Sunday, May 20, 2012

Grand Fondo New York

GFNY -- finished today. A different kind of "race", 1st time for Py -- Gran Fondo in New York.

The day before: Early morning ride -- see previous post! Drive to the city to a friend's place. Sign in and package pickup in the middle off Manhattan.
Conveniently Py found base camp at a colleague's apartment on Roosevelt Island -- many thanks again! And went with him to the city for sign in and goodie package pickup. As it happened that the inbound F train due to construction or what ever was not stopping at Roosevelt station they took the scenic was with the all renewed gondola along side the Queensboro bridge. Kind of funny -- gives a little the feeling of a ski resort... and as it looked Py wondered who build it and found a French company did it. The original was build -- who wonders -- by Constructed by Vonroll Ltd of Bern, Switzerland.
Then a little walk in Manhattan and two more F train stops towards Pennstation where the GF Expo was located -- not so much of an Expo so...

DSC_4839.JPGDSC_4886.JPG
DSC_4893.JPGDSC_4897.JPG

Finishing the day with an excellent home made Lasagna to fuel the ride. Wake up 4am and leaving the garage by bike by about 5:10am, just enough light to roll w/o lights. The nice gondola would have been a great option, but was not running that early morning. Riding around via Queens, entering the Queensborobridge bike path and cutting over towards Central Park, proceeding on Riverside Road.
Randomly running into the 1st other GF rider on his way to the start -- "Gunna" originally from Hamburg -- how small this world is!

At the meeting point before entering the bridge staging area randomly finding Gerald... in between 5000 riders. Time for a bathroom visit and to proceed for staging...

IMG_5210.JPGIMG_5208.JPG

Staging -- Py got #241, pretty much up front as of his racing rankings or what ever they used, very good :-) Pretty neat -- the huge multi lane GW bridge at lower level filled up with cyclists! A nice day, a slight morning chill with this light breeze across the bridge causing some riders to tuck down a little as there was about a good 1/2 hour to wait until start at 7am.

sportograf-27789049.jpgIMG_5216.JPGIMG_5233.JPGsportograf-27793028.jpg
IMG_5248.JPGIMG_5249.JPGsportograf-27768265.jpgsportograf-27802355.jpg

The ride: Excellent fun and fast move out of the city with all right of way provided by officers at every corner! Py was way up front for some good time having the lead and lead car/motorcycels in sight. It stringed out a bit on the great narrow Palisades road and a very well behaved GF "team"  or group working nicely together formed in front of a hard to say how big, but big by looking back, as Py was up front and never fall back more than to pos 10..15 of that bunch  -- fun fun fun... and in virtually no time the 1st 52km were behind in just 1h33, water refill, banana and heading on. These already included a few barely noticeable but timed mini climbs - -just going with the flow of the group. Here are the sections (ignore auto lap triggers at 2 and 5).


Interval Name
Duration
Distance (km)
Work (kJ)
Average Power (watts)
xPower (watts)
Max Power (watts)
Average Heart Rate (bpm)
95% Heartrate (bpm)
Average Cadence (rpm)
Average Speed (kph)
1
1:33:29
52.8
1054
188
215
691
145
166
90
33.9
2
01:41
0.1
1
29
11
136
121
127
51
8.0
3
58:26
22.6
709
217
240
522
157
177
95
24.9
4
1:02:22
29.4
592
158
190
499
146
165
89
28.3
5
06:28
0.1
4
66
39
166
127
131
47
7.7
6
1:09:13
33.3
643
155
176
611
143
162
89
28.8
7
1:22:12
41.5
876
180
202
782
146
163
93
30.6


IMG_5254.JPGIMG_5253~0.JPGIMG_5255.JPGsportograf-27768998.jpg

1st water stop, skipping a few not needed water stops later.

IMG_5257~0.JPGIMG_5259.JPG

Hooking up with perfect climbing buddy James 868 on bear climb... Next stop (no water) for a brief rest and enjoying the view from top of Bear Mountain!

sportograf-27810360.jpgIMG_5262.JPGsportograf-27806809.jpgIMG_5265.JPG
IMG_5266~0.JPGIMG_5268.JPGIMG_5273.JPG

Fun fast decent from Bear Mountain, some looping around... now some how lost the bunch -- they must have been still climbing... Part solo finding a rider here and there. But most amazingly -- as the route was folded back into itself with long sections backtracking -- still a endless number of riders coming up the road he long left behind. Getting greeted here and there... thanks :-)

sportograf-27733264.jpgIMG_5279~0.JPG

Finish run. Good to have James (868) around pulling off a few more climbs even post all timed climbs! Having fun on the Palisades... and all the way to the finish where they hit a little traffic mess.

IMG_5297.JPGIMG_5290.JPG

Finish and return to Manhattan and city CX to Roosevelt Island.

IMG_5309.JPGIMG_5305.JPG

Including the to/from the ride Py accumulated a total of about 135miles.




Great new ride experience -- thanks to all who made it happen!

No comments:

Post a Comment