Road cycle hills (Greenspeed) 3:22:00 [4] 59.9 km (3:22 / km) +1235m 3:03 / km
ahr:141 max:167 shoes: DMT road
I skipped my normal morning flexibility routine to get out ahead of traffic with the trike. Part of me was afraid I would take a nap in the middle of that stuff because I'm about four hours short of sleep this weekend.
Today was to the hills. About 12km on travelled roads to get to the real tests. There were 4 or 5 climbs at 4-6% to warm up the legs. I stayed on the big chain ring throughout. The Greenspeed's top gear is less than gear inches, so the big chain ring about matches up with the small one on a standard compact crank.
I used Kennedy between Vivian and Aurora as the test ground. The first hill looked very intimidating from ground level. As you go up the prior hill you see this wall of doom that has no bottom. Because up can only see the upper part of the hill, it looks almost straight up. Once you crest the hill in front of it, it looks like an exponential growth graph. It just gets steeper and steeper and the top third is about 12%. My second time up this hill I was going to shift into the granny gear, but I hadn't tested that shift for ages and it wouldn't throw. Not a big deal, but I should address that before taking the bike west. This wasn't the steepest or longest climb, but it was the toughest because of the nature of the gradient.
Most of the elevation I did was peak to peak runs. The loop had an average grade of about 3.5% include runs along flatter bits at the top until there was a clear opportunity to u turn on the road. One side has a grade of 15-18% for much of it and the other side was 8-12%, but it was civilized and the steeper bit was in the middle. The side with the lower gradient was tougher because it was longer and was the higher peak. I took a longer flat run about every 20-25 minutes to relax the heart and take in some nourishment. I was able to cover 10% of Everest in well under 2 hours, including the flat extensions and one full stop to eat a bunch, guzzle water and take off some clothes. I was also surprised at the average pace. I expected the climbs to drag it way down, but all the intervals were quite respectable at 2-3 minutes faster than I had anticipated.
Observations:
The Greenspeed is going to want lots of room on the fast descents. At 50km/hr it's nimbleness shows as a tendency to adjust its line very easily, like tucking in your shoulder to get a full rear view in the mirror.
Legs started feeling the effort at about 800m of ascent. They held up fine, but a bit more muscle would be a good idea for really long climbs.
New food review:
Eload gel, that characteristic after taste is a bit too dense in gel form for me.
Thunderbird bars: just like a super fit daughter would make you. Today's cashew fig carrot was spiced slightly oddly, but yesterday's Hawaiian crunch was brilliant. They are basically nuts and fruit smushed together and dried a bit. A tiny bite feels like real food and is a nice healthy shot of energy. I have one left of the three flavours I got to test when we were in Austin last month.