Toughen Up

Bad weather makes tough racing but great pictures!

2014-04-12T09:21:00.004+02:00

A dreadful racing day. RMVZOL 56km criterium in #Brütten A lovely sunny week turned in to [Belgium-like-apocalyptic] cold windy rain and hail. At one point a wild deer barely took me out of the race, crossing the parcour.@steiner_argon18 capital victorious again!

Haute Route the Alps 2013

2013-12-29T19:33:00.002+01:00

The famous "candle" of col d'Izoard

Two years ago I've heard about this race. The course looks fantastic: 7 challenging stages from Geneva down to Nice with all the mystical passes of French Alps in between. Since then I dreamed to race it. It's been my focus for the whole season. All the races and training I've done was with this goal in mind. Its been an honor to become a part of Steiner Bäckerei - Argon18 cycling team. Riding with the best was a huge boost in performance and confidence.

For the 2013 edition of the Haute Route the Alps organizers put together over 880km of road, 21400 meters of climbing with a mountain time-trial stage up to Col de la Bonette (peaking at 2800m)

This was my first week long event with multiple stages. I didn't know how the legs would react on this daily abuse with little chance to rest. Turned out my conservative pacing worked out well as I progressed on general classification day after day 49->44->46->43->43->41->39. To put this placement in to prospective, this race attracts strong amateurs/ex-pro riders from all around the world. The top 75 of GC considered to be an elite group with a separate start from the overall 550 bunch.

By the middle of the race you know the guys around you in standing and this where you start to race to climb up the classification. Every day a little step up, a little victory.

The highest mountain time trial up to the Col de la Bonette.

This was on the last bit - steep ramp to the Cime.

I really enjoyed the race. This experience, probably is as close as we, amateurs can get to riding something like the Tour de France.

The last stage was a bit of a mess. We were routed by marshall to a wrong way. Here what my teammate Philippe wrote in the mail to organizers. I think the stage is captured nicely

Almost immediately after the real start was given, some guys attacked and the front of the peloton broke into several smaller groups of 2-5 riders. I managed to stay in the 10-20 first riders. When it started to climb, the gaps were closed and there were at least 20 riders in the first group including me. Shortly after the start of the climb Peter Pouly (89) attacked, followed by Bastien Froidevaux (476). I was around position 10. I tried to close the gap but they were too fast. Others tried to close the gap but failed too. A group of 15-25 riders started the chase. I was part of that group. Oleksiy Mishchenko (137), Stéphane Kamerzin (489), Richard Carriero (148), Mike Fridelance (480) were also part of the group. I can't tell who were the other riders.

Several minutes later, when we reached the place where the wrong turn happened, I was still in the first/chasing group (at that point I thought that the gap had been closed and that it was the first group). I was in one of the last positions with 15-25 riders in front of me, one behind another, stretched in a line. The first riders went straight (i.e. took the right route) but the "planton" started screaming that we had to turn right. The first riders had to stop and come back. Since I was in back of the group, I only had to slow down and turn right.

There was a lot of confusion but I noticed that there was a double yellow sign clearly indicating that the route was straight ahead and not right. Therefore I had my doubts on this right turn but since all the other riders went there, I also followed them. The road was a bit steeper and I had a very hard time accelerating again after the low down and apparently other riders had similar issues because the group very soon split into smaller ones.

After a few minutes, a car came from behind yelling that this was the wrong path and that we had to go back, which I did. Since I was in one of the last groups resulting from the chase group, I was one of the first ones to turn back and I became therefore one of the first riders of the chase group. I was soon rejoined by Stéphane Kamerzin (489) and a few others (but I couldn't tell who they were).

So we were now "leading the chase" but we didn't ride full speed since this would have been totally unfair to the first riders of the chase who had to turn back (a second time!) from quite a bit further that we had to. The whole thing also looked like a big joke and we were wondering whether the stage would even be taken into account.

After a few minutes, everyone (or at least most of the chase group) was back and some riders decided to go full speed again. I still managed to follow.

Several times we encountered groups of slower riders that had overtaken us while we were on the wrong path. Overtaking them slowed us down and also made it hard for us to remain in a single group. Several kilometers into the col de Vence, while overtaking one of these groups 3-4 riders of the chasing group escaped. The remaining of the chase group also split into smaller groups but these groups merged again over the next kilometers. I finished the race in that group, which included Oleksiy Mishchenko (137), Stéphane Kamerzin (489), Richard Carriero (148), Mike Fridelance (480) and 10-20 others.

At 500-1000 meters from the finish line, shortly after it started to climb again, I followed some that tried to sprint to the end. At that point I know for sure that I overtook Oleksiy Mishchenko (137) and Mike Fridelance (480). The finish line was a bit further that I expected so I had a hard time finishing (but so did others) and I know for sure that neither Oleksiy Mishchenko (137) nor Mike Fridelance (480) were much ahead of me. They were either behind me or just on my left or right, possibly slightly ahead of me out of my field of view but for sure not 6 seconds ahead of me. That's why I think that my corrected time should be 1:16:25 (and not 1:16:31). I'm telling this because of Joseph's story about an initial fix of 6 seconds (i.e. I don't that think my time was reduced by 6 seconds). My scratch ranking should therefore be one of 11, 12, 13, or 14.

After passing the finish line, I put my bike in a rack, and got something to drink. A few minutes later Oleksiy Mishchenko (137) told me that a women was collecting the bib numbers of the riders that were affected by the wrong turn. I went to her and gave my number and I'm pretty sure that I saw her write it down. After that I left for Vence to leave more space for the next riders.

A beautiful lake on the climb Cormet de Roselend

Overal Heatmap

2013 Racing Season Kickoff

2013-03-12T22:37:00.000+01:00

Criterium at Brutten, RMVZOL#2

Yes the racing season has already started!

Although 2012 was ended a bit prematurely I'm back on track now. This year is all about cycling. The disciplin I found over the years I enjoy the most. If you haven't already heard, I was lucky to be accepted in the Steiner-Argon18 Cycling Team. The team is dominant for a few years in national competitions. The results talking for themselves. But with the privilege come expectations to perform accordingly. This is an amazing motivation to train hard, with the new team mates, friends and great support from my family.

Thats it for now. Stay tuned.

Gradient analysis of Strava segments

2012-08-30T22:10:00.001+02:00

Strava is nice but one thing I was missing is an easy way to see a climb gradient distribution. You kinda have an average gradient and a picture of slope, but it wont tell you much....
Having a little bit of a spare time lately i played a bit with the Strava API. I'd like to share the simple app to display a segment gradient more intuitive (is it?)

http://steepish.appspot.com

Yuo can feed it Strava segment ID i.e. those numbers in the Strava URL: http://app.strava.com/segments/662618 and you'll get something like this

It shows you where the steepest part are, shades to gray where the gradient kicks over 15%.

The most popular queries cached and displayed on index page. The more popular it is the bigger the link.

Feel free to use it if you like. However It's not a polished solution, rather a quick-hack so please be gentle :)

Ironman Lake Placid 2012. "I can do that all day long."

2012-08-03T00:18:00.002+02:00

At 4:01 I woke up happy and rested. For the first time the night before race i slept well. The whole week in US I tried to stay on European time, passing off at 21:00, up at 4:30, which was like 10:30 back home. Calm and relaxed we got our breakfast, geared up and went down to the arena where the transition was set up.

We drove in from NYC on Thursday to check out the race venue, got a swim that evening. On Friday we went to check the bike course. I wasn't sure which cassete to use for the race as I wanted my cadence to be over 80 even on the hills. I brought 12-25 and 12-28 sprockets but as it didn't seem to be steep, no more than 10% of gradient I stick with 12-25 with the more convenient gear range.

Unbelievable how so may people could fit in the starting line. I swam to the front an hold on to a surfboard of a referee until the American national anthem has been sang. Then they put "The Beautiful Day" by U2 out loud, and the gun went off.

The navigation wasn't an issue at all. Quite a few people were fighting to keep the underwater line in sight, but that wasn't necessary. I got punched in the eye twice hard, and someone hold by my ankle to get a free ride for a few minutes. The kicking and punching level increased as we went to the turnaround at the ~1km mark, but after that I finally joined a group which were going about my speed. The second lap was more enjoyable. Nevertheless I was happy to see the church which meant we about 100m to the shore.

I hit the lap button - 1:06, a bit more than I expected, but Garmin showed over 2 x 2km lap with 99 sec/100 meters which was exactly the speed I was aiming for.

Than was a long run to the transition, on the way volunteers helped to pull us out of the wetsuits.

Finally got my bike! Running out of transition I noticed the bottle on the aero-bars was banging suspiciously, turned out one of the zip-locks broke and nothing were holding the bottle cage on left side. Well, it didn't fell off completely but it would, for sure I'd loose my bottle on the first bump. And i needed that bottle, there was 180k of a long, sunny ride ahead. What should I do? Eventually, I just stuck the bottle behind in to my shorts [Faris al-Sultan style]. It worked pretty well. Specially, when I finished and threw away this bottle, it was refreshing to have there chilly new ones from the aid stations.

Pushing the uphills.

Steep downhill from the start. While I was swimming it got crowded on the road, not good. It always amazes me how many people ahead of me on the swim. I'm not the front pack swimmer and I didn't push too hard at it is still a long journey home.

My HR was within the limits ~160, so I pushed it a bit harder on the uphill, [knowing i'll get some rest shortly after] to get clear for the "Screaming Downhill" to the Keeny valley. Then it was flat stretch for about 15km to the turnaround in Ausable. It's like catch-and-release game: you see a rider in front and you have 30 sec to pull closer (legal drafting), level up and overtake. In theory the overtaken rider suppose to drop back, but people really remember that rule, so I prefer to ride away a bit before lining back.

What? I was totally legal!

In this game I got joined by 2 more riders, and after overtaking each other couple of times I decided just use them to pace me as the speed was decent ~42km/h with just under 100 rpm of cadence and I didn't want to go here any faster. Here the mantra of that day came to my mind: "I can do that all day long" :)

After turnaround the road went a little uphill and the wind winded up. One of my friends (a dude in red compression socks on P2) randomly got a red card for drafting. I understood his disappointment, there was totally no reason for this.

Speaking on compression socks. That was the second time i tried them in racing. First time I used 2XU, and by the end of the bike leg I had to pul them down as it really hurt my calves. This time I wore O-Motion and they totally rocked! I might know that feeling on a long hard day on a bike when your calves on the edge of cramping, and you start trying to stretch out and keep effort steady. Didn't happen this time. Even on the run no issues with cramping there whats however.

I can do that all day long....

Ok, back to racing. As we hit the climb, I settle down at rather modest but sustainable 1000 m/h vertical speed and soon all my friends from the flats were far behind. Before the race I wondered which sprocket to use as I wanted high cadence but didn't know the gradient. Turns out casette 12-25 was a good choice, may be 11-25 would play better on the downhills, but this way it was easier to force myself to get a break.

At some point i noticed riders with yellow numbers - those were the female pro's. Nice, I thought, as they had 10 min head-start on us, and for sure were much faster on the swim split.

I approached Lake Placid with one rider in sight, and overtook him soon after. The second lap was much more lonely. There were a female Pro rider who must have gotten offended by me coming around and tried hard to get clear again, but every time after acceleration i pulled her back and dropped after turnaround as we head uphill in to the wind.

The second time climb was tougher: the sun was up and the wind got stronger. I scored more liquid and gels on an aid-station and grind my teeth fighting the 45km/h wind.

Cornering the streets of Lake Placid

Even though the ride course was hard I was smiling to the idea what it suited me just perfectly, giving me advantage over the competitors.

I was second after the bike split, with 3rd best time in AK for the ride! I had no idea now much ahead I was as I hit the run. Most of athletes were still enjoying the ride, and only few of us on the marathon. The crowd cheered those few generously.

Out of T2, applying some extra sunscreen. Last thing I wanted is to get sunburn. ;)

The second transition was super fast, I was the only one in the tent flying in and out on the speed i seem to be carried on from the bike.
My plan was to start easy at about 4:58 min/km but as the way went downhill the speed was hard to evaluate and after first 10k I, to my horror, averaged 4:30 min/km. It is 21.1km out and back course and you have to do twice. It does start downhill, but then comes the payback: 3 uphills to get back those 125m of elevation.

Enjoying the marathon. On the first lap it was pretty lonely out there.
Those are the ski jumps towers built for the 1980 Olympic Games

There was plenty of aid-stations to get a coke-refill, I collected ice and sponges to cool down the core, back and my legs. At some point i saw Andy Potts (the winner) and few more Pro's on their final lap. It was still over 30 km to go for me. One of referee told me I was about 4th in AK at that time. The first female pro caught up and stayed behind for quite a while, so I was accompanied by another referee on a bike and a TV crew. And of course spectators support was amazing.
I did underestimate the running course there, well honestly any Ironman marathon is tough and for the last few hours one have to be ready to get in a pain cave and push it through. I did ran uphill, but at some point i switched my focus from pace, which was totally out of control to cadence, I kept it at about 90 spm. Having this rhythm helped. The mantra was the same: "I can do that all day long..."
On the second lap there were much more people, and harder to keep an eye on who's coming ahead. Anyway by the time I "climbed" up to Lake Placid second time i was super happy to see the finish line.

Looks like I had some energy left to fly in to finish with a smile!

OLEKSIY MISHCHENKO

Rank: 10

Overall Rank: 52

BIB:	1372
Division:	M30-34
Age:	33

Swim:	1:07:30
Bike:	5:11:11
Run:	3:51:20
Overall:	10:16:08

Zytturm Triathon

2012-06-20T22:19:00.001+02:00

My ascetic transition

I didn't want to be late for the race, i really really wanted to get there with enough time to settle down, get my number, warm-up, swim a bit, enjoy the celebration of the sport. Didn't happen...

This year the start was in shallow waters. This is a bit further and the tricky part is a pontoon which is straight on the way. That's where the battle began.
I started with the front pack, got quickly dropped after about first 300m and kept going on my own to the turnaround. On the way back a group from behing caught me and helped to get back. Coming out of the water i glanced on my watch.. what? 27 minutes!? That sucks!!!
As it turns out later The organizers decided to challenge athletes with almost 200m of extra swim for 1.5km initially planned. But the motivation level dropped down a bit.

By the way I really like my new TriathELITE wetsuit (thanks Speedo!) I dont know how those "pockets" on the sleeve are legal, but it gives you so much of extra grab in the water, feels like you swim with paddles. It is not for beginners tho`. In comparison with the Helix Blueseventy it has less rubber on your legs, so feel for the good water position is essencial to use it full potence.

While swimming I recalled what in the rush I forgot to mount my Garmin to my bike with all necessary data fields to watch on the ride. So despite having the beautiful peace of equipment as powermether I was basically blind, having only timer and average speed on my wristwatch. I didn't bother to go through my stuff in T1 to put it back. Got my bike and took off.
In the Zytturm Triathlon to get on the bike course one must ride through the cobblestones of the old city center. On the firs big bump (i think it was actually a water drain) my only bottle catapulted and I proceed with no drinks for the next 40k.
Probably it was a bit more windy today than the last year. It took me more that 1minute this time, but I got better placing.
By the time I reach Zug i was totally "dry". I flew through the transition (after the 40km/h bike ride it felt awfully slow). Rehydrated in the first water stations and started to pick up the pace. The weather was good for running. And to me it was the best part of the race. After 5km I speed up to 4min/km and felt really good overtaking faded competitors.
At the 8km mark 2 guys from behind moved forward at even higher pace. I did my best to keep up. The last part of the run goes slight uphill. A one of the dudes attacked, another one dropped back and I started to speed up for the finish. It was really an all-out sprint for the 31st place we split.

Swim: 27:47.15

T1: 1:37.17

Bike: 1:00:14.35

T2: 1:30.20

Run: 40:29.28

Total: 2:11.34,8

The new Ironman age group ranking system

2012-06-02T21:34:00.000+02:00

In order to ~~bump up profit~~ motivate people to race more the WTC introduced European Age Group ranking. You race, collect the point based on time behind the winner. The Age Group winner gets 5000 points. There are also small bonuses for completing a race, etc. details see here. By the end of the year WTC release the overal ranking taking the sum of three top results over your season. Here what I've got:

Ironman 70.3 St.Polten (21st, 04:46:00) 4434 points
Ironman 70.3 Rapperswil-Jona (34th, 04:42:39) 4472 points
Ironman Switzerland (20th, 09:58:05 ) 4434 points

Europe Ranking Male 30 − 34 2011

Overall Pos	Country Pos	Name	Country	Races	Points

1	1	Janousek Martin	GER	3	14,084
2	1	Rojnik Klemen	SLO	3	14,011
3	1	Schnitzler Michael	AUT	3	13,856
4	1	Studer Martin	SUI	3	13,521
5	2	Welti Martin	SUI	3	13,485
6	2	Theopold Nicolas	GER	3	13,456
7	2	Rojnik Andraz	SLO	3	13,395
8	1	Mishchenko Oleksiy	UKR	3	13,340
9	1	Carreras Nicolas	FRA	4	12,829
10	2	Clère David	FRA	3	12,528

Seeland Classic / Berner Rundfahrt

2012-05-15T23:21:00.001+02:00

...or 3 hours of chasing Cancellara in a miserable cold rain.

(Pictures by Hobbyathletes.com)

I started from the back. Big mistake. With the field of ~250 riders its at least 100 meters long, meters which I failed to close on chasing the leaders group of the race.

The race has been neutralized until we left the city, by that time everyone already was soaked through. And then the uphill started. Just over 6km, easy gradient slowly ramping up to 15% on the Bernstrasse climb. Which is fine by itself but try to hit it hard on full speed, and you'll feel the pain.
Coming up this climb I saw the gap. About 100 meters clear to the leaders. The road went downhill through the rivers of water. After few turns it flattened out and the leaders group seem to get closer. I gave it all... still out of reach. Quick look back - another rider was chasing me. 'Wouldn't be it easier to chase them together?' - I though to myself and slowed down. He caught up but even two of us working hard couldn't close the gap.
A group of about 10 riders joined us from behind, and I though now we can maker it, but.... no, people didn't seem to have an intend to push harder. I gave a few pulls for nothing. After a few turns after the leaders were gone.

As it is turned out later some one from the leaders has attacked on the first climb, splitting the field. Therefore the teams in front put the hammer down to catch the early breakaway (with Cancellara) doing well over 50km/h.

The rest of race went in cold rain and pain but pretty uneventful, we were going as a group with a decent speed. I worked in front just to keep myself warm. The worst was long fast downhills. On the last lap someone from the group crashed in the middle of the street, not so easy to keep concentration in the weather like this. I was lucky to jump over grass to the sidewalk to stay up.

I was second approaching the finish. On the final curve the guy in front lose too much of speed, I took a longer trajectory using the momentum to increasing mine. There were still 500m to the finish line, but at this point I was in front and had no other choice but to fire up the sprint. Didn't quite make it, as by 200m sign i started to fade and 2 guys jumped from my wheel crossing the line.
The effort for the sprint made my eye sight drop FPS rate. I was observing the world blinking, only after 10 minutes in a warm shower at the Kaserne I came back to life.

The Sun came out of the clouds to cherish with its warm evening rays my way home.

Official results

TTT or CCX?

2012-05-09T20:56:00.000+02:00

Taylor Phinney, the Giro d'Italia race leader going cyclocross on the forth stage, Team Time Trial in Verona. Great bike handling skills, could have ended up in the vineyard.

Here is another legendary stunt done by Lance in 2003:

SOLA-Stafette 2012

2012-05-06T23:58:00.002+02:00

Every spring for one day, trams, trains and trolleys in Zurich get full of people in tights and running shoes. No, this is not another flashmob, this is SOLA-Stafette participants getting around to/from the part of the relay race they have been assigned to run. And so did we on this cold rainy morning.

This was my third SOLA, second time I do the Uetliberg-Felsenegg part. It'a a short one 5.9km but by no means flat. One get about 130 of vertical meters which equal to 2% constant average gradient. Perfect to test the legs on full speed!

Official results: 23:58, 17th overall.

The whole team Google+ did an amazing job of covering the distance of over 116km in 8:54:00, which put us on the proud 50th place out of 824 contenders!

The fun part: I had to run back to get my bags as the transport unfortunately wasn't provided.

Zurich Marathon in 3 hours

2012-04-23T21:14:00.001+02:00

For many runners 3 hour marathon is an inspiring goal. The goal motivates you to go harder, suffer through intervals, hills, go for a long run despite what the weather got on her mind. So it was for me for a few years. Until the last weekend.
Despite all the training I've done the way I approach the race wasn't... optimal. A minor cycling accident just week before cut my training short, a virus has caught me on Friday and tried to put me down in bed. Those things brought some uncertainty in my plan.
The plan by itself was pretty straight-forward: go with 3:00 pace makers, hold on 4:15min/km and give it all on last 3km coming back in the city.
The morning came. I felt much better. Determined to run. And just in case decided to dress up a bit warmer.
So we took off for the run. 10 min and a cold pouring rain came down on us. At this point forgot it all worrying about my beloved wifey. She just had started the 10k cityrun having just a t-shirt on her shoulders. To see her smiling running over the Limmat bridge was the highlight of my run.
There's been about 20 athletes clustered in a pack with the pacers as we left the city heading through the rain for the 15k stretch to Meilen. My heart rate dropped down to ~145 bpm. I felt good cruising in the middle of the pack. The only drawback was the access to the water/feed stations but people share the water. Whoever managed to grab the bottle passed it over to comrades. Unfortunately I missed my chance to grab the gel which was apparently available on a single station, first out of city. Oh well, I had two "Cola" shots on my backpocket - should be enough.
Approaching the Meilen the tight pack of Africans flashed in opposite direction. Those guys unbelievable, born runners.
The road goes slight uphill on the turnaround with the scream tunnel at the apex to boost our soaked spirits.
My quads started to complain on overuse at about 2h in to the run. "Welcome to the pain box.": I told myself and focused on the form. One have to keep himself together. But now I knew - I'm coming home.
The sun came out as we approach the city, beautiful clouds decorated blue sky over the lake of Zurich.
Not much left in the tank, we were still on 3:00 schedule, and that was about time to make the move. And I went. Picking the slight uphill of Bahnhofstrasse as . You not usually even noticing it walking around the old town. But "oh boy", it hurts after 40km of running. Honestly, the hardest past of the marathon was the deserted 1k on the back streets of the Zurich. I was making my small goals to keep the pace up to the next corner, then to the next one, then one more....
Back to the Burkliplatz - the crowd is roaring and this helps to unveil whatever life energy still in the body.
Final turn. 500m left. Clock at 2:58:00. Full gas.

2:59:36.8

Côte de la Redoute

2012-04-21T13:56:00.000+02:00

The Côte de la Redoute climb featured in Liège-Bastogne-Liège race since 1975. It's only about 2k long with 9.5% gradient (up to 17%), but it can hurt, as shown by Schlecks there last year:

With 35km to go it is often decides here who is the contenders for the podium today.

Today on Giro de Trentino

2012-04-19T13:24:00.000+02:00

Today's Grio de Trentino stage features a real treat. Not so famous but very anticipated finish climb at Punto Veleno with the gradient kicking up to 20%.

Trentino 12-3 par cyclingvids
"I went to have a look at it, and it’s really dreadful, even harder than the Zoncolan."

Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD)

P.S. I'd bet on José Rujano from Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela. His type of climb :)

Team Colombia Coldeportes climb recon.

How the racing shoes were won

2012-04-17T21:34:00.000+02:00

You lose some you win some. And you newer know when does that happen.

I do like the Fi'zi:k products: I own a few saddles: Antares, Arione CX and Airone Tri2 saddles, bar-tape. I even started following them on Facebook. Sometime in February I submit a photo to the monthly cycling inspired photo competition they run on the fan-page.
I took the photo with my phone in Tenerife, Spain during my winter training camp at Tenerife Top Training. It was a long and chilly (in January) ride up over 2000m to the El Teide crater. My pals went ahead, and it was freaking cold in the clouds, but I had to stop to capture this beauty of nature...

Now imagine how happy I was to find out what I won a pair of brand new Fi'zi:k R3 Uomo Racing Red shoes!
Look sharp, light, comfortable and a perfect fit with the X4CROSS team colors! Can't wait to hit the road again!

Training Log #8

2012-04-16T23:45:00.001+02:00

Training Log #6 & #7

2012-04-12T00:05:00.002+02:00

A random tip

2012-03-31T19:30:00.000+02:00

It's kinda scary to hit a dark tunnel on full speed descending from a mountain pass on a bright sunny day wearing a sunglasses. Some of those are not lightened at all, some got potholes or turns. Close one eye approaching the entrance and open it when you're in. You'll be surprise how much better visibility this little trick can give.

Ride safe!

Training Log #5

2012-03-26T22:58:00.000+02:00

Training Log #4

2012-03-19T21:55:00.001+01:00

Brütten Critérium

2012-03-18T21:21:00.001+01:00

Out of the turn acceleration

Racing competitive is tough. Racing Criteriums is tough, Racing Criteriums with elite swiss cyclists.... Well, you can imagine how my first experience with this sort of fun has been.
Good people told me what criteriums are dangerous. So I read a bit, watch some youtube videos, cleaned my bike and put on deep dish racing wheels with 11-25 cassete (dont own any faster, looking back i'd say 11-12 would be enough). And set a goal do not crash and do not get dropped.
I was running late to the start, and going there by bike was certainly not a best idea either. Nevertheless, I got there 30 min before the start quickly got my number and transponder. In 10 minutes before the start I took my place c the head of peloton near by my teammates. The gun went off and the race has started.
The first three laps were scary. Totally new experience for me to fast ride in a tight pack, going in to a sharp turn at over 40 km/h, slowing down a bit and accelerating hard to catch up. Exactly what I'm not use to do with all that triathlon specific cycling i use to do. The weather made it even more fun. It was a warm cloudy day with a strong 21km/h NW wind. Do the math and see what with 44km/h average race speed + 21km/h face wind a breakaway didn't have much chance and we rode in a pack bunching up on turns or stretching along the gutter by the crosswind.

Grinding teeth in crosswind

There's been a few times when i was in a big troubles trying to pull up closing a gap. Check out how hight and jumpy my HR was:

I did hear the bell for the last lap and ease up effort a bit but the finish came rather unexpected. The bunch started to speed up, some "rockets" shot from behind me accelerating to the last curve so did I getting clear. The way goes a little bit uphill, the speed was reaching up 60km/h and it is about 200m to the turn but here goes BOOOOM! A crash on my left! Two riders collided and I see the bike flying up, like in slow motion right on myself. I think the speed I had just let me slid trough.... I reached the finish line just by my inertia. The whole spirit of racing somehow was gone and all I was thinking if those guys are fine.
On the short cool down loop i checked out what the crash spot - they were fine a pait of expensive wheels got trashed the guys looked just ok. Well, thats the part of the fun game called Criterium.
I came 19th in my AK about 7 sec behind the winner. Did not crash, did not get dropped. Not too bad for the first race on the year, first criterium of my life.

I show up at about 0:22 sec on the footage. Just after the bunch of sprinters.

And of course here goes the Strava track:

Training Log #3

2012-03-11T21:04:00.000+01:00

Training Log #2

2012-03-04T18:50:00.002+01:00

Training Log #1

2012-02-26T21:16:00.002+01:00

This is gonna be an experiment. Every week i'll try to note my training log in the old school way, scan and publish here for fun. If someone find it useful - great.

Cervélo 2012. Gear Update.

2011-12-30T12:28:00.000+01:00

My faithful P2C frame got cracked and was replaced/upgraded to the Cervélo latest P3C. I'm very excited and looking forward to race it next season!

Full Specification:

Frame: Cervélo P3C'12 -56
Fork: 3T Funda PRO
Headset: Cane Creek IS-3
Crankset: FSA SL-K Light 175mm
BB: FSA MegaExo
Chainring: Vision AERO 54t/FSA 39t
Aerobars: Oval Concepts A900
Tape: Fi'zi:k
Stem: Vision Sizemore Team OS 90mm -10'
Seatpost: Cervélo Carbon
Brakes caliper: Cervélo
Front derailleur: Shimano Dura-Ace
Rear derailleur: Shimano Dura-Ace
Pedals: Speedplay Zero
Chain: Shimano Ultegra
Sadel: Fi'z:ik Arione Tri2
Wire: Gore Ride-On
Cable housing: Gore Ride-On
Computer: Garmin Edge 500
- - - - - - - - - - -
Race Wheels: Zipp 606

Weight: 8.5kg

Testing Nexus Galaxy Barometer

2011-12-24T22:29:00.003+01:00

Apart of many being a shiny gadget the new Nexus Galaxy features a barometer, which is used mainly to increase speed of GPS locking. However for many tracking apps this is sweetness could make them much more interesting in real use.
To test what numbers are I went for a run. The course was difficult for tracking it went through the forest, up and down.

Nexus Galaxy Edge 500 Polar S610X Nexus S

Elevation Gain 264 228 175 2435

Elevation Loss 274 189 2543

Min Elevation 441 348 320 448

Max Elevation 556 471 453 668

Personally I am really looking forward for further possible improvements, so many ways to get the location super precise now: WiFi, GPS, barometer, GSM, pre-defined known altitude points, weather reports.
How about ditch all that smartphone crap and build an Android powered open sourced multisport computer?

	Nexus Galaxy	Edge 500	Polar S610X	Nexus S
Elevation Gain	264	228	175	2435
Elevation Loss	274	189		2543
Min Elevation	441	348	320	448
Max Elevation	556	471	453	668