8/19 sub5 course ride

WOW - great ride... great weather, great legs, great teamwork. It's coming together. We rode great today and completed a sub4 80. Craigs Garmin had us at 3:52:22 for 80.

3 shortened laps was the plan, and we hit our marks and exceeded our pacing. Finished with all 10 riders. Mark, Mike, Craig, Paul, Sean, Scott, Tony, Dave, Rick and John.

Only one minor incident that I heard about. Mike hit a stick in a turn that kicked his rear wheel out at the apex. Quick reflexes kept him rolling. One bit of stupidity... on the first lap somewhere on Melms, I reached down for my water... no bottles! Still ice cold in the cooler. Thanks Scott for giving me one of yours!

We parked vehicles on Ketchum and quickened up our pit stops. 8:30 total, down from 13 minutes last week. Consensus for pit stops is to have coolers with pre-filled bottles at the ready. That should be faster than refilling bottles.

I learned that the 'take the lane' call from the back is useful when approaching a turn on the front. We did get a  bit quiet on the second lap. Let's make an effort to communicate, and when we're single file, repeat the signals/commands up and down the line. 10+ riders the line is too long to hear front to back and back to front.

On the sub5 day we can ease the pace up the hills. We were about 1 mph faster up the climbs than we needed (see summary data below). On the final Big Timber climb, Mike had the lead and we had a struggling rider, so we were calling up to him to control the pace for the struggling rider. To finish as a team, it's good for everyone to learn to ride someone elses pace. 

Rick will be next weeks domestique water boy for jumping the group on the last climb.
Mark is this weeks Captains favorite for pacing me up the last bit of Big Timber after Mike jumped onto Ricks wheel.
Mike gets the big wheels award for pulling up Big Timber and still having the legs to catch Ricks wheel.
Paul gets the Lantern Rouge - I was the struggling rider up Big Timber on lap 3

Great ride today. I was having an off day, and the team covered me. I had a blast.

Here's the lap stats. My odometer showed 81.6 miles total.

Lap Dist	Lap	Lap Ave	Total	Ave
27.2	1:16:12	21.42	1:16:12	21.42
stop 1	4:12		1:20:24	20.30
27.2	1:16:36	21.31	2:37:00	20.79
stop 2	4:20		2:41:20	20.23
27.2	1:17:30	21.06	3:58:50	20.50

Todays ride pace broken down by the first flat miles, and the last hillier miles. The Flats are the first 16 miles, Hills are the last 11 miles (i.e. starting at the turn unto Beck road). Planned sub5 pace is in parenthesis.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lap 1 Flats  21.8 (21.5)  Hills  21.3 (20.0)
Lap 2 Flats  21.5 (21.0)  Hills  21.3 (19.8)
Lap 3 Flats  21.2 (20.7)  Hills  20.9 (19.0)

Craigs Garmin data:  http://connect.garmin.com/player/212564101

Next team/course ride Saturday 8/25 7:30, Hampshire HS

459 Express 8/12 course ride

About 30 sub5 riders from various teams showed up to do 2-3 laps. 459 express had Steve, Larry, Mike, John, Ron, and myself. This was Ron's first ride with the group and his first recon ride on the course. The plan was to ride 3 shortened laps and solidify the pacing plan, get to know each other better, and have some fun.




We started with the main group, but turned off the course at Payne and Harmony road and the six of us completed 3 laps. We cut off 6 miles of flatness on each lap. No garmin, no watt-o-meter, and we nailed the pace plan. Each lap time was within a minute of each other. We did the hills 32 times and finished with 82 miles with a rolling average or 20.7mph. We did 2 leisurely stops for a total of 13 minutes. Our total average was 19.6. We were only 4 minutes over a sub4 80. Just tidy up the pit stops, and we're sub4.



Roughtly we averaged 21.8 on the flat portion (first 16 miles), and 19.5 on the hilly section (last 11 miles) of each lap. The kicker was that Steve and I both noticed that we RECOVERED on the hill portion of the course! I think the pace plan is going to work well.


With just the 6 of us we did a single pace line, learned to swing wide approaching the turns, communicate the pace up the hills, and that all the turns have gravel in them. After the first lap everybody figured out not to yell gravel at every turn. It just wasn't fun without Rene' there to annoy.


The team has solid legs, great teamwork, and a plan that will keep up together for 100 miles. We are going to rock the sub5!

459 Express Hill n Kill

Our group of 6 is 80 miles into the ride and all we need to finish is the Big Timber climb. Mike has just pulled off the front after a monster long pull, and I take over cruising us to the start of the climb. The group is lined up nicely behind me and Larry 'billy goat' climber is my wheel man. I get us onto the initial ramp of the climb, and set into our pace. I ask expectantly if Larry wants to lead this climb. Larry is in my ear doling out the compliments...

    "you're doing great Paul, keep us going"... ( oops, not the answer I was hoping for )
          --- my pulse is 165 and I'm looking at 4 minutes of work ----

         "you're looking good Paul"... ( nobody looks better than Larry in his kit-de-jour )
                --- I'm holding the effort even, shifting gears to match the changing gradient ---

                "wow Paul, you should be in the Tour!" ( larry REALLY doesn't want to lead this one )
                     --- pulse is flicking over 170, gotta ease back just a wee bit ---

            "wiggens could have used you in the mountains" ( larry is a sick bastard that likes to watch people suffer on climbs )


          --- pulse came down to 168, this is surviable. . . . .. jeez I'm pouring out sweat like a soaker hose ---

        "hey, how ya doing up there paul? ( oh the compassion... he's just worried about explaining my demise to my wife )
    --- I got this, just another minute and I'll have this climb knocked off ---

"alright, I'm coming up to help"


What? He's pulling the plug on ME? the nerve! But, I don't have a brain cell or leg synapse to argue. There goes Larry.... there goes Mike... there goes Ron... no way I'm catching those wheels.

John pulls alongside, offers to pace me the last bit. JOHN! the new captains favorite. He matches my pace, and he gets me to the top.

John is now the captains pet.
Larry the climber, is now Larry the domestique water boy. And I am REALLY thirsty.


Good fun!