Ely Hardriders 25 2016
2013 I had a decent ride before going the wrong bloody way at the Pymore turn. First ever TT I rode in and was a baptism of fire.
2015 was a horror story on the re-arranged course, less said the better about that day #toosoon !! The best part of this race is there is nowhere to hide. It's a sporting course and it exposes your weaknesses. Last year was a shocker but it set me up for an honest appraisal and change of training to focus on what I needed to work on.
So today, eased up for the race from Wednesday and went in feeling pretty decent. Decided against turbo warm up as it was far too cold, 3/4 miles on the road was plenty and I aimed to roll up to the start just before kick off.
Usual banter at the start with the starters and off we go. Settle in really quickly and feel alright. Pace comes pretty fast, guessing wind is helping for the first 6 miles.
Couple of sketchy turns early doors, my legendary shite bike handling coming into it's own and I back off the turns early doors.
Hit a turn at about 2.5 miles and front and then back wheels slip out. Disaster! I am ready to hit the deck and as quickly as it happened the bike miraculously sits up and corrects, I ease it round the bend and give a huge sigh of relief or 'fucccccckkk meeeee' as it comes out as.
I find out once I am done that at least 7 people have hit the deck on this corner today, 5 of which are in the previous 10 starters. #lucky
To be honest that really spooks me and at all of the remaining tight corners I doodle around VERY safely.
Once i am back on the power I'm rolling a decent pace and gear and feeling alright. Hit 5 miles at about 25 mph avg. Notice that the cross winds are really hard work to point the bike straight and I'm overworking my shoulders.
Onto the A142 and it's a decent 3/4 wind against. Actually hold a decent pace but the climb to Ely is a struggle and then the turn onto the A10 to the next turn is a brutal slog. Avge 21.1 from the A142 turn to coming off the A10. The headwind really exposes my lack of power, 209W avge for that section is really low and looking at Strava I loose a lot of time on this section.
The turn towards the drain has a brutal cross wind. I work hard to keep speed above 20, the turn cannot come quick enough. Once I make that turn at 18 miles it's tail wind home.
Smash the drain at 27 mph avge and the run home is decent, well over 25 apart from the turns which I'm still like bambi on ice.
Finish up with 1.05:11 official for the 25 or 23 mph avge. Pretty happy with that considering the course could not be set up any worse for me.
The positives are that considering my low power is still managed to keep working hard to the finish. It's a much better showing than last year especially considering I havn't done much structured work on the bike yet this winter.
Still need to work on my power output. 212W FTP is far too low when it gets tough. My bike handling is poor and I'm weak on hills.
Nothing disasterous, I think all of this will improve when I start mixing up gym and structure.
Happy days, decent first ride out and looking for a strong ride next time.
Still waiting on official results, hoping I should crack somewhere around top 15.
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