SF classics day one - Old La Honda, Tunitas ck rd and more 30th August

I had originally planned to ride the Old La Honda road - Tunitas creek road loop the first afternoon in SF; yesterday's LAX debacle put an end to this idea. As I didn't want to miss these West bay classics, I've decided to stay an extra day in SF so I could still ride these and a few more on my first full day. The rim fire out near Yosemite made staying an easy decision, as air quality around Markleeville just south of Lake Tahoe is extremely poor due to the smoke. So I'll now bypass the 'Death ride' climbs here and continue straight to Bishop.

Although I woke reasonably early, I only finally load the car and leave at at 10:30am for the Woodside park and ride car park. The ride to the start of the first climb is a pleasant roll through leafy streets, all using on road bike paths. Bike infrastructure looks to be high on the agenda in the bay area!

Old La Honda (5.47km  7.3%) first off the rank is a well trafficked short sharp test piece. The road is a very narrow and quiet strip of perfect hot mix . Even though I have a very full ride schedule over the next three weeks, I couldn't help myself and went hard to post a time. I'm happy with my 20:44 as 20 minutes is a benchmark time. I think this would be achievable as held back just a little for the later climbs and was fully loaded with two full bottles plus didn't know the climb.

Old La Honda 

I continued down Old La Honda road West to link up with La Honda road on my way to the coast. I wouldn't be heading straight there though and took a left turn onto Pescadro Creek road which traversed beautiful redwood and mixed forest areas to Pescadro. 

Old La Honda West

Pescadero creek road 

From town I took Stage road north, a very quiet option running parallel and slightly inland from highway one. Only issue was the road was being resurfaced so I endured a few kilometers of gravel and scraped bitumen on scenic coastal hills. Shortly after San Gregorio Stage road joins Highway one for a very fast descent to the turnoff for Tunitas creek road. 

Stage road sights: Fog and roadworks

Old San Gregorio store

Last climb to Highway one

On the way I stopped at the viewing spot only to find a upright piano! One of the tourists who had also stopped sat down to play. It was very surreal to having a mini performance overlooking the sea!

Piano with a view 

Tunitas creek road (11.9km 4.7%) started pleasantly enough till the valley narrowed and we hit the redwoods. Here the road changes mood and threads steeply up the hill with the small creek not far to one side. Absolutely stunning scenery and very secluded road; had a deer cross a few metres in front of me and scuttle up a steep bank. This steep middle third soon relents and continued upwards at a more moderate grade again.

Tunitas creek road

Once we hit Skyline road, I still had enough energy to fit in one more climb; therefore descended Kings Mountain road immediately opposite. At the base I turned around and climbed back up though more forest (6.75km 6.9%) to Skyline road. This I traversed south to the intersection with La Honda road which was my final descent for the day.

View on Kings Mountain road

 Really great first day. Seeing the elevation gain from what were relatively short climbs shows much of the ride was climbing and made me a little less concerned with why my legs were sore...

Ride details:

Distance 110.27 km

2719m elevation

In Transit - LA 29th August

Now is the part of traveling I don't like, the getting there... Sitting currently in LAX waiting for my connection to San Francisco after a very tiring flight. Only just over half the travel time compared to Europe, but I only got light sleep and now have a full day here to get through.

Flying into LA at dawn, I had a great view of the Hollywood sign as we circled LA on the way into land. Long queues at customs and now a 6 hour wait at the airport. In hindsight I could have taken the earlier connecting flight, just wasn't sure though how long it would take to make it through the doors and into the California sun.

Saw the bike case briefly on landing before handing it on to the luggage handlers for the final leg. Hopefully TSA are kind and repack the case properly! 

Postscript

Seven hours later after the first post I am still here in LAX! At first the flight was delayed and then finally cancelled! Mad dash to the customer service desk and then an hour long wait in a slow moving queue to finally find out I will still be in San Francisco today. Unfortunately way too late to ride as planned.

So my 12:50pm flight is now 6:05pm on an already long planned layover. Still not sure of the fate of my bike or luggage after leaving them with airport staff after going through customs. Nor yet if I'll be second time lucky and on the plane to San Francisco...

Postscript two

Flight on time and after a nervous time in the air wondering about the location and condition of my bike; luggage all okay and intact. Car hire processed smoothly and hotel in Sunnyvale found after only one wrong turn.

Once checked in, I drove a short way to a grocery store for supplies, then finally rebuilt the bike. Finally get to sleep at 12:30am! 

Mt Donna Buang Threepeat revisited

Another weekend and Mt Donna Threepeat ticked.

It had been another solid week on the bike including a solid midweek hitout; riding a 1 in 20 threepeat Wednesday night negative splitting each lap. 

The legs were tired, but with the forecast listing rain from mid morning Saturday all the way through Sunday I decided to ride my Mt Donna Buang repeats first thing Saturday. Hopefully getting some laps in before it got miserable... With the impending rain came milder temps on the hill for this time of year. Still cold, but a low of 7 degrees Celcius three or four degrees above the usual. Didn't stop the at times strong wind adding to the chill!

Warburton council supporting cyclists

Still not quite there with my fitness, again basically even splitting the first two repeats but struggling to keep the wattage into Zone 4 on the third lap. 

Quiet roads

Even though managed to summit just with a few spots of light rain for company near the top. After descending and the rolling around the riverside loop for a warm down, it was straight to the local supermarket to raid the shelves before the drive home in the now falling rain...

Summit tower after lap one

110km 50.4km climbing at 6.4% average

Mt Buller weekend

Saturday 100km ~ 45km climbing

My wife went up the road to the Mt Buller ski resort earlier in the morning for work and I got the call the road was mostly clear other than slushy in the last kilometres to the village. So I decided to ride Mt Buller regardless the horrid weather forecast and the fronts sweeping through.

At the entrance I was waved to the counter and was told I could continue as long as I could answer a question - how do the riders in the tdf go for a toilet stop? She was planning on phoning Simon's Gerran's mum to ask! 

I made it to 8 1/2 km up where chains had to be fitted - asked the worker if I was allowed to continue. His answer that I can't stop and fit chains anyway... So onwards into to the slush and rain now falling as snow. If I was only riding uphill and didn't have to descend I would have gone on. As I had to come down I decided finally to pull the pin and turn around at Andrew's carpark. 

Very tentative descent back to the entrance. Any sane person would have returned to his accommodation and soak in the spa tub, obviously I am not sane...

The only others not in a car. Dropped in for a cup of tea on the descent.

Wasn't able to ride a threepeat in the end as I couldn't get to the village, so instead ended with four slightly shorter repeats; the last three laps turning around a little lower at Box Corner ~11km up the hill. To here was only a couple of kilometers of slush and snow to ride through.

Sunday 82km

Learn't the hard way that it really depends on the day and who is working at the entrance if you are allowed on the Mountain. Sunday cars weren't having to fit chains, weather was looking a little better so was keen on another couple of laps but I was stopped! Reason given is that once the toll opens, VicRoads hand control of the road to the resort and although not mentioned anywhere that bikes are banned we are a hazard with numerous buses and inexperienced drivers making their way up the mountain.

So instead of being passed by cars going under 60km/hr, I turned around and rode to Mansfield return plus a side out and back up towards Tolmie on 100 km/hr roads...

Heading towards Mansfield

Support for Mansfield born and bred Simon Gerran's

First Mt Donna Threepeat for the year

For previous overseas trips, my training staple has been the Mt Donna Threepeat. The best local climb with some length - 16.8km and 6.4% average for each lap.

The major issue with using this for Northern hemisphere Autumn assaults is the cold, as Mt Donna Buang is the closest snow play area to Melbourne. Although the snow is inconsistent, the road ascends the shaded Southern side of the mountain adding to the chill....

Some patches of sun on the lower slopes

Summit 4 degrees celcius and a bitterly cold wind - top of the third repeat late in the day

 Total 103km, 50.4km climbing 3240m vertical gain.

Strade Bianche

After not having ridden in the hills the last couple of weeks, on Saturday I decided I couldn't handle what would be a slow time for me up the 1 in 20 (extremely popular ride on Mt Dandenong with over 33,000 times posted on Strava) so turned left instead onto the Basin-Olinda rd.

As the Basin-Olinda rd is gravel for 5.5km of the 6km, I have avoided it all these years like many other local cyclists. But I'd seen some positive comments about the climb and surface being fine on road tyres recently so was intrigued. It was still wet and a little slippery especially in the lower half from the rain earlier last week but was fine on 23mm tyres. Wonderful little climb and extremely enjoyable to ride another local climb I hadn't been on before. Loved it that much I had to ride it again Monday.

Keen now to search out other gravel roads!

Continued across to Montrose and back over the hill to Olinda and down the 1 in 20 to home...

 

Monash Wind tunnel testing Review - from the vault

I wrote this Wind tunnel review after my session back in 2008 and posted it in the FairWheelBikes forum and thought I might as well copy it here. After my time in the tunnel, the bike has gone through quite a few iterations - mainly due to the moving goal posts courtesy of the UCI. As I still tinker with my position and equipment, the guys at the tunnel have also been busy testing quite a few riders. Also since my session, they have updated the test jig to now make on the fly yaw adjustments easy.

Hopefully you can get something from this to help you get faster!

I was fortunate to take part in Wind Tunnel testing at the Monash University, Clayton Campus recently. As much as I’d like to divulge actual values, before testing we had to sign a legal agreement to not publish the figures. This prevents companies from accessing valuable testing information for free; unfortunately this also makes it harder to write up about the day! But I’ll try to at least give a general feel for the process and the benefits of Wind Tunnel testing for non elite cyclists like myself.

The Monash tunnel is the largest on the Southern hemisphere and can produce wind speeds up to 180km/hr. Often used for testing cars due to its size, the venue has also worked with the AIS and various elite cyclists. Bikes are mounted in the centre of a rotatable plate set up with rollers. Under the plate are four sensitive electronic pressure sensors which interpret the loads as drag.

View of the tunnel from the control centre

Due to time constraints, testing primarily focussed for all three riders including myself being tested on the day with positioning. Therefore testing during the session was at Zero degrees yaw, the Triathlete and myself limited by UCI rules tested at 40km/hr wind speed, the track cyclist tested at 55km/hr.

 

My bike being fitted to the test jig

My bike was the first to be fitted and soon the fans were started and we were away. Initial tests were with my current position and two hand positions: first on the ends of the extensions and second closer in as I use climbing. What was most surprising here was how unaero my original position was when I thought it was quite reasonable. Also surprising was how drag increased from such a subtle hand change!

 

Hand position one    

 

Hand position two

Next tests involved three different helmets (two being AS approved Limar Speed Demon and Crono 05 and also a Bell Meteor II 07) whilst shoulder shrugging and turtling.

 

Some of the helmets brought in for testing

Just this alone saved approximately 10% from the initial position. My final position change involved dropping a 2cm spacer and holding the same head and shoulder position and with it came some additional savings.

 

Final position

Difference comparing Test 1 and my final position in Test 18 which had identical hand positions ended up saving me ~43 Watts at 40km/hr!

Additional observations

There was a little spare time at the end I could do a few additional tests. Unfortunately not enough to rotate the test jig so all equipment tests done were only at 0 degrees yaw…

Based on this, the Arundel bottle was no better or really worse than no bottle on my bike, so if you need fluid it isn’t bad but won’t be the great fairing as hoped. The Jetstream bottle was a little worse but given you don’t have to move out of position to drink, it would be interesting to see if not having to reach down is actually better during a longer event, not to mention the ease of refilling on the go.

The compression tights I had actually tested a little better than bare shaved legs, therefore deserve more investigation as to the benefits of wearing compression clothing during racing.

Also as I was able to spend the whole day observing, from watching the other guys:

What appears aero isn’t necessarily so. The track cyclist tested a smooth track helmet and standard road helmet in his sprint position and the road helmet tested better.

Helmet interaction between individuals varies considerably. Just because one helmet has tested better in a study doesn’t mean it will be that way for you!

Depending on your build, going lower doesn’t always equal better drag figures. Rob the Triathlete with solid swimming shoulders found going lower made no real difference in drag. So he will stay higher for comfort and to be able to produce maximum watts.

So was it worth it?

Definitely! The numbers don’t lie! I entered the tunnel with what I thought was a good position and left with a major improvement in aerodynamics. The drag savings uncovered in 1 ½ hours could otherwise take years of hard training were gained in such a short time. Yes it will take time to adapt, but well worth the effort given the huge improvement available!

Thanks go to Raoul Leuscher for organising the day, and David Burton and the engineering team at the Monash tunnel who are planning to make more sessions available in the future.

(Position photos courtesy of the Monash Wind Tunnel)