Number Crunching

This past weekend was pretty good for riding. Our full group was able to make it up to the Whittier area to bang out a few new trails. The complete group consists of Matt, Andrew, Mark, Troy and of course myself. It's been awesome riding with these guys for the past year because everyone is really solid on the bike and we all get along. No matter what I always know at least one of them is available on any given Saturday.

We ended up riding three loops for a total of about 29 miles with 5900 feet of elevation gain.

Some number crunching:

1. It took 3:33 for me to complete the three loops.
2. Average speed was about 8mph for every lap.
3. Blackstar-Motorway is 4500 feet of climbing. Maple Springs to Four Corners is about 2600 feet. We did 5900, so that's about halfway up to Four Corners if you started at Blackstar.


I realize the Blackstar-Motorway loop has more climbing that wouldn't be included in something like VQ, but still that is about right.

So what does that mean for my potential VQ time? Halfway to Four Corners at 3:30 ...

Probably get to Four Corners at 4:00 (if I'm lucky) and then to UHJ at maybe 4:45. Bottom of HJ at maybe 5:30. Not good. My goal is to hit the bottom of HJ at about 5:00.

Now if I hit Four Corners at 3:30 ... that would be something special. Either way I know that with the time and elevation from Saturday, I was too tired to finish strong for something like VQ.

All in all I need to do better. I want to ride at an endurance pace and find myself at Four Corners at around 3:30-3:45. That means a little over 2:00 to the top of the Motorway, 2:20 to the bottom which means a total time of ~1:20 to climb from the bottom of the Motorway to Four Corners.

We'll see what happens. Just need to keep pushing.



Other fun moments from the ride:

1. On the first lap I tried to keep pace with Alex (mt dew) and got schooled. He seemed to fly up the switchbacks at the start and I was blowing up trying to keep up with him. My heart rate was 180+ for the duration of the initial climb. Haha.

2. On the second lap I saw a guy in a white shirt ahead of us on the singletrack about halfway through the route. I thought it was a white cotton shirt so I figured he was a Fred. After the singletrack I saw him climbing this long section of loose dirt and figured I could catch him.

It was a lot of hard work but I eventually dragged him down before we reached the summit. Turns out the white shirt was a white jersey. He wasn't as slow as I thought he was. Haha.

3. The entire area must be near power lines or something because I've never seen so many morons riding without helmets before. I mean seriously. Is it that "un-cool" to wear a helmet? We got going over 30mph on some of the downhills and I know if I were to eat it without a helmet I'd be in serious trouble.

4. There were a lot of singletracks that could have been fun options. Wonder where they all go?

5. There was a dump near the initial switchbacks and we kept hearing the workers fire off bottle rockets to scare the seagulls. I don't think it was working.

6. Ran into a lot of hikers and dogs in bad spots on the trail. I hate going downhill and then having to slowly dodge people. Also why does every hiker automatically pick the best line to perch on?

(Troy took pics so I'll post them when he does.)