Can you find me 10 seconds on a 3 minute sprint?

[bulldoze]

You have now had plenty of time. Got the KOM yet?

I am training for it now.

Not much adaption time in 10 days - give me 3 weeks I will make a proper attempt within that time.

At the moment I am fiddling with cleat position and seat hight. After hard efforts my upper left hamstrings hurt and are so tight I can barely walk.

 

[Milzy]

Get a young boy to give you a lead out. Maybe wait for a very strong tail wind.

 

[bulldoze]

Still 5 seconds off.

I think I need to get used to a road bike. On a flat bar hybrid with flat pedals I feel stable and confident and I can really put a lot of power through the pedals and feel the force through the handle bars. On a road bike with hoods and drops I just do not have the same confidence - I feel very unstable and hesitant and simply do not feel as though I can just put my head down and let rip. The hoods feel slightly too far away and down in the drops make the bike feel a size too small 😕

Also my feet do not feel right in the SPD-SL either and I feel too much on the balls of the feet. The distance between the pedals is different from my hybrid as well and my knees feel unaligned. I still step off the bike after a 30min ride with pain in hamstring, hips and knees.

Another 20 days to go. Feeling less confident now.

 

[ivegotabike]

Still 5 seconds off.

I think I need to get used to a road bike. On a flat bar hybrid with flat pedals I feel stable and confident and I can really put a lot of power through the pedals and feel the force through the handle bars. On a road bike with hoods and drops I just do not have the same confidence - I feel very unstable and hesitant and simply do not feel as though I can just put my head down and let rip. The hoods feel slightly too far away and down in the drops make the bike feel a size too small 😕

Also my feet do not feel right in the SPD-SL either and I feel too much on the balls of the feet. The distance between the pedals is different from my hybrid as well and my knees feel unaligned. I still step off the bike after a 30min ride with pain in hamstring, hips and knees.

Another 20 days to go. Feeling less confident now.

Saving some excuses in case the next attempt doesn't get you there? 😜

Seriously though, half the gap closed is good going. You might get more used to the road bike, or the position might need a little bit of a tweak to help with that.

But only 5 seconds to find and 20 days of training. I think you should be more confident now then when you started the thread.

 

[wafter]

Still 5 seconds off.

I think I need to get used to a road bike. On a flat bar hybrid with flat pedals I feel stable and confident and I can really put a lot of power through the pedals and feel the force through the handle bars. On a road bike with hoods and drops I just do not have the same confidence - I feel very unstable and hesitant and simply do not feel as though I can just put my head down and let rip. The hoods feel slightly too far away and down in the drops make the bike feel a size too small 😕

Also my feet do not feel right in the SPD-SL either and I feel too much on the balls of the feet. The distance between the pedals is different from my hybrid as well and my knees feel unaligned. I still step off the bike after a 30min ride with pain in hamstring, hips and knees.

Another 20 days to go. Feeling less confident now.

All of those things can potentially be remedied; perhaps a shorter stem with shorter reach bars and some pedal extenders to widen the Q-factor of the crankset.

When I went to SPDs I had a lot of problems with knee and hip pain as well as hotspots on the feet as the pedals were anchoring my feet far too far inboard on the narrow road crank; concentrating the force on the outsides of my feet and causing my legs to skew.

I get on much better with the wider-Q afforded by MTB cranks and flat pedals, although if running an otherwise road setup your only option for wide-Q is pedal extenders as there's next to no cross-compatability with MTB cranks.

Flat pedals are a lot more forgiving as they allow your feet to sit where they want as well as giving continuous adjustment of position throughout the ride. I understand why you might not want flats on a road bike; equally I think a lot of the claims made about efficiency, power transfer etc are bollocks.

Personally I've pretty much given up on SPDs; I think the biggest thing I'll miss about them is the feeling of security on rough ground... other than that it'll be no great loss.

 

[bulldoze]

Saving some excuses in case the next attempt doesn't get you there? 😜

Seriously though, half the gap closed is good going. You might get more used to the road bike, or the position might need a little bit of a tweak to help with that.

But only 5 seconds to find and 20 days of training. I think you should be more confident now then when you started the thread.

I might have just one or two more attempts.

It does not do me any good that's for sure. I dug a bit too deep. Didn't sleep a wink last night and I was absolutely fragmented at work today.

 

[Webbo2]

I might have just one or two more attempts.

It does not do me any good that's for sure. I dug a bit too deep. Didn't sleep a wink last night and I was absolutely fragmented at work today.

If a 3 minute effort is leaving you feeling like you describe, you are potentially doing yourself some harm. You are doing max efforts without any baseline training. You need to spend a few months following the training programme you describe in your first post or something similar.
Your body is not conditioned to what you are trying to put it through.

 

[brommieinkorea]

Have you considered having those above you on the rankings assassinated? A time honoured tradition, I understand.
:-)

Wait, what ,is this the politics forum ?

 

[brommieinkorea]

Race BMX your sprint will get better and you will probably win your age group lots.

 

[Cycling Badger]

As a “veteran “ with children in their 20’s my tip
Is play to your strengths. My best 80km is
Waaaay better than his differential over a short sprint. I can do 300 - 400km on a day, he’s knackerd after 80km. Pick your battles, play to
Your strengths.

 

[Webbo2]

As a “veteran “ with children in their 20’s my tip
Is play to your strengths. My best 80km is
Waaaay better than his differential over a short sprint. I can do 300 - 400km on a day, he’s knackerd after 80km. Pick your battles, play to
Your strengths.

Could you re post that so we can understand it. Your best is 80k but he’s knackered after 80k doesn’t make any sense.

 

[Sharky]

Don't over think it, or over train.

You got within 10 secs on your first attempt and without being focused.

If you get the same weather conditions, you should be able to repeat that time, without any additional training.

And by concentrating on the ride and analysing where you could have made up time, you should be able to get much closer.

Can you supply the location and name of the segment?

Best of luck

 

[rogerzilla]

Surely the best answer is, "stop using Strava - that way madness lies"?

 

[bulldoze]

Don't over think it, or over train.

You got within 10 secs on your first attempt and without being focused.

If you get the same weather conditions, you should be able to repeat that time, without any additional training.

And by concentrating on the ride and analysing where you could have made up time, you should be able to get much closer.

Can you supply the location and name of the segment?

Best of luck

Thanks for the advice. I forgot that Strava has analyse functionality - that could help.

I am not comfortable with sharing the segment. It's a public forum so perhaps unwise.

Surely the best answer is, "stop using Strava - that way madness lies"?

Just a bit of fun.

I find competition gets the juices flowing. I will no doubt get bored of it in time

 

[a.twiddler]

As a fiercely non competitive rider I wonder about the things we do for fun if you end up having to take two paracetamol and having to lie down for a week after each attempt. Perhaps self flagellation might be a more rewarding pastime, especially if some strava-like app could be developed to work with it.

On the other hand, I am that person too when it comes to other aspects of cycling, being in a river in Egypt (de Nile) when refusing to accept the limitations that age attempts to impose on my cycling. I suppose you just have to get your bike the most comfortable and efficient that you reasonably can, and keep riding that segment. As long as the graph of your gradual age related decline meets the graph of your achievable fitness above the point at which what you are hoping to achieve is possible, sooner or later the factors (right tailwind, feeling particularly good, etc) will line up and you'll manage it. After all, you've managed to knock off a few seconds already. Giving yourself a deadline might be a drawback but could be a motivator, too.