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| Coming into the finish, it was about nothing more than turning over the pedals as fast as possible. 140 rpm here. |
Just back from Crawford Notch. Only four in this year’s singlespeed category, all running different gearing. Gearing for this stuff is so hard to pick. We do so much analysis it’s almost ridiculous. Geared bike riders no doubt get more sleep than we do because they do not have this problem.
I picked 42×18 and out of the gate spun well north of 100rpm and knew I was giving time away. Just a matter of would I get it back when the grade got nasty. Grampie started 30 seconds ahead on 42×17, and after a while he was well out of sight. He was drilling it. Not until the headwall – 13% avg grade – did I see him. I hit the headwall and life was really, really bad. My cadence was in the mid to low 20s. Clearing that little piece of hell, I wrung everything I could out and did 130rpm to the finish, coming up 63 seconds behind Gramps for 2nd place. More to come later – sleep time, cross race in Bedford, MA tomorrow.
chasing 1:20 