So I did a re-run of CG3 tonight, and I'm a bit confused now, so I'm looking for some views or help on a few questions.
I rode CG3 last Monday and was pretty pissed off with my time, which became even greater last night when I saw the times after the Thursday Chain Gang ride.
I rode 39.12, meaning I was around 6 to 10 minutes behind the rest of you guys. I ride around 150 to 200 miles normally each week on my road bike, in groups which include a fair number of guys who still take part in veterans races, so I was finding hard to understand why I was dropping so far behind.
Rather than whinge about it, I thought I'd make a number of changes, some based on advice I'd read on this forum, and others that I workout myself.
Tonight I rode CG3 again and improved my time by around 3.5 minutes, to 35.44 and felt at the end that I could have probably gone faster.
However, when I check my time on the league page, my second ride is there, but it's got 3 red crosses in the data against Classification Attempt, Time Improved and Coherent Weight, so I'm assuming this will be disallowed unless a Mod approves it?
Here's what I did, and any comments or advice are welcome.
Set-up before the ride
I changed two things in the physical set-up and then set the ride up so that I wasn't riding solo.
1. I decreased my weight on the website from 82 kg to 80.3 kg. This is actually correct, as I've lost 1.7 kg since I first registered. I didn't expect this to help me downhill but assumed I may get some benefit uphill
2. I changed the bike on the turbo from and old Scott CR1 that I don't ride on the roads any more, and put one of my road bikes, a Ridley Excalibur on the turbo. The Scott has a slightly noisy bottom bracket and one of the jockey wheels had been a little stiff. I didn't think this had made much effect, but I thought by putting the Ridley on the turbo I could much better compare to the feel of riding on the road.
When I changed the bikes I moved the rear wheel further to the left on the turbo wheel. The Scott wasn't really central on the wheel, so by winding the left hand clamp out a bit, I managed to get the Ridley to sit much more centrally. Didn't know if this would make any difference but thought it was worth doing.
I also followed advice to challenge somebody,
@BILL S in this case, which also gave me
@AAAC 76C 's ghost and
@JacobSkovsgaard and took
@AAAC 76C 's advice and added 4 lapdog bots. I threw in 2 diesels as well.
I also rode this time in 3D, rather than video, although I can't see nay reason why that would make any difference.
During the ride
The website said I had 9 other riders, and with 6 bots and 3 ghosts that was correct.
When I loaded up BSim, all my ghosts were there and the bots seemed to be there as well.
Followed advice to power off the start line, which seemed to help and then settled into the descent. Descended all the way with 2 lapdogs (both were Terry) while the tow other lapdogs stayed permanently around 1 m 20 s behind me. According to the places of riders in the top left hand corner, Jacob was behind the lapdogs, which made me think I was caning it down the descent, even though my speed didn't seem to confirm that.
I could see AAC76 or BILLS at all, so I summed they were somehow behind me. More of this later.
I tried to slipstream the lapdogs, with mixed success. Sometimes I succeeded, other times I pulled ahead of them and then eased a little to let them back in front, and a couple of times they flew off the front, so I decided not to chase them and conserve energy for the 5.5 km climb at the end.
Generally, I felt much stronger on the descent and closer to what I'd expect if I was out on my road bike. So, by this time I'm confused. Is it me riding more strongly, is the bike and its positioning making a big difference, or are the lapdogs helping me more than I realise?
I certainly hit higher watts than I have before and I powered over the small climbs on the descent far more easily than the earlier ride.
At the start of the final climb, I settled into a much stronger rhythm. On the first ride, I was pretty much constantly at 19km/h, but this time I was riding a bigger gear and riding at a steady 25 km/h and wondering if I should push harder. I decided to keep it steady, but with 2 km to go I decided to up the pace a little and in the last km I was riding at 28 - 29 km/h and wondering if I should have attacked earlier.
At the end, I was far less tired than after the first attempt. I checked Strava, and I'd knocked almost 3 minutes off on the ascent.
So what am I confused about?
1. Obviously, the first question is why has my second attempt got 3 red crosses. Does this mean its disallowed? If so, why, or is is just awaiting approval by a league mod?
2. According to the live data, I was in first place and ahead of Jacob. I couldn't see BillS or AAAC at all.......... but this was bollocks. At the end, the results on the website showed they had all finished ahead of me, which is correct according to their times, but why didn't I see them on BSim?
3. Finally, a much harder one for anyone here, but maybe others will have changed their bikes and had similar experiences. The Ridley seemed to help me enormously. Both on the descent, where I pedalled well within myself and still got down 20 seconds faster, with 1.7kgs less weight. On the ascent, I felt much stronger and rode probably 50/25 most of the way up on the Ridley, where I'd ridden 50/28 on the first attempt on the Scott. As I said, the rear wheel was also a bit more centra on the turbo roller, so I don't know if this helped as well.
Any views, advice or opinions are welcome.
Apologies for the long thread, and as I said at the start the whole thing kicked off because I was so pissed off at the time of the first run. But what I'm trying to do is make sure I've got the bike set-up right and that I'm adapting to riding on BSim and getting as close as I can to what I'd expect to feel when riding on the road.
They may have to rethink that when they suddenly see their new members numbers shrinking. No way can they justify £13 per month with their current offering when their competition is much cheaper. I think it's going to be a 'watch this space'!
