On Sunday, December 16, 2018 at 5:50:22 PM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 16, 2018 at 3:20:48 PM UTC-8, news18 wrote:
On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 12:28:42 -0800, jbeattie wrote:


I do those three times a week. And them I'm not too good to ride with
the old and slow group. I did a ride before the big fires here where I
generated 340 watts for almost 10 miles. That may not be much around
here but it sure as hell is a great deal more than you loud mouthed
experts.

Me too, when I won the Cat 2 districts this year. Do you actually own a
power meter? Also, you need to tell us how long you were holding 340
watts. Distance doesn't tell us much.


Oh Jay, it was downhill, obviously.

BTW, I gave that number to my son
and told him it was a 74 year old recreational rider, and he said
"nope," not at 180-190lbs. He looks at power data day in and day out as
a job. https://stagescycling.com/us/support/

I think Tom shared with us that he is 180lbs, to which I say, kudos. I'm about the same height and 15lbs more. But assuming 180lbs, that's about 82kg for about 4.15 watts/kg for 20 minute power, which places him solidly in Cat 2 -- at age 74. Scary. If I were him, I'd skip the whole return-to-high-tech thing and round up some sponsors for Masters Worlds. My brother was in Master Worlds DH in his 60s and couldn't knock out those kinds of watts, although his thing was going down hill.

I don't care about power since I'm not training for anything. Today, my power meter was "faster than one guy, slower than another." Everything hurt after a hard ski yesterday and too much Christmas cheer last night, but I managed to hang in for a nice rain ride on my made-in-USA HED Ardenne disc wheels which roll really well. Great mid-weight road and gravel wheels.

I came home and sprayed off the bike with a hose, which is SOP -- notwithstanding the hose-fear expressed on this NG.

-- Jay Beattie.

Wouldn't that be nice if I could always know when I'm going to be up? I was approaching an uphill and two people caught up with me - some guy who pretty obviously had just finished an organized century that I had entered but not attended and some other guy who had a Triple Crown windbreaker on. The century guys was going pretty slow and I was going to ride him back in to the end. The Triple Crown guy you could tell had just put in 10 miles and pulled around us and shot up this 4% hill. That was pretty impolite in my book and I dropped it down a couple of cogs and passed him at 24 mph and then hit a section where the hill flattened and I took it up to 28 mph. I stopped at the top and he went passed without looking at me. I waited for the other guy and rode back in with him to make sure he was OK In several years I've only done that hill that fast twice.

And on Redwood Rd. which is 7% I would get ****ed at the front guys dropping everyone else and once in awhile I would let them get 200 or more yards and then run them down and beat them to the top. But the last time I tried that I could only catch them and ride in with them.

The 10K happened when I showed up at the starting point and we normally do a 1 1/2 miles back past my home and continue another 10 miles to the coffee stop. I had just changed stems and it started slipping just a short walk from my home. So I went over and got a different bike and took off after them hoping to catch them. But I had taken too long to get the bike and they had just gotten to the coffee stop when I got there. And they are dead slow on good days.

It was dead flat, into a reported 20 mph headwind and I set the timer on my speedo. Gribble's calculator actually said 340 watts but for a half of a mile I rode cross wind. So I took the estimation of 300 watts. I was holding a dead steady speed and the wind was steady. My idea had been to go as fast as I could without blowing up. And it worked but the ride home wasn't that much fun. Though down wind so was I.