Bike camp is finally here. After getting up at 4:45am I caught a cab to the airport to catch my plane. O'hara was packed. There were people everywhere and the lines were very long. I was afraid I was going to miss my plane. However the lines moved fast and 30mn later I was on my way to the gate.
The trip to Solvang is a long long one. The trip from Chicago to LAX is 4.5 hours. Then there is a 2 hour layover and a 45mn flight to Santa Barbara. We were picked up by 2 coaches who just became engaged, way to go Dan & Elisa, and drove the 45mn to Solvang.
Of course my room and my bike were not ready. I moved my bags inside the hotel and went to my bike. The crack SRAM mechanic, Chad, got to work on it and had it up an running in 30mn. I am renting a set of Zipp 404's, which are very fast and have a new rear cassette, a 12-28. (thats the amount of teeth on each cog.) With the bike ready to go I had to finish checking in, which consisted of getting weighted fully dressed, 149 (the 1st scale had me at 151), and had a picture of my knees taken. (I have no idea why unless we are going to guess the knees with the person.)
Finally its time for the shakedown ride. My goals for the ride were to checkout my new triple and learn how to shift. I also wanted some non-race time on the 404's, to see how they handle and to see how fast they are.
We are riding the Tour of California TT (time trial) course. The TT course was just run by the professionals 3 days ago. They did the ride in 35mn. We did a similar course in 50mn, I think we missed a small 1/2 mile loop. Here are my numbers. (You non-gear heads can jump ahead.) KJs 347, Ave Pow (AP) 117, Norm P 146, Max watts (MW) 454. HR 129 max 165, ave mph, 16.3 max 32.8.
The Zipps are very fast. Several times I had to break or i would pass the person in front of me. This is pretty exciting and will help me on the long rides because i will have to use less energy. The triple worked great. My goal was to pull less watts on the climbs and have increased cadence. I was able to do that with no problem. On the climbs my cadence was 80 or better. When my watts were too high I just slowed the cadence. I never really felt I needed more gears as I did last year.
My main problem is lack of experience. I want to race when I should be taking it easy and when it is time to race I am tired because I have not been resting. I am at camp to learn and it looks like it will be a ton of fun.
Tomorrow's ride is a TT up Mt. Fig. Mt Fig is a steady 8% climb for 11 miles. I am ready: I hope. Today it is sunny and the world looks rosy. Let's see how the race goes.
