Charlotte Time Trial Series #1

[Jeffrey Ritter]

Raced last night in my first time trial since 2014 crash and broken neck. Great to see Gary and Larry O. as well.

Met my goal of being the fastest Silvio (shh, yes I was the only one!). Strongly recommend the venue and event--enormous fun to even be able to use one of the NASCAR garages for your race prep. Its a six event series--5 more through September, each 10 miles. So full on from the whistle!

The raceway is not flat--a slight uphill and add in some wind, and you have to really be thoughtful about where and when to max out your power.

Was really pleased. Good warmup, off the line hot and wet as one should be. Negative splits for the first 4 laps, lost only 5 watts avg on the next lap and then hammered home the last two laps at higher power averages than any prior lap. 29:05 time. 20.56 mph avg. 100% watt effort (a new stat indicating I was "on the rivets"). Quick recovery back to normal HR.

Now I have earned some nicer wheels (sort of like Zwift upgrades, only in real life my wonderful wife must approve, and she did) and work toward more speed. Again, strongly recommend the venue.

 

[trplay]

Major props and a big congratulations on a fine race. It is great to hear about other Cruzbikers who get out and race/ride their bikes. How did Larry and Gary do?

 

[Gary123]

I had a good ride for early in the year. A little under 26 min. It's always a blast to race on the big oval with a lot of cool bikes (full blown tt bikes, hand cycles,tandems, standard 2 cruzbike and Larry's tron bike. Next month they're going to add the road course to to the oval (roval) should be great.

 

[Tigerpaw]

WTG Jeffrey! You can pull me around the Mid Atlantic this year!

 

[LarryOz]

How did Larry and Gary do?

I did "OK", but not super pleased. But it might have been the 20 laps or so of testing I did at various wattages before the actual TT that affected me somewhat.
I placed second overall at 20:20, but well short of my 18:52 last year. Really odd how it was so much slower for just about the same power. Maybe the temps - and it got super windy by the time I rode as well.


Here is Jeff's time and placement. He was very pleased to have averaged over 20mph, which I think was his goal this time.



It was great having 3 bents all riding.
Maybe Jim and Maria will come next time.
It is going t be on the "Roval" road course that is curvy and windy - May 1

 

[Gary123]

Yeah Larry u did "ok". It was interesting that u were almost a minute and a half slower with same power. Maybe u were a little loose in turn 4. Hope we get more bents next time. Not that far from GA.

 

[Barefoot Biker]

Wind, temperature, pressure, tire pressure, road surface condition, weight - lots of things making impact on speed, but 29.46mph - I can only dream of that for 20 minutes, good grief!! What was the power average? Would be interesting to know that for the silvio too.

 

[Jeffrey Ritter]

Hi. Speaking for the Silvio, I managed 20.9 mph avg for the 10 miles. My power was 176 avg, with a max of 297. Each of lap 2 & 3 were faster than the previous, lap 4 was 3.5 sec slower and each of the remaining laps were faster, with my final lap being my fastest of all. I was pleased with my consistency, having never ridden there and not having done a time trial on the Cruzbike (and not having done a TT since 2014). Felt there was much more speed to find on the next ones. And, riding the Silvio, I was pleased to avg more than 20 mph on this first effort. I was riding a stock Silvio with the original wheels, for one thing. I'll need a few more races to justify upgrading the wheels.

 

[LarryOz]

Wind, temperature, pressure, tire pressure, road surface condition, weight - lots of things making impact on speed, but 29.46mph - I can only dream of that for 20 minutes, good grief!! What was the power average?

Kyle - here is all my data from that day. I ran 2 full sets of tests at different wattages with both my Arrowhead and Raptor (swapping out pedals, wheels between sets). The last set was the actual TT. I was a little gassed from all the testing, plus substantially more wind at the time as well.



There is another TT tomorrow, except they are going to combine the infield and outfield into what they call the "Roval". It even has a fair amount of elevation up into the infield after the left turn. I will probably ride the Vendetta for that, as many twisty turny curves. Hopefully I can resist doing a bunch of testing while I am there. (Doubt it)

Jeffery - will I see you there?

 

[LarryOz]

It was a strange day at the track. Destiny rules! My Raptor got a flat tire during first 1/4 mile warm-up. It was also quite windy, so after 2 practice laps on the Arrowhead I decided I did not want a repeat of my "wind-crash" of last year. I guess it was meant to be that I ride the Vendetta. I had not ridden it outside since Sebring and I needed to get re-acclimated to it for Raven Rock Ramble Century this Sunday. Vendetta is definitely much easier to handle in the wind, but I did not get to ride it on the course at all before my TT, so my first lap was pretty tentative to say the least. Very challenging course with a couple little hill climbs that amounted to about 30' of climbing per lap. 6 direction changes per lap. Unfortunately the uphills always followed the the straight with the headwind, and the downhills had the tailwind followed by very sharp turns, so unable to take much advantage of the downhill assist. And very hard to keep constant speed as well. It does help having people to chase down however. Max HR at 182! One shy of the Sebring sprint with Kyle. (I needed you here to push me harder Kyle!)

The "regular" oval is much faster. My timing ticket says I averaged 29.97, but my Garmin had me much slower . Not sure which is right! haha - but still pretty decent speed considering the time of year. I video'd the whole thing - will post later today if I have time to get finished up uploaded tonight. All that, plus my power meter decided to act up during the 1st 5 minutes! I was the only recumbent this week, as Jeffrey and Gary could not make it there this month.

Note, so power not accurate - since lost 20% of data.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1544239768/analysis

 

[BJ686]

Great job Larry! Definitely looks like some warm up would have helped as your times get progressively better. You were flying on the last lap!

Brad

 

[LarryOz]

Here is a link to the video I took from the front of the Vendetta. Enjoy.

 

[Gary123]

Great ride Larry. Anyone within driving distance of Charlotte should give this a try. To quote John Anderson "wish I could'a been there for that".

 

[Barefoot Biker]

Nice job @LarryOz !!! Negative splits each lap! Those infield hills are definitely costing time.

I have seen the same behavior with my power meter when moving the pedals across bikes. In the manual (https://www.powertap.com/Uploads/PDF/PowerTap-Manuals/powertap-quick-start-guide-p1-pedals.pdf), I found this:

INDEXING PROCESS
Each time the pedals are initially installed there is a one time indexing process that occurs during the first few minutes of pedaling (basically the pedals are finding where the pedal axel has been positioned in each crank arm). During this time the Power and Pedal Balance output will not appear accurate, typically reading low. There are two versions of this process--the long version and the short version. The long version occurs when you install the pedals and immediately begin to ride the bike. The “finding” of the index will typically take between 3 and 5 minutes of continued pedaling to complete.

So, it would make sense that if your warmup on the bike was less than 5 minutes, your power data would be wrong at the start.

If you want a push, you could just put a picture of me on your rear view mirror - that's where I would have been at that speed!! ;-)

 

[LarryOz]

Nice job @LarryOz !!! Negative splits each lap! Those infield hills are definitely costing time.
I have seen the same behavior with my power meter when moving the pedals across bikes. In the manual (https://www.powertap.com/Uploads/PDF/PowerTap-Manuals/powertap-quick-start-guide-p1-pedals.pdf), I found this:

INDEXING PROCESS
Each time the pedals are initially installed..........

If you want a push, you could just put a picture of me on your rear view mirror - that's where I would have been at that speed!! ;-)

Thanks Kyle,
Yeah - I was able to go a little faster I think as I become more familiar with the course and also re-aclimated to riding the Vendetta again outside. Last time was in Sebring and week after. Since then, pretty much only on the trainer.

Odd thing was, was that I actually rode around for about about 40 minutes on the Vendetta with the pedals working before my "group" went. Then I stopped for a few minutes to get in line and then took off, then they started acting up. Delayed response I guess!