Monthly Archives: July 2010

Onion Valley Road

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ONION VALLEY ROAD IS COMPARED TO MT VENTOUX, FRANCE

I was back in Lone Pine this “weekend”.  I write weekend in quotes because currently my days off are Thursday and Friday and that is my weekend.  Not the traditional weekend but it is two consecutive days off.  Lone Pine has become my favorite place to escape city living.  A small town with great people and some of the best climbing for cyclists California has to offer.

When I visit Lone Pine I stay at the Whitney Portal Hostel.  I am now a repeat customer with three great visits in the last six weeks.  The hostel is  conveniently located at the base of Mt Whitney.  You can make reservations at (760) 876-0030.  Rates are reasonable and it is a nice clean place where you meet a lot of interesting people.  I highly recommend it.

SUMMARY

6 hour mountain training ride.  78 miles with 7800 feet of climbing.  High temperature while I was still riding was 105F.  Personal Best Onion Valley Rd (1:47). Partial climb of Horseshoe Meadow.

THE RIDE

My goal for Friday was to get in as much climbing as I could possibly achieve before the heat would be too much.  Lone Pine had been in the high 90’s for the past week but it was forecasted to be over 100 F on Friday.  I rolled at 630am and headed North on Hwy 395 towards Independence.  It took less than an hour, 48 minutes,  to travel the 16 miles required to reach Independence.

Sunrise on the Eastern Sierras

Onion Valley Road really starts off as Market Street.  I made the left turn and began the long., 13 mile,  hard climb up to the Onion Valley trailheads.

If you’re not careful you’ll miss the turn to the hardest climb in California

 

Make your turn at the Post Office

Look for the road and the switchback- there are a series of switchbacks

Look for more switchbacks

I didn’t notice the well on my first ascent back in June. But you have to get to the to the trailhead to refill your bottles.

Felt F2 with Di2 and new 7900 wireless SRM Power Meter

I thought this was funny.

Onion Valley Climb

Ok now it’s time to geek out.  I did a Personal Best on the Onion Valley Rd climb.  Nothing really exciting to the real climbers out there but it was a another milestone for me as I get my climbing legs back.  On this trip I installed an 11-25 cassette.  I remembered how much I suffered on the climb with an 11-23 cassette on my first ascent of Onion Valley in June . Armed with a 25T cog and a little better fitness I was able to increase the following metrics:

I was still grinding way too much and the 12% grades had me standing way too much to keep  my momentum up.  Notice the grey line on the power chart goes up as the power goes down.  That grey line is torque and it really shoots up when the grade is steep.  You’ll notice my power and cadence go in the opposite direction — as in down!  Next time I climb Onion Valley Rd I will take an 11-27 cassette and see if I can improve the average cadence and average power by spinning a little more.

Power and Heart Rate of June 10 and July 9 compared

Cadence and Speed June 10 and July 9

Onion Valley Grade Analysis

Onion Valley is one hard climb.  Just look at the chart from mile 3 to the top at almost mile 13.  It stays in the 7.5% to 10% grade range for almost 10 miles!!  With the only exception being when it pops up and over 10% grade.  Onion Valley gains over 5,000 feet in those hard miles.

Onion Valley Road compared to Mt Ventoux, France

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SRM 7900 Wireless Power Meter for Felicia

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Thank you to the good folks over at SRM for their great support of my Epic Adventures.  Shaun you rock– thank you!!   After five years of riding a Power Tap I am finally free to ride any wheel I want.  My days of building race wheels with a Power Tap are over!  What’s more is I can finally use my Zipp ZEDTech 2’s that have been sitting collecting dust in my garage.

The SRM Dura-Ace 7900 wireless power meter was a breeze to install.  It literally took all of 10 minutes to install the SRM onto my 2010 Felt F2 with Di2.  I have a spare magnet and handlebar clamp for my TT bike.  I haven’t decided whether I will take two bikes to the Furnace Creek 508 this year because I don’t know if I want to have my crew members swap the crank out …but I just might.  It will take less than 5 minutes because the head unit mount for the handlebar and the magnet on the bottom bracket will already be installed. Just the crank has to be removed and installed on the other bike.

Tomorrow will be my first training ride with the SRM.  It will be a long ride (century plus) on a hot day (100F) with lots of climbing (15,000 feet).  I’ll blog about it tomorrow.

2010 Felt F2 with Di2 and SRM 7900 wireless power meter with Power Control 7

Extended Rest Days

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I have taken a few extra rest days during this 4th of July holiday weekend.  The last time I rode my bike was Friday.  On Saturday and Sunday I took it easy hanging around the house.  My little boy was sick on the 4th, and that gave me an excuse to lay down with him and take a nap — midday even–yay!!

Monday is always a rest day for me.  I’ve been meaning to make the Tuesday morning Coffee Crew ride for a couple of months but just haven’t gotten it together.  And then today when the alarm went off at 4:30am I was so exhausted I went back to sleep.  Apparently, it was drizzling so I didn’t miss much.  While rain has never stopped me from training, I don’t like riding in packs when it rains.  It’s sketchy and in my opinion dangerous.  Over the next couple of months I will make it a point to join the group rides at least once a week to get a little intensity in my training but not if it’s raining.

My favorite ride of the week is the Wednesday ride.  I plan on making the ride tomorrow.  Thursday and Friday are up in the air right now.  A plan should materialize by tomorrow.  I would like to do the Thursday morning Coffee Crew ride and then head out to Glendora Mountain Road and do some climbing in the afternoon.  We’ll see….

Thank you for checking in.

Friday Ride – Tempo/Threshold

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I felt good on today’s ride.  When a few riders surged on a climb I went with them and held their wheel just fine. I felt I had plenty of power on reserve.  At the sprint, I was in the leadout train but I was poorly positioned when the sprint finally happened– lesson learned.  I don’t have much of a sprint but I seem to be always well positioned and I seem to read the flow of the peloton well.

I compared the numbers on today’s ride to the last hard Friday ride in recent memory. 3/12.

My Normalized Power for 20 minutes on 3/12 was 260 watts while my Normalized Power 7/2 was 306 watts 4.55 w/kg!

My Normalized Power for 5 minutes on 3/12 was 360 watts on 7/2 was 385 watts  5.73 w/kg!

2010 June End of the Month Numbers

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Another month comes to a close.  June was a good month with the focus on the 10 Toughest Climbs in California being a main impetus for getting me on the bike.  I can happily report that after two months of dealing with my own personal shit I am back on the bike on a more regular basis.  As you can see by the cumulative data below I have turned up the heat.

1.  65 hours on the bike for the month of June.  The largest amount of hours since February

2.  Largest amount of mileage, 979,  since February

3.  Highest TSS- Training Stress Score–3375,  since February

4.  Highest Kj- Kilojoules,  36,217, since February

From May to June my kj per hour (k/hr) also increased – an indication of a little higher intensity in my training. 538 k/hr to 556 k/hr, respectively . I will continue to increase that number slightly but not until I taper off the mileage and climbing and start riding more group rides will that number significantly go up.

The Performance Management Chart from Training Peaks wko 3.0,  shows a steady upward slope on the BLUE line which depicts the chronic stress I have put on my body over the last 42 days.  Things are progressing nicely.  I have a sore throat today, actually the last three days, but no illness or injuries to report–ONWARD!!!!!

Wednesday Ride

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On today’s Wednesday Endurance ride,  I sat out front, in the wind, for the first portion of the ride.  I wanted to hold above 3.0 w/kg for the entire ride. The second portion of the ride has a lot of paceline and drafting which lowers my overall average.   I ended up with 2.9 w/kg in average power.  Normalized Power was 238 watts or 3.5 w/kg — exactly where I wanted to end up for 2 hours.

In the last three Wednesday rides I have lowered the time spent in Active Recovery mode from over 50% down to today’s 34%.

Notice the difference of these three Wednesday Rides.  Notice the Average and Normalized Power increasing.  The main reason for the increase in wattage is because I am spending less and less time in the bunch and getting out in the wind.  The goal is to start getting used to riding solo again.  There is no drafting on the Furnace Creek 508.