More Testing Last Night

So it was time for that regular LT test again last night. So far this season has been just base training and with only having really done a bunch of Long Steady Distance Training and some sub-threshold stuff, I was not expecting a big bump in my numbers. So I was pleasantly surprised when my LT HR was still about 178 and the wattage was up at 355, perhaps even more impressive though was that the last 10 minutes of the test was 371 watts average. Good things to see this early in the season. The Build Phase of Training starts soon, so more intervals and pain, but I am looking forward to it. Our First race is just over a week away. The Camp Hilbert #1 will be a blast. Bike Factory Racing is going to be there in style. So far we have about 7 riders attending, so it will make for a good time.

This race is falling early in the training year, so it is hard to say I am expecting a great result, but still hoping to do well, and I will be giving it my all.

see ya on the trails,

Shawn

Sunday was apparently the Bike Factory Racing base training ride. The word for the ride was "stick-y" or "mechanical." Shawn managed to break a chain and snap off a front dérailleur in the first 30minutes of the ride. Luckily, he's strong enough to push the middle ring on about anything, so, we trudged on. The singletrack had deep leaves (i mean DEEP. At one point the wheels of the bikes weren't visible due to leaves being 3ft or more deep) and lots of debris from a recent storm. Lots of downed trees caused dismounts. We cleared some of them while waiting for others to catch up. The trail conditions caused their share of mechanicals too. I managed to rip a value stem off while climbing over a tree, causing a flat change. Michele tweaked a hanger and had shifting issues for the rest of the ride. Shawn snapped his chain a few more times, and dropped it innumerable times. Ted on his SS probably faired the best with no dérailleur to pack full of leaves. The rest of us stopped periodicially to remove debris from the drive train.

The rock gardens were riding really nice. Keep your speed up and you could float over almost everything (until the fallen tree took you off the bike, anyhow). Perhaps the worst part of the ride was the 1mile on gravel road.. it was just warm enough to have melted the road earlier in the day, so we got covered in mud in a hurry. However, it had cooled off enough to be snowing at that point..making for stuff flying your face from above and below. However, once that was over, the miles on the pavement flew by and we were back at the car in no time.

When the day was done, we had 6:20 away from the car, with only about 4.5 hours of ride time. The debris and mechanicals slowed us a lot, but we all were feeling great and enthusiastic, so we all had a blast.

James managed to underestimate the chilliness of the mountain.. but luckily shawn was carrying an entire wardrobe in his backpack and we all were quite toasty, even while being sweaty and cruizing 20mph on the road.

Can't wait for the next installment. Can anyone say "Elliot's" for next weekend?