Stranded in the jungle as he can be

Last night I rode the Bikeworks Rehoboth 8 mile TT again, but this time I went Cannibal, as in no aero equipment. So cannibal, in fact, that since I forgot to pack a cycling jersey, I wore a white Supergo base layer over my bibs, and took the road bike out just the way it sat from the weekend, with 32 round spoke Mavic Classics wheels and 12/27 cassette. Special preparation consisted of checking the pressure in the 700x25 Conti front and Michelin Megamium rear training tires.

The night was nearly perfect for a fast TT. There was a bit of humidity, but no wind and temp in the high seventies. After an unusually productive day at work (the South Park office is free from the normal distractions up in Westwood), I got to the lot a bit late, and only warmed up for the ten minutes it took to ride to the start. Even as a cannibal, Bob seeded me near the end of the strong turnout of over twenty riders, providing me with an additional sixteen minutes of warmup time after the start lineup was established. I did a four minute effort at sub LT, a bit of spinning, a bit of lugging, then two minutes hard, and spun back to the line.

Since I am currently trying to taper into the WMSR, I was a bit apprehensive about even doing the TT at all. My plan was to ride cannibal just so I could get in a good effort, but not dig too deep trying to beat last week's time of 16:59 on the TT bike. Based on last year's 40K TT at Colebrook, where I rode just under a 39 kph average, I estimated that a time of 19:03 (40 kph) would be feasible on this course. The additional 124 seconds from last week would represent a reduction in speed of around 11%. This left me wondering, as last week I rode nearly the entire course in a 53x13. Going all the way to my 52x15 on the road bike would mean a speed reduction of over 15% (if maintaining roughly the same cadence). Trying to turn the 14 would mean that I would have to go quite a bit faster than 40 kph. I decided to try to push the 14 cog and see how it went.

To my surprise, pushing the 14 sans aero equipment proved to be possible. There was less wind (as in none) compared to last week, and I found myself rolling down the intial few k's at 43-44 kph without pushing too hard. Through the flattest part in the middle of the course, I held steady, usually seeing 41 kph on the Polar. Going by the Route 118 split, roughly halfway, I glanced at my watch, noting that only 9:10 had elapsed so far. Holy shit, I'm flying. I bogged down a little bit on the course's only two tiny rises around the 8k mark, taking the 15 cog on the first one, but still sinking to 35 kph, ditto on the second one, but I quickly went to the 13, stood up a bit, hammered and stretched, then sat down and immediately took the 14 again. This seemed to work, and I hit the bumpier, predominantly slight downhill final 5 k back over 40 kph. Just as experienced last week, the finish seemingly took forever to come into view, but with no wind and no rises on this section of the course, I maintained decent speed all the way to the line, stopping the clock at 18:06 (~42 kph)! Wow. My average HR was only 164, as the first few k's I kept it just under LT, and the last few I was flirting with the red zone, just over 170.

Riding without the disc, skinsuit, or aerobars, I was shocked to have only lost 5 sec/km over last week. I'm not sure what to think. This was a good ride, and the lack of wind was probably a big help. Maybe last week's ride wasn't as good as I thought at the time. No matter though, I am very excited about my form. Now it is time to see if I can do something with it. Thanks for reading.