2009 Winter BallBuster 75% full

[ThePinkDreamMachine]

November 7th.. 3 years after my first ever BB.

i just entered this years. 3hour.25min to beat

anyone else

chloe

[Sylv]

And I'm going to bust Stu's balls !

[Sylv]

76% full now

[Paul H]

ive entered. Dont need balls anymore anyway.

[Andrew G]

[quote="Paul H"]ive entered. Dont need balls anymore anyway.

[Sylv]

What is the consensus on this - time-trial bike or road bike?

I haven't ridden the full lap yet (planning to do it at some point soon) but been reading several reports of the race and some mention a "treacherous" course in parts - not sure what to make of this as you can't assume what the writer's riding skills are like. But the top part which we ride on the clubrun is quite bumpy and full of holes and wouldn't be too nice on TT bars I imagine. Not sure what the downhills are on the other side but I know that my brakes on the TT bike are totally useless! Also the Box Hill climb would better suit a road bike I think.

[carl f]

Not sure if TT bars and full on aero position will have any advantage on the ballbuster loop
But if you have a look at ballbuster pix plenty of people seem to use TT bikes with the full aero kit
how about road bike with clip on bars?
With those new super lightweight wheels sylv you'll fly round it

[Marek]

What are you like climbing on the TT bike, I imagine that you would probably be able to go up the box hill climb pretty quickly seated on your TT machine. The biggest question is around the descent which is very bumpy and rutted and then the technical section around the back of the course has a couple of tight turns, although nothing an expert mtb rider/road rider/TT rider/duathlete/runner like yourself could not get around.

[Sylv]

My tt bike is now just a Look road frame with tt bars, so the handling should be fine. It's just the bumps on the road that always seem to twist the carbon bars within the stem, and also the braking is pretty rubbish.

[Paul H]

Ive done a lap of the course on TT Bike av 261w and Road Bike av 258w and the TT bike was 2 secs faster.

[Dominic]

That is a good improvement power wise on the TT bike. Is that just from extra training in the TT position?

[Sylv]

Road bike it is then!

[Paul H]

261w is not an improvement. It wasnt a full burn effort anyway.

How is your wattage?

[Dominic]

What I meant by an improvement I thought that it was an improvement to your power output on your TT bike.

Last 25 mile TT on road bike with clip ons was 60min average of 280w.

[Sylv]

I'll be using the TT bike, having now tried both (not with powermetre). Today road was still wet and full of leaves but nothing too scary.

Last week I did 1 lap reccy + 1 fast-ish lap on road bike 24"21 @ 152bpm, then 1 lap run 52"15 @ 158bpm, rode and ran with comp. tights, felt good no pain

This week 2 fast laps on TT bike 23"41 @ 155bpm & 23"42 @ 156bpm (lost 10' dropped chain), was pretty windy, then 1 lap run 52"44 @ 151bpm, felt a bit sluggish especially at the start, bit heavier this week plus had a bit too much food in me, used tights again, bit of pain in thighs above knee afterwards.

Hoping to be able to race the 3h at +/- 160bpm. Big unknown for me is the transitions, not sure how much time will be lost in those, running in the car park wheeling the bike and fitting shoes etc.