Ironman Lake Placid 2018 – Race Week Update

On the Road Again…

Recovered

If anyone else may be reading this, you may know that I suffered a bit of a setback a few weeks ago when I crashed my bike going downhill at 37MPH. Well, I am happy to say that other than a few leftover scabs, all of my road rash has healed. Big thanks to 3M’s Tagaderm for that. That stuff is amazing!

The crash happened right at end of my 1st of two big training weeks. I missed both of my 5-hour long bike rides and almost all of my 2nd week. I did manage to get in a 4 hour ride the week and little run on the following Sunday. The week after, which would have been my first week of taper, I used as another higher volume week just to kind of see where I was. I did manage to get a 4 hour and 50 minute ride in that week too. I tend to think that 3 weeks of taper is a bit much anyway, so we shall see how that pans out. I ended that week feeling pretty much back to normal. Overall I did get in about 4 rides over 4.5 hours, so not too bad. I think I will be fine.

I began my official taper the week of July 9th(last week as I wrote this).

My tri-bike suffered some damage, but fortunately it was repairable. One of my Reynolds carbon wheels was found to have the brake tracks caving in, which they don’t think was from the crash.

A New Toy

2018 Quintana Roo PR Five Ultegra Race setup in Black Stealth

One of the good things that came out of my accident was that my wife gave me the ok to get a new bike. I have been itching for one for the last year, and she finally said to go for it. I had been eyeing up another Quintana Roo and decided to go with a PR Five in black stealth color. They also had a bright orange PR Six for about the same price, but I wasn’t into the bright color. They also gave me 10% off since I was a USAT Member which was very cool. I skipped getting Di2 shifters and disc brakes, which was a compromise I made with my wife to save on the total cost a bit. I figure Di2’s will get better and cheaper over time anyway.

I ordered the bike directly from Quintana Roo(aka American Bicycling Group) on there website. Jack, the online sales guy, was very nice and said it would take 2 weeks to receive the new bike. This would put it arriving the before race week. Making it a possibility to use for Ironman Lake Placid. Well it arrived exactly two weeks and a day after I ordered it.

The unboxing and putting the bike together was a very easy process. I will write another post on that whole experience in more detail. When I put the bike up on the bike stand and started shifting the gears I noticed it was rather noisy and the derailleur almost went into the spokes. Here the rear derailleur hanger was bent! Yes the same part that bent on my old bike, except this one was replaceable. QR sent me a new one right away and I managed to bend it back enough that I could atleast ride it a bit.

2018 Quintana Roo PR Five Ultegra Race setup in Black Stealth – Bent Derailleur Hanger

2018 Quintana Roo PR Five Ultegra Race setup in Black Stealth – Bent Derailleur Hanger

I tried to fit the bike based on my old bike setup. The PR Five came with 165 mm cranks where my old bike had 172.5mm. This is a big jump and I thought I would have to swap them out. After doing some research it sounds like shorter cranks are the way to go. Especially for athletes with shorter legs like me. The first ride solidified the fact that I needed a fitting in order to be able to ride this for 112 miles.

Bike Fitting

I was stoked to be able to get in a bike fitting with Missy over at ERO Sports PA. She made a bunch of tweeks to my seat and handlebars and dialed me to a really comfortable fit. With the fitting dialed in the shorter 165mm cranks also started feeling more natural. Missy indicated that they also work well for me. I figured that my shorter legs would like the shorter radius. It will also come in handy when my beer gut gets a little expanded since my knees won’t have to come up as far! LOL!

I have felt a great sense of ease now that I got the bike issues squared away. Quintana Roo actually has a stand at the Ironman Lake Placid Expo, so I will be able to get them to tune-up the shifting a bit before the race. Now all we need to do is pack up and head North!

Talk Later from LP!