2 Ways in 1 Day MTB TT Results

The 2W1D MTB TT is a race on the Big Creek MTB trails in Roswell, GA. It is about 2 miles from my high school and I ride it at last once a week. These were the "forbidden trails" my high school students told me about all those years ago and now one of them, Artur Sagat, crushed the course today and was once second away from the course record.

The clockwise direction to me is the harder of the two and we did that first. I led off the race and Artur followed at a 1 minute interval. I was on the single speed (36x18) and he was on a geared bike. He ended up laying 30 seconds into me by the end and finished at 19:55 for the ~6 miles. I finished at 20:23 which was a PR for me. The fastest I had done it previously was a 21:30.

The counter clockwise direction to me is faster and Artur started first and ended with a 19:47, 1 second off the course record. I gave it "all guns at once" and finished 20:30.

In the end I was able to take the single-speed 1st place (40:53) and 2nd overall and Artur finished first overall (39:42).

It was a fun race and a good "prologue" type sprint effort.

I received a really nice first place award from NW SORBA for---> winning the 17 mile Snake TT single speed title for 2008. It is a blue chain ring and in the middle is a customized headset cap with the Snake TT engraved in it. Also engraved is the placing and year on the chain ring.

<---Also, I have my new Lazer Genesis team Belgie helmet that HUP got this year. I really like it so far and it looks sharp. I have been able to get in some good riding in the past 2 weeks and my fitness is getting stronger. In the chart below you can see the yellow columns go positive during my flu illness and then in the past 3 weeks I have pushed them negative while my CTL (blue line) has climbed nicely. Hopefully I can continue to improve up to some un-designated level. I am planning on doing the GTC La Primavera next weekend and then the Saturday after that, take a shot at the "2 ways in 1 day" MTB TT in Roswell.

Big Creek SS

The Big Creek MTB trails are pretty close to my school so i usually go there twice a week for an hour. Riding the single-speed there is great and the course is much more challenging for me then riding it with gears. Think Snake TT with smaller rocks.

I have been trying to best my outer-loop time over the past few months and yesterday I had a nice breakthrough. My normal times for either direction have been around 24:30 but lately I have only been able to go on days where I can ride in the counter-clockwise direction.

Yesterday I did 2 laps and managed to clock a 22:45 and a 22:30 which was surprising. I am going to try and duplicate this in 2 weeks at the time trial there.

Dan's Macabre Comparison 3

Today we did a different course which was about 7 miles longer than usual and no dirt road. It was windy on the way back but we still did a great job. I am pretty tired from pulling but Theron provided the most horsepower and his pulls were fantastic. The objective of remaining steady, smooth and working together makes this ride a gem.

I had moved my FTP down to 280w because of the flu without any real testing to back it up. That seemed to be a good move and it may be a little higher than that. I may test in 2 weeks to see. I was very happy with my power output today and my CTL is back up to the pre-flu level of 57 tss/d because of some extra time to ride in the past 2 weeks. Hopefully I can massage this up into the 70's by the middle of summer.

Upgrades

I have been making some upgrades to my bikes over the past few weeks. I have my Klein Pinnacle single speed MTB and i just upgraded the wheels and tires. I went tubeless on the wheels using Bontrager Mustang tubeless ready rims. I had to get the rear wheel built because I needed to incorporate the White Industries ENO eccentric hub. Allen Smith at REI did the build and a great job. The front wheel came pre-assembled and with a nice XT front hub. The Bontrager tubeless ready tires were horrible and using soap you could see the air leaking out of the sidewalls. I took them back for some Michelin tires and use Stan's slime and they are working great.

I also went ahead and bought a very nice high end White Industries ENO rear 18 tooth hub. So far I notice a big difference in performance.

I also upgraded my brake system to XTR levers and some fancy teflon cables. Lastly, I bought some new Adidas Addistar MTB shoes which look really nice.

No upgrades on my road bike since I like it pretty much as is.

The biggest upgrade will be next week when I buy a new Honda Element EX. Even though it is not the best car out there, it pretty much has what I want without going full mini van (which was a thought).

Harbins Winter Ride

One of the last winter rides and my first >3 hr ride since the flu. It was hard and my power is very low right now. I predict I have lost about 23 watts from my previous FTP of 303 w. The day was nice, sunny and around 70 degrees and spring is right around the corner. All in all I did 54 miles in 3 hours at an average power of 169w and 18 mph average. Pretty easy stuff but it felt hard. Hopefully the chest and coughing will subside soon.