Pumpkin Ridge...again

Today I met up with one of my teammates for some threshold work up Pumpkin Ridge...my favorite 20 minute threshold climb.

Since the State Championship TTT is only 2.5 weeks away I'm spending all my riding time on my TT bike to get more power/comfort in the TT position. I've also been having some issues with my position and power on my TT bike which can be seen by my lack of results in the Estacada Time Trials.

I think a big part of the problem was my position on my TT bike. I've been on a quest to get lower on the bike and switched my position before the season started moving from a 11cm -6 degree stem to a 9cm -10 degree stem and reduced the spacers under the stem. I think this may have reduced my hip angle enough to take away a fair amount of power. So I put the 11cm stem back on and 1cm of spacer under the stem which effectively raised my bar 2cm's and lengthened my reach by 2cm.

Today on my first climb up Pumpkin Ridge I was able to average 354 watts for the first 20 minutes of the climb making sure to not get out of my aero bars for a true test of my TT position power. That's only about 20 watts off of my road bike position....which is a good balance between power and aerodynamics. In the Estacada TT's I was only able to average around 320 watts, so by raising my stem 2cm and lengthening it by 2cm I've picked up 30 watts of power. It's pretty amazing which such a small change can do.

On another bright side I put in my best time ever up Pumpkin Ridge on my TT bike making it up the hill in 23 minutes 01 seconds...which is 2.5 minutes better than I've ever done on my TT bike and only 30 seconds off of my best time on my road bike.

This has given me confidence back heading into the TTT, especially considering I was able to do this today on partially dead legs (several hard workouts over the last two days). Hopefully by riding my TT bike exclusively over the next several weeks I'll adapt a little better to the position and get another 10 watts or so before the TTT. We have a good team put together and should be able to mount a good defense of our State Championship for last year and the last thing I want to do is let down my teammates.

This weekend we have our first official TTT practice, which should be fun...though my legs won't be their best...but they need the hard work over the next two weeks before tapering for the big race.