2023 6-12-24 WTTC Borrego Springs
- Thread starter ccf
- Start date
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
It is, but since they don't let the person get credit for the entire 6 hours - it would be possible to have almost 15 minutes of riding time (and miles) that you might not be able to do . I wish they would do it like WUCA does records: Require the rider to finish the lap they are on when the time expires and pro-rate the exact mileage by using the last 2 lap times. If I ever do an event - that is how I'll do it.
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
Maria's final distance will be 117.6 as she only has enough time to do one more 4.8 mile loop (about 15 mins). It is virtually impossible for the riders to get credit for the entire 6 hours because of the way they do it. Maria will probably loose about 10 mins of riding time with this method.
Maria has already broken the Women's record that was set last year by Sandy Earl - the rest is gravy- Congrats Maria!
Frito Bandito
Zen MBB Master
Congrats Maria and Marshall!!!
What tailbox is that?
That is the final production prototype of our new race case - stay tuned.
Mathew Fy
GRU
ccf
Guru
Here's my (overdue) race report:
Training:
I did two double centuries as part of my training. The first was the Best of the Bay DC on Oct 7, and it was a hot one. This ride goes up Mt Diablo, then through inland parts of the Bay Area that get quite hot. I got behind on my hydration, and it got as hot as 99F on the bike, so at mile 160 I switched to survival mode, soft-pedaling and coasting often so that I had the energy to get over the last climb and finish. I felt like I needed a mulligan after that training ride, so I did the Bass Lake Powerhouse DC the following weekend. This ride was cold in the morning (37F low), and got as hot as 94F in the afternoon, but I kept up on my hydration and was feeling good at the end. At mile 160 I knew there were 8 riders ahead of me, and I pushed hard to the finish to see if I could catch some of them. The next weekend I did a 133-mile ride in Marin County, and the power came so easy that I stopped after the first tempo interval to make sure I had the correct crank length configured in my power meter pedals. My final long training ride was 130 miles up and down Napa Valley. I averaged 21 mph even though the first 50 miles getting there from home was basically riding from one stop light to another.
Bike and Kit:
I made several changes to the bike and my kit from last year. I exchanged my Lintaman Minimals, which are great for mitigating hot foot, for a new pair of Lake CX238 shoes. To help mitigate hot foot, I purchased the wide version, and I also purchased two pairs of PatroCleat mid-foot adapters and stacked them so that the cleats were 36mm toward my heel. This configuration flexed a bit at threshold power, but for a 24h TT, there isn’t much time at threshold.
Instead of wearing leggings with a high UPF, I wore knee-high socks and made sure my knees had ample sunscreen during the daylight hours. This eliminated a layer for better cooling in the heat and eliminated the looseness of the leggings around my knees, potentially making me a bit more aero.
I swapped my 31.8mm bars for 25.4mm bars with a very angular drop and a long reach, cutting off the bottom of the drop. This change lowered the bars a little, straightened my elbows a little, and reduced the frontal area of the bars.
I swapped my Giro Vanquish helmet for a Specialized Prevail 3, which is designed for maximum ventilation. The Vanquish has a nice shield, but I find that at high velocity the air pushes the Vanquish back on my head whereas the Prevail stays put. I think the vents in the Prevail result in a smaller frontal area on the recumbent.
I replaced my Thor seat with the Cruzbike Adjustable Carbon Fiber Seat and Headrest. Since the Cruzbike seat is a little smaller, I couldn’t hang my Bacchetta Brain box from the back of the seat like I did with the Thor. So I fabricated a platform using the stock headrest tubes and a 2mm carbon fiber sheet to support the Brain Box. This placed it in an optimal position where air flowing under the seat would not strike the underside of the Brain Box and create an eddy behind me.
Goals:
In what I considered increasing degree of difficulty, my goals were: 1) pedal until the end of the 24th hour with less than 30m stoppage time, 2) stay out of the medic tent, 3) exceed the RAAM qualifying distance of 400 miles, 4) finish first among recumbents, 5) break 500 miles, 6) break the overall recumbent record of 510 miles, 7) finish first overall.
The Race:
I started the race with my base layer kit plus my long-sleeve race-fit jersey and winter sleeves. I wore clear Kroops goggles to protect my eyes against the corneal edema that clouded the vision in my left eye last year. Even though the temperature was above 80F it didn’t feel too hot as long as I was out of the sun. Elisa poured water all over me 5 minutes before the start, which made the first lap comfortable. I drank a HVMN ketone bottle and had a Gu gel right before the race started.
The first lap was a bit stressful. There was a lot of drafting and leapfrogging along Henderson Canyon Road. One racer yelled at another to stop drafting. Along the backstretch my drink tube became clogged. I called Elisa to tell her I would be coming in to get it fixed. But after I was about halfway up the incline the clog broke free. As I was climbing the incline four racers powered past me in a perfect paceline separated by about a foot each!
My power for the first few laps was a bit high. It was so easy to make power that if I wasn’t staring at my computer, my power would rise above my target level and stay there. But after that I settled into a pace where my lap-average power was right about where I wanted it.
My speed vs power was better this year than last. The changes I made to my kit and the bike seem to have been helpful. Analysis of my data shows that I needed 9W less this year to hold a lap-average speed of 22mph.
I started the race with 3.5L of my custom hydration mix (85 g/L carbs with a 1:1 ratio of maltodextrin to sucrose and 1400 g/L sodium citrate plus a small amount of potassium citrate) in the hydration bladder and the same mix in my 0.5L TT bottle. I ate Margarita flavored Clif Bloks, which have 8g carbs and 50mg sodium per chew. I depleted the bladder at 11:20pm just before rolling into Christmas Circle, and I took another lap drinking from the TT bottle. Unfortunately, it had sprung a leak because I had put it in the freezer before the race to keep it cool, so I only had about 0.25L that lap.
At the midnight pit stop, the temperature on the bike was 48F but it had been as low as 43F earlier on that lap. During the pit stop I had a HVMN ketone bottle, about 6oz of salted-up Gatorade, and grabbed more Clif Bloks. We replaced the bladder with one that held 3.5L with 85g/L of Summit Tea flavored Roctane salted up to 1400mg/L sodium. This Roctane has caffeine, and at this concentration it gave me 50mg/L caffeine. I swapped the TT bottle for a fresh bottle with the same salted-up Roctane mix. I also added clothing (a second skull cap, winter gloves, and race-fit winter pants). I thought I was detecting some cloudiness in my left eye, so I put 5% saline drops in both eyes.
During the next 7 hours I found it harder to take larger drinks from the drink tube, and my gut started to feel a little queasy at times. But I found that the Clif Bloks counteracted the gut feeling, calming my gut and making me want to drink. So I had a Clif Blok every lap after passing thru Christmas circle. I depleted the 3.5L bladder at about 7am and came into the pit area for a refresh without drinking from the TT bottle.
At the 7am pit stop the temperature on the bike was 39F, but earlier on that lap it was as low as 32F. My hands and my toes were numb. I got another 3.5L bladder with 85g/L salted-up Roctane, another HVMN ketone bottle, 6oz salted-up Gatorade, and more Clif Bloks. We also swapped the TT bottle for a fresh one that contained clear water in anticipation of the daytime heat. It was still very cold so I kept all of the clothing on. I put more drops in my eyes, and I swapped the clear goggles for tinted goggles.
At 8:40 I came into the pit stop because I was feeling warm enough to shed my overnight clothing. At that point it was 61F, though it had been 46F earlier on that lap. I removed the pants, winter gloves, winter sleeves, long-sleeve jersey, and second skull cap.
At 10:20 I took my first heat stress pit stop. The temperature on the bike was 77F and climbing fast. Elisa poured water on me, I put an ice sock under my shirt on my chest, and I drank 6oz of cold, salted-up Gatorade. I also got more Clif Bloks. And we removed the two large batteries that had powered my headlight thru the night.
At noon I depleted the third 3.5L bladder and came into the pit area shortly after. It was 88F on the bike. We replaced the bladder with one that had 42.5g/L carbs of the custom mix. I found it much easier to drink this mix. I could take 5 pulls on the drink tube at one time without it bothering my gut, whereas I had only been able to take 2-3 pulls from the 85g/L bladder without gut issues.
I went out for two laps and came back in for another heat stress pit stop at 2pm. At this point it was 93F on the bike. I had developed pretty painful hot foot during the second of these two laps. When I came into the pit stop, the crew loosened my shoes, poured water on me, gave me a fresh ice sock that I put under my shirt, and I drank another 6oz of cold, salted-up Gatorade. Then I started to feel queasy and dizzy. I put my head down and started having trouble with my balance. The crew held me up, then Jim Parker suggested that they get me off the bike and over to the medic tent.
The medic had me lay on a cot with my feet up and checked my blood pressure (90/60) and my glucose with a finger stick. My glucose level was normal. After about 15-20 min my systolic pressure was back up to 112. I recall looking up at the roof of the medic tent and thinking that avoiding being there was one of my explicit goals for the race. I figured that if I needed the medic, then it didn't make sense to carry on. So I told Elisa to let the Race Director know that I was withdrawing.
I only made two of my seven goals, so I felt pretty disappointed. I did set the age group record for a recumbent, so that was a nice consolation. A friend of mine said “you either win or you learn”, and I learned that I need to figure out how to drink more in the heat. I already have some ideas about how to accomplish this, which I’ll put to use if I enter this race again next year.
Thanks to Elisa and Conrad for crewing again this year. Thanks to Jim and Maria Parker and Dave Crawford for helping Elisa. Thanks to the medic whose name I didn’t get for helping me get back on my feet. Thanks to my coach, Nate English, for helping me get to peak fitness, especially after COVID set me back earlier in the year. And thanks to the race organizers for putting on another excellent event.
Training:
I did two double centuries as part of my training. The first was the Best of the Bay DC on Oct 7, and it was a hot one. This ride goes up Mt Diablo, then through inland parts of the Bay Area that get quite hot. I got behind on my hydration, and it got as hot as 99F on the bike, so at mile 160 I switched to survival mode, soft-pedaling and coasting often so that I had the energy to get over the last climb and finish. I felt like I needed a mulligan after that training ride, so I did the Bass Lake Powerhouse DC the following weekend. This ride was cold in the morning (37F low), and got as hot as 94F in the afternoon, but I kept up on my hydration and was feeling good at the end. At mile 160 I knew there were 8 riders ahead of me, and I pushed hard to the finish to see if I could catch some of them. The next weekend I did a 133-mile ride in Marin County, and the power came so easy that I stopped after the first tempo interval to make sure I had the correct crank length configured in my power meter pedals. My final long training ride was 130 miles up and down Napa Valley. I averaged 21 mph even though the first 50 miles getting there from home was basically riding from one stop light to another.
Bike and Kit:
I made several changes to the bike and my kit from last year. I exchanged my Lintaman Minimals, which are great for mitigating hot foot, for a new pair of Lake CX238 shoes. To help mitigate hot foot, I purchased the wide version, and I also purchased two pairs of PatroCleat mid-foot adapters and stacked them so that the cleats were 36mm toward my heel. This configuration flexed a bit at threshold power, but for a 24h TT, there isn’t much time at threshold.
Instead of wearing leggings with a high UPF, I wore knee-high socks and made sure my knees had ample sunscreen during the daylight hours. This eliminated a layer for better cooling in the heat and eliminated the looseness of the leggings around my knees, potentially making me a bit more aero.
I swapped my 31.8mm bars for 25.4mm bars with a very angular drop and a long reach, cutting off the bottom of the drop. This change lowered the bars a little, straightened my elbows a little, and reduced the frontal area of the bars.
I swapped my Giro Vanquish helmet for a Specialized Prevail 3, which is designed for maximum ventilation. The Vanquish has a nice shield, but I find that at high velocity the air pushes the Vanquish back on my head whereas the Prevail stays put. I think the vents in the Prevail result in a smaller frontal area on the recumbent.
I replaced my Thor seat with the Cruzbike Adjustable Carbon Fiber Seat and Headrest. Since the Cruzbike seat is a little smaller, I couldn’t hang my Bacchetta Brain box from the back of the seat like I did with the Thor. So I fabricated a platform using the stock headrest tubes and a 2mm carbon fiber sheet to support the Brain Box. This placed it in an optimal position where air flowing under the seat would not strike the underside of the Brain Box and create an eddy behind me.
Goals:
In what I considered increasing degree of difficulty, my goals were: 1) pedal until the end of the 24th hour with less than 30m stoppage time, 2) stay out of the medic tent, 3) exceed the RAAM qualifying distance of 400 miles, 4) finish first among recumbents, 5) break 500 miles, 6) break the overall recumbent record of 510 miles, 7) finish first overall.
The Race:
I started the race with my base layer kit plus my long-sleeve race-fit jersey and winter sleeves. I wore clear Kroops goggles to protect my eyes against the corneal edema that clouded the vision in my left eye last year. Even though the temperature was above 80F it didn’t feel too hot as long as I was out of the sun. Elisa poured water all over me 5 minutes before the start, which made the first lap comfortable. I drank a HVMN ketone bottle and had a Gu gel right before the race started.
The first lap was a bit stressful. There was a lot of drafting and leapfrogging along Henderson Canyon Road. One racer yelled at another to stop drafting. Along the backstretch my drink tube became clogged. I called Elisa to tell her I would be coming in to get it fixed. But after I was about halfway up the incline the clog broke free. As I was climbing the incline four racers powered past me in a perfect paceline separated by about a foot each!
My power for the first few laps was a bit high. It was so easy to make power that if I wasn’t staring at my computer, my power would rise above my target level and stay there. But after that I settled into a pace where my lap-average power was right about where I wanted it.
My speed vs power was better this year than last. The changes I made to my kit and the bike seem to have been helpful. Analysis of my data shows that I needed 9W less this year to hold a lap-average speed of 22mph.
I started the race with 3.5L of my custom hydration mix (85 g/L carbs with a 1:1 ratio of maltodextrin to sucrose and 1400 g/L sodium citrate plus a small amount of potassium citrate) in the hydration bladder and the same mix in my 0.5L TT bottle. I ate Margarita flavored Clif Bloks, which have 8g carbs and 50mg sodium per chew. I depleted the bladder at 11:20pm just before rolling into Christmas Circle, and I took another lap drinking from the TT bottle. Unfortunately, it had sprung a leak because I had put it in the freezer before the race to keep it cool, so I only had about 0.25L that lap.
At the midnight pit stop, the temperature on the bike was 48F but it had been as low as 43F earlier on that lap. During the pit stop I had a HVMN ketone bottle, about 6oz of salted-up Gatorade, and grabbed more Clif Bloks. We replaced the bladder with one that held 3.5L with 85g/L of Summit Tea flavored Roctane salted up to 1400mg/L sodium. This Roctane has caffeine, and at this concentration it gave me 50mg/L caffeine. I swapped the TT bottle for a fresh bottle with the same salted-up Roctane mix. I also added clothing (a second skull cap, winter gloves, and race-fit winter pants). I thought I was detecting some cloudiness in my left eye, so I put 5% saline drops in both eyes.
During the next 7 hours I found it harder to take larger drinks from the drink tube, and my gut started to feel a little queasy at times. But I found that the Clif Bloks counteracted the gut feeling, calming my gut and making me want to drink. So I had a Clif Blok every lap after passing thru Christmas circle. I depleted the 3.5L bladder at about 7am and came into the pit area for a refresh without drinking from the TT bottle.
At the 7am pit stop the temperature on the bike was 39F, but earlier on that lap it was as low as 32F. My hands and my toes were numb. I got another 3.5L bladder with 85g/L salted-up Roctane, another HVMN ketone bottle, 6oz salted-up Gatorade, and more Clif Bloks. We also swapped the TT bottle for a fresh one that contained clear water in anticipation of the daytime heat. It was still very cold so I kept all of the clothing on. I put more drops in my eyes, and I swapped the clear goggles for tinted goggles.
At 8:40 I came into the pit stop because I was feeling warm enough to shed my overnight clothing. At that point it was 61F, though it had been 46F earlier on that lap. I removed the pants, winter gloves, winter sleeves, long-sleeve jersey, and second skull cap.
At 10:20 I took my first heat stress pit stop. The temperature on the bike was 77F and climbing fast. Elisa poured water on me, I put an ice sock under my shirt on my chest, and I drank 6oz of cold, salted-up Gatorade. I also got more Clif Bloks. And we removed the two large batteries that had powered my headlight thru the night.
At noon I depleted the third 3.5L bladder and came into the pit area shortly after. It was 88F on the bike. We replaced the bladder with one that had 42.5g/L carbs of the custom mix. I found it much easier to drink this mix. I could take 5 pulls on the drink tube at one time without it bothering my gut, whereas I had only been able to take 2-3 pulls from the 85g/L bladder without gut issues.
I went out for two laps and came back in for another heat stress pit stop at 2pm. At this point it was 93F on the bike. I had developed pretty painful hot foot during the second of these two laps. When I came into the pit stop, the crew loosened my shoes, poured water on me, gave me a fresh ice sock that I put under my shirt, and I drank another 6oz of cold, salted-up Gatorade. Then I started to feel queasy and dizzy. I put my head down and started having trouble with my balance. The crew held me up, then Jim Parker suggested that they get me off the bike and over to the medic tent.
The medic had me lay on a cot with my feet up and checked my blood pressure (90/60) and my glucose with a finger stick. My glucose level was normal. After about 15-20 min my systolic pressure was back up to 112. I recall looking up at the roof of the medic tent and thinking that avoiding being there was one of my explicit goals for the race. I figured that if I needed the medic, then it didn't make sense to carry on. So I told Elisa to let the Race Director know that I was withdrawing.
I only made two of my seven goals, so I felt pretty disappointed. I did set the age group record for a recumbent, so that was a nice consolation. A friend of mine said “you either win or you learn”, and I learned that I need to figure out how to drink more in the heat. I already have some ideas about how to accomplish this, which I’ll put to use if I enter this race again next year.
Thanks to Elisa and Conrad for crewing again this year. Thanks to Jim and Maria Parker and Dave Crawford for helping Elisa. Thanks to the medic whose name I didn’t get for helping me get back on my feet. Thanks to my coach, Nate English, for helping me get to peak fitness, especially after COVID set me back earlier in the year. And thanks to the race organizers for putting on another excellent event.
