Calling all Vendetta racers - Time to plan for Mid-Atl 100 mile race

[LarryOz]

Up to know it has been everything RAAM, but we need to start thinking and planning for this next "A" race.
This race is only 11 weeks from yesterday, so with a little bit of planning everyone can start a 10-week training course starting this Saturday (Hopefully Ratz can steer everyone toward a good plan). After we recover from RAAM for a few days, I am sure Ratz, Jim and Larry will start training hard for this too!

Date:
August 18th - in Washington, NC
As you may remember from last year. Jesse beat Larry by about 5 seconds after he (Jesse) broke away from the lead pack (with help) with about 10 miles to go. Jim & Larry drug the final group of 12 about the last 5-6 miles, but we just barely missed catching Jesse.

Now is our chance for revenge.
Here is my Strava from last year's ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/682771845 for you to get a look at the course. (I also have a video of it on YouTube - just search my name)
You ride on a 26 mile loop that is flat as a pancake!
Very fast!

I would love to put together a team that will just squash the Team Schlitter group!
I am hoping for an group that can work together for an average speed in excess of 28mph!
Plus some strategies that will "confound" the other team! haha
If you think you want to do this, I think we should not post everything up on this public forum since we will be talking strategy (Bob - can we have a "private thread"? - or we can just do it via private email.

What is it going to take?
If you can get yourself and your Vendetta up to 30mph on a flat windless road for about 3 minutes, then you should not have trouble contributing to the group. I am thinking we can probably have 10 racers, so remember you will be drafting 90% of the time with 10 racers.

Go Team!

 

[RojoRacing]

30mph for 3 mins on a windless road? :lol you lost me at windless, WTF is that? I live in the middle of a wind farm with giant windmills on all sides of the horizon. I find your 90% pitch comical as well, as if you could assemble 10 riders to work together in such a way after the first loop .

If I do happen to show up you can bet I'll bring some good ol west coast pain with me. Not sure what I'll do without an DH's to take advantage of though

 

[LarryOz]

30mph for 3 mins on a windless road? :lol you lost me at windless, WTF is that? I live in the middle of a wind farm with giant windmills on all sides of the horizon. I find your 90% pitch comical as well, as if you could assemble 10 riders to work together in such a way after the first loop .

If I do happen to show up you can bet I'll bring some good ol west coast pain with me. Not sure what I'll do without an DH's to take advantage of though

A figure of speech I guess. Just same analytic to gauge ability for speed.
I didn't realize it might be so hard to quantify?
Maybe I am the only one that rides around and around on closed course measuring speed at different power levels to gauge my ability.
I could have just said:
If you're FTP is greater than 250, your TTE is greater than 53 minutes, and your CdA is less than 0.195 then you should not have a problem.

I think most riders have a good idea if they can ride at 30mph for several minutes and what kind of effort it takes.

Last year we had a pack of a good dozen riders last year (1/2 DF and 1/2 recumbent) that held together at 26mph+ for 100 miles. I would like to think a group of 10 recumbent teammates could stick with each other for longer than an hour, especially if that is "the plan". Maybe that is a pipe dream.
All I know is that it would take a pretty good sized group of really strong DF riders to average much over 27mph for any length of time. I doubt if there will be more than 2 or 3 of that caliber DF riders there that could match that pace. My goal would be to bury the DF crowd early with a pace they could not help to hold (even trying to draft the un-draftable) - with luck they will crack trying to keep up and then we would be left with the remaining competition of the Schlitter team. Then the fun and strategy can begin!

 

[RojoRacing]

I'm going to bring out my brand new almost finished DF machine and hold you wheel right to the end just because

 

[LarryOz]

I'm going to bring out my brand new almost finished DF machine and hold you wheel right to the end just because

You heard it here first - The Challenge has been made!
That is probably an equitable handicap for you to take against this old man, since you are no doubt one of the strongest recumbent riders around.
I do love a great challenge Rojo - and obviously so do you.
You have obviously never tried to "draft the dwarf" on a Vendetta before - it will be fun and I can't wait!

It is too bad you won't be on the Vendatta though for this race, but the DF crowd will so be glad that you are there breaking the wind for them.
Plus you can still be "our" secret weapon in our quest to beat the Schlitter team. (We just have to figure out how to use this to our advantage!)
75 days and counting.....

 

[Gary123]

This is getting interesting.