Stage 1 – Rubber Glove
- Duration: 1:00:00
- Power: 371 watts
- Average Cadence: 84
- Heart Rate: 134 average, 164 max
- TSS: 75
- Ride %: 100
- Start line: 12:08 pm on Friday, January 24 (Because it’s Saturday somewhere)
Rubber Glove is an FTP test, and I’m due for a new test. But there’s no way I was going to ride this as a test. I took advantage of the opportunity to ride a pretty easy 20 minutes at just above my current FTP–I’ll test again after the Tour.
Better to conserve the piss and vinegar for now than allow them to overcome common sense this early. I think I’m going to need both for the later stages.
First things first–get the ol’ jalopy cleaned and lubed. Talking about my bike here…just to be clear.
Next, try to come up with a clever race number and print it out. I decided on ‘1997’ because that’s the number of people participating in the race on Trainerroad at the time of printing, and thus my expected finishing position.
Honestly, the toughest thing about this ride was putting the cold HRM on before I started. After that, I couldn’t really find any other reasons/excuses to put this off, so I got to it.
A pretty smooth and easy ride for the most part. I was really happy with my precision at the beginning–I was doing a pretty good job of staying right on the line.
I rode just above the prescribed 439 watts…but not by much. I averaged 447 for the 20 minute test period. A nice intro to the tour, and Trainerroad suggested my new FTP as 425.
Uh…yeah…maybe after the Tour is finished. For now, I’m happy basing the rest of the rides off my old FTP.