Today I ended my mini personal tour of California:
Stage 1: Wildflower Half Ironman
Stage 2: post Wildflower 4 hour ride with 3xNasty Grade
Stage 3: San Jose to Mount Hamilton Hillclimb
Stage 4: Palo Alto Old LaHonda Hillclimb (trying to race the ghost of Eric Heiden)
Full report on all three stages coming soon, but the big "race within the race" was to see what type of time I could put down on the 4th day on fried legs up Old LaHonda outside Palo Alto. Anyway, I was up at 5 am and after oats and coffee for breakfast, I parked in front of Starbucks on University Drive in Palo Alto (the start finish line of a stage should be beside Starbucks), got on the QROO Lucero, hammered up Sandhill Drive to the base of Old Lahonda, which aparently is a benchmark local climb, with narrow switchbacks and some steeper sections. Legend has Eric Heiden of speedskating fame setting the course record at just under 15 minutes.
My goal would be 30 minutes, given my lack of sleep, way too much riding, and Eric Heiden's time. I started from the corner and put it in the 34x21. During the entire climb I alternated between the 34x24 and 34x21, alternating standing and sitting. I reached 15 minutes and it looked like I had a lot more climbing to do to get to the summit at Skyline drive, so I held back...cross 20 minutes and keep going expecting a time over 25 minutes...suddenly I see the stop sign on Skyline in the distance....
Final time 21:31 (I guess I am only 2/3 the man that Eric Heiden is...not bad...)
Man, I wish I knew the course....I would have emptied the tank with 7-8 minutes to go and gone to Zone 5...I gave the course too much respect. I will be back in the future for a sub 20 attempt...which aparently is the local holy grail for performance on this climb.
Thanks to Christina for lending me the Mavic Ksyrium wheels for Mt Hamilton and Old LaHonda...you guys who live in this area don't know how good you have it...I only say 1 rider on Hamilton, and zero on Old Lahonda...if this was Ottawa, there would be roadies and trigeeks all over these climbs...you guys are spoiled :-)
The blast down 84 was great. I was racing cars down the mountain and beating them...the Lucero handles very well on technical descents for a tri bike, even with an 11 cm drop...ended up at Starbucks with a large Cafe Verona....black...then sat in traffic for way too long for the drive up to SFO...what a way to start the morning!
Dev
Stage 1: Wildflower Half Ironman
Stage 2: post Wildflower 4 hour ride with 3xNasty Grade
Stage 3: San Jose to Mount Hamilton Hillclimb
Stage 4: Palo Alto Old LaHonda Hillclimb (trying to race the ghost of Eric Heiden)
Full report on all three stages coming soon, but the big "race within the race" was to see what type of time I could put down on the 4th day on fried legs up Old LaHonda outside Palo Alto. Anyway, I was up at 5 am and after oats and coffee for breakfast, I parked in front of Starbucks on University Drive in Palo Alto (the start finish line of a stage should be beside Starbucks), got on the QROO Lucero, hammered up Sandhill Drive to the base of Old Lahonda, which aparently is a benchmark local climb, with narrow switchbacks and some steeper sections. Legend has Eric Heiden of speedskating fame setting the course record at just under 15 minutes.
My goal would be 30 minutes, given my lack of sleep, way too much riding, and Eric Heiden's time. I started from the corner and put it in the 34x21. During the entire climb I alternated between the 34x24 and 34x21, alternating standing and sitting. I reached 15 minutes and it looked like I had a lot more climbing to do to get to the summit at Skyline drive, so I held back...cross 20 minutes and keep going expecting a time over 25 minutes...suddenly I see the stop sign on Skyline in the distance....
Final time 21:31 (I guess I am only 2/3 the man that Eric Heiden is...not bad...)
Man, I wish I knew the course....I would have emptied the tank with 7-8 minutes to go and gone to Zone 5...I gave the course too much respect. I will be back in the future for a sub 20 attempt...which aparently is the local holy grail for performance on this climb.
Thanks to Christina for lending me the Mavic Ksyrium wheels for Mt Hamilton and Old LaHonda...you guys who live in this area don't know how good you have it...I only say 1 rider on Hamilton, and zero on Old Lahonda...if this was Ottawa, there would be roadies and trigeeks all over these climbs...you guys are spoiled :-)
The blast down 84 was great. I was racing cars down the mountain and beating them...the Lucero handles very well on technical descents for a tri bike, even with an 11 cm drop...ended up at Starbucks with a large Cafe Verona....black...then sat in traffic for way too long for the drive up to SFO...what a way to start the morning!
Dev
Last edited by:
devashish paul: May 16, 07 0:00