Testing, Testing ...

Lately I have been feeling really good in the saddle, and that’s not completely unexpected because I now have almost 2,000 miles in my legs. I have been riding strongly against my own numbers from earlier this year and in comparison with a few of the local guys.

Am I “good” right now or did I simply spend a lot of time in my sweet spot during the last week? A long-distance ride on a gravel rec trail, a couple of laps on the mountain bike at New Fane, 30- to 40-mile road rides without a lot of climbing … that’s what I do. Doing it reasonably well shouldn’t be a surprise. But I suspected I was coming into good form, so today I tested myself in a way that isn’t subject to a lot of interpretation: an individual time trial.

I rode for 45 minutes to warm up, then hit my Trenton Time Trial course:

I knew almost immediately that I was not on a personal record pace, but I finished the 3.7 miles in a respectable 10:38.0 (20.88 mph). The PR that I established last July still stands: 10:09.4 (21.86 mph). Today’s ride was my first this year on my Raleigh Competition. It’s still set up as a standard road bike though I continue to flirt with turning it into a dedicated TT machine.

With the TT completed, I rode for another 25 minutes to cool down. Today’s effort was intentionally short and easy—except for the TT, obviously—because tomorrow I will test myself again: I will be at Suamico for the 30-mile WEMS race. I didn’t want to take a rest day in advance of a nearly 3-hour race effort, running the risk of coming out flat, but I didn’t want to exhaust myself either.