Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track!

Dec 17, 18 16:57

Post #1 of 15 (1843 views)

Some of you might have noticed that I've been asking about aero and track stuff recently, this has become an interest of mine again as I've once again reset my athletic goals and dreams.

After my last professional road team (Astellas Pro Cycling) fell apart, I had a half-cocked idea to set my crosshair on the Olympic velodrome. It doesn't take much to see how it would quickly peter out without an actionable plan. The idea quickly got shuffled into the rubbish pile at back of my mind and I moved on with life, coached the Rwandan national team for a few months and finally found an office job with a steady paycheck that could put a roof over my head. Life was going great but at 26 I was always wondering what I could actually do if I put a honest effort into an athletic achievement. My better half tried to get my into running and swimming, thinking that I could do triathlons, but they just don't seem to be my thing. (Read I suck and swimming and my feet blister too much for any real running.) Phoenix it's very good for road riding and summers are so hot here so I took up Zwift racing this summer. For a while the Zwift races and Strava KOM's kept my competitive desires satiated but as this year went along, I began to crave more. That craving lead me down this path to the current athletic goals and dreams that I have. While, she might not enjoy all of the new cycling related things that I'm placing on the credit card, I'm very happy and thankful for the support of my amazing significant other as I chase this goal. It may be a bit crazy and completely unnecessary to post this here but I'm excited about this. If you have any words of wisdom for me, I'd love to hear/read them.

Overarching dream: earn a spot on the USA team pursuit squad for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

2019 dreams:
1: Break the current 4km individual pursuit record (4:25.8) at the LA VELO Sports Center
2: Win the individual pursuit at USAC elite nationals

2019 outcome goals:
1: get CdA at or below .2
2: ride a sub 4:30 IP in LA
3: get invited to a USAC track camp

Process goals:
1: gym work
2: get in as many laps in as possible
3: work on aero with ERO
4: work on standing starts (~1100w)
5: tie together a full gas standing start and 4+ minute maximal effort
6: find all the affordable bits of free speed
7: find funding for the "free" speed that I can't afford
-dream: custom 3d printed cockpit
-reality: tririg alpha one or something faster in a track setting

Last edited by: Ohio_Roadie: Dec 17, 18 16:59

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

Dec 17, 18 17:09

Post #2 of 15 (1818 views)

Good luck! Keep us posted, start a blog, and help folks follow your journey.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

Dec 17, 18 17:14

Post #3 of 15 (1809 views)

That's great stuff. I'll be racing you at Elite Nationals! (though not really competing with you since I'm an older dude and am just using Elite Nationals as a tuneup for Masters Nationals which follows in LA).

Maybe you're aware, but your goals seem to have a ton of overlap with those of Jordan Rapp, from my conversations with Jordan between races in LA - Jordan graciously filled in on my team pursuit team for a practice race when we had a guy missing.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

Dec 17, 18 17:38

Post #4 of 15 (1775 views)

Best of luck! How much weight do you plan to gain from your climbing form? Probably won’t need to go full blown Lambie tree trunk legs...

Have you tried the Alpha Ones? I’ve read that they have some flex in them, which would probably be even more noticeable at 4min power watts and 60kph g-forces. And if you’re running the same stack spacing like your Shiv spacers.

Alex Arman

Strava

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

Dec 17, 18 18:11

Post #5 of 15 (1737 views)

Best of luck! The track is a cruel mistress but there’s something pure about training for a single, short effort. My advice from a similar goal this year is that a) standing starts won’t matter that much. Sure get the mechanics and timing down, but anything you save after that will only be a couple seconds at best. It’s not the low hanging fruit. And b) don’t underestimate putting down power on the track at speed. I was doing the kilo and while my watts on the the skis was where I wanted it, I underestimated the difficulty of putting out a max effort while controlling the bike at speed. Wish I had done more paced work.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [doublea334] [ In reply to ]

Dec 17, 18 18:12

Post #6 of 15 (1736 views)

doublea334 wrote:

Have you tried the Alpha Ones? I’ve read that they have some flex in them, which would probably be even more noticeable at 4min power watts and 60kph g-forces.

It's not the 4-min power, it's the 10-second power. For most of an IP, you're in the aero position where there's not much torque going through the bars. The real issue for flex is the first ~10 pedal strokes, which feel like deadlifts - you're driving your legs to full extension with the force going through straight arms right to the bullhorns. I haven't tried TriRig bars on the track, but I can confirm that starting an IP on flexy bars is not a good feeling.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [doublea334] [ In reply to ]

Dec 17, 18 20:44

Post #7 of 15 (1663 views)

MadTownTRI wrote:

Good luck! Keep us posted, start a blog, and help folks follow your journey.

Thanks! I might start looking into a blog. I might fire up the old pro FB page that I once had too. I'm not the best with social media but you can pretty much find me on the mainstream stuff @jfreter17

trail wrote:

That's great stuff. I'll be racing you at Elite Nationals! (though not really competing with you since I'm an older dude and am just using Elite Nationals as a tuneup for Masters Nationals which follows in LA).

Maybe you're aware, but your goals seem to have a ton of overlap with those of Jordan Rapp, from my conversations with Jordan between races in LA - Jordan graciously filled in on my team pursuit team for a practice race when we had a guy missing.

Bring it on! It'll be loads of fun! I welcome, Jordan or anyone else to join in the fun. If I don't qualify for the Olympic team, that's okay as long as we send the correct group of fast riders. I'm still going to fight tooth and nail to get there. I might put a lot more money on the CC than I should too.

doublea334 wrote:

Best of luck! How much weight do you plan to gain from your climbing form? Probably won’t need to go full blown Lambie tree trunk legs...

Have you tried the Alpha Ones? I’ve read that they have some flex in them, which would probably be even more noticeable at 4min power watts and 60kph g-forces. And if you’re running the same stack spacing like your Shiv spacers.

Climbing weight was 143-145, I think my zwift is still showing low 150's (needs an update), I'm 155-156 right now, most of those dudes are around 170 from what I can pull out of their Strava accounts. I have no idea what I can weigh by then but 160-165 is okay with me if it's muscle since I don't have to worry about going uphill.

I'll be trying the Alpha ones next session with ERO. I've heard most of the fast bars (USE R1 namely) are a bit flexy on the start but we will see in a couple weeks I guess.

I'm sure that stack will come down a bit from the pursuits. It was set up by CycloLogic for 30+ minute TT's to keep my quads out of my funky rib cage. If I could flatten my ribs, I could cut most of that stack out but at this point it's still a work in progress. It's much easier to look at thousands of dollars worth of gear that could give me the same gains and want to do them all.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

May 31, 19 17:05

Post #8 of 15 (1373 views)

Update: with 5 weeks to go until nationals there have been plenty of struggles and a few successes. I haven’t been racing on my full nationals setup so I’m relatively happy with how things are progressing. I have also readjusted my goal to be a more realistic sub-4:30.

Current bike setup: Cervelo T4, Pro Missile Evo bars, Zipp 808 with 23mm SuperSonic front, Zipp 900 with Bontrager xxx 23mm tubular Rear. Kappstein 11 speed, 60x16 chainring and cog.

Planned nationals setup: Cervelo T4, Pro Missile Evo bars (still hoping to get the j-bend extensions to the max 10cm height), Zipp 900 (front and rear) with Dugast Silk Latex 19/22mm tires. I also have a set of Vittoria Pista Speed 2.0 19/23mm on standby, should I need them.

April: 4:43.6 - bit disappointed in this ride but a few take away. This was my first Pursuit since collegiate nationals, the fall of 2014. My pacing was dreadful and killed myself in the first km, like a rookie. Also put AMP on my legs before my warmup and my hands we do slippery that I had to start in the saddle. Not exactly ideal!

May: 4:37.2xx - pacing was better but not great. I also did an all out 2km effort about 30-40 minutes before this 4km pursuit, so the legs weren’t exactly fresh. Caught my partner going into turn 3 and stayed pretty high, most folks at the track were keen to point that out afterwards. My splits were as follows:
23.0
16.7
16.5
16.4
16.8
17.1
17.1
17.2
17.0
17.1
17.1
17.0
17.3
16.5

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

May 31, 19 18:04

Post #9 of 15 (1345 views)

Do you have a coach?

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Pwraddr] [ In reply to ]

May 31, 19 19:53

Post #10 of 15 (1286 views)

That’s a negative ghost rider. Just me, Strava, WKO4 and anyone that I can get info and take it with a grain of salt from.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

Jun 1, 19 6:11

Post #11 of 15 (1195 views)

Do you have any data or information that the Dugast Silk Latex are faster than the Vittoria Pista Speeds?

BoulderCyclingCoach.com

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [rockdude] [ In reply to ]

Jun 1, 19 10:46

Post #12 of 15 (1143 views)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any data for this and I don’t have the equipment to do a roller test.

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [Ohio_Roadie] [ In reply to ]

Jun 1, 19 10:51

Post #13 of 15 (1138 views)

I just saw a YouTube video with a guy who went back to the track for the first time and is trying to make the US pursuit team

ERO was there helping him. His first try was 4:30 I

Is that you?

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [MrTri123] [ In reply to ]

Jun 1, 19 11:50

Post #14 of 15 (1117 views)

That’s Phil Gaimon

Re: Personal goals for 2019 and beyond: back to the track! [MrTri123] [ In reply to ]

Jun 1, 19 21:20

Post #15 of 15 (1057 views)

The other poster is correct. That was Phil G. I tried to work with Jim but due to a series of unfortunate events, I learned nothing about my optimal position.

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