The weather forecast called for 25 mph gusts and it was accurate.  As the pack made its way around the former Marine air base the pack was shred first by the pace at the front and second by the cross winds.  The funny thing is I knew it was coming but didn’t have the power to stay with the front section.  In a crosswind there is nowhere to hide except riding alongside another rider.  Problem is that on city streets the bike lane is only wide enough for two riders and really the only way to keep a pack of riders together in crosswind conditions  is to spread the width of the road in an echelon formation.

I did what I could to stay on but I was popped by the lead riders.  I was then picked up by the trailing pack and worked in with them to finish the ride.

Screen shots from Training Peaks WKO 3.0

I have posted side by side the last two Thursday Coffee Crew rides.  The one on the left is 110410 and the one on the right is from 111110 (today).  You can see from the two summaries above how these two rides differ.  Last week’s ride I thought was hard but the numbers from this week are much higher.

1.  Notice how much higher the peak power numbers are for all categories under 2 minutes on the left chart 110410.

2.  Now notice how much higher everything is for all peak power numbers for categories more 5 minutes is on the chart on the right 111110.

3.  Also notice Normalized Power is 213 vs 202 between this Thursday and last Thursday, respectively.  Much more work on today’s ride.

4.  Also notice how the kj are higher, 1326 kjs,  for today’s ride and 1240 kjs, for last week even though today’s ride was 4 fewer miles and seven fewer minutes.

5.  The IF (Intensity Factor) was 77% for today’s ride 73% for last week’s ride.  It’s interesting to have such a disparity since the first 15 minutes of the ride were REALLY easy.  There was a lot of bunching up as no one individual or team wanted to take control and set the pace at the front of the pack.  And yet the IF was 4% higher today than last week.

It was a hard “group ride” for me today.

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