Well today was TT day. The format was 8 racers at a time, 15 minute heats. Lots of road power here at Millie’s Tavern in Manchester NH. My Heat would have, Gould, Carlson, and Marro, two of your top 3 overalls for the day. I would be sporting the the 2011 Green team kit all by my lonesome. I was having flashbacks to Louden.
I have a nice Kurt Kinetic Rock n’ Roll trainer sitting in my basement that got 0 love this winter. That’s all right with me that all the training has been done outside this year. Which is the way I would want it to be every year. There are few things worse than sitting in your basement with no windows for an hour on a stationary trainer in the dead of winter.
This was a Blue Steel sponsored event, and there were plenty of trainers set up for a pre warm up which was good since I hadn’t been on a bike since Thursday. They even had guys there to load and unload your bike (real cool). My buddy Andy Gould showed up as I was just getting ready to warm up. Andy was competing in both the individual and team TT today. One 15 minute effort would be enough. Warming up I felt good and got up a good sweat. Same could be said about the rest of the guys in my heat as well.
Just Pain Here
At about 3:00PM they called us to the stage. In front of the 8 computrainers there is a big screen with the hill profile, and rider stats. Lots of good info here, wattage was one of them. I’ve never measured my wattage and I don’t know how accurate it was but it was cool to see it displayed. Of course I was next to Gould so my wattage was always lower. Without haste, the announcer says we’ll be getting started in a few moments please stop pedaling. Screen then shows 3…2…1…GO…
Team NEMBA on the left, Blue Steel on the Right
Ouch! I would bet most guys including myself felt like they were in the wrong gear. Mash, mash, mash to get up to speed and spike the heart rate. It was no different than the start of an EFTA race. It’s a slight uphill start, to a decent down hill section. Marro, really let us have it on the down too. Putting some distance on Gould, Carlson, and Myself. Next up was a long grinding type hill that would crest at about the halfway point. By this time I’m thoroughly drenched in sweat and suffering like on the switchback climb at the Main Sport Runoff. Gould makes the mistake of trying to shift down into hill smaller ring up front. Big mistake, chain launched down to between the crank and BB, and lost, in my estimate about 40-50 seconds. I passed him and put myself into second.
Carlson was too strong and took away my second fairly quickly and then Gould would put me back in fourth for the rest of the ride. From myself to fifth there was a fairly decent gap. The end of the race had a decent uphill finish just to really make you hurt. I stood and hammered only to push myself too far into the red and had enough to just barely coast to the finish. Marro, Gould, Carlson, Smith.
Not sure stats have been placed yet. The Overall was Marro 1st, Greg Larkin 2nd, Andy Gould 3rd. Myself an ok 16th in the overall and 4th in my age cat. Hey it’s March, plenty of racing ahead!
Now, to separate the Elite’s from the Experts. Wattage! Gould averages around 340+. Myself just a 280+. Makes me want to purchase a power tap or maybe not. Most of the real strong guys were 40+, road/tri guys. Considering I was 4th in the under 4o guys and 16th on the overall tells a story here. So up next the Burlingame TT. Decisions, decisions, SS or Geared?
This has been your official Blue Steel Indoor Time Trial race report! Special thanks to my wife Robin for providing support and taking the pics!
It must have smelled really good in there.
I bet I would max out at more like 240 for 15mins. I’ll have to make up the difference this year with reckless abandon. You are gonna want to be right behind me coming down the Pinnacle lap 1 this year!
Probably only a few more days on snow for me and then I’m officially changing gears. Except that’s a bad analogy because I don’t change gears.
That’s cool! I have tried to avoid the trainer this winter, not because we could ride outside up here, but because I hate it so much. This could almost make it entertaining. I’ve never measured sustained wattage either but it would be interesting to compare numbers. Never rule out those over 40 guys. 🙂
I have to agree with Kevin, I hope they had some fans running or I’m sure it would smell like a wet sock in no time.
Nice job Shawn! I would not worry too much about the result on the computrainers. After having done several at Breakaway I’ve learned the setup gives an unfair advantage to those with a high smooth cadence. (which is why the older tri guys do well on them) Standing is the worst, no matter how tight the rear wheel gear mashing always causes the rear to slip slightly on the roller resulting in lost power.
Lets not forget the names like Carlson and Marro as well as many of the other names at the top have been racing road bikes for many many years. No worries, just really interesting to see some of the power guys can put down. Not too mention that it shows you can get stronger as you get older in this sport. Marro is 51!