Fast Tuesday has again been and gone and it was another resounding success with another PB achieved along with a new FTP for myself, now at 236 watts for 20 minutes.
James was back on board again today and frankly it was good to have him out as three seems to make a big difference to a two up which I will come back to later. The same ethos was applied as last week with a beginning middle and end being logged onto Strava as three different rides. I think fairs fair and all that. It is a much better exercise in getting decent times recorded in relevance to the actual effort as riding across town can lose time and power.
I had good legs today. I felt powerful and in control for the 26 fast miles and never felt like I was over extending compared to last week. I did suffer slightly on the two mirror climbs, but naturally popped it into the small ring, span up, crested, got back into zone 2 before opening up the tanks and going full gas again in the big ring. To be honest, James pretty much held the front going up and coming back, which is fine by me. Smart riders ride smart and of course, James is happy smashing the front. He has no threshold, he is an animal. Steve rode fantastically as ever and put in another good shift on the propel with very good form and technique despite advising us that he was not feeling 100%. Fair play though we all literally hammered it. The longest Strava segment reveals the full gas tomfoolery - 11.4 miles at 21.7 miles an hour for 31 mins 30 secs (pic below). Interestingly, I was 4 minutes quicker this week on that section. I knew I had heavy legs last week and this reminds me. What a difference.
In summary, as below 26 miles in just under 1 hour 17. A new FTP and a PB for the course which is delightful. Average speed 20.6 miles an hour. Think about it. That is 20.6 miles an hour for 26 miles. Brilliant. The TCR was faultless today. Shod with narrow wheels it was no less fast without deep wheels or an aero bike of which I had convinced myself the TCR would not ride like the Madone. Not true, just as fast in recreational land. The Giant in house carbon wheels are just fantastic, super stiff, super light and super fast though I remain a hung jury on the Giant 'stock' tyres. They seem sticky/grippy compared to my Schwalbe one's which appear to have been discontinued. Bummer.
Going back to the two vs. three. Here is the crazy bit. I / we felt like we rode hammer down all the way home, because actually we did. The crazy thing ? Compared to last week we were at 26 miles in 1 hr 19 and 43 secs where as today, paradoxically, we were 26 miles at 1 hour 17 and 08 secs. A difference of 2 minutes 35 seconds quicker. It felt inherently faster but a simple reminder that as discussed before recreational bike riders can look for minutes. Pro's look for seconds and formula one guys look for tenths. We are just regular guys who like riding bikes. To some that makes us irregular. These people of which one we encountered in a road rage incident today do not ride bikes. He was swiftly dispatched with a blast from my water bottle. As they say in Australia, he looked like a proper crack head bogan. What a fool.
Fast Tuesday has become a wonderful part of the week. Great company, great bike riding. You gotta love it. Roll on next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment