Hmmmm.

Well, the time for Barcelona is drawing close so I thought I should start getting some race-specific training in. Most of the guys from the club were off for a 100 miler this morning but I decided that about 100km by myself in race-simulation mode would a) be better training than spending 5-6 hours sitting in someone's draft and occasionally stopping for cakes b) act as a shakedown ride to make sure that all is well and working properly for the Vitruvian next weekend and c) mean I got home a lot earlier. The race bike already had the aero wheels on so I headed out in full TT mode to do three laps of a faintly complicated flat route taking in the Thames Turbo sprint tri course plus a detour to Hampton Wick and another one along Hampton Court Way. This last section only happened for the first lap because the road is one of those ones made of concrete slabs with gaps between them and I found it too bumpy on the TT bike. The plan was to go out and ride at a reasonably hard pace and see how I did. The flat course was chosen because both the Barcelona race and IMWA are dead flat and I wanted somewhere where I would be in the aero position for as much of the time as possible.

The course of true training never runs completely smoothly and the "shakedown" part of the ride certainly paid off. Firstly and most importantly I learnt that I should not ride long distance in my 2XU trisuit because it leads to some serious abrasion to parts of me that should not be abraded. Secondly I learnt that I really have to do something about my left aerobar armrest which does not take kindly to going over bumps, reacting to them by flopping down and leaving me riding at a strange angle with my left arm about 6cm lower than my right. The above problems led to a number of stops to tighten things up with allen keys or to rearrange bits of my anatomy in the hopes of reducing the friction, although neither approach was succesful. The strip of nine speedbumps through Lower Sunbury could not be negotiated in the aero position without causing armrest wobbles, so I decided that this stretch of road was the "feed zone" and rode through it each time sitting up and swilling sports drink. I've broken an aerobar going over these bumps before, so I think this was a wise precaution.

These problems aside, it was a good hard ride but I am a bit disappointed with my average speed, which was 32kph over a final total of 95km. I have been really trying to improve my bike speed, mostly with hard trainer sessions, but I guess I've missed enough biking because of all the travelling around this summer that I'm still not getting up where I want to be. I'm glad I've got IMWA coming 9 weeks after Barcelona - I think there are going to be some repeats of this morning's fun and games during that period.