Posted by Phil on May 10, 2009 in
Training Cat-eye Moon-ride today. What can I say? I had a ball as did the rest of the team, a great event ridden on some great MTB trails. The trails were hard packed, slightly damp with the odd few patches of sticky mud, all in all a great course of 7.7km.
My first run of the day wasn’t too flash at 29mins, the second was 22mins (much better) including a spill (whoops),the third was 22mins also, that was the end of the daylight laps. The first night lap in full darkness was 25mins, the second was 29mins (the chain broke so had to do a track-side repair with a missing link), just go to show the value of carrying spare parts in event and my sixth lap I will have to wait for the final times to be published as I did the last lap for my team and they forgot to write Andy’s finish time in.
I will definitely be back for the Cat-eye next year.
Posted by Phil on May 7, 2009 in
Training Hit the tracks at Waipa again tonight (night ride), a) to test out my new light that was made for me by a mate, b)to have a test run at night riding. After the rest of my team for the Cateye piked I decided that there was only one thing for it, hit the trails by myself. All I will say is I have found a new sport, totally different to MTB’ing by day and so much fun.
I rode for approx 1 and a 1/2hrs, I rode the Cateye loop 3 times. The first time was quite slow as I learnt the knack of riding with just a pool of light from the headlight and finding the painted arrows on the ground. Second time around was quite a bit quicker although I did a probably about 400m extra as I missed a turn, the third time around was a blast as I headed out to do the track as quickly and as safely as I could. Whilst it wasn’t any world record time I was happy with my 25mins 08secs.
A good training ride that I throughly enjoyed and will definitly be heading out in the near future for another night ride.
Posted by Phil on May 3, 2009 in
Training Rode about an hour on the MTB at Waipa, did 3 rounds of the “Big Dipper” (with a side excursion down to the carpark to borrow an allen key as I forgot my toolkit) followed by doing “Rosebank”. The Big Dipper is a fun grade 2 MTB track and Rosebank is a more technical grade 4.
Although it has been over 3yrs since I was last at Waipa it was a great ride with only a couple of really close calls that I thought that I was going to hit a really big tree.
All in all a great way to spend an afternoon and has me waiting in anticipation for next weekend and The Cateye Moonride, I have a feeling it will be a great 12hrs of fun and games.
Posted by Phil on May 3, 2009 in
Training Decided to head out for a tikitour around the outskirts of Ngakuru and Waikite Valleys. Was a fine afternoon but not very warm with a lite southerly straight off the antarctic (yeah ha). Ended up doing 50.79km by following the paved roads around the 2 valleys. I also rolled over 1500km on my bike since 31/12/2008
50.79km, 2hrs, 02mins 08secs, Avg 24.9km/h, Max 58.5km/h
Heartrate; Avg BPM 153, 1% in HZ, 27% in FZ, 72% in PZ, KCal 2055
Posted by Phil on May 3, 2009 in
Training I hit the paddocks next to the house on the MTB today, really needed to try the pedals and cleats as I am going to use them for the Cateye in 10 days time. Rode a loop around the paddocks finding the route as I went just following my nose through gates that were open passing by the gates that were closed. The elliptical gears are taking a bit of getting used too as when in low gears heading up step hills everytime you push on the pedals it has an inclination to wheelstand, quite unsettling when the bike wants to stand on its tail twice in every pedal revoulution. Interesting!!!
Once I had finished 1 loop of the ride and a couple of extra hills thrown in I headed out up Totara Rd for a quick 3km on the road, (it really is as bad as I thought that it would be, MTB’s are for offroad).
Heartrate; Avg BPM 154, 6% in HZ, 34% in FZ, 60% in PZ, KCal 634 37mins 51secs
Posted by Phil on May 3, 2009 in
Training Boring as batshit (read magnetic trainer here), did 30mins tonight on the beast and it really is very boring. However it sometimes is the only option as weather and time dictate.
14.5km, 30mins 34secs, Avg 28.4km/h
Heartrate; Avg BPM 146, 2% in HZ, 87% in FZ, 10% in PZ, KCal 461
Although it was boring I am finding it helpful in keeping my heartrate at a specific rate.
Posted by Phil on May 3, 2009 in
Training Rode to town today as I needed to get my wheels retuned and whilst getting that done I redid the bike setup as I wasn’t happy with how it was feeling (or more to the point how my backside was feeling). Turned out that my seat was too far back, it was about 30mm to far back which doesn’t seem like much but it made a huge difference on the ride home. Shame I couldn’t say the same for the wind (damn headwinds).
56.04km, 2hrs 04mins 13secs, Avg 27.1km/h, Max 62.5km/h
Heartrate; Avg BPM 156, 14% in HZ, 5% in FZ, 78% in PZ, KCal 2251