De Ronde Portland 2011

This was the first time I had ridden the De Ronde Portland, though I’ve heard the legendary stories of the ride…Just under 48 miles and 7700+ feet of climbing, with a couple of climbs averaging 25% or greater for a ¼ mile or longer. The reality is the total climbing is somewhere between 4700 and 7700 feet. Mapmyride.com has it at 4700 feet, but I’ve seen GPS profiles with 7700-8000 feet of climbing. The unofficial amount is 5400 feet which I’ve seen listed on several different locations.

I’m not a climber…by any definition of the term, but wanted to at least ride it once in my life to say I had done it, so knowing the weather was supposed to be good and not a whole lot of racing leading up to the race or after the race, I thought this year was as good as any to give it a try.

I was able to get a ride with one of my teammates to the start line (about 25 miles from where I live) where we arrived early to kind of chill out a little before the ride. Slowly the area started filling up with riders from different teams as well as recreational riders. I’d say by the time we started there were at lest 300-400 riders, maybe closer to 500…but it’s always hard to tell with a group that size since there is no “Official” ride taking place and no registration to count numbers.

Some groups took off early but most left just after 10:00am with a few words from the unofficial organizer of the ride. The basic premise of the ride is to follow the “Lions” on the road until you reach the top of Council Crest.

Granted this is a “Ride” but there is an unofficial count through the first 10-20 riders to the top…kind of a bragging rights thing…so I didn’t want to take it easy, though I knew I wasn’t going to be near the front either. Mostly I wanted to push myself and see what kind of time I could put in.

The first climb was up Saltzman Road…I say road because it’s only a road in name. It’s really a gravel road/trail that goes up through Forest Park and takes us up to Skyline road. Saltzman was actually in good shape considering all of the rain we have had and we were moving out pretty good. I don’t know my time up Saltzman, but I averaged 371 watts up the climb without pushing it very hard.

After a little respite along Skyline we took a short downhill that led us to Brynwood…which is one “STEEP” climb. I turned the corner and was saying to myself WTF? Who lives up here and why? I hit the first part of the climb out of the saddle making it about a ¼ the way up when I sat down on my saddle to power up the climb. At this time I realized my cleat tension in my right cleat was too loose for this climb. Every time I would pull back on the pedal (I was pulling really hard) the cleat would push the cleat retention springs back far enough the front of the pedal would unclip and out would come my cleat. This was quite annoying and caused me to stop several times up the climb.

After that…the only other really steep climb was college st. which was equally difficult, but that didn’t come until about half way into the ride.

The rest of the climbs were normal climbs with spots getting into the 15% range, but not for very long.

I will say, the roads for this ride are not the best roads I’ve ever ridden on. In fact the Saltzman (the dirt/gravel road) was in better shape than half the roads we were on. So it was a rough ride for a large portion of it.

Overall, I completed the ride in 3 hours 30 minutes and 46 seconds…and that was with a little doubling back when I got lost a few times. Not bad for a 190+ pound sprinter/TT guy. Looking at the pictures I was in the top 40 or so crossing the line and wasn’t too far from some of my teammates that are true climbers. I would guess the fastest guys finished in around 3 hours, maybe a little faster. Most people were in the 4+ hour range and many of my teammates came in around 4.5+ hours.

As for the toughness of the ride…It’s not easy, I’ll give it that. However, if you took Brynwood and College St. out of the ride it wouldn’t be that bad…just a slower ride with a lot of climbing. It wasn’t the hardest ride I’ve ever done, but ranks up there overall especially for how short the distance was.

I will say this was the first ride I've ever completed where my upper body was more tired than my lower body. You had to use your whole body to get up some of those climbs and it took it's tool after a while.

There was great support along the route, especially considering this is not an “Organized” ride. Several families had tables set up and were giving out free food, water and other “Assorted Beverages”. There were also 5 or 6 port-a-potties located along through course to use. That really made things great, as well as people cheering us on as we hit the top of the steepest climbs.

Overall…it’s a great ride and if you haven’t done it…it’s worth giving it a shot at least once. I’m not sure I’ll do it again, but if the season has a lull at that time again, I’ll likely give it a go if the weather is OK. If it was cold and raining…it would have been miserable, but epic.

Photos courtesy of: cycling@dmroth.com

Kings Valley Road Race

This was my first road race of the season, but heading into it I felt pretty good. My training has been going well, even though it's been raining forever, which has put me on my trainer during the week. But I can tell I'm getting stronger because my trainer workouts have been getting better and I'm holding my power longer on group rides.

With that said not knowing the course I didn't really know what to expect other than what I had heard from a few people. I knew it was 56.6 miles long and had some climbing (some very steep but short climbs and one longer climb where the race finished). I had heard it was a hard course to get a breakaway going, but could see a couple of places where one could be done if the conditions were right.

Looking at the course profile I was a little concerned about the main hill and finish since I'm not a climber and it was an uphill finish. As it turned out most of the climb wasn't that bad, but there were a few sections that pitched up past 6% which is beyond my "Anchor" point...I.E. where I struggle at...Generally anything over 4% - 5% grades.

The race was what I would call On/Off...It was attack after attack, but nobody followed through with their attacks. So it was full on, then full off for most of the race...Kind of annoying and it kept the field together for most of the race.

On the end of the second lap (of three) a guy just kind of drifted off the front. I'm not sure if it was an attack or he just went a little hard and found himself out by himself but once he had a gap...he looked like he picked up the pace and turned it into an attack (if it wasn't). As we started the 3rd lap another guy jumped (not long after the first guy took off) and soloed his way to the lead racer.

The two of them built up a lead of around 2 minutes or more and the field wasn't chasing them hard...of course, they had multiple teammates in the race and were effectively blocking the field by disrupting any chase that was started and had good control over the pack which allowed the lead riders to stay away.

With a bit over 7 miles to go a few guys had jumped and had a small gap on the field. It looked like a good group so I jumped to catch them. As I caught them...they gave up and drifted back to the pack.

I looked back and nobody was chasing so I decided push the pace and see if I could get away knowing if I didn't I was toast on the final climb since I was "Pack Sliding" each time up the steepest pitches. This was a great place for me to go because it was fairly flat and had a bit of a cross wind, which I love when racing. After about 1.5 miles of cross wind the course turned right and headed into a headwind for the next 2.5 miles before the final climb, which again I think helped keep the field at bay until the final climb.

For a short period of time it looked like they started to chase, but it was quickly shut down again...partially by the teammates of those in the front as well as by my teammates. If a chase was going to organize it would have had to have been done by some of the smaller teams or independent riders.

After a few minutes on my own I had separated myself from the pack by a fair distance and I could see I was making up time on the two guys in front. By the time I hit the final climb I was about 10-15 meters away from catching them and once the climb leveled out a bit I was able to catch them and work with them on the final climb.

With about 2.5k - 3k to go the official told us we had 47 seconds on the field. At that point I think we all felt fairly confident we could hold them off which meant the finish would be between the three of us for the win.

Going into the final steep pitch before the last 200 meters where the road leveled off a little...the effort put into catching them...caught up to me. I didn't have much left at that point. That part of the climb started at 9%, then dropped to 6% and stayed there until we crested the steep incline. During the start of this steep pitch The other two put a few meters on me and with nothing in the legs to accelerate, they kept it to the top where it leveled off a little.

At this point I started looking behind me to see where the field was.

Looking back and looking forward I decided...3rd was good enough at this point. I could try and sprint to make it close and still take 3rd or cruise in for 3rd...I chose to cruise at that point finishing 3rd on the day.

This was my best ever climbing finish, so I was pretty happy about that, but it wouldn't have happened without my teammates helping control the pack as I broke away and caught the break.

Some numbers from todays race:

Total time of race: 2:26:42
Average watts: 236 (NP 308 watts...all the accelerations)
Max watts: 1294
Average speed: 22.6 mph
TSS: 213.4
IF: .876

During the chase/break away I averaged 25.1 mph into a cross/headwind and the last 20 minutes of the race averaged 325 watts. Needless to say...I really like my new Corsa Concept wheels

March training...

Well, unfortunately I wasn't able to race this month. I had planned on making the "Piece of Cake" road race my first mass start race of the year however a 3.5 mile gravel section each lap kept me from racing it. With age comes wisdom I guess...even if for the most part things were OK...though the early word was 10+ flats through the first gravel road section in the CAT 3 race alone. That just doesn't sound like much fun to me.

With that in mind, I've turned my focus to the Kings Valley road race on the 9th of this month. I've never raced Kings Valley so this will be a new experience for me. It's a Masters 3/4/5 race instead of the normal 1/2/3 races we have in the Masters field...so again something new.

Overall, I had a good month of March training wise:

• 58 hours and 29 minutes on the bike (trainer and outside)
• 1135 miles ridden
• Longest ride: 79 miles (4 hours and 25 minutes)

Unfortunately most of this was spent on my single speed since we had 29 of 31 days where it rained and the 5th wettest March on record. Hopefully the month of April things start to dry out around here.

On the weight front...It was a tough month. My weight stagnated for about 3 weeks then all of the sudden over the past two days I've lost 3 pounds and finally hit 190 pounds again. I want to lose another 5-7 pounds before the end of May so I'm still watching what I eat and trying to lose the weight at a slower rate than early in the year.

For now though I'm really working on my threshold power. I've moved my training toward that direction with lots of threshold level intervals and SST training. All of my high speed work comes during group rides, so I'm only getting a small amount of that right now which is OK in the end because I need higher threshold power more than anything right now.

Jack Frost Time Trial...

Yesterday was the fourth time I've raced the Jack Frost Time Trial. It's a fun early season Time Trail that usually runs around 12 miles in length. The course is an out and back on very flat roads. Last year due to Vancouver Lake being closed we had to start at a different location which added a little over 2 miles to the race.

This year, we were able to return to our normal starting location which has limited parking so findinga place to park and warm up is generally always an issue. You have teams setting up tents taking up several parking spots and lots of independents (or those that didn't bring a warm up tent looking for open spots. With this in mind I usually try and make it out a little early to find a parking spot, which thankfully one section of the park still had enough places left to park and warm up in.


Overall, I felt pretty good heading into the race and it's usually a good indication of my overall fitness level heading into the begining of the season. I haven't been doing any 20 minute intervals and up to this point hadn't done any interval longer than 2 minutes for the past two months....aside from last week where I have begun to lengthen my intervals to 7 minutes. This is still more of a VO2 max interval, but helps with my overall threshold since I'm doing 10 of them over the course of 2 hours.

The race started well enough. I had a shorter warm up than I wanted due to a number of factors, all of which were avoidable. But I was able to arrive to the starting gate with my 1 minute man just taking off, so I didn't have to stand around long before taking off.

Once on the course I felt pretty good, but could feel a weeks worth of hard efforts in my legs. From this point it was just a matter of going as hard as possible. I only had 4 racers in my catagory in front of me, but two other classes that I thought I might catch a few racers from and use as carrots during the race.

The first half of the race I felt pretty good, catching my 30 second man a few miles down the road, then my 1 minute man, 1:30 and 2:00 man by the turn around point. I had also started running into other catagory racers at the turn around point and had a fair amout of them to pass during the race.

On the return trip I could feel the lack of 20 minute intervals and had good minutes and bad minutes on the course. I would feel good for a little while, then slow down, realize I was going slow and pick the pace back up. I would love to be able to use a power meter to pace me instead of heart rate...but until I win the lottery, I don't see that happening.

However for a few TT's this year I'll be able to use a set of deep carbon wheels that I'm having built up with a powertap, so I'll get some numbers from those races, but they are short with lots of climbing so using those wheels makes some sense.

Overall, I came into the finish feeling fairly good. I wasn't gassed, but knew I had put in a hard effort.

I have also made some small position changes to my TT bike by adding a 2cm shorter stem that brings my elbows back a little and keeps me on the meat of the saddle a little more. This puts me closer to my road bike position which is what I ride the most, so in the end it should be benificial. I'm still plenty low enough on the bike, but need some new aero bars to be able to get narrower in the front than I am now (which is as narrow as my current bars will allow).

In the end I had a time of 28:10 which was good enough for 5th in the Masters 40+ field (out of 53 racers that showed up to race) and 25th overall out of 280+ racers. Not bad considering my lack of intervals to this point of the season and only 18 seconds slower than my PR on this course. The racers that took 3rd and 4th were both teammates of mine beating my by only a few seconds (13 second difference between me and 3rd place).

I can't complain much about that since I've really been concentrating on losing weight. I'm approximately 15 pounds lighter than I was at this time last year, currently sitting at 198-199 pounds. I would like to lose another 20 pounds and get down to 180, which would be a great racing weight for me (about 10 pounds under what I have raced at the last few seasons). With that in mind I working on continuing to drop the weight, but I've also got to put power back on. I'm about 30 watts under what I would normally be able to hold for 20 minutes during the race season...so work to do there.

The next planned race for me is the "Piece of Cake" in late March, but depending on the weather I might race a Banana Belt race or two, just to get back in the peloton and have some "Mass Start" racing under my belt before the Piece of Cake.

January Numbers....

January actually turned out to be a great month for riding. Only two weekends were wet enough that I had to use my single speed, so lots of time on my road bike. Granted...It's still dark out on the weekdays so I'm still on my trainer during the week.

Overall I had several nice rides:

January 1st: 75.86 miles.
January 22nd: 76.15 miles.
January 29th: 74.29 miles

And some shorter road rides of 38.63 mile rides on the 23rd and 30th.

The month of January was the biggest month I've had on a bike since July of last year. I had a total of 54 hours and 39 minutes of ride time (trainer and road time) and technically around 1150 miles ridden.

The really bright spot has been weight loss. I've changed my diet around to allow for a larger percentage of it to come from fats and protein and less from carbs. Combine that with increased intensity of workouts and I've dropped a little over 15 pounds since the 22nd of December (5 weeks).

The only drawback I have seen so far is that my power numbers are down from the lack of intervals over the winter. Right now I'm only putting out around 360 watts for 20 minutes, which means I have a good 30 watts of continuous power to put on over the next several months as well as drop another 15-20 pounds.

I have also started my core work so my hamstrings and core section were pretty sore for about a week, but are feeling much better now that the soreness is gone. In the end though, some good core work always seems to make things better on the bike. I was noticing that my back was starting to get tired at around the 3 hour mark on rides, while this past weekend I still felt pretty good after 4 hours on the bike.

Overall.....A good start to the year, but a long way to go before things start to get better

The 2011 season is almost here...

It has been a while since I’ve last updated my blog, so I thought I’d get some time riding in before my first post of the year.

Race season is only a month or so away from starting so my normal weight loss routine has begun and intervals are starting to get a little bit harder. On the weight front…I’m actually starting this year about a month or so ahead of last year. On January 1st last year I was somewhere in the 222-225 pound range, while this year I started around 215 pounds. I’m already down to 208 and if I stay on target I should be down to race weight (190 pounds or so) by the end of March.

Power wise, I’m not sure where I’m at since I haven’t used my Powertap (aside from a few rides when the weather has been nice). The only input I have toward power output right now is the average speeds I’m holding while completing trainer workouts. Going off of this data my power is better than it was at this time last year, though, how much better is unknown at this time. I’ll most likely have to wait until the Jack Frost ITT before I get a good idea of where I’m at.

As for rides so far this year, it started out great. I had several days off of work leading up to New Year’s weekend so I had time to ride. It basically turned into a winter training camp form me and with some nice weather was able to get in 15.5 hours on the bike and just under 300 miles for the week. The longest ride of the week was a 4.25 hour, 76 mile ride with two other teammates, though my legs were feeling it from 9 hours of riding that I had done over the 4 previous days.

Since then I’ve been getting in 11.5 – 12 hours a week of training time between the trainer and weekend group rides. I’ve started getting in an extra hour of riding before Saturday group rides for the extra time on the bike and more overall base miles than I did last year. I’ve also started doing a little core work, so my mid section and hamstrings are sore today…but that should dissipate over the next few days.

I’m not sure what my race schedule is going to look like this season other than my first race will be the Jack Frost ITT on February 20th. From there, I’m not sure what will be next. I may compete in a Banana Belt race or two or wait until the Piece of Cake (of which I will race unless I’m sick) at the end of March. I’m contemplating competing in the Cherry Blossom stage race and using it as a good training block and helping teammates if I have any in the race. My two “A” races will again be the OBRA TTT and ITT championship races, but will also likely race in the OBRA RR championship race again, even though it’s been moved back to May as it had been in years past.

Against my better judgment and my allergic reaction to asphalt, I’m planning on racing a few more crit’s this season. I haven’t singled any out other than maybe the OBRA Crit Championship in August, but will look at a few of the local races that I’ve avoided in the past. I however don’t have any plans on racing out at PIR again this season, but as with everything, that could change once racing starts up again.

With all that said…The first race is just a month away…so the season is almost upon us again :D

Breaking wheels...

This fall has been a bit tough on my wheel sets.

I've only been out on weekend group rides but the second time I took my single speed out I broke two rear spokes and pulled a spoke out of the front rim. Not a good way to start the winter riding season.

The following weekend was nice and I was able to take my normal road bike out. It held up find on the Saturday group ride, but taking it out for a ride on Sunday resulted in another broken rear spoke.

Not feeling like rebuilding the wheel myself I took it into a local shop to get rebuilt only to find out that I had cracked the hub flange on my powertap....GREAT!!!

Upon further research the shop found out that Saris/Cyclops would either rebuild the hub with all new parts or just replace the hub...depending on what they felt like doing. However, since it was out of the warranty period it's going to cost me $300.00 to have them do so, but they will also reinstate a year warranty on the hub. So...it's not all bad. I'm not waiting on the hub to be returned to the shop and have the wheel built.

On a side note, I'm looking at purchasing a new wheel set for my road bike. One of our team sponsors is Corsa Concepts so I'm looking at having them build up a set of their 2.3T wheels with a Powertap on the rear wheel.

So far the training over the winter has been going fairly well for the winter. I haven't been doing as many hours on the bike/trainer this year as in the past, but have had some good intensity with short intervals. I'm going to slowly ramp up my time on the bike/trainer over the next two months in preparation for the upcoming season. With cross season winding down I'm expecting to see more teammates show up for the group rides Saturday mornings...which should make the pace pick up a little as the winter moves along.

This past weekend was a good ride since we had a few more people join the 21+ group and we had a few short climbs thrown in for good measure. It was probably the best ride I've been on for the past two months and climbing on the single speed is always an adventure, but a good power builder :)

So far most of the weekend rides have been wet since we are in a La Nina year and they are expecting it to be wetter than normal with some saying much wetter than normal. So I'm expecting a lot of wet rides this winter...Not great fun, but it gets you ready to race in the rain should that be the case in the spring.

Anyway...Hopefully the broken spokes are over for the year...since I'm getting my Powertap wheel rebuild and I replaced my single speed wheel set with a new set of wheels.