Just a quick post more to follow. Adobo Velo did it again!! Great support great people great food!!
Tour de Francis – Done!
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Tour de Francis
Next up for the Red Eyed Vireo is the Tour de Frances. It is put on by the Adobo Velo club. The series of rides is named after its most benevolent club member, Frances Ignacio. I am very excited to finally participate in one of his events. I have always had a schedule conflict and this weekend is no different but a little easier to resolve than others. The event is closed for registration and there are no day of event registrations. It is this Saturday July 31. I believe the stats for the ride are 100 miles with 9,000 feet of gain.
I have attached a slideshow of the route preview. Enjoy the beautiful sights but here a few of my favorites. I don’t have photo credits but they are from the Adobo Velo site I hope that will suffice.
Ok all for now check back for a ride report.
Steady Effort in the Aerobars
After work I did a little over an hour at a steady effort. It was not an Hour of Power. The goal for the session was to stay in the aero bars as long as possible. I think I did ok with it but I need more and more time to feel comfortable in the position. As always, the head-cross wind was a factor. 
The sunset was amazing. I really wish I could capture it for you but alas no pictures.
In other news, I am maintaining my weight below 149 lbs which is my goal. If I raced the Furnace Creek 508 at sub 150 lbs that would be the lightest I have ever raced it. It’s a shame I don’t have the fitness I have had in previous years. Today’s weight is 148 lbs or 67.1 kg.
Two Hour of Power Workouts
I did two hard workouts yesterday. In the morning I rode alone and chased riders through a good 1:45 of hard riding. And then after work another hour of hard efforts. I am working on my aero position so the rides are shorter for now. I have a set of Profile Design Sonic CSX bars on Felicia, my Felt F2 with Di2, but I’m not totally sold on them. I used them last year on Sasha for the Furnace Creek 508.
As you can see from the pictures the armrests are very low profile. The Profile Design CSX armrests sit almost directly on top of the road handlebar — a very good thing. On the other hand, you may notice that the shape of the armrest curves upward quite a bit. I would prefer the curve not to be so drastic. It is what it is so now over the next two months I need to continue to work on my position and become more aero. More aero means energy savings at the same speed OR more speed at the same effort. For example, it could be possible to go 20 mph at 190 watts instead of 200 watts OR I could go 21 mph at 200 watts. Those numbers are just thrown out there I can provide better data in the future.
Of course if you want to be a professional cyclist and the US National time trial champion you will make extreme efforts to be aerodynamic like DAVID ZABRISKE Now there is no way he could hold that position for 508 miles but for one hour that man can average over 30 mph! Incredible!!!!
My second workout of the day was another hard hour of intervals with an added bonus. I was going to ride after work alone. But just as I was finishing counting the drawer and doing my evening reports I got a call from Yeshua, one of my staff members, and he wants to ride– BONUS! He is huffing and puffing and I can hear the tell-tale sounds of someone riding on his bike– the wind distorting his voice and his rhythmic speech syncopated with his cadence. The conversation went like this:
Yeshua: “Are you riding?”
Me: “Yes, I’m just finishing my last report.”
Yeshua: “Are you doing your Hour of Power workout tonight?”
Me: “Yes”
Yeshua: “I’m at Back Bay I will be there in 10 minutes”
Me: “Great let’s do this!”
Of course in the back my mind I’m thinking “oh shit I’m going to suffer.” But suffering is part of getting faster right?
We hadn’t planned to ride together. It was just a spontaneous tryst and we hammered each other for a good solid hour. I like riding with Yeshua because he typifies the perfect riding partner. The workout was intervals of 1 km. It was a great race simulation exercise because I had my headphones on and I didn’t know when he was going to begin his next interval. I had to pay attention and react to his attack – 10 times. Once the attack happened then we would ride it as hard as possible for the duration of the 1 km. The wind was strong coming off the water, as it always is at that time of day. It was really hard workout with intervals, as they should be, and the only way I could finish each of the intervals was to stay on Yeshua’s wheel! Even with him shielding me from the wind I was gapped a couple of times.
I like the return leg, southbound with the nice tailwind. I am fortunate to live where I live and enjoy the sunset every night. As I get closer to the end of the ride the sun has set and it’s now nightfall. Lights are required after 8ish. Personally I love riding at night. More on that on another post.
And that’s all folks…Thank you for reading my blog. Please pass it on to your best friend.
Newport Beach to Encinitas – via Mount Palomar
Yep you read that right. I went from Newport Beach to Encinitas …the long way. I made a left turn at Oceanside and headed East. I climbed Palomar Mountain in triple digit heat again and it totally sapped me… again. I climbed Palomar Mountain less than a week ago on Saturday July 17th.
SUMMARY
155 miles 9,000 feet of gain.
Lot of heat again — triple digits climbing Palomar Mountain
My first 80 miles were great! The weather was cool and overcast. I drank only two bottles of Infinit Nutrition. I averaged almost 20 mph from Newport Beach to Bates Nut Farm in Valley Center. I like the route I chose. It was mainly coast and flat so I could work on my aero position on the aerobars I had installed on my road bike. Yikes! Aerobars on a road bike? Yep …get over it :p So here I was at my first stop of the day. I had been rolling for 4 hours 14 minutes (my download told me that) and this was the first time I had dismounted. AND that’s when I realized it was freakin’ hot out there lol!
I filled my bottles and rolled on to face my nemesis, Palomar Mountain. A few turns, a downhill, and there I was at the foot of one of California’s 10 toughest climbs— Palomar Mountain 12 miles and 4300 feet of gain. I began the climb in the 100F+ heat and within just a few minutes I felt my pace was slowing. I have climbed Palomar Mountain many times but I never had close to a century (100 miles) on my legs before reaching the base like I did on Friday. Had I made a mistake? Is it still too early in my training for a century before Palomar? And if I’m suffering now how will finish this 12 mile climb and the 50 miles back to the coast in Encinitas?
After the first 5 miles I pulled over totally overheated and totally spent. I took five minutes in the shade and finish my first bottle. I had three – two on the bike and one in my jersey pocket. I rolled even though I wasn’t feeling any better…got to stay moving.
As I began the second half of the mountain I just couldn’t pedal on. I pulled over and took 20 minutes in the shade. I looked at my SRM and it said it was 102F. I still had about 5 miles to go on the 12 mile climb. Now you must know something about me and climbing…I love to climb, which is to say I love to suffer. But when I climb I hold myself to one and only objective…DON’T GET OFF THE BIKE! So for me to have pulled over twice on a climb I have climbed probably 100 times is a grave situation. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I didn’t feel under-fueled. I did feel dehydrated but that shouldn’t affect my legs that much. I had to be economic with my fluids to finish the climb but I needed to take more fluids in NOW!
You might ask yourself …why is he doing this to himself? Right? In case you don’t follow my blog regularly, I am training for the Furnace Creek 508. It is a 508 mile non-stop bicycle race through the Mojave and Death Valley deserts with 35,000 feet of climbing over 10 mountain passes. It is my fifth year returning to this extreme race. It is my goal race every year and if I don’t suffer now I will really suffer in October.
Well 20 minutes off the bike was the key and I got back on and finished the climb feeling better but still feeling terrible. As I think back I hadn’t stopped for my first 80 miles at which time I was stopped fewer than five minutes. I then stopped for five more minutes after the first 5 miles of the climb. So basically in over 90 miles I had been off the bike only 10 minutes…in this heat. OK now it’s starting to make sense. Funny how things are clearer when you’re at home rested and comfortable in your favorite chair and not dehydrated and smoked on the side of the road.
Even though I wanted to hang out in the cooler temperatures (low 90’s) above 5000 feet I knew I just had to get down off the mountain. I then descended as quickly as possible. I love the 12 mile free-fall from over 5,000 feet elevation to 800 feet. I love descending at speed. It’s a blast taking hairpin turns at twice the posted speed limit. One of the things I also love is there are a few right handers that I am leaning so far over as I cut the apex of the turn that the I feel the long blades of something brush my face at 40 mph.
I had a lot more hot climbing still to do. But the great thing about coming back from Palomar Mountain to the coast is that little by little it gets cooler. It’s also into a headwind so that helps in one respect but hurts in another…pushing into a headwind sucks actually. I eventually started to feel better… just better. I wanted to ride back up to Newport Beach which would have made a 200 miler but the damage had already been done on Palomar Mountain. I was very dehydrated and just needed to pull the plug on this ride.
GOALS
OK so Saturday July 17th I climbed Palomar Mountain on a 127 mile 10,000 feet of climbing day— Start/Finish Encinitas
Friday July 23rd I climbed Palomar Mountain (90 miles in) on a 155 mile 10,000 feet climbing day Start Newport Beach Finish Encinitas
The goal is to climb Palomar Mountain (90 miles in) on a 210 mile 13,000 feet of climbing day Start and Finish in Newport Beach. Mid August
Next goal is to climb Palomar Mountain (90 miles in) go down the other side and climb Mesa Grande, go towards Santa Ysabel and then work my way back to the coast and North as part of a 290 mile 17,00 feet of climbing. Start Finish Newport Beach end of August.
All for now…thank you for reading my blog please pass it on to your best friend.
Hour of Power Workouts 7/20 and 7/21
As a means to increase my intensity training I am implementing my Hour of Power workouts. They are as the title implies one hour of hard tempo to threshold work. These workouts complement my endurance and tempo workouts WHEN I get up early enough to do them 😉
On Tuesday my route was South on PCH to Newport Coast Drive, up and over to San Joaquin Hills then through Backbay back to the shop. On Newport Coast, 1.55 miles 450 feet of gain and 6% grade, I did a three-minute hard effort, 1 minute recovery then 45 second hard effort, 1 minute recovery then a 30 sec hard effort. Through Backbay I maintained tempo-threshold power. I held 3.0 w/kg average power and Normalized Power was 249 watts or 3.76 w/kg for my Hour of Power.
Tonight I went on a flat ride so that I could keep cadence and power more consistent. I went North to Warner and back. I’m really proud of my Cadence Distribution. I spent over 64% between 80-100 RPM and another 14% between 100-120 RPM for a total of 78.8% between 80-120 RPM.
Average Cadence for the 60 minutes was 91 RPM. I’m happy with that.
Average Power – 218 watts or 3.3 w/kg
Normalized Power– 235 watts or 3.55 w/kg
On Friday I have tentative plans for a monster training ride stay tuned….
Thank you for reading my blog. Please pass it on to your best friend.
Palomar Mountain 200km with heat July 17
SUMMARY
127 Miles 10,600 feet of climbing.
Big news — the heat – triple digit heat 104F on the Palomar Mountain climb
55 minutes non rolling time (20 minutes waiting for OC century riders to roll out) (2o minutes at Nytro when I got back to Encinitas)
Palomar Mountain – featured climb ranked #9 California’s toughest climbs more on California’s toughest climbs 12 miles 4200 feet of gain
THE RIDE
Click here for weather at the top of Palomar Mountain (5128 elevation)
Click here for weather at the bottom of Palomar Mountain (1620 elevation)
On Saturday I rode to Palomar Mountain via Oceanside beginning from Encinitas. I met two groups that I was supposed to ride with but decided to go it alone. The first group was about four San Diego Randos and the second group was the Orange County century group– or Chuck Bramwell’s group.
I had timed my departure from Encinitas (5:30am) to arrive in Oceanside at about 6:30 am. When I arrived, the OC group was still getting ready. We eventually rolled out after 6:50am (meet time was 6:15). This is exactly why I don’t ride with groups. Groups have too many moving parts 😉 Groups tend to take their time getting ready for a ride and there is no sense of urgency to get started. They also stop too long at water stops and they actually have lunch on a century ride. I don’t get it. All those stops make for an all day ride for just a century which should only be 6 hours tops.
About two miles into the ride I wasn’t happy with the pace the group was riding and I went to the front to pull so they could draft me. Apparently, may pace was too fast because after a couple minutes I looked back and nobody was behind me. I figured once they warmed up they would catch me but I never saw them on my wheel the rest of the day. I then rode alone until I caught Rob Templin who started his ride in Fallbrook after spending the night at Pete Penseyres’s. We rode together from West Lilac to the base of Palomar.
I began the Palomar Mountain climb at 102 degrees F. Some onboard computers said it was 106F so let’s call it 104F. I am here to tell you that I was suffering about three miles into the 12 mile climb but still managed to climb the first part of Palomar Mountain (up to the flat part on Hwy 76) in sub 30 minutes. I cruised through the flat section and readied myself for the last 7 miles. As I started the second half of Mount Palomar I disintegrated. I truly fell apart and I just survived the climb. It took me 1:35 to climb Palomar Mountain from the store– a far cry from my latest best time of 1:18. Bike set-up was 53/39 crankset and 11-25 cassette which was perfect.
Palomar beginning Oceanside Route Sheet in .pdf
I refilled my bottles and headed immediately down the mountain. The descent was like opening an oven door. As my speed increased (over 40 mph) the heat blasted me in the face. As I reached the lower elevations my face was searing– ok maybe a bit of an exageration but OMG was it hot!!
I arrived at the store and got off the bike. I met Kirsty Marrit there and we rode back to Encinitas together. The return is leg is always a bitch in the summer heat. The climb from Rincon (Harrah’s Casino) on Valley Center Road up to Lake Wholford Road is just miserable. I passed the clock/thermometer at the fire station that said 102F and check my SRM and they were a match. I was suffering but I think she was worse off. I thought for safety reasons we should stay together– it was that hot! I would surge ahead to get my intensity in and then wait for her. In the end considering the conditions she did great.
As I was getting closer to the coast the temperatures felt soooooo much cooler. I could feel that it was warm for the coast but it was no longer triple digit heat. I surged the last five miles to the house. For hours after the ride I would feel dehydrated. I even developed a headache. I felt like I had a hangover. By the evening, I had finally recovered– from my dehydration. But the next day’s training ride was scrubbed.
Well there you have it another torturous ride but I am mentally stronger for it!
Here are some pics and some charts. Thank you for reading my blog. Please pass it on to your best friend.
I love descending off of a mountain. I see it as a reward for all the hard work I did on the climb. I also think I’m decent at doing it. Although my 508 crews might argue that I’m really good at it since they’ve never been able to stay on my wheel on curvy descents. All you have to do is combine a little skill, a little fearlessness and a little faith in your equipment and yourself and you will descend like a pro. You have to practice descending to do it well. With practice you should be able to loose some of the fear that holds you back. Learn to relax and you will find that descending has a certain flow to it. Imagine yourself dancing with the mountain find a rhythm — pedal pedal lean– pedal pedal lean. Your equipment should ALWAYS be in good running order. Lastly, I can provide you with a one on one coaching session that will help you descend significantly better after just one session. In the meantime, I found a good descending skills video on youtube.com check it out here.
5 Minute Peak Power Test – Fail
As some of you know I recently acquired an SRM power meter. I like it very much especially since a world of wheels is open to me now. Tonight I performed a 5 minute test on a local hill that is 1.5 miles and about 6% grade. I felt great and started the climb at about 360 watts and was holding that steady. I was a couple of minutes into the effort and still felt good so I pushed a little more. When the grade started to give way I shifted up a gear and brought the power back up. I eventually had to stand to keep the power up and was in the 400+ range. And then….I ended my effort THINKING I had gone 5 minutes. Well the SRM has a feature where it scrolls certain data on the top line. I mistakenly ended my effort at 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I was feeling really stressed but I think I had another 30 seconds at least at over 340 watts.
Below you will see a screen shot from Training Peaks wko 3.0 software (the BEST software for analyzing power data) showing my 4:30 Peak Power 😉 My average was 348 watts or 5.2 w/kg (more on 5.2 w/kg below)
The reason I’m so bummed is because I was on target for hitting 5.2 w/kg in the 5 minute test which would put me on the very edge of Cat 2. I will have to try it again soon. I have already changed the setting on the SRM so that in the INTERVAL mode I don’t have the data scrolling I will just have time!
all for now….
Thank you for reading my blog pass it on to a good friend.
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Onion Valley Road
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
George's Epic Adventures 