On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Follow-up to San Bruno Hillclimb report: I plot here my relative time to distance for 2015 versus 2014. To generate this plot I exploited the fact I'd hit the lap while waiting on the start line each time. When I check the profiles starting from the lap starts they are essentially the same within approximately 20 meters of distance. However, if I were to have started the times at the start of the lap, the times would have been dominated by the delay until the race start in each case. So instead I interpolated the starts from 20 minutes after the actual lap start. To match times at distance, I interpolated times onto 20 meter intervals for each year's data. Since the course is close to 6 km (5.96 km here), this yields close to 300 points for the full course. So then at each distance I can calculate the difference in times: the 2015 advantage, which I plot, is the 2014 time minus the 2015 time. Here's the result: An aside: this is the first plot I've posted her...

After the 2014 Low-Key Hillclimbs came to a successful conclusion thoughts naturally turn to the San Bruno Hillclimb which comes five weeks later. I'd ridden fairly well at the Low-Key series. After running my first ever 50 km trail race at the Woodside Ramble in April, it had been a decidedly down summer for me fitness-wise, neither doing any running races, bike races, or any endurance rides of note, with the single exception of the Memorial Day Ride (4 days from San Jose to Santa Barbara). I was really in a rut, sort of treading water without making any progress. But spending all of September and the first 12 days of October based in Basel, Switzerland gave a nice boost to my training load. The first two weeks weren't much, and indeed the entire second week was spent working without much training, but weeks three through six were a solid mix of long bike rides and decent runs. This gave me a bit of a cram course in base which had me feeling better on the bike than I had...

On Wednesday morning I had oral surgery, getting an implant installed. Fun, fun. But the procedure was a lot easier than I had anticipated, so relatively easy I questioned my decision to get anesthetic, something I normally decline during fillings, for example. It hadn't even occurred to me to ask, as I expected such a scene of blood and gore that no rational human could survive the untempered pain and still maintain either consciousness or sanity. But I suspect it would have gone okay. The worst part was at the end when I was strictly advised "don't do anything to raise your blood pressure for the next 5 days, including any vigorous exercise." No vigorous exercise for 5 days? But I was approaching the end of a recovery week after a solid block of work in Switzerland, and I was ready to get moving again. In particular, Saturday was the Low-Key Hillclimb up Welch Creek Road. But that would be only 73 hours post-implant: too far short of the 120 hour recommendat...

Pen Velo's annual New Years Day San Bruno Hillclimb climbs San Bruno mountain from the east side. The climb has two sections, one up Guadalupe Canyon Road, then there's a loop down and under that road onto Radio Road, then the final, steeper climb to the summit. I did a profile of that road awhile ago, to describe that race: But there's multiple ways up the mountain, 3 (at present) completely paved, perhaps a fourth to kick in when an unfortunate housing development marring the north side of the mountain is completed (Mount San Bruno, except for the very top, has failed to enjoy the general level of protection of development Bay area mountainsides have received). The two major approaches are the two sides of Guadalupe Canyon Road, the other side being the west side, from Daly City. This climb begins in earnest at Price Road. An advantage of the western approach is freedom from traffic lights. The eastern side has a traffic light at Carter Road. Additionally the we...

Approaching the San Bruno Hillclimb this year, two riders I know decided they needed to reach race weight. They weighed themselves daily, publishing the results via Twitter. I found the data interesting, so decided to do some analysis. Here's a plot of their recorded mass in kg versus the day, where I've designated "race day", 01 Jan 2013, as "zero". Rider C began his calorie restriction earlier then Rider B, who began soon after Thanksgiving holiday. Here's the data: I did a linear regression of their progress for the final 35 days (-34 to 0, inclusive). This includes all of Rider B's data up to and including race day, but excludes the day following. It excludes an upward blip in mass Rider C experienced during the Thanksgiving holiday (likely glycogen & water, I suspect). You can see the data generally follow the linear trend: both riders were exemplary in sticking to their diets. Rider B lost mass at approximately 66 grams / day, ...

San Bruno this year was a striking contrast to the Low-Key Hillclimbs in which I participated for six consecutive Saturdays from October to November: the nature of the climb and the wind made for an especially tactical race. San Bruno Hillclimb route profile I'd registered for E3 instead of my master's 1-2-3 category because, considering the start list at that time, I thought my podium chances were better in E3. To that point, E3 registrations were typically light, but the masters was already heavily populated with big guns. In the "clearly stronger than me" department were Cale Reeder and Kieran Sherlock. Carl Nielson was there: I'd beaten him in our last head-to-head, on Kings Mountain, but that had been the only time in my recollection and the big money was on him to finish ahead. Add in Clark Foy and Tim Clark, both of whom had been training well, who were also in contention for the podium, not to mention the riders with whom I was unfamiliar, and an ...

It is traditional that the top 3 men, top 3 women, top 3 juniors, and the Endurance Award winner of the Low-Key Hillclimb series are all awarded a free spot in Pen Velo's long-running San Bruno Hill Climb , held every year on Jan 1. I finished 4th, just out of the "money". But yesterday I signed up anyway, paying the entry fee: it's not often I have fitness and opportunity this time of year to do the climb. The USA Cycling page has it listed as a "time trial", but that's incorrect. It's a mass-start race, riders starting in waves from the base of Guadalupe Canyon Road near Bayshore, climbing to the "saddle point" marking the top of Guadalupe. Then from there it's a sharp right into the state park, down a short descent past the ranger kiosk, an immediate right turn over rough pavement a short straight, another right, pass back under Guadalupe Canyon, then the narrow, sometimes rough climb to the summit. Here's the profile: ...