DISC Session #14 with ABOC

Well, an interestingly mixed session tonight. Two mechanical annoyances in the powerjumps - pulled a wheel (again!) in the first warmup, fixed it, and went back out and did it solo before doing a flying entry with Neil and Nic. Then after a tricky three-way-react-to-the-last-rider powerjump where I was in the middle (and finished last, though right on Nic's wheel, and hit about 50km/hr) I was leading out the second powerjump (need to work on watching/reacting, after all) when I pulled my foot out of the pedal - fortunately my automatic systems knew how to handle it because I don't think my pre-frontal cortex knew what had happened until I got down on to the duckboard, one leg flapping in the wind. Looking at the pedal/cleat afterwards, it really doesn't look that worn, but I'm going to put keos and straps on, see how they go. It's a shame, because I quite like the speedplays otherwise - at some point I'll probably fork out the $100-odd to rebuild them with track bodies.

Rest of the night was two MACs and a windout. No surprise I enjoy these more, because they involve going fast, and perhaps don't require as much work as my powerjumps! Though everything still needs work. The MACs I did on 99.7", and hit just over 60km/hr/130RPM for the first, and 59/125 for the second with only about 7 minutes rest between the two. On both I hit the roller a few times going around, and in the final hundred metres or so was actively avoiding the back of the bike - both times ending up around the blue line. Given that, quite happy with the numbers, though I'm hoping (wanting needing!) to go faster still.

Finished with a 500m windout from the blue line (no entry off the banking for this one) and again was sitting close to the roller though not to the extent of slowing me down - can't remember if I actually hit it again, though I think I did. 58km/hr at 142 (back to 86" for this one) is not bad, though I felt like I possibly cheated myself a little in effort. After that just doodled around a little trying to trackstand and then rolled as slowly as possible back to the racks. It didn't feel terribly elegant, but then, that's what practice is for!