The Utah Velo bike club were invited to participate in a time trail up Hobble Creek so it was added in the mid point of the Saturday ride for those who wanted to join. It was kind of an informal affair but they had several people assisting and about 24 riders did the 10.7 mile , 1283 feet of climbing, course up the canyon, starting at one minute increments. I was assigned number 18 and noticed that the three riders in front of me were all young fast guys so I didn’t think I would be able to catch anyone. In fact those three young guys were the top three finishers.

We had ridden about 15 miles from Orem to get to the start, a nice warm up. Hobble Creek is not very steep so it is not very suited to by ability where I do better climbing the steeper hills.

I took my heart rate up quickly to above 150 and it was not long before the heart rate went above 160, sometimes above 170. I kept in the red zone for the entire climb as shown by this graph.

My final time was around 36:31, with an average speed of 17.6 mph. That put me in 6th place out of the 24 riders.  The did not have any age grouping but best I can tell all five riders who did it faster than me were much younger.  My average heart rate was 166 with a maximum of 175. My cadence 84 so I am getting better at spinning. I did pass four riders on the course. Except for the three speedsters I passed everyone who started 7 minutes before I did. Number 11 didn’t seem that I passed in the last mile so he jumped out and passed me. I let him have a few seconds of glory but figured that anyone how had ridden 7 minutes slower than me could not hold the pace for long so near the end, I went by and dropped him. The top finisher was 33:10.

Categories: Cycling Group Rides, Cycling Racing