My training ride today was supposed to be an easy ride up Coney Island Ave to Roy's Sheepshead Cycle to replace my bike's current bars with new carbon Easton Attack TT bars. I found that the tube I replaced on Saturday had a damaged valve as I suspected and I needed to replace the tube. Except the only tube I had left was the wrong size. Oops. So the bike went onto the car and off I went. After an hour and a half at the shop I had my new bars and decided to replace the back tire as it was quite worn and had a few significant holes from glass. What the hell, i'm over budget anyway. Oh, by the way, these bars are normally $600 and i got them for $300. So call my shop or order on line, they seem to have more stock www.roysbikes.com. Now for the test. I've never ridden in true tri bars so I was feeling a bit out of sorts riding through traffic to prospect park. Noticed that my shoulder placement was much more narrow and therefore a less solid base of support. Once in the park I had planned a workout that I did the previous week. Basically, a tempo ride for muscular endurance combined with long hills for force. After one loop of prospect park I was getting a better feeling for the new bars, shifting, weight balance, and relaxing my hands. Really like my shoulder position, head position and generally more relaxed upper body placement. I completed 6 laps of the park working around 70 rpm on flats and 60 on hills. Felt really good!
When I compared results from previous workout I had increased my best lap time by 20 seconds over 3 miles, not bad considering it's like riding on a new bike. Looking forward to riding this weekend on Long Island. Feel i'll be adapted to it for my race in 11 days.
Didn't do any weights today. Will have a chunk of time between clients tomorrow, so will save it for then.