt’ve cost me 30s or a bit more.

Some hardcore TTers present though, fastest time on the board when I left was 20’06…

We (Vodafone) got 2 golds and 2 silvers in the cycling! Go us!

The 20’06 time was Asda so you must’ve beaten that.. Nice job!

Several age groups in Corporate Games so we may have won an age group gold without overall fastest time. We did have a British cycling coach riding, he’s pretty handy.

I think I was in open, I dunno what the other categories are 🙂

Vodafone, dubious use of contract staff again I wonder? 🙂

When’s the road race?

Tomorrow 1.30 start.

Well that was fun. 1.65 mile course pretty flat, no sharp corners really, quite a headwind on the long back uphill straight though leading into a corner then into about 100 yards of downhill sprint for the line.

I ended up in ‘open’ category for some reason, I don’t think I was asked, which included everyone not in a gender or age category, and all the good racers apparently. We went off last, and I was a caught out by how fast the good people set off so I didn’t make it into the bunch at first. I sat with about 4 blokes trying to bridge the gap, but they all blew up inside a couple of laps. I caught up with a group with whom I rode until the leaders came by followed by a faster group. I got on the back of them and the pace was manageable but I was already a lap down by this point. Resolving to ignore this minor detail and enjoy the race I kept with them, doing a bit of work now and then. In the first half of the race they seemed to be attacking a bit on the last corner before the long headwind bit but I kept in touch fairly easily.

About half way though though I started to get a bit tired but apparently so did they. We’d hoovered up lots more people by lapping them so there was about 30-40 in the bunch to my surprise when I looked behind me. Everyone sat up on the headwind straight, hoping someone would come through, but of course no-one wanted to, so we all got a bit of a rest.

Unfortunately (and somewhat predictably) I’d lost count of how many laps I’d done and how many times I’d been lapped by the three properly fast guys in the lead (3 it turned out), partly due to me not realising my Garmin wasn’t set to auto-lap, so when the action started on the last headwind straight I didn’t really notice what was going on. Someone shouted out ‘one lap to go’ which I assumed to mean the finish was at the end of the last complete lap, but I think the leaders came through just at the end of the lap which meant the bunch was then sprinting for 4th. I wasn’t ready for it which was a shame, as they weren’t going that fast and I reckon I’d have been right up the front. Course I was a lap down so it didn’t matter but still 🙂

Anyway it was really exciting and I loved it – kept looking down and being surprised how high my HR was. Being a flat course it suited me far better than MTB racing I think and being in a bunch really got me going. Great stuff, I’ll definitely look for more road races.

Corporate Games race data by molgrips[/url], on Flickr

Corporate Games power summary by molgrips[/url], on Flickr

Well done moly. All that matters is that you enjoyed it. Based on your power, you would make fine pack fodder 😉 and not wanting to work is very common in 4th cat races. Keep at it.

I’d like to have another go at actual 4th cat, I reckon I might have a chance. The above is based on having done very little riding for ages so should be fairly easy to improve upon 🙂

Pretty good power, though watts/kg is a bit low, you’d do ok on a flat course 🙂

I’m not sure how your 5 min power comes out higher than your 4 min power though.

I’m not sure how your 5 min power comes out higher than your 4 min power though.

I thought that, my guess would be that 5 minutes included two sprint efforts – one right at the start, one right at the end, with an easier chunk in the middle. So the 4 minute power only picks up on one sprint effort.

I’m not sure how your 5 min power comes out higher than your 4 min power though.

Cos it was all bursts and fits and starts due to weaving around in a bunch all the time. As above – 5 mins must’ve included two such bursts.

I know I can do more than 300W for 5 mins, I can do over 300W for a 10 easily enough. Saturday’s TT would have been interesting to compare, but the PT wasn’t working 🙁

Everyone sat up on the headwind straight, hoping someone would come through, but of course no-one wanted to, so we all got a bit of a rest

LOL. A mate did the RAS a few years ago, it’s the only pro level stage race in the UK an amateur can enter apparently.

The gap between pros and most ams was so great that most ams formed their own group/race, which ended up like a Sunday run, including piss-stops and folk at the back shouting “ease off” when the pace went up 😀

Did you find out your time and position for the TT?

Got the official published ‘results booklet’ today (they do stuff like this :roll:)

Apparently I was 6th in the RR and 7th in the TT, which is frankly mind buggering since the winner did 20’02 and there were plenty of 22s and 23s on the board by the time I left. I have no idea of my time, they didn’t include it, but I must’ve had a barn-stormer. Gutted they haven’t posted the time!