Ride to Te Puke

Pitstop in Te Puke. 

Great ride this morning. Adam sorted out a way to get my pics off my phone. Posting picture via my phone to Jo's phone (IR) then to Adam's phone (Bluetooth) then to Adam's laptop (SD card) then he emails them to me and i send them to blogger via gmail. Don't you just love technology. My fault for NOT getting a phone with bluetooth.

Quite pleased with the quality of the pic. Good enough to blog with. 

I've had a couple of good rides since the last blog WITH the race tyres. I thought I might go Sub11 for the Toll Rd TT with the tyres but only managed 11:03. A new record but disapointed that I didn't go 10:xx. Will do a few weeks training and then go for it again. 

I rode to Te Puke this morning on the main highway. The road is fairly flat but the surface is terrible. I remember some disasterous rides on it on my old bike. The small bit of carbon I do have on this bike helps a bit but its still a very vibratory ride. Nice and flat though so good to test the aero position and get some speed.

I wanted to see if I could stay aero for the longer ride which I estimated would take around 2 hours (about 60K) and I was happy that I stayed aero for about 95% of it. During the pitstop in Te Puke I raised the front of the aero bars up a touch to try to stop my arms slipping forward and it seemed to work. I definitely noticed that I wasn't shuffling back as much on the way home. It's still going to take a bit of getting used to (still tension in forearms) and I still have the feeling that I want to sit up on even the smallest of bumps in the road but I was able to convince myself to stay down most of the time. My mind is definitely letting my body know who is boss and I'm able to overide some of the thoughts that previously would do things that slowed me down in an effort to conserve energy. My motto now (from Endurance Nation) is to ride Kamikazi ...'ride a 60K like you would a 40K ... you can always phone the wife if you bonk'. 

I really like the aero bottle on the front. In the past I have resisted the urge to get one because I like the opportunity to sit up and drink from a normal bottle but having the straw an inch away from my mouth certainly made me drink more. I got through 2 bottles worth in the ride. I would normally only drink one bottle, which is probably not enough. 

I realised halfway out to Te Puke that I had forgotten to eat anything before the ride and I didn't have anything on me to eat. There was a slight panic but I didn't feel hungry and I was drinking carb drink so I just forgot about it and got back to work. I had my phone so I figured I'd just call Jo if I bonked :) Luckily I didn't and I think I finished as strong as I started.

It was by far my fastest ride EVER ... well apart from the sily little TT efforts down the Toll Rd. 57.39k in 1:47:54 to give me an average of 31.9km/hr which is roughly 20mph. I don't think I've ridden many rides over 30km/hr let alone nearly 32. To say I'm pleased with that would be an understatement.

Right ... Enough of all this playing with the bike ... I must get some running in. Small matter of a Half marathon in a few weeks.