Today was a fantastic day here in Taipei City and I wanted to get a good long training ride in. My last big training ride (apart from the 3hours yesterday) was the Epic Ride in Taiwan however this time I did not bonk or puncture. In fact this ride was one of the best and most scenic of rides I have done to date here in Taiwan. I have included a snap-shot of my power file for those who are interested in power numbers and will attempt to refer to the graph in my posting. For a larger view you can click on the image. The ride consisted of two decent sized mountain climbs – the first one was out of Danshui on Highway 101 up through Sanzhi (10kms) and this climb was also the one used during the Deaflympics Road-race. The second climb was out of Jinshan (opposite the 7-11 store) and climbed up over 16kms on Yangming Mountain Rd. I did both of these climbs at tempo to LT (latate threshold) power, you will see on the graph that my power (yellow line) along with torque (purple line) jumps up considerably. The data before the first climb was quite erratic with lots of surges and coasting due to heavy traffic in Taipei City. Once I was closer to Danshui, my power was alot more consistent. Hill-climb 1 stats: Distance: 9.5km
Time: 24:46
Avg power: 256 watts
Avg speed: 22.8km/h After the first climb, it was a nice down-hill to the coastal highway (see the blue line for speed jumping up) and I concentrated on riding 200-220 watts along the flat/rolling coast road. Stopped at 7-11 to buy some water and chocolate milk tea as I had already ran out of my REV 3 surge drinks (my drink of choice during training and racing). From the top of the first hill to the Jinshan turn-off was 30kms in which I averaged 29km/h for just over an hour (average power was 173watts). The second climb was slightly longer than the Takaka hill climb in Nelson, New Zealand and of similiar gradient (some sections were a little steeper). I was starting to feel depleted of energy, so I munched down on my favourite USANA Oatmeal Raisin Bar during the lower parts of the climb. This snack gave me the slow sustainable energy that I required and I felt more power going back into my legs to complete the climb with consistent power.
Hill climb #2 stats: Distance: 16.2km
Time: 55mins11secs
Avg power: 257 watts
Avg speed: 17.6km/h