Saturday is generally group ride day...unless I'm racing. However, the weather can play a role in which bike I ride (my road bike or my single speed/wet weather bike) as well as whether I actually get out and ride or stay home and ride the dreaded trainer.
The weather forecast for Saturday was hit and miss with the general consensus being showers throughout the day. Looking at the Doppler radar there wasn't a hint of showers in the area and nothing showing for at least a couple of hours...so the road bike it is...in hopes it didn't rain and I'd have to clean it yet again (yes, I'm a clean freak when it comes to my road bike).
The plan was to ride the first part of the regular Portland Velo group ride, then a group of us on the race team were going to break away for some additional miles. The route today was scheduled to head up Pumpkin Ridge, as well as a few shorter climbs before that. Pumpkin Ridge is a local hill climb that makes for a great training climb. It's 6.5 miles long (then turns into a gravel road) and averages around 3% - 3.25% grade for the climb. There are a few flatter spots along the climb, but it makes a great baseline for training since conditions are generally consistent from month to month (i.e. very low wind).
Heading into the climb I put forth some hard efforts to get the blood pumping and some VO2 max work in, before testing my fitness on Pumpkin Ridge. My previous best time up the climb was 23 minutes 45 seconds which I did earlier this year on my Time Trial bike when I first got my Powertap.
Today my legs were feeling a little tired (already had 11 hours this week on the bike and still recovering from the stage race last weekend) but not to bad. My goal today was to get in a good threshold effort to see where I'm at, then ride the rest of the ride at a tempo pace with the rest of the team. So I let everybody know I was going to go hard on the climb and if anybody wanted to go with me they could, or they could chase, or just flat kick my butt up the climb :D
I started out a bit hard on the climb but settled into my TT pace within the first 2 minutes. My pacing overall was good and I'm starting to learn the ups and downs of the road being up it 8-10 times now. I tried to keep my eye off the Power meter and just focus on my pedaling and minimizing the pain in my legs :) Watching my Powertap doesn't seem to help me much when doing threshold efforts because it jumps up and down so much and holding high power levels on the dowhill/flatter sections is always hard...so I just focus on pushing hard...it's what works for me and since I use a disc wheel in TT's I need to learn to push without reading a power meter.
Near the top of the climb I was greeted by a nice dog (there are several that reside at the top of the climb) who gave me a little motivation as he ran along side of me for a 100 meters or so before giving up and heading back down the hill for the next set of riders.
Total time for the climb today: 23 minutes and 7 seconds...a new PR for me by 38 seconds. My average power output for the climb was 372 watts (an increase of approximately 10 watts), which is good overall...but with the Team Time Trial coming up and knowing how fast my teammates are...I want more power!!! In the end though this shows I've made some good improvements over the past month or so, and can still make some significant gains before the TTT.
Overall today I was able to get in 62 miles in just over 3 hours and 20 minutes with some of my teammates. It was a great ride with some great company.
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