Saturday Training

Hi

Power-Tap

Well well, that was quite a ride and went as well as or probably better than planned. The weather was kind though the wind got up quite a bit for the latter two thirds but it was dry and warm, would never have thought it possible given some of the weather we have had of late.

The plan was to ride 3 circuits of the Acklington Megadrome, an undulating circuit of about 27 miles with about 820' of ascent in it so roughly 2500' of ascent for the 3 circuits, undulating countryside. About 3 miles of warm-up and cool down to the start of the circuit meant we covered a total of 87.7 miles.

Met up with 4 mates at the start and we had completed the first 50+ miles (about 1.5 circuits) or so when we were joined by a couple of other local chaps. The joiners are a couple of good local cyclists who had recently finished 5th and 18th in the Etape du Dales.

Anyway, the whole ride went really very well. Excluding the warm-up and cool down miles the 3 circuits came to a total of 80.5 miles, my power data for the circuits was TSS 243, NP 259W, VI 1.13, IF 0.827. The average speed for the 3 circuits was 22.7mph.

The times and average speeds for the circuits are as follows:

Circuit 1 1:09:50 23.1mph.
Circuit 2 1:13:59 22.5 mph (Included bottle refill stop!).
Circuit 3 1:12:28 22.4 mph (Included stop, rider fall, no injury).

So, very happy with the pacing and a good all round performance by everyone, more confirmation that a Winter training indoors on the VeloTron (@ the right intensity) can prepare you for long rides in the Spring at a very respectable pace without doing a lot of outdoor miles in the cold and the wet.

A couple of friends of mine very kindly volunteered to use my video camera for the first circuit. It's very rare that we all manage to get together and today was the day when we could all make it. I've not got the camera back yet, will get it later tonight and I hope to be able to post some footage of our efforts. I just thought it would be nice to have a record of us getting together for a ride, we can sit and watch it in the future when we come back from the electric wheelchair outings! :-)

A really good morning out!

[Uploaded 23/05/2009 19:11:19]