I actually think the wind offset needs some tweaking here. The power looks a little low, and the wind chart suggests I wasn't in the wind at all. I can categorically confirm that I was in the wind a ton at Bunny Hop - stupidly so. I had no teammates in the 35+ / 45+ race so my plan was to try to help hold it together until the finish. I'm not the guy for a long break and my best chances of winning some socks or a water bottle would be in a bunch gallop, which I'd either slice through or pre-empt with a well-timed jump.
But instead of preventing breaks I ended up letting them get established. At times, I found myself sitting on the front too long and not having the snap to chase the attacks. A couple would jump by me, then a couple more, and all of a sudden there was a break of 4 up the road with me still on the front, powerless to do anything about it. Other times when I was a couple wheels back I'd surge to follow the breaks trying to tow the pack up to them, but ended up getting a gap and finding myself out in no-man's land. Once this happened with about 10 to go and there were 3 guys off the front. I couldn't see who they were on the back straight, but saw I had a gap and decided impulsively to try and bridge. So I put my head down and powered along the back, into the headwind before turn 4, and then along the finishing stretch. The 3 were in sight, but when they took turn 1 I could see clearly that it was 2 Harley and one Saroff guy. Little chance I was going to close in on them. So I sat up and let the pack catch me. I ended up wasting a lot of energy at the wrong times.
I have a PowerTap wheel that I use for training now (my team is sponsored by PowerTap, so they made me a deal I couldn't refuse), and the iBike is pretty easy to calibrate against the PowerTap. You basically do a simple ride for a few miles which the iBike software then analyzes, and resets your iBike so that the power it measures and calculates matches the direct force power captured by the iBike. I haven't done it yet but once it's done I can go back to any of the iBike only files and re-apply the new profile information.
What is cool though about the data I do have from this race is from the intervals the iBike broke the ride into. For the first half of the race, I averaged 244 watts NP, with a HR of 161. For the second half, the power was the same but the HR was 167. The heat started to take its toll, for sure.
If you're wondering about my end-of-the race strategy, it turns out I didn't have the energy to make a jump. With 2 to go I was about 15 wheels back on the inside and saw SuperDave make a move on the outside, aiming for about 5th wheel. I accelerated with him and we converged on 5th wheel at the same time but from either side. I slotted in right behind him, which was about the best place I could think of being with 2 to go. We lost a few positions on the last lap and I hit the final turn around 10th or 12th. I picked up a few spots I think and ended up 8th, maybe 7th.
