Bull’s Gap Time Trial

2009 Bull's Gap Time Trial

Check out my Giro d’Italia, Joe Martin, and Tour of the Gila topographic maps, too!

Quick Summary: 2nd place in 55’12″ (21 seconds slower than last year). View full results on the COGS website

The Details: The conditions were not so good this year with a steady light rain falling all morning. Last year’s race was held at the end of July in hot, humid, sunny conditions. Today was rainy, chilly, and a bit windy. Check out the radar from late morning and also my heart rate data … the interesting thing about my heart rate data is that it was raining hard enough that the accumulation of water disrupted my altitude readings. I overlaid last year’s correct elevation profile (yellow) on top of this year’s (orange).

Sylacauga, Alabama - Bull's Gap Time Trial Radar

2009-05-17 Bull's Gap Time Trial Heartrate Data

1. Low initial heart rate … cold and rainy and trying not to overcook the first climbs
2. Very low heart rate for how hard it felt like I was working my legs!
3. Ummm… not sure what happened here – I definitely tried to push it hard over the top of the climb, but I think the spikes are bad readings from the heart rate monitor
4. Good, high, gradually increasing heart rate all the way to the top of the climb
5. I was very happy with how I was able to push it all the way up the long false flat, gradual climb … little chain ring spinning 22mph all the way up the climb
6. I decided to attack the bottom of each of these hills on the way back to take advantage of downward momentum from the preceding downhill

Brian Toone, near the top of Bull's Gap - Photo credit: Eric Sawyer (Creative Commons)

The full collection of Eric’s photos is available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/diddlee/sets/72157618373256398/.

Bull’s Gap Time Trial tomorrow

I’m excited for the Bull’s Gap TT tomorrow … check out my topocreator.com map!

2009 Bull's Gap Time Trial

Regions Albany Stage Race

It’s been over a week since this race finished. I wanted to write up my report sooner, but life outside of cycling was quite hectic immediately after returning from the race — starting with some very nasty stomach/intestinal bug on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday of last week. Here’s an edited copy of the report I sent out to the team:

Time Trial
Just a quick update from here in Albany, GA. Good strong field in our Pro/1/2 race and in Mike and Sammy’s Cat 3 race. Fast time trial with lots of corners. All the times were separated by just a few seconds. I was sitting in 11th with several riders tied with my same time and several more riders tied ahead of me by 1 second. Darryl was just a few seconds back in 17th with maybe close to 50 riders competing. The course was very technical negotiating all the corners and orange traffic cones — plus a 180 degree u-turn around a roundabout. This really favored my handling skills as opposed to the raw power of bigger riders.

Criterium
For Darryl and I, the crit went well as we took turns bridging or being in breaks that constantly went off the front. We positioned ourselves with 3 to go, and 2 to go, but then lost some position on the last lap still leading to a top 20 finish for both of us. Good hard racing! I haven’t looked at the impact of time bonuses, etc.. on our GC but I would imagine I lost a few spots. Hopefully, I am still in the top 15 and will be able to move up with a good race tomorrow.

Road Race and Overall
Wow – it’s not often that I get to watch the finish of a road race since the P/1/2 race is usually the last race to finish. Today, we started before the Cat 3 race and so I had already finished when Sammy absolutely crushed the field sprint to win the race!!! Way to go Sammy! This was all setup by Mike drilling it at the front to bring back a break that had been away for much of the race and then the last two riders from that break right with 1k to go. With Sammy’s win and corresponding time bonus, he moved up to 2nd overall for the weekend in the Cat 3 race. Way to go Mike and Sammy! To do that well against other teams that were stacked with riders is pretty darn good.

For the Pro/1/2 race, I had a good starting position so I went with the early race breakaway. It was a good move because we stayed away for the KOM time bonus sprint. Unfortunately, I sprinted for the 1k to go sign instead of the actual KOM. The rest of the pack caught us shortly after the KOM and a counter attack went with six riders that quickly got a good gap on the field. Several of the pro riders missed the move so they went to the front and rode a very fast tempo that brought back the break just before the next KOM. It was a melee after that with attack after attack. Eventually a Myogenesis rider launched a perfectly timed attack with everyone else sitting up. He got enough of a lead to hold off the pack for a solo win. For everyone else, the field sprint was a long one with a strong wind blowing so it was a strategic positioning type sprint for us. I fought hard for position and was on the leeward side of the sprint so I was able to get 7th in the sprint (9th in the race – 1 other guy had attacked with a couple miles to go and managed to stick it to the end for 2nd with all the sprinter’s teams not wanting to work into the headwind). With my result today, it was enough to keep my 10th place in the GC! So I’m definitely happy to have made the top 10 with such a strong field.

My power meter is in the shop for repairs, so I only have my heart rate/speed/elevation data to post:

2009-03-07 Regions Albany Time Trial

2009-03-07 Regions Albany Criterium

2009-03-08 Regions Albany Road Race

2008 River Gorge Time Trial Report

This is probably the most scenic time trial that we do all year. The entire 4 mile time trial is on top of Raccoon Mountain around the TVA pump storage reservoir. Breathtaking scenery and steep drop-offs right on the course! My time was about 10-15 seconds faster than last year. I went out way too hard averaging 558 watts for the first 30 seconds. I spent the rest of the course trying to figure out how to recover and still go hard – never works well. Still, I am happier to have gone a little bit faster than last year. Here’s the graph!

2008 River Gorge Time Trial

1. Going out way too hard (558 watt average)
2. Trying to recover
3. Not too bad on the climb
4. The table-top flat reservoir road
5. Ramping it up again for the finish

Bull’s Gap Time Trial Photo

I’ve got to hand it to the COGS group – excellent race, accurate times, quickly posted results AND photos. Way to go Cyclists of Greater Sylacauga! Here’s one of the photos (licensed under creative commons license). Thanks for posting these!

Near the top of the climb to Bull's Gap

Original photo by: Diddlee
Creative Commons license

You can view all the photos from the race on flickr.