benphyr
Guru-me-not
But none riding Cruzbikes and posting on youtube
Cruzbike Time Trial Challenge 2020
- Thread starter LarryOz
- Start date
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
nobrakes
Well-Known Member
I switched from outside to Zwift this week. Partly because my bike is still not back in one piece after last weekend’s crash but also because I got a hard time off my wife for risking unnecessary hospital trips during COVID (she’s a doctor at the local hospital).
I miss the wind in my face and I need a better fan. I don’t miss the angry drivers who appear to have been elevated to new levels of intolerance by lockdown.
I miss the wind in my face and I need a better fan. I don’t miss the angry drivers who appear to have been elevated to new levels of intolerance by lockdown.
paco1961
Zen MBB Master
Beast!
Probably should listen to your wife. Its bad and getting worse by the day.
My wife is a nurse and preaches the same thing.
Stay in till its over and live to ride another day outside my friend.
It's not going to be over any time soon. I'm not expecting to be resuming travel for business before September/October at the earliest. The traffic is definitely increasing around here as well though, and getting crankier. At least I'm not adding to it as a cranky middle-aged man, I sold my car about three weeks before lock-down.
nobrakes
Well-Known Member
I do intend to keep riding outside but I'm going to take it a bit easier. I'm back on the trike until everything heals up, and then I'll be running Duranos instead of Pro Ones on the CHR. We have lots of lovely back roads around here with almost no traffic, but you get a lot of debris and gravel on the roads. I'm thinking I might transfer more of my high speed intense riding to Zwift in the short term and do more rides on the tandem with the missus outside that are a bit easier to keep things safe.
Veinbuster
Member
I had perfect conditions for week 12 this morning. 15C (59F) and just a hint of wind. I usually get a bit of a traffic slow down somewhere on the route, but nothing today. Result was a better gain over PB than I've had this month.
On the weekend, I did test out an alternative course and for quite a while is seemed good: straight flat road along a lake with a nice block at the end for a quick turn around. But, in the last 3 miles, 2 different vans decided they needed to do U turns in front of me bringing me to a near stop. And I caught some large bike groups that were spread across the road making it hard to pass them. So, I'll stick to my country road with more predictable traffic.
On the weekend, I did test out an alternative course and for quite a while is seemed good: straight flat road along a lake with a nice block at the end for a quick turn around. But, in the last 3 miles, 2 different vans decided they needed to do U turns in front of me bringing me to a near stop. And I caught some large bike groups that were spread across the road making it hard to pass them. So, I'll stick to my country road with more predictable traffic.
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
Wow - 26 sec PB - Congrats Peter, that is quite a gain, and with your HR average at only 149 - you have plenty of room for so much MORE ... effort .. or .. pain .. or for some of us weird ones: pleasure!
Veinbuster
Member
I was surprised by the finishing heart rate. I’ve had slower efforts with an average of 158 and 159. Having conditions that let me maintain a consistent effort helped immensely.Wow - 26 sec PB - Congrats Peter, that is quite a gain, and with your HR average at only 149 - you have plenty of room for so much MORE ... effort .. or .. pain .. or for some of us weird ones: pleasure!
My venous deficiency (25% flow in the deep vein of my left leg) tends to result in my heart rate ramping up and staying up when I have to push the effort to make up lost time.
But yes, if I can continue to hit good conditions, I have some more to gain.
JoeV
Member
I had a surprisingly good week #12. I took another 20 seconds off my PB, which is shocking to me at this stage. Most PB's have been 4 seconds, 7 seconds or so faster than the previous PB. The thing which hasn't gotten better is the exhaustion after. I usually feel ok for an hour or two of getting home, then the adrenaline rush fades and I'm a vegetable for a few hours. I really appreciate all the work Larry has done to make this happen. Without this challenge I would NEVER have pushed myself so hard.
Mathew Fy
GRU
I have decided to change my route to this safer one. It’s an out-&-back done twice, so three U-turns, but no stop signs or risky intersections. The road quality is similar to my previous (chip-seal) but is a little flatter and has more trees.
Here’s a comparison of this one compared to my other efforts (excluding the first two that had a different rear wheel.)
Edit: Larry will work his mathematical brain to adjust for the greater efficiency of this route, adjusting my times. I look forward to the second half of the series.
Here’s a comparison of this one compared to my other efforts (excluding the first two that had a different rear wheel.)
Edit: Larry will work his mathematical brain to adjust for the greater efficiency of this route, adjusting my times. I look forward to the second half of the series.
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Veinbuster
Member
A virtual tour I’m doing for 3 week’s declared today a sprint day, so I did some experimenting on a short loop I’ve considered for future TTs. Loop is about 600m with a tiny bit of elevation on one side: about 4m over 200-250m. Just enough to make you work a bit harder.
I did did a sprint about every 5 minutes. The first couple I did on the descent side of the loop and noticed that my speed got high enough that I had to brake for a hard right. I hate wasting calories on braking, so decided to move the sprints to the uphill side. So...up 4m, around the corner at speed and down the other side.
Probably not unexpected, but the pace over 5km as noticeably higher when pushing the ascents. Definitely the way I would go TTing here. I remember an observation to that affect a few pages back, but it’s nice to see it for myself.
I did did a sprint about every 5 minutes. The first couple I did on the descent side of the loop and noticed that my speed got high enough that I had to brake for a hard right. I hate wasting calories on braking, so decided to move the sprints to the uphill side. So...up 4m, around the corner at speed and down the other side.
Probably not unexpected, but the pace over 5km as noticeably higher when pushing the ascents. Definitely the way I would go TTing here. I remember an observation to that affect a few pages back, but it’s nice to see it for myself.
Rob Lloyd
Well-Known Member
For the past several weeks, I've been making more of an effort to do intervals on the road. I'm completely doing my training on my hybrid/MTB (just because it's safer). Previously, I was just riding for miles. I've noticed that last couple of weeks, that my 'relative effort' score in Strava is going down (alot!) for the same rides. I don't have a PM on the hybrid, so it's just based on HR (I guess?). My speed is going up and my HR is going down.
Anyway, this week I noticed the same trend on my TT.
Rode my week 12 TT last night; set a new season PR, and a PB for this course. Also broke the 30min mark for this course for the firs time (for me). My avg watts were up 10w from my previous best, and my HR was maybe 5BPM lower.
If I was currently at last summers weight (195lb vs 210lb); I think I'd be maybe another 20sec faster. Especially on this course - it has a lot of hills.
Video:
(It's still uploading, should be done about 11am eastern time).
Anyway, this week I noticed the same trend on my TT.
Rode my week 12 TT last night; set a new season PR, and a PB for this course. Also broke the 30min mark for this course for the firs time (for me). My avg watts were up 10w from my previous best, and my HR was maybe 5BPM lower.
If I was currently at last summers weight (195lb vs 210lb); I think I'd be maybe another 20sec faster. Especially on this course - it has a lot of hills.
Video:
(It's still uploading, should be done about 11am eastern time).
Rob Lloyd
Well-Known Member
It's a great place to ride, but it's really not a fast course. A couple of slow turns, sometimes have traffic to deal with, and the surface it pretty rough. It's a several (maybe 10?) year old chipseal job. You can even hear how bad it is; maybe a mile after my turn around, there is some fresh pavement just on the return side of the road. There's a very obvious change in road noise transitioning from the old pavement to those 2 new sections and back.
Of course, it's Michigan. So, there are no long stretches of nice pavement anywhere. This place is about as good as it gets.
Had a reasonably good run this evening, but the Garmin site is down at the moment. Will send you the details ASAP Larry, I think it's close but no cigar unfortunately.
ROadworks now gone luckily, but because of other roadworks elsewhere, people are now using my route as a ratrun, plus it's harvesting seasonso I get things like this to deal with. Luckily this was on my ride out to the start and they had gone by my the tiem my fast run passed this point. I also had an abortive start today as a guy in a battered old pick-up with a trailer pulled out on me just after my start and then went as slowly as possible to the next turn, so 30 secs in that left me about 15 secs down. Quick turn around the roundabout and back to start for version 2 with a bit more adrenaline going.
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8492/garmin-suffers-global-blackout-due-to-suspected-ransomware-attack?_mout=1&utm_campaign=cyclist_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter.
ROadworks now gone luckily, but because of other roadworks elsewhere, people are now using my route as a ratrun, plus it's harvesting seasonso I get things like this to deal with. Luckily this was on my ride out to the start and they had gone by my the tiem my fast run passed this point. I also had an abortive start today as a guy in a battered old pick-up with a trailer pulled out on me just after my start and then went as slowly as possible to the next turn, so 30 secs in that left me about 15 secs down. Quick turn around the roundabout and back to start for version 2 with a bit more adrenaline going.
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8492/garmin-suffers-global-blackout-due-to-suspected-ransomware-attack?_mout=1&utm_campaign=cyclist_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter.
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
You should be able to plug your Garmin into your computer and download the "fit" file. Then you can upload it straight to Strava and done
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