Jul 8, 04:12 PM by Steve | Gravity is a fickle bitch
Posted in Cycling
Went out to meet the tuesday “hammerfest” ride, but Cathedral Oaks was closed at Los Carneros due to the Gap Fire. So we rode out to Old San Marcos instead. That 3 mile fight against gravity that we willing subject ourselves to time and time again. A group of 4 of us were a little ahead because of the light, and I ended up riding away from them about a minute in. I wasn’t really pushing very hard for the first mile, but when I was at just over 4 minutes to my “5 minute” interval driveway, I decided maybe I had some juice today. At that point I picked up my pace and drove my effort over LT.
Marco in the group behind caught up but held station a little behind me. He could have easily passed me if he wanted, but I guess he was taking it easy. Rounding the corner after the first mile I got a really clear view of the devestation from the fire. I had spent the first half or so paying more attention to the surrounding burned hills than to the actual climb and didn’t really ramp up the effort to the max until around the ranch, when I lost the view.
I knew I was doing really well when I hit the mailboxes in about 10:45. Unfortunately, I really faded in the steeper sections in the last mile in part because my front derailer cage is out of alignment, and I can’t get into a lower gear than 39×19 without some rubbing/grinding noises. The 39×21 was usable, barely, for the switchbacks. I still managed to come in under my previous PR, although only by a single second. But I have finally broken under 17 minutes, for a PR time of 16:59. If you told me I could do this a year ago, I would have laughed. I think I even said on here that I may break 18 minutes some day, but I would never go much faster than that! I did it this without the tailwind or competitive environment of the time trial last month, and it felt like a much easier effort. I’ve been feeling stronger and faster and this is a good sign than my power-to-weight is still going up. I’m attacking both sides of the equation: more power and less weight. Because gravity is a fickle bitch.
As an aside, I don’t have a power meter yet (but it’s coming soon!), but using various online calculators, these ~17 minute runs work out to roughly 300 Watts. I weigh roughly 65.7kg, so that’s about 4.6 W/kg.
Steve…here’s a tip for easily figuring your W/kg off your OSM time. I discovered that due to a “quirk of physics”, your average speed in meters/sec up OSM is approximately equivalent to your W/kg. Going up the 2.9 miles in 17 minutes is an average speed of 4.56 m/s.
Pretty cool, huh?
— Tom A. aka TnA at Jul 9, 05:20 PM