Friendly rivals - Paul in 35+B, Andrew in the 35+B (had mechanical so he missed the C's), David and Travis in the B's.
This time I remembered to check the weather report for Watsonville during the week and it rained so I switched to the 35mm Ritchey Excavaders with 50 psi in the rear and 55 psi in the front( these measure more like 30mm ). These worked pretty well - no clogging of the fork and only some minor issues in back near the bottom bracket. The tread seemed to collect a lot of mud which would come out on the long pavement sections but not sure what would be better - the traction provided by the tread was much needed during the mud bogs. Put on two layers on top with arm warmers and knee warmers to get comfortable. Rode a lap on the course and found the quality of mud this time to be different - sticky but not as tacky as last week and very stinky since it rained on Thursday and festered for three days. No big runup but the degradation of the soil made much of the course a grind in mud with many ruts to negotiate. Took off the knee warmers because they would get covered in mud anyways so it was going to be pointless to wear them. About 3/4 of the section by the chain link fence in past races was two to four inches deep in mud with fetid water pools and the same goes for the zig zag around the stables. A much different course than last week without the big run up. I forgot to put on my chest strap for the heart rate data. The Powertap stopped detecting data after three laps. Then it started working again for the last half lap. This happens at about the 50:30 mark. I think I am missing two laps of data. I put in a big sprint (for me) at the end because I saw someone on the course ahead of me on the final straight but he was just warming up. :(
I still need to work on not slowing down so much for a high speed dismount. The faucet on the building with the bathrooms is only hot water. Cleaning the bike afterward I found the chainrings/cogs/derraileurs jammed with mud and it looks like the pulleys are getting worn out from all the abrasion from the mud.
35+ B
7/10
P avg : 201
S: 12.2 ( this is close to accurate since I used smaller tires...)
No comments:
Post a Comment