Snapping turtle in bluff park

Today on my ride into work, I almost hit a large snapping turtle at the bottom of the Mountain Oaks descent up in Bluff Park. It was in the curve right before the covered bridge, and it wasn’t moving so I knew it had no hope of making it across the street without getting hit. I tried to scare it off, but it wouldn’t move. About a minute or two later, a nice older lady came around the curve and asked if I needed any help. I said sure, do you have a blanket or something to help me move this turtle? She got one of those mesh carpets you lay on a floor to keep a rug from sliding on a hardwood floor out of her trunk and handed it to me. I started to pick up the turtle and everything was fine as I started to pick it up. I had lifted it about a foot off the ground at the spot where it’s feet were finally starting to lift off the ground and it snapped HARD up and to the right toward my right arm. It couldn’t quite reach me, but the lady screamed and I very quickly set the turtle back down. By this time, there was another car stopped behind the first lady’s car and a pick-up truck had stopped coming the other way with another car behind it. A guy got out of the pick-up truck with a shovel, but by this point the turtle had crawled on top of the mesh. I started to drag the mesh over to the side of the road and the guy in the pick-up truck picked up the other side of the mesh and we got the turtle off the road where it promptly crawled and fell about 4 feet down into a drainage opening. I could see it at the bottom and it was right side up and moving so I thought it must be ok. I went back later after work, and looked inside the drainage ditch and there was no sign of the turtle – so I think it must have made it back down to the creek. From my first effort at picking it up, I’d say it weighed somewhere between 5-10 pounds. That’s a lot of turtle for that high up on a mountain in Birmingham – who knows what it must be eating to get that big. I hope it isn’t chipmunks, squirrels and/or small cats.

This is as close as I was willing to put my helmet next to the turtle — wanting to keep all my fingers when I was letting go or trying to pick up the helmet.

Annotated map showing where the turtle was.

I checked this afternoon to see if the turtle was still in this drainage ditch, but it was empty.

The outlet of the drainage ditch is in the upper right part of the picture. You can see that if the turtle crawls out that end, it will have quite a fall down to the creek – but it’s a big enough turtle I guess it will be ok.

Athens Twilight 2013

Quick summary
Awesome weekend hanging out with friends in Athens. Perhaps the highlight of my weekend was being there to see Mark Fisher win the amateur finals race in a crazy solo move. I was also very happy with how I was able to stay near the front in the pro race and even attack to take a $100 prime late in the race. With two laps to go, a couple guys crashed in front of me of me going into turn 1. As soon as I hit the brakes to try to stop, the guy behind me plowed into me at pretty much full speed — popping me up into the air and then landing ironically on him, his bike and unfortunately for my right knee, his pedal (or my own headset). Initially, I thought I had shattered my knee b/c the pain/shock was so great that I was almost paralyzed to even try to move to unstraddle my bike. Somehow after untangling everything I still had one foot on the left side of my bike and the other foot on the right side of my bike. So I’m standing there trying to figure out whether I can still get back on my bike when the field starts to come down the stretch again. I knew at this point there was no way to even ride in easy so I scrambled off the course just before the remnants of the field came barrelling into turn 1 again with one lap to go. Disappointing finish to an otherwise great weekend! On Sunday, I partially redeemed the weekend by discovering a new Cat 2 climb for Alabama (Campington Ridge) on what was supposed to be a 120 mile ride home via Mount Cheaha. Instead, I got to climb Cheaha in a thunderstorm full of lightning and then descend it in a thunderstorm downpour. By the time I made it to Talledega, finishing the ride wasn’t even on the menu any more — but a hot coffee and supersonic breakfast burrito while waiting for Kristine to come pick me up definitely was!

The videos
Well, as it turns out my camera bounced off my handlebars in Turn 2 fairly early in the race … I think it may have been the second or third lap. Some kind soul found it for me and turned it into Ashley Travieso. So assuming that the camera card wasn’t broken by the impact, then I should have videos to post of the scrum, call-ups, and first one or two laps. I’m picking up the camera from Ashley at the Sandy Springs race on Sunday so I’ll probably have those videos posted by Sunday night or Monday morning!

The data

Athens Twilight Pro/1 2013
59th place, crash 2 to go
Lap	Time	Mi.	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH
1	1:27	0.6	299	888	154	83	25.7
2	1:19	0.6	293	791	167	82	26.2
3	1:17	0.6	256	815	169	79	27.5
4	1:19	0.6	264	824	168	80	27
5	1:15	0.6	246	877	167	81	27.6
6	1:14	0.6	259	851	170	84	27.7
7	1:12	0.6	239	736	173	84	28.6
8	1:13	0.6	258	862	174	80	28
9	1:20	0.6	245	807	174	83	25.3
10	1:17	0.6	272	849	173	81	26.8
11	1:17	0.6	246	880	176	79	27.3
12	1:20	0.6	254	862	174	77	26
13	1:14	0.6	246	847	176	81	27.8
14	1:16	0.6	274	868	177	81	27.6
15	1:12	0.6	269	896	178	83	29.2
16	1:19	0.6	207	856	175	79	26.8
17	1:21	0.6	250	855	170	84	26.1
18	1:14	0.6	262	833	172	84	27.6
19	1:21	0.6	224	827	175	78	26.3
20	1:19	0.6	248	820	172	83	26.9
21	1:16	0.6	243	838	173	79	27.6
22	1:16	0.6	269	851	175	82	27.7
23	1:12	0.6	232	929	178	78	29.1
24	1:20	0.6	257	826	172	80	26.5
25	1:18	0.6	251	859	178	76	26.6
26	1:16	0.6	244	771	176	80	27.9
27	1:15	0.6	244	824	173	79	28.3
28	1:14	0.6	270	788	173	82	28.5
29	1:11	0.6	249	781	177	80	29.8
30	1:13	0.6	239	892	175	78	29
31	1:17	0.6	241	832	176	74	27.4
32	1:20	0.6	231	723	172	81	26.4
33	1:15	0.6	241	868	173	83	27.9
34	1:12	0.6	241	835	176	79	28.5
35	1:12	0.6	239	789	174	81	28.9
36	1:18	0.6	242	865	170	74	27
37	1:17	0.6	243	829	174	79	27.2
38	1:14	0.6	240	829	174	81	28.2
39	1:15	0.6	232	781	172	83	27.7
40	1:21	0.6	286	796	178	81	25.9
41	1:13	0.6	266	854	180	80	28.7
42	1:14	0.6	244	868	175	78	28.2
43	1:16	0.6	243	879	172	80	27.8
44	1:16	0.6	242	821	170	80	27.5
45	1:17	0.6	236	801	170	82	27.3
46	1:15	0.6	250	797	170	80	27.7
47	1:15	0.6	221	769	171	79	28.4
48	1:15	0.6	257	770	170	81	28
49	1:16	0.6	244	795	172	84	28.1
50	1:14	0.6	246	767	171	86	29
51	1:13	0.6	249	807	170	81	29.3
52	1:16	0.6	224	731	169	82	28.3
53	1:15	0.6	261	793	167	80	28.4
54	1:15	0.6	252	788	174	78	28.4
55	1:16	0.6	248	745	172	81	27.5
56	1:25	0.6	216	783	166	78	24.9
57	1:18	0.6	234	763	164	79	27.1
58	1:15	0.6	226	783	163	80	27.8
59	1:18	0.6	243	837	159	79	27.1
60	1:17	0.6	253	776	167	77	27.3
61	1:12	0.6	255	808	170	83	29.4
62	1:21	0.6	255	745	172	79	26.1
63	1:19	0.6	234	711	169	79	26.5
64	1:16	0.6	286	716	168	80	28
65	1:18	0.6	221	727	170	80	26.9
66	1:25	0.6	216	617	161	81	24.8
67	1:11	0.6	418	741	172	82	29
68	1:24	0.6	262	548	183	84	25
69	1:16	0.6	242	750	175	83	27.7
70	1:19	0.6	261	732	168	82	27.1
71	1:18	0.6	269	772	173	79	27.1
72,73	2:34	1.2	241	734	171	80	27.4
74-76	4:00	1.8	265	819	175	80	26.7
77	1:20	0.6	277	794	179	81	26.7

Towards the end of the lap data with rain moving in, apparently my GPS couldn’t keep up with the turns anymore and my auto-lap feature wasn’t kicking in correctly. Looking at the data, it may be that my crash was actually with 3 laps to go (2.75 laps).

Athens Twilight 2013 Pro/1 – Heartrate zone summary
Athens Twilight 2013 Pro/1 – Annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)
Athens Twilight 2013 Pro/1 critical power curve

The detailed report
Athens Twilight is a race like no other in the country. From the atmosphere of thousands and thousands of people lining the entire course several rows deep, to the pre-race scrum fighting for position before the race even starts, to the super fast course, to the uncertainty of how the race itself could play out in any number of dramatically different scenarios. After racing it for seven years in a row now, I think I’ve figured out what makes the course so amazingly fast — the fact that turn 1 is so slow. What this does is it causes everyone from the back of the pack to have to accelerate really hard up the hill to keep from having gaps open up. Yet the course is so wide coming across the top of the hill that there are plenty of people with lots of momentum to slingshot past the guys at the front causing the guys at the front to respond and pick up their speed behind the new guys who are trying to attack or go off the front. And that new faster speed is easily carried through the wide turn #3. Heading into turn #4 you are coasting, so you have a chance to recover and then hit it really hard again through the start/finish. This process repeats itself enough times and pretty soon you are averaging over 30mph per lap.

I had a really great start in this year’s race on the second row, and I held good position towards the front third of the group until a crash coming out of Turn #1 at the very front of the field caused a pile-up. I could see guys pulling up behind it and getting ready to head back to the pit, but I also could see a way around the mess so I opted to just keep riding since there were no gaps I could see. Going up the hill out of turn #2, I was in a bit of a panic b/c I could see a front group of about 25 riders had separated itself from maybe the next 50 or so of us — and I was near the very back of this group. Fortunately, some heavy hitters were not in that front 25 so our group was able to catch back up before the end of that lap.

In the chaos of the crash and remerging of the groups, a few riders slipped away and formed a dangerous looking break. Predator missed the move, though, and after 15-20 laps of steady chasing they brought it back. A few laps later, a three man move including eventual winner Kevin Mullervy (Champion/NoTubes), Carlos Alzate (UHC), and Frank Travieso (Mountain Khakis) escaped and quickly got a good gap on the field. Predator went to the front again to chase, but they couldn’t get any help from anyone else. During these laps, I was slowly working my way back up towards the front. Then with maybe 16 or 17 laps to go, I was in good position and the pace of the field let up at the front so I thought about attacking up the hill with no real race objective other than to be off the front for Kristine. I realized it would be better to wait for a prime, though, and on the very next lap they rang the bell for a $100 field prime. The pace slowed again just a bit across the top and I took that opportunity to launch an attack to go for the prime.

I imagined the whole time I was attacking that I was just pulling the field with me or at least one or two other riders who would come around to take the prime, so I sprinted hard all the way to the line not realizing that I had escaped cleanly and had maybe a 5 second gap by the line. I was cooked from the effort, though, so I sat up, recovered, and waited for the field. I slotted back in at the front of the field and spent the next 12 laps attacking up the outside on the hill to keep from getting passed by the field and then slotting back in behind UHC through the start/finish. This was taking its toll on me but I was maintaining good position until 3 laps to go heading into Turn 3 when the pace eased up a bit on the downhill and I wasn’t close enough to the barriers so a whole slew of people came around me on the outside. I tapped the brakes feeling squeezed by the people on the inside and lost even more positions. I think I probably went from top 15 back down to top 30 by the start/finish line. Shortly after the start/finish line heading into turn #1, there was a big pile-up on the ground in front of me, and as I hit my brakes to try to stop before running into it, the guy behind me plowed into me from behind propelling me up into the air a bit and then ironically landing on top of him as he came sliding by me on the ground.

Side note – I’ve now crashed five times at Athens Twilight after racing it for 7 years. Out of those five times, my body has only hit the ground twice – once in 2007 when I landed on my butt in the straight section between Turn #3 and Turn #4 when somebody went too far outside hit the curb and bounced back into the group taking down a number of riders (including me) and then once in 2011 when I landed hard on my wrist in a very similar wreck to this year’s except going through Turn #1 instead of heading into it. The other three wrecks (two more in 2007, I had three wrecks that year, and one in either 2008 or 2009) have all involved me landing on top of other people already on the ground!

My first thought was get back up and try to tack back onto the riders who were still streaming by those of us caught up in the wreck. But my bike was so tangled up in two other rider’s bikes that it took a few seconds to even get the bikes untangled. By this point, the field was gone. Also, it was about that time I realized must have cracked my knee really hard on something (pedal, headset) as it was bleeding and hurting quite a bit. In fact, the location of the pain paralyzed me for a few seconds as I was afraid to move or bend my leg thinking that I had done some serious damage to my knee and would end up crumpling back to the ground if I tried to move. As I looked back to the start/finish I could see the lead moto and knew that the field was coming soon so this forced me to try to move and I found that I could move my knee without any additional pain. I climbed through the fence as spectators grabbed my bike and pulled it into the beer tent. Turning down numerous offers for beers, ambulances, and other forms of assistance, I was able to take my bike and ride it through the crowd to the start/finish line where Chad was interviewing the winner, Kevin.

Even having to pull out with three to go, I still ended up 59th as many of the nearly 100 starters had already abandoned the race earlier. So I’m happy to not have to put a DNF in my results! Kristine related to me later that the race for first was an intriguing one with Kevin attacking the break with six to go and Frank and Carlos hesistating to chase. This gave Kevin enough room to solo it in from six to go. Carlos ended up outsprinting Frank for 2nd with Frank rounding out the podium in 3rd. All-in-all I think it was a good race for me being in good position so late in the race and then just a bit of bad luck with two to go. C’est la vie – can’t wait until next year!!!!!

Alabama’s newest Cat 2 climb – Bain’s Gap to Campington Ridge
On the way home I had Kristine drop me off on the old Fort Mclellan property so I could ride a new Cat 2 climb and then bike almost 120 miles home via Mount Cheaha. Along the way I saw a really cool wild turkey run across the road, and a long black snake, and then I got absolutely soaked in a thunderstorm on the top of Mt Cheaha – quite scary with all the lightning – and a huge downpour on the descent down into Talladega. By the time I made it to Talladega, I was ready to be done riding so I called Kristine to come pick me up. I got some cool pics that I’ve posted in the gallery below.

Cut for the Moorman Mountain gravel climb (dark line on side of mountain)

Campington Ridge – behind the bomb range

The view of my tracks up the last bit of the Campington Ridge gravel climb

Cockpit minus a camera, but plus a new bike light purchased at Walmart to finish the ride in the dark

Mt Cheaha with a thunderstorm about to be on top of it (right about the time I finished climbing up to it)

Mt Cheaha tower – Alabama’s highest point at 2,407 feet above sea level

Sonic (and Kristine) to the rescue … one giant burnt coffee and a supersonic breakfast burrito to stop the uncontrollable shivering while I waited for Kristine to make the drive from Birmingham to Talledega

A rainbow on the drive home after Kristine came and picked me up in Talladega

Smyer KOM

Quick post here … I took back the Smyer to Shades Crest KOM today. One of the things about that climb is that it is has been on my commute route home from work for the past eight years. Before I ever had a GPS I used to time myself with a very basic bike computer. I kept track of a backpack time and a non-backpack time. The segment doesn’t match if you are coming up from the 280 side (which I do quite often) so Strava only shows me as having done the climb 126 times — but I would guesstimate the number closer to one thousand times especially considering my pre-strava commutes from 2005-2008. I know that climb well enough to possibly do it with my eyes closed … actually I’ve experimented with that a few times and ridden sections of it with my eyes closed just for fun.

A few weeks ago Paul Tower took the KOM from me with an amazing time of 2’33″. A few days later I was able to put in an effort on the climb to try to take it back, but I ended up falling quite a bit short (2’37″). Just four seconds … but for such a short climb that is pretty much an eternity. Not racing this past weekend, I needed to get a good hard effort in to wake my legs up for this weekend’s Mississippi Gran Prix so it worked out for me to try again today. This time I started from a cross street instead of lower down on the hill … and that made a huge difference. Combined with a little bit of GPS love (i.e., the Strava segment matched up a bit early b/c my GPS track was offset a bit to the right at the end) led to a smashing of the old record with a time of 2’25″ … almost 20mph.

Now that Paul (and Mark Fisher) know the ideal place to start the segment, I’m not sure how long that KOM will last — but rest assured if it falls, I will be back out there again to try to get it back! Here’s my data from the climb:

Smyer to Shades Crest KOM … 2’25″ @ 484 watts, VAM 1500 on a 5% climb.

BBL Wrap-up plus Huntsville Climbing

This weekend was quite the kicker of a way to end the training season and dive headlong into racing season … starting next weekend with the southern cross race. Here’s a quick look at what I believe I’ll be racing the next few weeks:

Feb 16 - southern cross (mtb)
Feb 17 - gsmr training race #1
Feb 24 - gsmr training race #2
Mar 3 - gsmr training race #3
Mar 10 - rouge roubaix
Mar 16-17 - union city (crit, rr)
Mar 23 - hell of the south

Yesterday was an epic 102 mile day with BBL with four attack zones and koms, adventuresome climb up bass pro cement road (close to 35% gradient), and followed up by more climbing with Mark through Mountain Brook and Vestavia. Today, Kristine was working up in Huntsville so I tagged along to do some riding/climbing up in Huntsville.

First, the scoop on today’s ride up in Huntsville … Kristine was working her admin assistant job for the army reserve center up in Huntsville, so I decided to tag along to try to get a good long climbing ride exploring some new climbs and putting in a couple hard KOM efforts on others. I ended up falling a few seconds short on the Monte Sano climb (kudos Mark) but taking the Hawk’s Nest one. Here’s a view from the top of monte sano looking back down torwards Huntsville with the space and rocket center visible in the background (look for the tall white rocket).

View of downtown Huntsville and the Space and Rocket center from the top of Monte Sano (click to enlarge and read the annotations)

At this point in the ride, the temp had climbed into the mid 50s with a few clouds and even a little bit of sun. After exploring another Cat 3 climb on the Monte Sano ridge line, I headed down 431 towards Keel and the super steep Blowing Cave climb. As I approached Keel, it started to rain a bit off and on but nothing heavy or steady. By the top of the Blowing Cave climb, though, it was starting to rain a little more frequently so that by the time I had turned around and climbed Keel from the backside and then descend on the frontside it was pouring … and the temp was down into the 40s … and I had shorts and short finger gloves on. I immediately decided to cut out a huge chunk of the ride … Woodville to Skyline (Cat 2) … and trade it for an additional climb up Keel. This worked out well because the additional climbs up Keel kept me warm enough so that I wasn’t hypothermic for the descent down Blowing Cave.

That descent was insane in the heavy rain and cold. I knew I couldn’t get up too much speed because there would be no way to brake hard enough and turn without sliding out. Still, the super steep section towards the bottom (20% avg for 0.3 miles) I outran my brakes and had to negotiate some of the turns at much higher speed than I felt comfortable doing. By the bottom, I was frigid but thankful I hadn’t fallen and that I could start hammering again to try to generate body heat. Fortunately, I had a nice tailwind for a large part of the next ride so I was able to crush the 53×11 to a gas station near 4 mile post rd (east side of cecil ashburn). I spent a while warming up in the gas station drinking $1.09 ($1.18 with tax) 20 oz cappuccino before braving the cold rain again. Absolutely freezing and even with a tailwind and a Cat 3 climb, I still almost crashed coming down Cecil Ashburne with speed wobble because I was shivering so badly! Fortunately, once I made it to the bottom again, there was an awesome tailwind, a lot of open road, and a lot of green lights. I arrived back at the armory sooner than expected. As soon as I stopped riding, though, and my heartrate dropped I got so cold that I was shivering again uncontrollably for a good 5 minutes until I had warmed up in the car in the parking lot with the seat warmer on and heat blasting at 90 degF. Here’s pic of the conditions (it had been raining hard for the last 35 miles of my ride) at the armory after I had stopped shivering enough to get a picture:

Warming up in the car at the reserve center after the ride while Kristine is working. Very cold rain for the last 35 miles of the ride.

Here’s the iBike data from the ride and from some of the popular Huntsville climbs…

Summary of all climbs listed below
                                  Dist     Avg% Max%  Gain
Bankhead 4-way stop (Monte Sano)  3.63 mi  4.98 12.0  990 ft
Big Cove - Governor's Bend        2.07 mi  6.57 23.3  786 ft
Blowing Cave Wall (Keel Mtn)      0.30 mi 19.91 26.8  309 ft
Blowing Cave Complete (Keel Mtn)  3.83 mi  4.49 26.8 1050 ft
Keel Backside (north) (Keel Mtn)  1.55 mi 11.20 17.4  895 ft
Keel Frontside (south) (Keel Mtn) 1.88 mi  9.39 25.2  897 ft
Cecil Ashburne (east)             2.02 mi  5.47 12.6  582 ft

Bankhead from 4-way stop (Monte Sano)
Dist:        3.63 mi (0:15:38)
Climbing:     990 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power      46  326.4   684  W
Speed     9.5   14.0  27.4  mi/h
Slope    -4.0   4.98  12.0  %
HR        142  170.0   182  bpm
NP:332W IF:1.13 TSS:33 VI:1.02
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 7:59 AM
48 degF; 990 mbar

Big Cove - Governor's Bend (Monte Sano)
Dist:        2.07 mi (0:14:21)
Climbing:     786 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  243.1   420  W
Speed     3.9    8.7  23.6  mi/h
Slope    -6.0   6.57  23.3  %
HR        119  139.1   150  bpm
NP:261W IF:0.88 TSS:19 VI:1.07
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 8:52 AM
50 degF; 990 mbar

Blowing Cave Wall (Keel Mtn)
Dist:        0.30 mi (0:04:11)
Climbing:     309 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power     187  304.0   409  W
Speed     3.1    4.4   8.6  mi/h
Slope     8.6  19.91  26.8  %
HR        141  148.9   155  bpm
NP:311W IF:1.05 TSS:8 VI:1.02
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 10:03 AM
51 degF; 990 mbar

Blowing Cave Complete (Keel Mtn)
Dist:        3.83 mi (0:19:59)
Climbing:    1050 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  256.1   496  W
Speed     3.1   11.5  35.1  mi/h
Slope   -10.7   4.49  26.8  %
HR        126  141.7   155  bpm
NP:273W IF:0.92 TSS:28 VI:1.07
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 10:02 AM
51 degF; 990 mbar

Keel Backside (Keel Mtn - North)
Dist:        1.55 mi (0:14:57)
Climbing:     895 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  254.0   427  W
Speed     4.6    6.2  21.3  mi/h
Slope     1.7  11.20  17.4  %
HR        121  137.0   142  bpm
NP:257W IF:0.87 TSS:19 VI:1.01
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 10:27 AM
52 degF; 990 mbar

Keel Frontside (Keel Mtn - South)
Dist:        1.88 mi (0:16:00)
Climbing:     897 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  248.6   449  W
Speed     3.9    7.1  23.4  mi/h
Slope    -4.2   9.39  25.2  %
HR        123  134.0   142  bpm
NP:253W IF:0.85 TSS:19 VI:1.02
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 11:05 AM
45 degF; 990 mbar
COLD AND RAINING HARD

Cecil Ashburne from Hwy 431 (east side)
Dist:        2.02 mi (0:10:47)
Climbing:     582 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  276.4   604  W
Speed     0.0   11.3  24.1  mi/h
Slope    -0.6   5.47  12.6  %
HR        111  138.5   146  bpm
NP:287W IF:0.97 TSS:17 VI:1.04
168 lbs; 2/10/2013 12:25 PM
44 degF; 990 mbar
COLD AND RAINING VERY HARD

Now, the BBL videos from the attack zones and the climbs – in reverse order starting with the Bass Pro climb.

Mark and Kyle at the bottom of the bass pro climb (click to view the annotations)

Bass pro climb
Dist:        0.22 mi (0:02:31)
Climbing:     218 ft
          Min   Avg    Max
Power     124  349.7   582  W
Gravity   100  316.0   448  W
Speed     3.4    5.4  11.2  mi/h
Slope     3.1  18.05  33.2  %
Cadence    32   49.1   102  rpm
HR        133  164.7   178  bpm
NP:374W IF:1.27 TSS:7 VI:1.07
168 lbs; 2/9/2013 12:11 PM
58 degF; 990 mbar

Rocket center from the start of my ride

View of downtown Huntsville and the Space and Rocket center from the top of Monte Sano

Keel Mountain with blowing cave annotated

Spent 15 minutes warming up in a gas station drinking this 20oz cappuccino so I could finish the last 45 minutes of the ride (over Cecil Ashburne) in pouring rain

Warming up in the car at the reserve center after the ride while Kristine is working. Very cold rain for the last 35 miles of the ride.

Sunset view after long day of rain

Rainbow over our dinner choice (Frizzie’s)

ibike data for the bankhead (monte sano) climb

ibike data for the governor’s bend climb

ibike data for the blowing cave wall

ibike date for the keel mtn north (backside) climb

ibike data for the keel mtn south climb

ibike data for the cecil ashburne climb (from the east)

ibike graph for the climb (and descent) of the bass pro climb

ibike data showing the spot where it started raining

ibike data showing the spot where it started raining — repaired to adjust for the blocked wind sensor

bass pro climb (view from the top)

Mark and Kyle at the bottom of the bass pro climb (click to view the annotations)

BBL iBike Newton+

Cahaba river pedestrian bridge behind the ballfields (plus iBike Newton pic)

Baseball skills assessment collage … Josiah was scheduled for his tryouts at 2:45 … I rode 102 miles and arrived at exactly 2:42, but he had gone early because it was starting to rain. Fortunately I was able to catch them in the parking lot before they left.

Yesterday my new iBike Newton+ arrived, and so I ran through the basic setup to get up and running for today’s BBL ride. I still need to do my on-the-bike calibration ride, but looking at the numbers both during the ride and afterwards – the iBike Newton+ seems to be delivering pretty reliable power numbers even without that extra calibration step. We had a small turnout for BBL with a number of riders out for a variety of reasons — including the cylocross world championships up in Louisville, Kentucky. Still, we had a great time on the Kelly Creek – Tunnel – Wall – Mountain Top loop.

Once I get my Quarq fixed by SRAM I’ll be able to explore some of the more “wind tunnel” advanced features of the Newton. In the meantime, I’ve made a video and highlighted the data for each of today’s attack zones organized as follows – video first, attack zone data next, and attack zone graph last. I did this for all three attack zones / KOMs which I happened to take a clean sweep of today!

STERRETT ATTACK ZONE (1st place)
Dist:        2.77 mi (0:06:57)
Energy:     138.1 kJ
Cals Burn:  132.1 kcal
Climbing:     186 ft
Braking:      0.0 kJ (0.0%)
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  331.3  1049  W
Aero        0  264.9   774  W
Rolling    27   45.7    66  W
Gravity  -657    1.3   482  W
Speed    14.2   24.0  34.5  mi/h
Wind     13.5   23.2  37.1  mi/h
Elev      448    499   571  ft
Slope    -6.4   0.02   9.1  %
Caden      33   85.7   111  rpm
HR        139  162.4   184  bpm
NP:379W IF:1.28 TSS:19 VI:1.15
CdA: 0.328 m^2; Crr: 0.0057
168 lbs; 2/2/2013 11:20 AM
43 degF; 1061 mbar

iBike graph for the sterrett attack zone (click to enlarge)

VANDIVER KOM (1st place)
Dist:        1.79 mi (0:07:21)
Energy:     152.3 kJ
Cals Burn:  145.6 kcal
Climbing:     498 ft
Braking:      0.0 kJ (0.0%)
          Min   Avg    Max
Power     180  345.4   642  W
Aero        0   58.2   211  W
Rolling    18   27.9    43  W
Gravity    25  253.2   387  W
Speed     9.5   14.7  22.4  mi/h
Wind      4.4   14.1  23.2  mi/h
Elev      565    822  1064  ft
Slope     0.4   5.18  11.8  %
Caden      60   76.9   100  rpm
HR        141  170.8   180  bpm
NP:352W IF:1.19 TSS:17 VI:1.02
CdA: 0.328 m^2; Crr: 0.0057
168 lbs; 2/2/2013 11:45 AM
45 degF; 1060 mbar

iBike graph for the Vandiver KOM (click to enlarge)

MIMOSA ATTACK ZONE (1st place)
Dist:        2.32 mi (0:06:07)
Energy:     135.6 kJ
Cals Burn:  129.7 kcal
Climbing:     241 ft
Braking:      0.0 kJ (0.0%)
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  369.5   957  W
Aero        0  236.7   851  W
Rolling    20   43.5    75  W
Gravity -1043   60.9   768  W
Speed    10.8   22.8  39.4  mi/h
Wind      0.0   21.2  37.9  mi/h
Elev      607    669   748  ft
Slope    -9.5   0.80  14.6  %
Caden      57   82.0   104  rpm
HR        122  165.6   181  bpm
NP:406W IF:1.37 TSS:19 VI:1.10
CdA: 0.328 m^2; Crr: 0.0057
168 lbs; 2/2/2013 12:08 PM
48 degF; 1059 mbar

iBike graph for the Mimosa attack zone – annotated (click to enlarge)

COMPLETE RIDE
Dist:      104.76 mi (5:51:38)
Energy:    4063.1 kJ
Cals Burn: 3884.5 kcal
Climbing:    8491 ft
Braking:   -226.0 kJ (-5.6%)
          Min   Avg    Max
Power       0  192.6  1049  W
Aero        0  130.8  2294  W
Rolling     0   34.1    93  W
Gravity -2481    1.5   778  W
Speed     0.0   17.9  48.8  mi/h
Wind      0.0   16.1  52.5  mi/h
Elev      408    706  1107  ft
Slope   -19.9   0.02  18.9  %
Caden       0   81.8   130  rpm
HR         68  133.6   185  bpm
NP:247W IF:0.84 TSS:409 VI:1.28
CdA: 0.328 m^2; Crr: 0.0057
168 lbs; 2/2/2013 8:28 AM
44 degF; 1063 mbar