So, I have been looking forward to the Zipp Demo night at Westlake for like 2-3 weeks; the tought of a set of tasty carbon hoops on my Titus Modena....oooooooooohhhhh my. So Gary & I get there at 5pm and I'm talking to the guys from Zipp; Jason and Scott about what I'd like to check out....the Zipp 303 'Cross wheels. They don't have any, but they do have a set of 303s clincher. Cool. Unfortunately, the cassette doesn't look like it's on right, so I end up going with the Flashpoint FP60s. The Zipp guys say the FPs can be used for 'croos also, so I think this should be perfect.
SBR is well rep'd tonight; John, Ray, Gary, Tom & I are riding A's and Jim, Ian, Dave, Jason and Linda are riding B's.
Right after the race I was going to leave for Chicago; 4.5 hrs away, so I wanted to get the race in for a workout and see how the wheels were. (a note on that wonderful drive - I think I'm going to ask Red Bull to sponsor me....4 cans of the stuff later I made it to the hotel.)
The starting temperature is like 90+'F; I'm taking two big bottles with accelerade and one small one with just water. I'll just add to what John has written....
The pace was fast from the start and I was just trying to keep in a good position. The road condition is in bad shape so I'm not sure this is a good comparison for the FP60s. Anyway, about after 5-7 laps, my left foot is going numb and then hurting like heck to the point that I can't even stand on it coming out of the turns. I have to unclip it 2-3 times during the race to try to shake it out. Crap. I remember hitting my split timer on my Polar at the 14 to go lap and thinking, good, almost half way done. Then I start having a hard time staying on the group and for 1/2 of a lap I lose contact along with 2-3 others and start to panic/give up/get pissed at myself and try to get back on. Then in the distance after we go by the B's I see a wonderful sight; the A-'s are sitting up so I jump on it to catch up. Back on I see how we only have 4-5 to go and I start making deals with god and/or the devil, heck, anyone to make it to the finish cause my foot is killing me, my back is feeling like I have been cyclocross racing for like 2 hours; it is really sore now and that has never happened during a crit. I finally recover, take a pull and get ready to bring it in. Pat (now with Orrville) is in the group along with Dick so I figure that I'll see if I have anything left in the tank and go for the sprint for the heck of it finish. I'm watching Dick and others are going at around 250+ meters out so I wait a bit longer and then punch it following Dick. He and I get around 3-4 guys and I actually feel like after the sprint that I have left nothing on the track....I am dead.
The stats say I did work the hardest as I have ytd.
1:46:42
44.7 miles
HR - 160 avg/178 max (yikes, a new high for me)
Speed - 25.1 avg/34.6 max
CAD - 96 avg/136 max
watts - 268 avg/833 max
amount of pain, off of da chart!
start temp 92', ending at 87'F
The FP60s seem slow to ramp up to speed and may even give a harsher ride than my Mavics, but I'd have to take another ride on them to confirm that. They do seem to roll really nice once you get them to speed and worked fine in what wind we had.
I'd still like to test the 303's tubulars out though and see if they didn't give a smoother ride.
Thanks for reading & back to work for me,
Rick
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