Monday, August 13, 2007

11 August: 4 came back: a Metric Century and a bit

Today was a toned-down version of the Shand challenge, originally a 100mile race, reduced to a 100km (plus a bit) tour loop. There was a good turnout at the start point in Windsor, although a few were planning for one reason or another to do a foreshortened 60km and a bit, breaking off to Woofville (there are no Wolfs in NS but plenty of doggies) from White Rock. And a few had biked from their valley homes to Windsor and would somewhat complete the route by stopping at home instead of returning to Windsor. In any event, the last half of the ride sported a modest tailwind, so even Windsore was misnamed, even a mere Winded would not quite have said it as well as just plain worn out. Enuff of that, on with the stats and graphs.

Here we see the altitude profile of the whole ride, 114.3km although I went around a shortcut and did a few short double-backs so the actual route distance was a bit shorter, by a couple of km only. I decided to leave the Temperature data on the graphs; the sensor is in a black device mounted out in the sun on the handlebars so it definitely reads higher with less windcooling on an uphill than on a swooping downhill, but road temperature is higher than official temperatures anyways, thanks to the heat absorbing properties of asphalt; data is only taken at 5km intervals or when I mark an event (which is rare)-- anyways, make of it what you will.

Some stats for the run: total ascent: 939m. Average speed 20.8kph; strangely equal during the hilly pre-lunch and the flatter, wind-assisted post-lunch. About 40km of the route was uphill, about 45km downhill, and about 29km was level; as %ages of ridetime these translate to 43%, 29% and 28%. So, yes, once again there is more uphill than downhill-- maybe one day we should do a route backwards. I burned off about 2000kalories, but that would be a widely variable quantity depending on a rider's fitness. Actual riding time was 5h 41min, and I spent about 3h04min not riding (waits, lunches, swim-stops etc). Given the heat I'm almost tempted to think the non-riding time was more tiring than the riding time (and that isa desperately bad pun if you think about it). The computer says there were 5 uphill slopes of significance. It also says there was 38m more of descent than of ascent. That's computers for you. Average power, by the way, for those that are interested in how many bulbs they could light (like my dad and uncles had to do during WW2 for nighttime reading light in occupied Holland) was 119watts...

The first 10km. Ascent during this section 79m. Stops at 3.5km (highway entry), 9.9km (hilltop with a view).


The second 10km. Ascent during this section 89m. Stops at 14.5km (hilltop), 18.3km (Avonport roundabout)


The third 10km. Ascent during this section 68m. Stops at ??km at which point most of the group took an early split to Woofville for lunch and a very short ride, 25.7km (Rick's for waterbottle refills).


The fourth 10km. Ascent during this section 212m. Stops at 32.6km (White Rock), 36.3km (top of main climb).


The fifth 10km. Ascent during this section 127m. Stops at 45.4km (top of English mtn; main regroup point), 48.7km (route navigation conflab).


A closer look at the downhill. Average gradient -7% in the steep section.





The sixth 10km. Ascent during this section 24m. That's more like it. Stops at 53km (lunch), 56.1km (split point).


The seventh 10km. Ascent during this section 17m. Pretty flat. We don't have this kind of terrain around Mt Uniacke! Stops at 61.2km )for swim).

The eighth 10km. Ascent during this section 49m. Stops at 74.9km (rest).


The ninth 10km. Ascent during this section 78m. Left one more rider at Windsor; only 4 continued on. Stops at 83.6km (Bike shop for parts), 88.8km (for corn).


The tenth 10km. Ascent during this section 131m. Undeserved at this point of the ride: a bit of a struggle. Brief stop at 99.4km (hilltop).

The eleventh 10km. Ascent during this section 52m. Brief stop at 104km (hilltop view).


The last 4 and a bit km. Ascent during this section 13m. Amazing what a 5m hill can do to the legs at this time of the day... Stops at 114.3km (what else to do at the end of the ride? It was too late in the day to bike home to Mt Uniacke)

And there it is.