This morning I opted for climbs up the Volcano KOM in order to further bring down the remaining total on the L’Etape Du Tour Mission climbing total.
I wasn’t sure how many climbs I’d get in, as I had about 45 minutes to ride before I needed to be off the bike.
With about 1700m of climb left to complete before the 28th July, I have ~7 days to average ~240m of climb per day, or more realistically, 5 days at 340m or greater each day.
Choosing the Whole Lot of Lava circuit means this one starts off gentle. Each circuit consists of a Counter Clockwise Volcano Circuit followed by a jolly up the Volcano KOM.
I deliberately held back on the out lap in order to give my first attempt at the Volcano KOM my best shot.
As I was going at this one pretty hard, unfortunately I didn’t get many pictures of my climb.
In short I aimed to stick at or around 230w for the first attempt.
I generally did OK on this front. I’m not entirely sure what I truly averaged, but the first climb went well.
By the time I saw timer board, seeing I was on track for a whole minute off my previous personal best was highly motivating to push on further.
Unfortunately I couldn’t quite keep up that pace, but I was happy with the the time I did record.
I do keep track of my previous Volcano KOM attempts on this page but hadn’t checked the leaderboards before starting this ride.
This was a good effort all round, but then again, it should have been as I really had taken the out lap incredibly casually.
By the time I hit the top I was absolutely thrashed. My cruise around the top of the Volcano was ridiculously slow, and huffy puffy.
The descent down was pedaled, but at no pace.
Once reaching the bottom of the Volcano KOM I wasn’t quite ready to hit it immediately. The Whole Lot of Lava circuit does send you round the CCW Volcano Circuit again before sending you back up the KOM.
However, I didn’t have much time left at this point, so opted for a U-Turn about half way around the lap, and then back up the KOM.
Second time round I aimed to average about 180w up the climb.
I think this would make for a good circuit for a structured workout in truth. This was on my mind for rides later in the forthcoming week. I know I need to eat up those 1700m of climb, and structured workouts may be the way to do it.
At least, in part, anyway.
The second attempt wasn’t as hard as I had imagined. Taking the climb at 180w was considerably easier than the first attempt.
A time of 11 minutes 8 seconds seems about right to me. This puts me somewhere around the middle of where I was between April and May of this year. A considerable improvement.
Unfortunately, once at the top I had burned my time and needed to get off the bike to allow my wife time to warm up for her race.
I would have enjoyed a third attempt, given a more casual Sunday schedule, but it wasn’t to be today.
The 657w down the hill was fun. I didn’t realise that was a new personal best until just now. That was something of burning off my frustration at having to get off the bike before I was mentally ready to do so.
325m of climb puts me just under the needed 340m per ride to cover the remaining total before the 28th July.
I believe I can do this, so am not overly concerned at this stage.
It does mean a fairly climb-y week ahead.
Burning off ~400 calories was helpful. However, I certainly used all of them and then some at the family party later in the day.
I think my timeline today looks more like a structured workout than any previous free ride graph I have ever produced.
All in all, not a bad ride. Certainly not the most difficult thing I’ve done recently. The first climb was a bit ridiculous. Maybe I pushed too hard. The second climb tells me I can likely get three or four climbs of the Volcano in per 1.5 hour ride, without killing myself. So long as I stick to ~180w.
That should mean the target is achievable.
