Calga TT

[Alex Simmons/RST]

I did the Calga TT last Sunday.
42:55 (AT) 35km/h.

Anyone else here do it?

Results here:
http://www.atta.asn.au/db/002.php?page= ... id=nsw3_09

Not too bad given it was on standard road bike, helmet and wheels and the constantly up 'n' down Calga course. No aero kit save for my club skin suit. CdA estimate from the power data is a relatively high 0.33m^2.

On an aero set up I could get that down to ~ 0.28m^2 pretty easily I'd expect which would increase speed by nearly 2km/h and would drop time by ~ 2-minutes without a change in power.

I was hoping for a bit better power overall but I struggled with my prosthetic leg getting loose after about 15-20 minutes which saw 2nd half power fall somewhat. Overall I averaged 264 watts. I was looking for more like 270-280W.

[twizzle]

Alex, you are a sick man

PS - can I borrow your power gear?

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Alex, you are a sick man

PS - can I borrow your power gear?

we're all sick

[toolonglegs]

Time for that new leg!...thats not a bad speed for a solo run on a road bike,I am sure some races there only average that.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Time for that new leg!...thats not a bad speed for a solo run on a road bike,I am sure some races there only average that.

That's true. Indeed today the date was set to get a new cast taken of my stump so a new prosthetic can be made - 2 April is the day.

It takes a few weeks generally for the new leg to appear. I won't bore you with the details. I was kinda hoping we could do it a bit earlier (that's the earliest I can get) as this will give me a new leg only about a week before the championships and I'm a bit hesitant to change to something new so close to an event.

[Chuck]

Was it a handicap ? did you finish 10th overall on adjusted times Alex ?

Your time and average speed look very competitive to me. You must be happy with the progress you're making and could potentially make with a new prosthetic and a more aero position.



Wonder if I can convince Kev and the FPR's to have a crack at this with me when I'm back on the bike

[Kev365428]

Count me in. At least in a TT I'm not going to run over any fallen bodies.

Kev.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Was it a handicap ? did you finish 10th overall on adjusted times Alex ?

Your time and average speed look very competitive to me. You must be happy with the progress you're making and could potentially make with a new prosthetic and a more aero position.



Wonder if I can convince Kev and the FPR's to have a crack at this with me when I'm back on the bike

The adjusted times are aged based, so on the basis of age I was 3:58 faster than some age standard they use and the adjusted time placed me 10th. Can't say I pay much attention to that. It's a TT. Time is all that counts.

Yeah - pretty happy with how I'm progressing. saw beanzy this morning on a ride. I was out for a cruisy ride and his bunch picked me up on Taren Pt bridge, so I jumped on and rode back to park with them.

next weekend I'm doing the State Masters Track Champs, so will see how it goes. Doing the 750m TT, Points race and 3km pursuit.

[Chuck]

Count me in. At least in a TT I'm not going to run over any fallen bodies.

so you DID run me over

[aeroslave]

I will try anything once! Besides...I want to try the tri-spokes hehehehe...I am with you chucky!

[Ant.]

Just read it on your blog also. Very well done.
I think it's also fair to say you have pacing nailed. How often are you looking at your power meter screen for pacing, or is it becoming intuitive?

Bit of bad luck with bib numbers/starting intervals, and results - you would probably destroy someone's morale overtaking them with a prosthetic leg on a road bike.

With your current prosthetic leg not fitting so nicely since you've lost weight, will that be an issue again for you in the future with your soon to be aquired cycling prosthetic leg? (as I gather they are far from cheap!) Or are you at your ideal weight?

Otherwise it hurts and more importantly, you lose power.

Got your priorities in order I see.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Just read it on your blog also. Very well done.
I think it's also fair to say you have pacing nailed. How often are you looking at your power meter screen for pacing, or is it becoming intuitive?

I think the best way is to use it to keep yourself in check for the first km or 2, then it's pretty much by feel with the occasional glance to see how it feels vs. the numbers (provide that doesn't cost you aeroness, i.e it's a move of the eyes and not the head). If there is a longer climb, also good to check you don't go too hard too early.

The sensation of good pacing, is going steady up the hills and pushing hard down the other side. What that will do is moderate actual power output as most people ride far too hard going up and soft pedal down the other side.

Bit of bad luck with bib numbers/starting intervals, and results - you would probably destroy someone's morale overtaking them with a prosthetic leg on a road bike.

Don't know about that - as far as I'm concerned I'm racing myself.

But maybe a few guys in last night's State Masters Point race championships are wondering how come they got nailed and ended up DNF when I finished and would have been ~ 6th place (not to mention doing some work for two of my buddies, one during the race helping him to bridge a gap to the break (except he cracked and couldn't hold my wheel ) so then I turned my attention to my other buddy to give him a lead out for the final sprint, which he needed to win in order to get the bronze (which he did).

With your current prosthetic leg not fitting so nicely since you've lost weight, will that be an issue again for you in the future with your soon to be aquired cycling prosthetic leg? (as I gather they are far from cheap!) Or are you at your ideal weight?

I still have several kilos to fall off over time. There is no hurry. Small and gradual changes mean the training - diet balance is about right, until I get around the right level.

Yes, it is a factor for future prosthetic fit - it will be for the rest of my life and I expect I'll need a new socket every 18-months or so.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

I did the Calga (25km) TT again today. My time was 1:41 faster than last month. Same power, same conditions.
An exercise in what aerodynamics can do for you.

Read about it here:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-skool.html

[heliage]

I did the Calga (25km) TT again today. My time was 1:41 faster than last month. Same power, same conditions.
An exercise in what aerodynamics can do for you.

Read about it here:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-skool.html

Thanks heaps for that, good read, didn't realise how much it made a difference, very nice speed as well.

Tour de france this year has a 40km time trial , whats the average speed you guys reckon they will get on it? (know its sort of for that other section of forum, but its about a TT )

[Alex Simmons/RST]

I did the Calga (25km) TT again today. My time was 1:41 faster than last month. Same power, same conditions.
An exercise in what aerodynamics can do for you.

Read about it here:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-skool.html

Thanks heaps for that, good read, didn't realise how much it made a difference, very nice speed as well.

Tour de france this year has a 40km time trial , whats the average speed you guys reckon they will get on it? (know its sort of for that other section of forum, but its about a TT )

If you can point me to a course elevation profile (data I mean not just a pretty picture) then I'll be able to estimate a time for someone like say David Millar using the power and aerodynamics he had last time. Of course it is somewhat dependent on wind conditions.

[Ant.]

Nicely done


Do you have some sort of automated thing to determine CdA? I've skimmed through the ingenius Chung method (is coasting allowed?), which doesn't sound too hard, just time consuming and tedious. It'd be nice to get a baseline TT CdA while doing a MIET, since I'm in the mood to play with a couple of things.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Nicely done


Do you have some sort of automated thing to determine CdA? I've skimmed through the ingenius Chung method (is coasting allowed?), which doesn't sound too hard, just time consuming and tedious. It'd be nice to get a baseline TT CdA while doing a MIET, since I'm in the mood to play with a couple of things.

As long as:
- it's not too windy
- you are riding a loop* course with a known elevation variance per lap
- you ride without changing position
- you don't brake (coasting is fine, as is variable speed)

then you can get a pretty good nail on CdA/Crr by using Robert Chung's virtual elevation model approach. However to properly break the CdA/Crr pair apart, you need to know how to extract Crr and that requires a little bit more sophisticated testing or techniques (normal method is to have runs at different average speeds).

* it doesn't need to be a loop as in circular, it can be an out and back, but it's braking and getting out of position that you want to avoid. Laps can be pretty short (e.g. on a velodome) or longish. just the longer they are, the fewer sets of data you can map on top of one another to align elevation to a CdA/Crr pair.

OTOH, if you use exactly the same tyres, tubes and pressure (and tyre temp is not too wildly variant) then you can just pick a reasonable value for Crr, and then make the reasonable assumption that any changes are as a result of aerodynamic variances, i.e. changing CdA.

For example: here is a virtual elevation profile of Centennial Park ridden on my road bike on the hoods during a MIET ride.

[rob e]

i am very keen to ride the Calga TT. I last competed on this course in the U16 NSW Champs, a long long time ago......might have a dig on the roadie first and then convince the mrs i need a TT bike

[jamierk]

Anyone going on sunday?

[Alex Simmons/RST]

I'm racing elsewhere this time.

[jamierk]

Cool. I did the 25km TT there last month in 42:30ish on my roady. Wasn't a great time owing to being unfit, not bring my HRM and not charging my computer/gps battery. It was just me, the steed and a course i'd never ridden. Hopefully experience will help a little on sunday (at least i know that hill towards the end is the last hill and i can attack it properly). Unfortunately weather/family events has limited the training miles.

[JV911]

i heard along hte grapevie that a rider was struck by a car yesterday at calga

anyone know what happened?

[JV911]

The rider in the accident was Ross Hodgeson
He was released from hospital at 3pm on Sunday
Worst injury is ligament damage in leg + sore shoulder and of course abrasions
Accident happen on his return leg at about 10:10am 100m north of Bushels rd
A car had stopped to turn right, it appears that Ross only saw the car late and swerved to the right to pass the car, unfortunately the car started its turn at the same time.
Police were on the scene very quickly and ambulances shortly after.
Ross is at home and in very good spirits

If you are unaware Ross is a multiple National Time Trial Champion in the Masters 5 cat

[1q2w3e4r]

Alex, this is a good thread, lots of interesting information and data analysis I'm interested in discussing and discecting. I hope you don't mine me bumping it up with my rides from Calga (if so just let me know). I'd also be interested in everyone else's rides who does the course, perhaps we could use this thread as a Calga TT thread? As the TT forum seems fairly quiet compared to the training and road riding/racing sections.

I apologise for the longish post

I did the 25k Calga TT again today. New PB from last month, but I'm not convinced that I paced the ride that well, I raced it last month as well in a 43:35 (AT) 227 NP and 207 AW. I took note of everyone's suggestions to HTFU and pedal down the descents and try and maintain a constant pace.

Both rides I used the same strategy, go easy in the first 1/4 of the ride, limiting the wattage in the first 10 minutes to 215-220 Avg Watts then the second quarter averaging to the wattage range I wanted for the rest of the ride, 3rd quarter was holding on and the 4th quarter was to leave nothing left and wind it out.

Here's my analysis of the two rides back to back

Today I was behind 23 seconds within the first 4 km of my ride last month. I held this till about the 9 km mark where it then started to blow out.
9km 33 seconds down.
10km 41 seconds down
11 km 49 seconds down
Turn around point 55 seconds down (23:53 today compared with a 22:58 last month). Average watts were 9 watts higher at this point and NP was 5 watts higher, I put this down to pedalling more on the descent. 22:53 (AT) 233 NP/219AW 90 rpm at 30.8 kph. I was surprised to be so far behind at the half way point as I felt good, no where near as stressed as last month and thought I was riding it at a good pace (wattage indicated as much). I thought I'd be around the 23:00-23:10 mark.

I continued to loose time, blowing out to 57 seconds down at the 13km mark.

Here's where it gets interesting, I was passed around the 28 minute mark, just on 15 km, coincidently right where I pinged a mate on his return leg who started 11 minutes ahead of me while I was on the out leg. At this point, I noted the time I passed him at and realised I needed to be sub 11 minutes to be in front at the same point when I came back. Coming back my time was around 11:15 so I knew he was in front. Time to get on the pain train luckily a faster rider went past me at this point. I knew I had about 15-18 minutes of ride time left so I tried to keep pace with him and hold him in sight as long as possible. It worked, it was a tough final 10k, but I caught my "ghost ride" from last month by the 17 km mark wiping out 52 seconds in 3km. I also got passed on the return leg last month so I had "carrot" to chase then as well.

I covered the final 10k in 14:36 (AT) 248NP/232 Avg Watts at 90 rpm and 39.5 kph.

Data from this ride, out leg 22:53 (AT) 233NP/219 Avg Watts at 30.8 kph
Return leg 18:42 (AT) 244 NP/225 Avg Watts at 39.4 kph

Data from last month's ride, out leg 22:58 (AT) 228NP/210 Avg Watts at 32.1 kph
Return leg 20:42 (AT) 227 NP/203 Avg Watts at 35.5 kph

This month's return leg was 4:11 seconds faster than the out leg. That seems like a massive discrepancy, I've usually always been 2:00 to 2:15 faster on the return leg, I'm wondering if I paced it well today, or left a bit too much in the tank on the first half of the course. It also hurt, but not as much as last month. Maybe FTP is on the rise.

Bike, equipment, race weight all unchanged. Weather was probably better last month with the rain and atmospheric barometer

[1q2w3e4r]

Double post