Team Martin Stuns Cycling World

"Martin W. Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Team Martin entered the world famous Vestfold Rundt bike
race yesterday. The 165 km race begins and ends in Horten,
Norway. Martin competed on his Fisher Dual Sport 129. He
finished in a time of 5:42, for an average speed of 29
km/hour.

martin

What was the weather like? Was it extremely hilly?

pat in TX

Nice job. Both the ride and the account of same. I dare say
that many of us feel that we've gotten to know you pretty
well, and it was fun to read of your impressive exploit.

Pat said:

"Martin W. Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Team Martin entered the world famous Vestfold Rundt bike
race yesterday. The 165 km race begins and ends in
Horten, Norway. Martin competed on his Fisher Dual Sport
129. He finished in a time of 5:42, for an average speed
of 29 km/hour.

martin

What was the weather like? Was it extremely hilly?

The weather was perfect, except for a head wind in the
second half. I would say it was average hilly, not extremely
hilly. There were lots of long, rather gradual hills, which
didn't bother me. I do better in the higher gears pedaling
slower. I noticed that the other people were pedaling faster
than me most of the time. The killer hills for me were the
short steep ones in the second half, where I had to gear way
down. I'm no good at standing while pedaling.

I stayed with the main pack all the way until we reached all
those short steep hills about 2/3 of the way through the
race. Then I dropped back. I felt a physical change at about
3 hours, which was a little before I dropped behind the
pack. It was sort of that hypoglycemic, stunned feeling, so
I had to go into survival mode. I wore a CamelBack water
pack, so I drank enough water, I think, but I didn't eat
anything along the way, and that probably hurt me. So I
stopped at the last food station and ate some bananas.

At about 80 km, I fell behind the pack about 200 meters, and
I thought I was dying then, but I discovered I was breathing
too shallow. I started breathing deeply, and after another 5
km I cought the pack again and stayed with them for another
half hour until I dropped back for good.

My legs were strong the whole way, and my breathing was
good, when I remembered to do it. It's not like swimming
where you can only breath at a certain point in your
stroke, so you focus on breathing. In riding, you can match
your pace to your breathing, so it is easy to slow your
breathing down and slow your pace down at the same time
without knowing it, if you are riding on your own.

I should have put slicks on my bike, I guess. I don't know
how much difference that makes. My tires aren't real knobby,
but they could be a lot smoother.

I think my blood chemistry went south at the three hour
mark. If I could have kept it normal, I think I might have
gone about five hours. But 5:42 is a lot better than my
previous time of 7:06, so it was a good ride.

martin

Martin W. Smith said:

little before I dropped behind the pack. It was sort of
that hypoglycemic, stunned feeling, so I had to go into
survival mode. I wore a CamelBack water pack, so I drank
enough water, I think, but I didn't eat anything along the
way, and that probably hurt me. So I stopped at the last
food station and ate some bananas.

100 miles is in the ballpark of 4000 calories. Yeah, not
eating was not a good plan. Defintely the weekend warrior
method...I've pulled more than a few of them.
--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Pat said:

"Martin W. Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Team Martin entered the world famous Vestfold Rundt
bike race yesterday. The 165 km race begins and ends in
Horten, Norway. Martin competed on his Fisher Dual
Sport 129. He finished in a time of 5:42, for an
average speed of 29 km/hour.

martin

What was the weather like? Was it extremely hilly?

The weather was perfect, except for a head wind in the
second half. I would say it was average hilly, not
extremely hilly. There were lots of long, rather gradual
hills, which didn't bother me. I do better in the higher
gears pedaling slower. I noticed that the other people
were pedaling faster than me most of the time. The killer
hills for me were the short steep ones in the second half,
where I had to gear way down. I'm no good at standing
while pedaling.

I stayed with the main pack all the way until we reached
all those short steep hills about 2/3 of the way through
the race. Then I dropped back. I felt a physical change at
about 3 hours, which was a little before I dropped behind
the pack. It was sort of that hypoglycemic, stunned
feeling, so I had to go into survival mode. I wore a
CamelBack water pack, so I drank enough water, I think,
but I didn't eat anything along the way, and that probably
hurt me. So I stopped at the last food station and ate
some bananas.

At about 80 km, I fell behind the pack about 200 meters,
and I thought I was dying then, but I discovered I was
breathing too shallow. I started breathing deeply, and
after another 5 km I cought the pack again and stayed with
them for another half hour until I dropped back for good.

My legs were strong the whole way, and my breathing was
good, when I remembered to do it. It's not like swimming
where you can only breath at a certain point in your
stroke, so you focus on breathing. In riding, you can
match your pace to your breathing, so it is easy to slow
your breathing down and slow your pace down at the same
time without knowing it, if you are riding on your own.

I should have put slicks on my bike, I guess. I don't know
how much difference that makes. My tires aren't real
knobby, but they could be a lot smoother.

I think my blood chemistry went south at the three hour
mark. If I could have kept it normal, I think I might have
gone about five hours. But 5:42 is a lot better than my
previous time of 7:06, so it was a good ride.

martin

And where were the Team Martin domestiques all this time?
:-) Great job, thanks for posting the outcome.

- Al

"Martin W. Smith" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message de news:

Quoted message said:

The killer hills for me were the short steep ones in the
second half, where I had to gear way down. I'm no good at
standing while pedaling.

I had exactly the same problem during my latest 75 km bike
race. I couldn't follow the pack when going uphill, and had
to catch them back after each hill on flat land. Enough
power, but too much weight. Too bad the arrival what at the
peak of a hill!

I believe this is due to my swimmer 's body: too much weight
in the upper body. I'm 76kg / 179cm, when typical bikers are
around 67 kg for the same heigth.

Maybe some triathlete here know how to sove this? How to
lose weight - without losing swimming power - in the
upper body?

-- Olivier

Olivier said:

"Martin W. Smith" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le
message de news:

Quoted message said:

The killer hills for me were the short steep ones in the
second half, where I had to gear way down. I'm no good at
standing while pedaling.

I had exactly the same problem during my latest 75 km bike
race. I couldn't follow the pack when going uphill, and had
to catch them back after each hill on flat land. Enough
power, but too much weight. Too bad the arrival what at the
peak of a hill!

I believe this is due to my swimmer 's body: too much
weight in the upper body. I'm 76kg / 179cm, when typical
bikers are around 67 kg for the same heigth.

Maybe some triathlete here know how to sove this? How to
lose weight - without losing swimming power - in the
upper body?

I don't think this problem is due to weight. There were
plenty of men and women in the same pack who were about my
size or bigger. I'm not all that big. 90 kilos is about 5
kilos heavier than I want to be, but I'm not overweight.
Perhaps I am bigger than the average elite bike racer, but I
was probably average for that race.

I attribute the problem to three causes:

1. I'm not a bike racer. I'm not much of a swimmer either,
but I have trained forty years as a swimmer, not a bike
rider. I've done a lot of spinners classes over the last
year, which I'm sure partially accounts for my big
improvement, but doing six one-hour spinners classes per
week is nothing like doing a 100 mile race.

2. I didn't eat during the race until about the 120 km mark.
I drank plenty of water, but I'm pretty sure low blood
sugar began to degrade my performance at about the three
hour mark.

3. I was riding a mountain bike with off-road tires. It is a
very good bike, with 29 inch wheels, and I am sure the
bike also was responsible for part of my improvement, but
everyone else in the pack I was in (except for one guy)
was riding a fairly expensive road bike.

By the way, that other guy in my pack on a mountain bike was
riding a standard mountain bike, ie with the smaller wheels,
and he weighed at least 100 kilos. He was still with the
pack when I dropped back.

martin