Redmon 25

[Dominic]

Myself and Robert were down for this today. He was at the beginning of the field and I was 7 from the end. Being unaccustomed to being off so late I did find the traffic a bit of pain and had to use some best London commuting tactics so as not to slow too much.

Nice course. I had rode it on Wednesday as part of a 68 miler and was looking forward to it. Basically A24-A29-A281-A24. A bit lumpy not what I would call that fast but nice.

Decided to ride to a plan ie HRM. Had originally set myself 70% for the first few miles then up to 80%. Warming up I knew this was not going to happen because I was above 70 easily. I set off and kept it at about 80-82% and pedalled. It became a bit of a mantra, keep pedalling, especially up the lumps.

It seemed to work, the fast bits were fast and the slow bits were not too slow. The last 2 miles was done at 90%, bloody hard. Passed here for 7 minutes by the last man off. Don't know how they do it.

Back to the HQ number in cup of tea oh, 59.45!!! Tried not to cartwheel out of the hall.

Don't know what Robert did due to derileum but I would say the winner would have done a short 52 or long 51.

[Andrew G]

Well done, under the hour! Cartwheels would have been fully understandable, if your legs would've been up to it.

[tel]

Excellent, well done. I knew you`d do it.

That`s a good ride. I`m sure you`d go even faster on a proper dc course.

Terry

[Toks]

[quote="Dominic"]Decided to ride to a plan ie HRM. Had originally set myself 70% for the first few miles then up to 80%. Warming up I knew this was not going to happen because I was above 70 easily. I set off and kept it at about 80-82% and pedalled. It became a bit of a mantra, keep pedalling, especially up the lumps.

It seemed to work, the fast bits were fast and the slow bits were not too slow. The last 2 miles was done at 90%, bloody hard. Passed here for 7 minutes by the last man off. Don't know how they do it.

[Dominic]

Toks,

Couldn't agree more. However this plan was brought on by an abortive ride a couple of weeks ago where I felt I had blown by the turn (aided by a strong side wind). This was without HRM and I felt that riding on 'feel' did not work.

This is my first season back after a long, long time. It was more a guidance for me in an event that I did not attach much importance to ie if it all went wrong then so be it. It was also a more useful guide for the 50s/100s and 12 coming up later.

On that experience though as I thought when I warmed up, when racing my heart rate will never be near 70%.

[Toks]

Ok fair comment. Its just that i'm coaching someone at the moment who's a real HRM junkie. Recently he took five days off and predictably his heart rate was much higher (due to a natural decrease in heart stroke volume) during the TT race than it typically would be and he niavely eased up when he admitted to feeling pretty good at the time. Also quite often you hear guys say I couldn't get my heart rate up having raced 2/3 days in a row despite being able to put out the same speed. Its just worth being aware in TT's especially that adhering religously to your average HRT may jeapodise your chances of getting that PB. But I concede that pacing stategy is always of paramount importance. Once again Chapeau

[Robh]

A powermeter is the answer doesn't lie....

[Robert]

Well Done Dominic, though I wasn`t as successful as you in going under I did do a course pb for me. It has been a few years since I last rode this particular course, 2001 in fact when I did a 1:04:26. I was chuffed with my time of 1:01:13. Felt reasonably okay when I finished, so hoping we have similar conditions for the SCCU 25 on Sunday, on a "faster" 25 course, I should get under, by how much is a different question. Max Hr 180, avg 171. Are you not riding the SCCU 25?

[Dominic]

Not this Sunday. Work and trying to watch my brother do the London Marathon have got in the way.

I will be there for the Addiscombe one the week after though. See you there

[Snoop Doug]

Well done Dominic - an inspiration!! Great time, I'll get there one day....

Well done to you too Robert. Memo to self, get yer finger out boy.

Snoop

[Mike I]

Excellent stuff, and not an easy course to judge right. I seem to recall that one bend has a 20mph speed limit, so let's hope Plod isn't reading this!