Lookout Mountain / Ward / and Hail

Heading out to Colorado didn't just mean struggling up Mt Evans for hours and hours. It was also an opportunity to re-ride some of my favorite rides along the Front Range.

Sunday, after the race, Steve, Cody, Adam and I went for a quick spin. After stopping for coffee at the Gallop Cafe (great place check them out next time you are in Denver) we looped through downtown, around Wash. Park, and then back to Green Mountain. After dropping Cody off at his place, Adam and I rode out to Red Rocks and hit some dirt over the grapevine - nothing like a little gravel on a road bike.

Monday, I headed out to Golden, home of Coors Beer (Pure Rocky Mountain Water my a$*), The School of Mines, and one of my favorite training climbs, Lookout Mountain. Lariat Loop Road climbs 1220 ft. in 4.7 miles. It twists and turns it's way up the east face of Lookout finishing up near Buffalo Bill's grave. Back a few years ago, we used it training repeats and fitness tests. You haven't lived until you've done 20 minute standing drills, or 3 minute ILT repeats. A good time up lookout is in the low 20's, pro times are in the 18's, Tom Danielson did it in just over 16... without pushing too hard, and after killing myself up Evans, I turned in a 24.

After a 94 degree afternoon, Monday evening brought in a huge storm, a temperature drop of 30 degrees, tornadoes, and the worst hail storm I had every seen. Welcome to Colorado!

Tuesday morning brought hail stones piled up like snow drifts. Pretty crazy, I headed up towards Boulder by way of Arvada and Westminster. The plan was to ride up to Ward, elevation 9450'. It was cold, but I figured after Monday's 90 degrees, the sun would break through and roast everything. I rode up the old Morgul Bismark route and into south Boulder. I worked my way through to the north side and pulled into one of my favorite coffee shops, Amante. A little bit of Italia in North Boulder; they even were opening up at 5 am for the live broadcast of Le Tour. A double espresso, a veg breggo, and out the door for the climb up Lee Hill. Just to the west of Boulder, Lee Hill is a steep climb up to a connector to Lefthand Canyon - one of Colorado's great climbs.

Lefthand Canyon is a steady, smooth climb through the pines and aspens. It's pretty long and has a very steep ramp up the last 2 to 3 miles into Ward. Ward is a "hippie wonderland", more so than even it's sister mountain town, Nederland. Dirt roads, empty buses, outhouses, real rural Colorado. I grabbed a couple of waters, chugged a root beer, and dove back down lefthand canyon. A bit cold on the way down, the 50 degree temperature, overcast skies, and my dressing as if it was 95 degrees made for a fairly chilly decent. Not fun.

Wednesday held a trip up to Winterpark for some mountain biking with Adam and Stevie T. Adam hooked me up with a Pivot Mach 4 from the guys at Wheatridge Cyclery , THE bike shop in Colorado. Absolutely blown away by this bike. Light, climbs like a banshee, and decends quick enough to keep up with Adam's Specialized FSR Enduro.

After climbing over the pass we dropped into Winter Park. Adam wanted to scout out the course for the following weekend's race. We headed up the backside (near Fraiser) and crossed over to the resort. It was fantastic! I really like riding at Winter Park, and have had some great races up there. The 10,000 ft altitude is no picnic, but the views and the riding are awesome.

Race Report: Mt Evans Hill Climb

Ouch... I can't say that I'm all that happy with my performance at the Mt Evans Hill Climb in Colorado last weekend. While I hate to throw out an excuse, the altitude was just too much. When I first did this race a few years back I lived at 5280 feet and regularly rode at 8000 feet. I now live at 400 feet and max out around 3500 feet. Big difference.

I flew into Denver early Friday morning and made my way over to my friend Steve's apartment in Belmar to couch surf (Thanks, Burito!). I quickly threw my bike together and headed out for a spin through my old stomping grounds of Wheatridge and Arvada. I felt good, in fact better than I thought I would. My start time for Saturday morning was 8:30 am - so an early night was in store. Everything was a go.

After a quick ride up to Idaho Springs I changed into my MTCCSD kit and headed to the start line. The race is a gradual climb from the start; after a quick, relatively straight 6 mile lead in up Chicago Creek Road the road takes a hard left and then ramps up it's way to Echo Lake. Here, the peloton began to break apart; I set a steady pace for myself and began to pull back several of the riders that had pushed off the front. Most of us were riding in 1's or 2's. About 3 quarters of the way up to Echo Lake we began to pass a few riders that had pulled off to the side of the road, hands on their knees, relieving themselves of their pre-race breakfasts.

At Echo Lake the road flattens out and heads up to Mt. Evans Road. As we passed by the Feed Zone at the Park Gate I was already feeling the effects of the altitude - 10,700 feet. I almost never get headaches - and have never had a migraine - and yet I was absolutely certain that I was getting my first one.

The road winds it way up through the last of the pines, up some pretty steep and long ramps. Thanks to the guys ringing the cow bells! The trees thin out and finally give way to the rock and alpine grasses at about 11,700' - were the wind began to pick up and I began to seriously slow down. I could feel my muscles in my lower back, my shoulders, and my arms begin to cramp up, my breath seemed to be coming slower and slower, and my brain seemed unable to concentrate on nothing else than the 10' section of road right before me. In fact, I don't remember a whole lot about the race after this point.

The climb to Summit Lake @ 12,500' (you actually climb to about 13,000' and then drop down into the basin) was a blur of gasping, grunting, and grinding out the miles. The road is pretty buckled from the constant freezing and thawing of the ground underneath, so the riding was somewhat rough. Passing by the lake you have a fair amount of momentum from the short downhill, but then turn to the left and are confronted by an absolute monster of a climb, a series of 12 and 14% ramps for about a mile. Pain... pain... pain.

I actually thought about turning around at this point, my headache was about as bad as I've ever had, my back was done for, and I was just plum tired. I forced myself to think only one pedal stroke at a time and spun my 39 x 27.

I made it to the top, body cramping and head throbbing in 2:46. Not exactly what I was hoping for - I thought I might be able to turn a 2:15. At the top all I wanted to do was to collapse in a heap of self pitting and cramping muscles, but I forced myself to through on some warm clothes, gulp down some cliff bars, swing my leg back over my bike, and coast down the mountain. After losing a couple of thousand feet, I felt like new... WTF.

I'll be back next year.

Rocky Mountain High

So tomorrow morning I will be winging my way to Colorado. The Mt. Evans Hill Climb, my second "A" race for the season. I'm feeling pretty amped for this one... the training has been good, but I am a little nervous about the altitude. Not that you can really prepare for an elevation of 12,000+ (unless I wanted to move to Peru for the summer).

It's a pretty gradual climb, a steady 5 to 6% grade for most of the ride with some ramps of 10%+. The first section, from Idaho Springs to about 6 miles in, is a pretty quick and straight tempo ride; then, the road swings to the left and beings to climb in earnest up to Echo Lake. A short false flat follows and then the road turn to the right and climbs up past the ranger station. After another mile or two of climbing through the pines you pass through the treeline. As I remember, this is where I began to slow down last time - like moving through molasses - by moving through molasses I mean moving SLOWLY.

Next, you begin to work your way along the ridge towards Mt Evans. Lots of crosswinds and severe dropoffs - hundreds and hundreds of feet down - a little nerve wracking. A quick drop down to Summit Lake before a long switch back drag up to the finish @ the top.

Times to the top seem to vary from year to year, mostly due to weather conditions, so I don't have a time goal, but would like to finish somewhere respectable...

Well see how it turns out.

Results

So, this is what I woke up to today ( at 5am... I really am turning into my father...).

Cody had two planned 20 minute LT Time Trials today:

Your Workouts for Wednesday:

Threshold-
RideType: Bike
Planned duration: 3:00
Planned distance: 50.0 miles
PEAK WORKOUT: Warm-up + 2x20 min climbs (honey springs?) + Cool-down. Ride the first climb as a TT for best time (don't concern yourself with power so much, ride by feel and note avg power after climb, guessing around 315w), ride the second climb at 15% less power than first climb (this is roughly what power you would climb a 2+ hour climb at).you'll take about 20% off the first climb to roughly find Evans power considering altitude.


So with goal in hand I headed out on the ride - once again the weekly wednesday Cyclovet ride, about one week before I head out to Colorado. It was a full group today with some strong riders - Jamba Juice, Cyclovets, Dewalt, Swami's, and Janel from Webcor. After winding our way out to Spring Valley (or is it Rancho San Diego?) the group hit the climb up Campo Road towards Jamul. The big guys put in some effort and gaped the rest of us - fine, I wanted to do some good work on the TT and it's the second part up skyline truck trail that would allow me to do a full 20 min effort.

The first portion of skyline is about 5% grade. I set a fairly steady pace - I couldn't complete ignore the computer, but tried to go by feel as much as I could - using the others off the front as rabbits. The data for this section shows an average wattage of 336. There is a short fast decent - keeping the watts up while flying downhill is not my strong suit. After this section the climb continues at 7% for several miles. This second ramp is always painful, but I just focused on remaining as steady as I could - 327 watts. After a third short downhill it was another effort of 338 watts.

After dissecting the data on WKO and PowerAgent my 20 min LT looks like at least 320 watts! a vast improvement over my last testing. If I take out the downhill sections (you could argue that they are opportunities for recovery...) and replace them with more of the uphill portions my 20 minute effort is somewhere just north of 330 watts! That's some good power! If I had done Honey Springs as Cody had suggested I might have a better idea, but I think having some other riders to chase helped a bit. I might use the 320 number for Evans figuring that if I have anything left at the end I can always push hard then... beside I won't have the PowerTap for that race anyway - I'll need the much lighter DA's for that...

So by plugging in the 320watts we get the following goals:

2+ HR TT: 272watts
Evans goal: 256 watts

Hmmm... wonder if I can tell the difference between a "perceived effort" of 256 watts or 265 watts...

On the way home we did the usual series of sprints and I tried to break away at the top of the Campo Road sprint and soloed up Bancroft, but was caught by Josh and Janel... I'll take that.

Another good omen is that I hit some new maximal power numbers.

Peak Power: 1288 watts
Peak Power 5 sec: 1227 watts
Peak Power 20 min: 320 watts

And my threshold power looks like it's now 307 watts, broke the 300 barrier - that's good - and on track.