Savageman HIM : Official Thread (Page 8)

Aquavelos get a brick.  Bad precedent that was set the first year.

I call dibs on my brick being placed next to his.  Assuming I make it up the wall of course (did so in 2008, going for brick #2 this year).  Would make for a great picture.

Bricks are laid in order of finish, triathlon first then aquavelo.  So, if you finish last in the triathlon and he wins the aquavelo, you will get your wish......

Hmm...may have to sandbag the race

You only need to finish last among those people who made it up the wall, so it might not be as much sandbagging as you think!

Oh, and all this assumes that THE MAN makes it up the wall

I'll take the other side

Well, we all need to have goals... you are just making setting them much easier. 

LOL!!!  yeah right, I'll be sweating allright.  

What would be cool is to be going up the wall with DS.  If He is AV I think last year they went off in my AG.   

Edited by tasr 2010-08-12 2:18 PM

The year I did it, I was FREEZING when I got to the wall.  No sweating until after... but very soon after.

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Kyle - we may need to get Dave a little security at the pre-race dinner!



For the rest of you - I can't speak to what it's like every year, but the year I did it the pro's were very available at the pre race dinner... they just sort of sat down and ate kabobs and would have gladly talked to anyone.  Totally different vibe at Savageman than any other race I've done.

Compact 50/34 with 11/28 rear...needed every bit of it. At 14mph its about 3 hours 50 minutes
The que sheet is spot on but road signs aren't. Spring Lick sign is gone..Westernport 825 t( the beginning of pain is gone) at the light look up, turn left and go! The sign for Miller is gone...descending Jennings when you see the lime green house and garage on the right Miller is coming up...its a 150d left...4 bottle ride for me...Enjoy the vacation!

:-)

Weather permitting, I will be freshening up the arrows on the road Saturday.  Ride Sunday or later and you should be able to just follow yellow arrows.

Also highly recommend getting in a ride of the 30.0 course while you're out there for a weekend.  i *LOVE* that course.  Beautiful, hilly but manageable, faster descents than 70.0.  And did I mention beautiful.  All anyone talks about is the 70.0 bike (for good reason), but the 30.0 course is as beautiful as the 70.0 is hard. 

If I get beat, I'll be beaten by the best!

I was feeling so full of myself, oh so many weeks ago. The brashness of youth I suppose, but I'm going for it!

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I feel well prepared for a 30.0... 70.0 eh, not so much.  I'm pretty nervous about this one.

Well, Jason and I hit the bike ride on Sat.  He looks impressive dashing up Westerport Wall with a 26 in the back.  He also looked impressive dusting me on the climbs.  I think he is going to do really well.  Me.. I came to the conclusion that I suck.  I won't lie; that ride was miserable.  I'm slow up the climbs and I can't make any time back because the roads on the descents suck. 

We got rained poured on so I never thought I would say this about a bike ride in the middle of August but we were actually COLD!  LOL  At one point, I was telling Jason that my legs felt exactly the way they did back in March when I would do a long run, then ice them in my pool.  It was sort of a numb/tingling feeling.

The good news is that my legs are not sore at all today.  I'm not sure how that is possible but I was surprised. 

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Fred,

I'm pretty confident that isn't the problem because I have a 12-27.  However, I will go to an 11-28 just for the little extra.  I will say that mechanically, my rear tire isn't true and it was hitting my brake at times but I still don't think I should have struggled as much as I did. 

The one thing I am hoping is that my problem is self-inflicted for doing a lot more than my training plan called for.  I've been pushing it quite a bit lately and perhaps just not giving myself adequate recovery time.  I have pulled out all the "extras" and I'm sticking to the plan for the last five weeks. 

The difference in effort from a 27 to 28....I think is about 5.7% .
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/

On any other route I'd suck it up. On SM I would get the 28. We're Clydes bro! Were carrying more weight!

Your logs are impressive. You've done a lot work to get where you are. You'll have an advantage next month from demoing the ride yesterday. I'm gonna throw done here and suggest you hit SM again in the next week or two. I bet you come in at least .5mph faster.

Congrats on getting through the course.  Trust me, plenty of folks don't, and if I recall, you were a real beginner at the start of this year and now you've finished the toughest triathlon bike course.  Getting experience on the course before race day is going to prove invaluable for you.  Instead of being miserable on race day, you're going to love it.  You aren't going to be surprised by any of it, and there will be others around you and you will all share solidarity and suffering together.  My prediction is that you finish SavageMan fine and that you love doing it!

Saturday was a bummer of a day to ride out there, though.  Rain, fog, and no views because of it, which is a real shame for your SavageMan training ride.  At least it wasn't 90s and humid, though, right?

If you want fast descents, the SavageMan 30.0 is for you.  That's got some fast and fun screamers.  The 70.0 descents are mostly technical and rare is the opportunity to get up a good head of steam.  The two areas to which I'm guessing you're referring when you say the descents suck are Spring Lick and a short descent just over the top of Big Savage.  Spring Lick was freshly chip sealed in late June and it gets next to no traffic so it's taking a long time for the loose gravel to grind into the tar.  It's greatly improved in the last month, though, and will be even better a month from now, and they will sweep all loose gravel a day or two before the race.  So, no need to worry about Spring Lick, it'll be fine for racing.  The torn up road on Westernport Rd after Big Savage is problematic, though.  A combination of a tough winter and a detour that has forced heavy trucks on that road has torn up the road in about 6 or 7 places of varying severity for about 1/2 mile, unfortunately on a descent and even worse, on of the very few straight and fast descents of the day.  There will be a solution of some sort for race day.  Even if that solution is a warning to "SLOW DOWN the road has crap bits for the next 1/2 mile!!!"

Here are some pics of that stretch in it current state.
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/13303736_9yYLd#966850586_RRVPe

All pics (except that last) are taken going up the hill, so cyclists would be coming down and towards the camera.  Naturally the road is generally worse on the right where cyclists needs to be.  We'll find a solution.