Vindication #2

It is happening again. And I'm not talking about repeats of Twin Peaks.

No, far more importantly, the Ergomo has come out lower than the Powertap in a race-type situation. 306W on the Ergomo compared to 335W on the Powertap in the Ba'ath 10. That's nearly 10 percent! I'd even made sure I set the offset just before starting, but to no avail. Weirdly, if I included the warmup and cooldown, the power averages were a lot closer.

I'll try to find out what's wrong with the Ergomo, although it'll be nice not to use it on Monday as it's quite a bulky unit. But it's orange and matches my skinsuit, unlike the yellow Powertap (which would almost match Bath CC's ONCE colours).

The U47 course was bloody fast, and it made a nice change to ride on smooth roads with a bit of traffic assistance. I managed 20'46 for 9th out of 114 starters, which I was quite happy with. The winner did 19'23, and was surprisingly the only rider to go under 20 minutes. Ben A did 20'27 for 4th and Andy C did 21'53, so we won the team prize. Number six for me+Chippenham this year. Simon S did 22'05 but his head wasn't in it after racing three times this week.

It was hard to hold back on such a course, but I managed to keep enough in reserve so that it never actually hurt, and my average heart rate was about 5-6bpm lower than it would normally be. I think a full on effort would have netted me another 15 seconds or so, which wouldn't have been enough for the podium anyway so I'm not too worried. Monday is more important.

Splits: first 8.5km in 11'05 (slightly downhill but a light headwind, two roundabouts and one left hander). Last 7.6km in 9'40 (tailwind, no turns, bit of an uphill at the end). I was off at 8:11am so while there was a bit of traffic, it wasn't heavy.

There's a 25 miler on a version of this course in June, which I definitely want to do. I was riding slower than 25 mile pace today, so if I got a similar day I could do something in the region of 52 minutes. Our club record is 52'20, so it's something to aim at [Our club 10 record is 20'03, but it was done in 1983 - before disks and tribars].

I could have a go on the R25/3 in Wales, which is even quicker than this course because it has a downhill start but no uphill finish. It's not cheating because the rules allow for it, but the whole "personal best" concept is a bit arbitrary when you have courses like these! Not to mention the British Best All Rounder, which is based on your average speed in a 10, 25, 50, 100 and 12hr. A national championship or a national points series, like the Rudy Project rounds, are a much fairer way of determining who's best.

Chocolate 'n stuff

To matters of import, I returned to Morrison's to source some more chocolate. By a strange (but not deliberate) coincidence, I was served by the same employee who had given me the third degree a couple of weeks ago. I was able to remain incognito, probably because I only bought one block. But I must be more careful in future.

I see Boris Johnson got in as mayor of London, which goes to show that anyone can succeed in politics. They say he's the first conservative mayor of London ever. I hope he'll be as pro-cycling as 'Red Ken'. Time will tell innit.

Song of the day: Blade Runner blues. Tres relaxing.

Weather: not currently raining. In fact, it was pretty noice today. Hence, it gets mentioned at the end of this BilgeProduction^TM.