Flapjack Flats TT (Cat 4)
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James Riehle
Posted Feb 7, 2010 8:32am
February 6, 2010 Finishing time: 30:20, good for 2nd place in Cat 4, and about 20th overall, out of 115 or so. Strong fields in the Masters and 1/2, as folks have been here training for the upcoming season. Post-race prizes, none; however, there were fresh cooked flapjacks! Pretty happy with the result, all things considered. Had just stepped off the plane from Boston 18 hours before the race, and hadn’t ridden outside for a week. I wanted to treat the race as a good season opener, but also realized that I’m not nearly at peak yet, and that I have a 3-day stage race starting next Friday. So, this would be a good leg opener and kick off my pre-race week, and to get back into my pre-race routine. This was the longest, non-hillclimb, TT that I’d done, so I wasn’t quite sure what power level I should target for approximately half an hour. I opted to go somewhat conservatively, targeting the 250-260 watt range for the duration, figuring that should leave me something for a kick at the end. That plan held fine for the outbound leg, which ended up being done at an average of 263 watts, in which I passed four of the riders who’d gone out ahead of me. The turn around the cone at the half-way point went a bit slower than I’d hoped (I riehle need to practice doing that at speed). After that, it was downhill into a head/cross-wind. The downhill slope made it a bit tough to hold the power window I was targeting – I tried going lighter than the 53×11, but found that trying to spin faster wasn’t getting the job done on the terrain/bumpy road surface, so I went back to 53×11 and tried to push harder. With about 5k to go, I was passed by my 30 sec. guy, and then with 2k to go, my 1 min. man. (They took the top two spots in the 45+ age group.) As soon as I got passed the second time, I picked up my effort and hammered over the last few minutes, figuring that I could burn everything that I had left. As it turned out, it was enough to take second, finishing exactly 1 min. behind the Cat. 4 winner. All things considered, it was fine, but were I to do it over again, I’d go harder on the outbound leg, knowing that it’d be tough to hold power high enough on the downhill return leg. Also, I wasn’t drained at the end, as one should be at the end of a TT, so I know that I had more to give. All great info to get and process prior to next week’s Valley of the Sun stage race, which kicks off with a 24k TT on a similar out & back course. Now knowing that I can hold a minimum of 264 watts for 30 min., as the inbound leg was the same average power as the outbound, I can target a higher output for the next race, and plan my strategy accordingly. Learning these lessons, as this was only the fifth non-hillclimb TT that I’ve done, made this a total win for me. Let’s hope I can apply these lessons to next week and beyond. |
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