Team OMWP Rides Again!

Hello,


How about that ride in? I guess that’s why they call it Gilbert (hahaha).


You guys may not know this, but I consider myself…a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolf pack. But when my wife suggested I ride with Kate & Ron, I knew they were one of my own. And my wolf pack, it grew by two. So were three…so there were three of us in the pack. I…I was alone first in the pack, and then Kate & Ron joined in later.


Apparently Team Bad-Ass decided to ride a century in Flagstaff this weekend. That's 100 miles, at altitude (5500-7000'), with not so great weather this weekend. So this weekend, the One Man Wolf Pack rides again! In the spirit of today's TDF stage, I decided to do a "time trial" of sorts. That is, a race against the clock. I'm not riding a time trail bike (I wish I had one), just the single speed. Time trials are typically shorter and the riders maintain a higher speed for longer periods of time. In fact; in order to do well in an Individual Time Trial (ITT), a cyclist must:
-maintain a steady power output for long periods.
-maintain a controlled heart rate for long periods.
-have a smooth, regular pedalling technique.
-position him or herself to be extremely aerodynamic.
-discipline him or herself to operate just below the anaerobic threshold until near the end of the course.
II have no aerodynamic helmet on, my jersey was open and flapping, and I'm not the smallest guy on a bike. I just decided to ride all out!


My route was a "short" 24 miles and I planned to ride as fast as I could. The first half of the ride was slightly uphill, but not a big deal. When I came downstairs this morning, my son was already up; sitting on the couch reading a book. This delayed my departure. Instead of rollin out at 0600, I rolled out at 0800ish afer everyone was up. Not a biggie except it was considerably warmer.


I headed east along the same rout that I rode last week. This time, the urine & poo smells were gone as well as Monsanto's finest. As planned, I hammered the pedals. Legs were feeling great, water was still cold, light traffic, just warm. Once I finally started climbing slightly, it really warmed up. I could feel the sun beating down on me when I stopped at lights. The best thing to do was keep moving. I stopped at mile 11.5 for a cool down and PowerBar. After that brief respite, I headed up the rest of the way to McKellips Road which turned out to only be about 1/2 mile. I crossed McKellips and turned around once the roads were free of trucks pulling boats.

After turning around, I realized that I really was climbing because I flew back from where I came. The climb isn't steep at all; barely noticable in fact, but once I was heading South, it was "go" time. I decided to do some interval sprints during this "downhill" and hit some decent speeds for not having gears. My max speed was 27.1mph. That might not sound like much, but for the lack of steepness of this road, it was cool to see. While heading back South, the wind was starting to blow from the East. I thought, cool I have to turn East soon. As luck would have it, the wind shifted. Now it was coming from the West (the direction I was heading). Oh well.

I made it home without incident or even a close call. Hopefully team One Man Wolf Pack can ride again with team Bad-Ass soon. They're a great group to ride with and help me be a better rider.

Keep it rubber side down!