roadcx.net

Well, it has been a while since I have posted up anything, but it has been a busy time since I got back. Work had a bunch of things going on & visitors, etc. And my training has entered a higher volume phase. The last two weeks I have logged about 15 hours each week with 273 and 252 miles for the last two (Monday to Sunday) weeks. The plan was to get some volume in before doing a couple of races.

Next weekend is the Tennessee state TT. This will be my 2nd long time trial on my Kuota Kebel TT rig. The first was the day 1 afternoon TT at Tour of Arkansas (22 miles), but this was only hours after the Mt. Magazine road race stage. The state TT (40 km) will be by itself, so it will be a good test. I was able to average 25 mph at ToA, so I should be sub-60 if the distance is a true 40 km.

The next week (August 2nd-3rd) is the Tenn. state RR (Allanti RR). The course is a new one this year that looks to be slightly easier in terms of hills, but I haven’t looked it at too hard. The weekend includes at 10 mile TT and a Sunday parking lot crit (uses the large parking lot at Titan’s stadium).

After those weekend, I will be headed to Estonia for a work trip, so I will miss the Meridian / Cuba challenge down in Mississippi / Alabama. I am coming back about a week before River Gorge / BMW Omnium in Chattanooga. I think I can carry most of my fitness through my 10 day trip if I pick up running and maybe finding a rental bike to ride some. After the BMW Omnium, I will probably race out a Oak Ridge (September 6th/7th) and then do the Pepper Place crit (Sept 13th). The Pepper Place crit has picked up a common sponsor (Smith & Nephew), so this race went from a race I was going to do to one that I am really going to do. They even set it up to allow a Cat 3 to double up doing both the Cat 3 and the Cat 1/2/3 race.

Today was a good cap to long hot weekend. Andrea and I joined a large group at RB’s on Saturday to do the B-ride (easier pace, but more like the A ride of this description), to knock out a total of nearly 88 miles in the heat. We didn’t roll back to my apt until almost 2 pm. Today, it was the usual… from Germantown to the Outdoor’s ride and back (70+ miles).

After getting back and eating lunch, we went out to catch the end of the Trek factory demo at Herb Parsons. They had all sorts of bikes there (including road), but we went to ride some full suspension bikes. Both of us had never ridden a suspension bike, let alone a full suspension. I took out an aluminum Gary Fisher 29′er, while Andrea road a pricey Trek carbon bike. We both pretty much don’t know what we are doing out there, but at least these bikes are pretty forgiving.  I might have to reconsider my plan about getting a fixed gear bike and instead get a mountain bike for winter training.