Categories: La Vie VelominatusLook ProRantings from the V-BunkerThe Bikes

Festum Prophetae: Waiting for the Hour

The Machine of the Hour

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

– Mike Tyson

The one thing everyone should always plan for is that however well-conceived a program might be, things will never go to plan.

The high level plan for my Festum Prophetae Hour Ride was as follows:

Have a custom Hour Bike built by Don Walker. Because reasons. Reasons like custom bikes are cool and last time I rode a Festum Hour, a rode an off-the-peg frame two sizes too small, plus three.
Have custom Go-Fast track wheels built by Café Roubaix. Because more reasons. Reasons like track bikes look super cool with Go-Fast wheels and Dan builds incredible wheels.
Get less fat.
Get more in shape.
Train on the track and ride rollers from May 1 onwards.

Suffice to say things did not go exactly to plan. The frame “needed” to be repainted because it got scratched by TSA coming back from NAHBS and my OCD kicked into full swing wanting to have it painted in VLVV colors. And Dan was having a hard time sourcing the hubs and rims he had spec’d for the wheels. Delays ensued. I may also have gotten distracted and lost track of the prescribed schedule and dependencies like having the frame in-hand in order to accomplish point V above. The frame made it back to me on Friday of last week and the wheels are in my flat as I write this, waiting for a final layer of glue before having the tires mounted.

I got less fat and in better shape before falling off the training wagon last week due to a tight work schedule. I quickly became more fat due to a wholesale refusal to reduce my alcohol intake to compensate for not training as hard as I should be. We call this phase of training “tapering”.

Since the bike isn’t even assembled yet, it follows that I haven’t done the time on the track, although @Haldy and I have used his crazy voodoo spreadsheet to determine a good gear choice based on my super-secret personal distance goal. As far as the rollers go, well those were sent by Keeper @Marko just as the weather started to get too good to justify riding indoors, so I’ve only spun on them a handful of times instead of the @Haldy-prescribed 2 hour sessions, twice a week. But I really couldn’t be bothered with that when I was laying down mad tanlines. (Rule #7 tends to be a priority when you live in Seattle. The struggle is real, people.)

Life is boring when things go as planned; chaos makes for interest. So here’s my new plan for tomorrow: Show up to the track early, get a feel for how fast I’m supposed to go, get used to holding the pace and get over the nearly irrepressible fear of falling off the track before diving head-first into the Pain Pool at 2:05. Try not to blow out the guns before the starter pistol goes off.

So head on down to the Jerry Baker Velodrome at 2:05 and heckle me. @Packfiller is driving over from Spokane to commentate (i.e. take the piss out of me) and we will be streaming the ride live at http://ustre.am/10hJX.

Special thanks to Don Walker, Café Roubaix’s Dan Richter, and fizik’s Nicolò Ildos for their support and sponsorship in provide the bits and pieces.

Eddy, may your strength flow through me and compensate for what a twunt I am for not Training Properly. Vive la Vie Velominatus, and may you each suffer on Festum Prophetae as the Prophet did for us.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

wiscot says:

Jun 21 2016 at 1:04 pm

@ChrisO

@wiscot

The beauty of TTing is learning how to prepare and how to ride to your limit. It’s about mental and physical prep.I suppose with HR monitors and powermeters that genie is out of the bottle, but the course and conditions can vary so much that I’m not sure of the efficacy of such technology. At the end of the day, a howling headwind on the way out can only be partially compensated by the homeward tail wind. No powermeter’s going to help you there.

My 10 and 25 PBs were set on a standard road bike. My 50 on a TT bike (no disc, but aero bars and good wheels) Had I had access to a full TT rig with a nice disc, they’d be lower I’m sure.

Get those rollers off my lawn…

I agree about the purity but not so sure about your example – that’s exactly where a power meter would be useful. Sit steady above threshold into the wind and then inevitably a bit below on the way back. Removing variability is the best thing a power meter does.

We do some club events on a very hilly course around Bletchingly. It starts out on a 1.5km uphill, then there’s a long and twisty descent. I find it useful to have the PM and make sure I don’t bury myself in the first few minutes but equally to make sure I keep the power up through the descent when there’s a temptation to ease off.

The beginning and the end of the season in Scotland (I have no idea what the situation is these days - as far as I can tell they fucked up most of my local courses with roundabouts WITH traffic lights) there would be the slate of odd distance and hilly TT races and Gentleman's races in the fall. On most of these a straight up TT bike would have been useless - you needed a road bike.A set of aero bars might have been good in spots, but not much.

For the most sublime bit of film on TT'ing, try this at 31:15. This is time trailling at it's purest and cycling commentary at its finest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUIr9LG1juw

You can be sure Ritter didn't warm up with bloody headphones on.
DVMR says:

Jun 21 2016 at 1:50 pm

@frank

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Solid effort.
VbyV says:

Jun 21 2016 at 2:20 pm

@Marcus

@frank

I had to stop at 50 min due to rain

It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.

Frank WHO?
VbyV says:

Jun 21 2016 at 2:23 pm

On a separate note, I completed my own challenge last Saturday. The 200 on 100 in VT. 13.5hrs total, 12.5hrs ride time, 335km, average 26.6kph, average 196W, 3826M vert.
Gianni says:

Jun 21 2016 at 2:26 pm

@Marcus

@frank

I had to stop at 50 min due to rain

It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.

The trophy for stopping after 50 minutes because of rain is down in Moyston, somewhere.
wiscot says:

Jun 21 2016 at 3:32 pm

@Gianni

@Marcus

@frank

I had to stop at 50 min due to rain

It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.

The trophy for stopping after 50 minutes because of rain is down in Moyston, somewhere.

I think the trophy is a case of Busch Light.
wiscot says:

Jun 21 2016 at 3:34 pm

@VbyV

On a separate note, I completed my own challenge last Saturday. The 200 on 100 in VT. 13.5hrs total, 12.5hrs ride time, 335km, average 26.6kph, average 196W, 3826M vert.

Good for you! That's outstanding. It is my goal to do a 200 in a day but the stars will really need to align. My bests so far are 158 and 134 miles. In others words, another 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 hours more.
VbyV says:

Jun 22 2016 at 5:21 am

This needs an article:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/06/news/chris-horners-bike-throw-stack_409157
RobSandy says:

Jun 22 2016 at 6:32 am

@VbyV

This needs an article:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/06/news/chris-horners-bike-throw-stack_409157

Thank you, great to see all those again. I find Wiggins' oddly hypnotic.
KogaLover says:

Jun 22 2016 at 7:44 am

@RobSandy

@VbyV

This needs an article:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/06/news/chris-horners-bike-throw-stack_409157

Thank you, great to see all those again. I find Wiggins’ oddly hypnotic.

Wiggins knows how to throw a Millarcopter casually deliberate.