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Sunday 2 September 2012

25 mile TT, 12 mile hilly TT, 2/3 Surrey Road Race

After reading a chap found my musings to be soporific , I'll try and keep it upbeat, wouldn't want to upset the masses ;-)

This week has been pretty good, had a good ride in the hills on Monday, a few commutes, a couple of laps of the park, and I was approaching a weekend packed with cycling. Joyous. I usually try and plan my weekends around a race (riding wise I mean) so that I have one almost rest day leading up to a race on Sunday. This is usually quite straight forward and I either have Saturday off totally, or just do something very easy to prepare for the race to come.

This weekend though, I signed myself up for quite a lot of potential pain, I had a 25 mile TT down in Bentley on Saturday, then Sunday morning before the race I had entered a club event (hosted by Kingston Phoenix, but had many wheelers riding) which was a 12 mile hilly TT, which included a climb of Box Hill, and then came half way back up from the other side, the twist being that the last 900 yard hill would be timed as its own section and then run as a hillclimb within the TT - so there was no taking this one easy. I then obviously had a road race, which was meant to be on the Seale course, put on by WyndyMilla (turned out to be run on another course due to roadworks, but still a 60 odd mile race over rolling roads).

25 TT

I signed up to this as I've done a few 10's, and did the sporting 10.4 Richmond Park TT, and its fair to say I've done OK. Not amazing, but not bad by any stretch, almost to the point where I need to spend another fortune on a TT bike ... ;-)

This was run on a course called H25/8 in the murky world of TT'ing, it essentially is belting up and down the A31 between Alton (where I went to college, grew up nearby) and Farnham, with the HQ in Bentley (somewhere I lived for a while when I was younger, and home to the Scout group I was a member of, very briefly!). So it was fair to say I knew the course (and I've worked in the Hen and Chicken, forgot that bit!), but I've never ridden it, only ever driven. It was meant to be quite a quick, safe course, so I chose to sign up.

Race day rocked around, lovely weather, bit windy on the outward leg, but not too bad at all. I was there with a few other wheelers, notably Paul Clarkson, who was setting off 3 mins in front of me. Being an unknown entity in terms of TT's I was 24th off, of a massive field. Little warm up and I was on my way, I had made a rough guesstimation on pacing with the powermeter, and was going to stick to around 300 watts for the first half, then up it slowly to 320, and then aim to do the last 5 miles at 350 or so, which was roughly all in line with what I've managed in training rides.

I went off a bit harder than I planned, and by the time I had got to the turn, and back to the start on the other side of the road (which is almost exactly 10 miles) I was at around 320 watts and went through the 10 marker 2 seconds down on my 10 PB. Carried on, and all was going well, I came back by the start-point, at roughly 15 miles, feeling good, and looking forward to the last 5 mile stretch which was mostly downhill and had a tailwind, it was shortly after this point at around 17 miles I caught Paul, my 3 minute man, this was promising as he said he'd do a 1.0x, so at this point I was on for a 57 with 8 miles to go (as he did indeed do 1.0x), and then disaster struck, just opposite the Hen and Chicken, a pub I'd spent many hours of my life scrubbing pots, I hit what must have been the only hole on the course. Back tyre went down with a pinch flat almost straight away! Bollocks! Back to the HQ it was, I was very annoyed. But my own fault I suppose.

Since then I've done some calculations and had a look at the file, and assuming I'd have done the rest of the turn and back in at least the same power I'd have done a low 56, but I was planning and was able to put more in I think, so I would imagine I'd have done a high 55, which would have been a great start. But not to be, will have to go back another time and do it and try for the 55 again.

Avg speed at time of fail 26.3 mph
avg power 312 watts
39 mins

Hilly 12 Mile TT

Run on the GS/281 course - http://app.strava.com/segments/753652 - hosted by Kingston Phoenix

As I mentioned, and as you can see, it was a hilly TT, and involved going up Box hill, back down it, then most of the way back up it to finish. The twist being the last half a mile hill which was going to be timed and then used as a Hill Climb within the TT. So most people probably saved a bit for it as its always nice to have a shot at two things in one ride!

I've done most of the course before, and I'd opted to leave my TT bars on my road bike for the effort, and I was pleased with this decision when I found out at the last minute that our club TT expert and record holder over nearly all distances, Steve Irwin (19.20 10 mi and sub 50 min 25 - man) had taken a late entry.

I was set off mid field, which suited me as it potentially saved me the embarrassment of being caught! I started and was quickly into my groove. I was about 2 miles in (the start is mostly downhill to the foot of Box Hill) and was about to take the left turn into ZigZag Rd, I saw in the distance about 25 riders had just turned up there, I flew in, and quickly got into the bars and got on my way, luckily these riders were pleasant enough and I just went up the outside.I was making good time, and did a 6 min Box Hill effort (possibly just under, will see when I have fixed the strava file) which was a good sign. I went over the top of Box and into the last 3rd of the course. As I hit the bottom of the final long 2 mile drag up to the finish (where the last Hill Climb bit really kicks up) I was on a 23 mph avg, and feeling OK.

This draggy road was just that, I felt like I was cycling through treacle, and had it not been for the powermeter I would have been livid with myself as it felt as if my legs had given up, but they hadn't I was just needed to put out nearly 400 watts to go 10 mph, it wasn't even steep! I made sure I had a bit left in the legs for the last bit, however. I went down the dip which then led straight into the timed section and really motored at the beginning and tried to carry on as best I could, in and out of the saddle with whatever I could throw at it, I saw the line and lunged for it, stopped the clock with 32.22 (which would have won me last years event). However the lurking feeling was always that Steve would come in very quickly....fast forward 5 mins or so I see him coming, and he says he's done a 31.40 or so. Very fast, but as expected from one of the most aero men out there!

Anyway, the results came in and the top 5 for the overall (of 29 starters) looked like this :

1 Steve Irwin 31-40
2 Rob Sharland 32-22 (315 watts avg - 335 normalised)
3 Phil Ember 33-43
4 Damien Breen 34-05
5 Stuart Pearce 34-14 


And a few hours later the 900 yard hill climb results were released :

1 Rob Sharland 1-33.13 (avg power 495w)
2 Gareth Thomas 1-42.35
3 Phil Ember 1-43.10
4 Damien Breen 1-43.19
5 Steve Irwin 1-44.00


So a pleasing start to the day, for sure! Maybe one day I'll catch Steve, but it will take a lot of aero work given he did the above time with 30 less watts!

WyndyMilla Road Race 2/3

Christ, I'm sick of typing now! So I'll try and keep this one short.

This ended up being run on the Cutmill Circuit due to roadworks on the Seale one. Slightly less suited to me I would say, Cutmill is quite rolling, lots of the course is uphill, and although the gradients are pretty tame, it does wear you down. I actually felt pretty good  considering the mornings events, so tried to stay in the right place. I only had one teamate in Robin Kirk today, and wit 9 riders from VC Meudon, they surely were the ones to watch. I knew Dean Corney was quite a handy rider, and was in the break that we caught right at the end of Parham Park, so he was one to watch. The laps started off quite quick, and I must admit I wasn't banking on a break staying away for long on this circuit today, people were going, and coming back, I tried to get away a couple of times and got brought back, the best time to go was clearly after the climb as it was really knackering people out. I was trying to keep myself in good shape, but I did go into the red once on the climb, so it was certainly making a few people puff!

Anyway, about half way through, quite a large group got away, I think around 6? They got a decent gap, and by the 45 mile mark they had 2 mins on us, I was trying to work on the front with a couple of others to bring it back, but I must say the bunch (those that were not Meudon as they had riders up the road) didn't seem interested, there were a couple who were willing to do some turns, but most wouldn't. So after a lap of trying to push on, and not getting anywhere, I called it a day, and sat in for the last two laps, I think another group got away and in the end, what was left of the bunch was sprinting for 15th or so, needless to say there were riders making fairly rash moves for 1 point, I wasn't interested and by this point the weekends riding (and indeed week before, as its been 7 days with no rest day) had caught up with me and I was happy to just roll over the line. Bit disappointing all in all as I know that I have the legs to place in these races, so really poor form of me to not get into that break. Still, even with all those miles in the legs it was certainly not an issue at any point today, so maybe in the next 3 I might be able to do something.

Looking forward there are 3 more RR's left, one on this circuit again, so hopefully I'll be a be more on the ball and will watch the contenders a bit more closely. Interesting that the High Wycmb Race is on the same circuit I came 3rd on up in Oxford earlier in the year, it suits me well, so looking forward to that.

Race Stats

62 miles
23 mph avg
230w ap 280 np












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