"It's a sport, but the bottom line is money. The bikes are lighter, but not that much so. Sure, the training has been refined but there's no substitute for doing the miles. - Ken Laidlaw - First Scottish cyclist to race the Tour de France."
July 23, 2010
The long and short of fit...
With less than 6 weeks to go until Master Track Nationals I've been spending most of my time either riding my track bike, or time trial bike. The track bike is fun but sometimes you need a break from the fixed gear! My TT bike is a 47cm Scott Plasma Ltd and the track bike is a 51cm Cervelo P3T. The Plasma feel so good that I wish Scott would make a track version, however, they don't. I've asked! My latest challenge is trying to make the Cervelo feels as good as the Scott... Which due to the difference in frame sizes, is challenging. They both have the same seat, a TT specific Fizik Ares with a short nose which allows me to hug the UCI 5cm rule. Hey, for a 5'10" dude I have short legs! Both bikes also have a Zipp Vuka aerobar setup. Tonight I rode the TT bike pretty hard for close to 2hrs which reminded me how good it fits, so I spent more time tonight measuring the positions of both bikes. If I could just take a hacksaw to the Cervelo and remove 4cm of frame, I'd be fine!
The title of this post sums up my Saturday experience. I was fortunate enough to get an invite to tag along on a RIMPAC mission last Friday. Unfortunately, due to having a day job, I had to turn down getting to fly from O'ahu and over the Big Island in a C17 with the rear of the aircraft open, and a pair of F16's flying closely behind it! However, I was given a last minute invite to go on a tour of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) - The first aircraft carrier to be named after a living (at the time) former president (Ronald Reagan - 40th president of the United States).
I met up with a few other people (aka Tweeps) that I'd only ever talked to on Twitter at the Tweet-Up location. We were taken by bus from Pearl Harbor over to Hickam, given some info about our flight to CVN76, then driven out to a C-2A Greyhound.
The C-2 is a small twin-prop aircraft!
Landing on an aircraft carrier is known as a "trap". An hour after departing Hickam AFB we were advised that we were going to be landing soon. I braced myself for the impact (you go from 125mph to 0mph in 2 seconds. It wasn't too violent as you're seated facing the rear of the aircraft. Facing forward and you'd probably lose your eyeballs. We touched the deck but missed the wire, so had to get back into the air! We got the wire on attempt #2. There are 3 wires on the deck of CVN76 and the target is to hit #2. If you get #1 then you're too low. Hit wire #3 are you're too high.
My first "trap" is in the bag, and I have my coin as a memory.
The rear of the C-2 opened up and were were greeted with a view of the flight deck, some deck crew, and a few F-18's. Wow, this is really happening!
Standing In a place every kid has probably dreamed about since 1986!
Our first stop involved a trek down a few flights of stairs to the Commanding Officer's office where we met the higher-ups that run the show!
Next stop was lunch! I wasn't sure what to expect in the way of food, but we were treated to a pretty good lunch! Meatballs, turkey and gravy, rice, carrots, etc. A burger cooked to order, some guava juice, and a brownie!
At the Reagan Room... That piece of concrete I'm touching is part of the Berlin Wall!
Below the flight deck.
F18 Hornet.
Communications room.
On the flight deck to see aircraft take off and recovery (trap).
I've realized that you can watch all the videos on youtube that you want, or watch Top Gun with surround sound, but nothing comparesto standing within 20 feet of an F18, getting blasted by the afterburners, being able to feel the heat, power, and roar as it hurtles along the flight deck and into the sky. I wish a lot of my friends could have been there to get the experience. The best I can do is share a video that I took:
Landing! The wire that's on deck has to replaced after 150 landings.
Sitting in Commanding Officer Kenneth J Norton's chair. That's him on the right!
Honorary Naval Aviator!
I'll update this blog entry later... Lots more to add!
I'd like to thank Pacific Fleet, Pacific Command, and everyone aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, and the 14 countries taking part in RIMPAC 2010 for a truly unforgettable experience that will be hard to surpass!
After work last Friday I headed over to Kauai with Maui-based team mate Jeff to throw a few watts around the Garden Isle. After wanting to take right's when we were meant to go left, and left's when we were meant to be going right, we made it to the Kauai Inn, conveniently located a mango throw away from the Saturday morning TT course.
Last year's 10 mile TT stage went awesome until about mile 5.5 where I flatted my rear disc. I rode that sucker to the finish risking making it a $1500 TT. The end result was something like 6th place and an intact wheel.
The 2010 race had a few changes. No more pancake flat drag strip on south-west Kauai. No pointy helmets. No wind slicing wheels. No triathlete-esque aerobars. Just pure balls to the wall standard road setup, athletes-hour style racing over a course profile with more humps that a camel.
Jeff and I rolled out of the Kauai Inn and rode the 1/2 mile to the start. 2min warmup. We saw Jason Smith roll a 26min ride so that gave an indication of what duration of effort we'd be looking at. I was 31st rider off and had a few rabbits ahead of me for a little Elmer Fudd action.
5..4..3..2..1... GO! I got the bike up to 30mph and rode the first part of the course in that ballpark over the first flat section of course around Nawiliwili Port, then hit the climb pretty hard. The next 4 miles or so were spent trying to poke a small hole into the wind, while trying to get out the max power possible. Sometimes I'd rock out the slouched over the front of the bike with forearms sitting on the tops of the handlebars - invisible aerobar style, climbing in the hoods, or just rocking out in the drops, while keep an eyeball on the SRM to see which was squeaking out more speed. 0.1mph here and there is all it takes to win.
I had almost caught Jeff who was my minute-man at the turnaround, then about 1/2 a mile into my ride back to the start / finish, I see 4 cones on the road. While I knew that the course was a straight shoot out and back affair, I guess I decided to go with being obedient and took a right turn... About 3/4 mile later I realized that I was going the wrong way. Not long later, one of the race volunteers Leo from Kauai drove by me while I dropped a few F-bombs. I got into the back of his truck, went back to the start of the race, rolled around for 1 minute, then had another crack at the race. I'd already gone pretty damn hard the first time so the second time wasn't what I'd call a happy time. Not many rabbits to chase as most people were already done racing, so I just had to go out there and hammer out whatever watts were left in my legs.
I got to the base of the final descent well within Jason's 26min time and emptied the tank to cross the line with a time a little under 24 minutes. I had no idea if I had won or lost, but my mind thought that I'd probably lost by 30sec or so. After a few minutes, the results were posted and as it turned out, I won by about 20sec over Tony Lang. Close one!
