Leroy TT #1

My wheel truing stand and spoke tension meter arrived in the UPS van in the early afternoon, so I spent some time before the TT truing my fancy new Dura-Ace carbon/aluminum front wheel. Between Westlake's cracked concrete and the Covered Bridge series railroad tracks crossings, it was knocked around pretty hard. I realized I'd have the wheel in and out of the shop on a regular basis, and would start snapping spokes unless I finally developed some wheel truing skills.

The tension meter worked perfectly. I measured the tension on each side of the wheel, and tagged the high and low tension spokes with sticky book marks, then inspected the wobble of the wheel with a slow spin. No surprises! The wheel was off center where the spoke tension was unbalanced. I gradually adjusted the tension of each high or low tension spoke, measured, and spun. In a few minutes I had it nearly as good as new.

I drove up to Leroy at about 5:30PM, the rain from the early morning had cleared, and it was a beautiful sunny, warm day with a sustained 10 mph wind probably at about 280 degrees on the compass (WNW), right down the finish. I took an easy spin around the course. The tailwind was huge on the outbound section, I barely had to pedal to do 17 mph. There was a little crosswind on the uphill leg to the turn. On the way back, there was a little shelter from the wind except past the substation and the farm field where it was pretty fierce.

I wanted to get a 20 handle on my time and average slightly better power output than last week. I planned to push the pace a little harder on the downhill after the turn, since I was resting a little bit there in prior weeks.

Bill Marut was there along with Larry, Darrel, and another Kevin. Jim handed out the popsicle sticks and I was starting second behind Bill who was on his TT bike. This season, the TT bikes are going first so there's less of a chance of getting caught if you're on a road bike. Bill took off up the road, and I lined up and reset the old bike computer. I've been riding the course every Thursday since March, usually twice per session, so the start is programmed into my legs by now. I hold back on the first rise, then start to accelerate across the field.

It felt pretty easy to go fast with the tailwind, and I was pushing good power. I could feel my heart spooling up as I made my way across the field, and felt like I was holding back a little even though I kept seeing 400W pop up on the meter. I made the turn perfectly and accelerated up the climb. During the last few sessions, I've been trying to peg my effort all the way up the climb, but I tend to crumple a little bit after the first rise, and then make a strong sprint up to the summit. I think next week, I'll hold back a little at the beginning and try to ramp up the power all the way to the top.

As I made the summit, I saw that I'd have to wait a few seconds for a jeep to drive by before I did the turnaround, so I sat up and coasted. Since it's an open course, it's common to be held up by vehicle traffic and you just have to live with it. I've noticed the people that live on the streets like to stop in the middle of the road on a regular basis so you really have to pay attention.

I pushed the pace a little harder down the hill than last week and could feel a little pressure from the wind on my left shoulder. The finish was going to be tough!

The mile marks on the road were repainted this season and I was waiting to see the 2 miles to go mark, which is where I planned to start really hammering. The power meter was showing 400+ all the time as I headed toward 1 mile to go. It was hurting! I felt like I could hold on the the finish, though.

Finally, the fire station sign came into view and I lifted the pace more switching into a fully anaerobic effort. The wind kept me under 30 mph crossing the line, but my finish was still pretty strong. I chalked up a 20:52 (22 mph average) in spite of a small delay from traffic, and averaged 377W. That's my career best power output for 20 minutes, 40 seconds better than last week, and 10 seconds better than my best time so far this season.