Rushfan

From Joe Santos of Davis Wheelworks. This is a fun event, and it's free:

Hey All,

It's that time of year again...time trials! Or, as it has become affectionately know as, the Putah Creek SmackDown (PCSD). The first Wednesday night TT is next week, Wednesday, March 17th at 6:00pm. This is a low key, no charge, addicting event. Do not be intimidated to come out and participate - riders range anywhere from 10 year old kids to college students on borrowed bikes to recreational triathletes/cyclists (most of us) to professional cyclists/triathletes. It is a huge range of abilities, but it is also an extremely welcoming, friendly group. So - here is the take home message - this is a great event to offer yourself a challenge without the stress of mass start racing. You are competing with yourself throughout the season.

Calendar

PCSD #1 - March 17
PCSD #2 - March 31
PCSD #3 - April 14
PCSD #4 - April 28
PCSD #5 - May 12
PCSD #6 - May 26
PCSD #7 - June 9
PCSD #8 - June 23
PCSD #9 - July 7
PCSD #10 - July 21
PCSD #11 - August 4
PCSD #12 - August 18
PCSD #13 - September 1
PCSD #14 - September 15
PCSD #15 - September 29
PCSD #16 - October 13


Rules

The TT starts at 6:00pm. Try to show up by around 5:30 so you can sign up and warm up. If you cannot arrive until after the start, that is not a big deal, as we can fit you in at the end. The TT starts on Putah Creek Road, about 100m west of the intersection of Stevenson Bridge Rd and Putah Creek Rd. This is where we sign up riders as well. When waiting for your start time or after the race, please do not congregate on the road. There is plenty of room to stand off to the side where we will not block traffic. Additionally, since the road is not closed to traffic, please be sure to ride all the way to the right side of the road. Please avoid parking on Putah Creek Road and the section of Stevenson Bridge Road near the Putah Creek intersection. There is an attached map - try to park in the area marked with green.

Riders are sent off in 30 second intervals. At sign in, you will be assigned a number. As you come across the finish line, be sure to call out your number so we can record your time. You can get your results either after the event or wait for them to be e-mailed out.

And the final rule, especially for all you PCSD veterans...look around, and if you see someone you do not recognize introduce yourself and welcome them into your group. Bike racing has a crappy, unfriendly, unwelcoming - yet well deserved - reputation. It doesn't do anything to help our sport. The great majority of PCSD attendees have always been incredibly friendly and cordial to all riders, which I think has directly contributed to the event's success. Keep it up.


Course Description

The course is 5 miles out, has a 180 degree turnaround, and is 5 miles back. The turnaround is marked 100m ahead, and there is someone flagging riders at the turn so as not to miss it. Although deadpan flat, there is often times significant wind.


Directions

>From Sacramento:

Take I-80 west
A few miles west of Davis, Take the PEDRICK ROAD exit, EXIT 67.
Keep LEFT at the fork to go on SIEVERS RD/CR-436 for 2.8 miles Turn RIGHT onto STEVENSON BRIDGE RD for 2.8 miles


>From San Francisco:

Take I-80 east
A couple miles east of Dixon, Take the PEDRICK ROAD exit, EXIT 67.
Keep LEFT at the fork to go on SIEVERS RD/CR-436 for 2.8 miles Turn RIGHT onto STEVENSON BRIDGE RD for 2.8 miles



Resources

We are extremely fortunate to have a local, professional cycling photographer Mark Adkison that comes out to shoot the TT's whenever he can. He posts previous events and upcoming ones at his website, Hors Categorie Photography. Mark is awesome at hiding our imperfections - he knows just when to shoot to hide any excess baggage that may be carried in the lycra. The coolest and fastest any of us are ever going to look while riding is on a TT bike - so take advantage of the resource and adorn your home or work office with one of Mark's images of you making Lance look like he's slow. To inquire about individual photographs, sizes, etc, contact hcphoto@sbcglobal.net.

There is another extremely useful purpose Mark's images offer (other than satisfying our latent inner narcissism, of course). The more one rides PCSD, the more one gets addicted. The more one gets addicted, the more one tries to beat their own personal best time or their nearby competitors. The easiest way to get faster? Position. Refining position, and minimizing drag while sustaining power is the single most significant contributor to speed (and I guess fitness matters a bit). Mark shoots a huge number of images of each rider, so this raw data can be extremely useful in the analysis of rider position. It is impossible to absolutely analyze rider position in a static trainer, so these images from PCSD are one of the few places I know of that get good positional images. Again, contact hcphoto@sbcglobal.net for pricing information.

Thanks also to Stuzio Cycling for posting the results for the PCSD. It's a great site maintained by Brian Choi.



For any questions that you have, please feel free to call or write. If you have friends that want to be added to the PCSD email list, have them shoot me a line. Additionally, you can follow all PCSD results and chatter on Facebook and Twitter.





________________________

- Joe Santos




247 F St Davis CA 95616
t: 530.753.3118

Red Rider

This is a really fun series. I missed a lot of it last year but hope to change that this year. It's a great training tool. Last year in July I rode to it for my warm up; it's only 15 miles from my front door to the start line.

We were the only tandem to participate in '08, or so we were told.

Thanks for posting this, Joe. Hope to see some of you NorCal'ers out there.

joker8baller

Oh snap! Sounds fun, if I can get a lot of stuff done on Wed for Finals, I'll def. be out. =)

BlastRadius

Sounds fun, but far on a weekday.

caloso

I really need to add this to my weekly schedule.

Red Rider

This was a perfect evening for the 1st TT of the season. Clear, 70-ish degrees, and no wind. About 30 people showed up. I was 16th to leave, didn't clip in well and blew my start, but managed to get my groove by the 1st mile marker.

28:28, a mere 1:20 slower than last July. I'm happy with that and look forward to a summer of midweek sufferfests.

rydaddy

I want to try this next week. Mountain bike racing starts the following week so this will be my only chance until July.

BTW, pics from last night...

https://hcphoto.smugmug.com/DBC-My-Ho...11545472_9o7XS

BlastRadius

Amazingly aero (except the wheels).

Rushfan

Not bad for March! Well done.

Rushfan

You see all sorts of folks out there, from rank beginners to long distance folks using it for speed training, to triathletes, to riders with $15,000+ pro level time trial machines.

joker8baller

... Well I wanted to try this fixed, but I'm too scared to bring that bike out...

To the Road Bike!

khill

Bump for 2011

2011 PCSD Time Trial Schedule
Putah Creek 10 mile TT
PCSD #1 - 03.16.11
PCSD #2 - 03.30.11
PCSD #3 - 04.12.11
(Tuesday)
PCSD #4 - 04.27.11
PCSD #5 - 05.04.11
PCSD #6 - 05.18.11
PCSD #7 - 06.08.11
PCSD #8 - 06.22.11
PCSD #9 - 07.06.11
PCSD #10 - 07.20.11
PCSD #11 - 08.10.11
PCSD #12 - 08.24.11
PCSD #13 - 08.31.11
PCSD #14 - 09.14.11
PCSD #15 - 09.28.11
(Date subject to change)
PCSD #16 - 10.12.11
Davis 40km TT
Davis 40km #1 - 04.20.11
Davis 40km #2 - 05.25.11
Davis 40km #3 - 07.27.11
Davis 40km #4 - 08.17.11

roundabout

YESSSSS. Seeing as I had a final during yesterday's, I will be most likely out at the next one on the 30th. This may very well turn in to a two-a-day situation, though damn my discussion 3-4pm, else I'd ride 4-6 and then do the TT. Fingers crossed for optional discussions!


Anyway, if you see a young bearded man on a red S1 in UCD kit, be sure to nab me and say hey!

rydaddy

I really need to get a TT bike...

Any idea what the 40k course is?

TheHen

I used to ride the "Tuesday Night Time Trial" that the original owner of Wheelworks started nearly 30 years ago. Back in the '80s things were a bit different. Neither better nor worse, just different. First of all, no one owned a time trial bike. Also, we rarely got more than 20 people to show up and we didn't worry about traffic on Putah Creek Rd. because there wasn't any. It was quite rare for a car to ever be on that road. In that vein, there was one person who would show up to the time trial with a car. He was considered strange. Everyone else saw the ride to the start and back with Dave as part of the fun. Perhaps because there were never overwhelming numbers of riders, Dave wouldn't give people numbers, he just wrote down the starting order and since he knew everyone he just noted their finish time. He also held everyone's bike so they could start clipped in. Of course we were often treated to appearances by Foxy Grandpa. He was quite the inspiration.

I'm glad to see this tradition is not only being carried on but is expanded and improved in many ways. I'll have to roll on out when I am in the area. Heck, someone's got to be the slowest and I have lots of experience at that.

Red Rider

Last year there were a couple arm-cycles, 'bents, and parent-child combos. That's very heartening, seeing kids out there.

I don't have a TT bike, have no plans to get one, just enjoy the chance to TT on one of my favorite roads. It's about 15 mi. from my front door to the start. In summer that makes for a great evening ride.

roundabout

TT bike is definitely not and shouldn't be a requirement. Since I'm used to TTing on drop bars in collegiate, I might as well get more practice in on that setup! It's definitely a random assortment of riders, from professional riders to collegiate guys, to fixed gear dudes and crazy tandems.

Having this resource available is one of the absolute best things about being a cyclist in Davis, in my opinion.

Red Rider

Who you callin' crazy?

hooligancyclist

Check your signature.

roundabout

Ah sorry, that wasn't very clear. I meant it as "those crazy tandems that come out, hold like 38mph for 40 miles, and leave me in their dust." Tandems are way badass imo, hopefully one day I too can own a road tandem. Or get married. Probably the tandem though, then my spandex-clad ass would be irresistible to women (I assume that's how it works).

Red Rider

That's what I thought you meant.

We've done a couple on our tandem. We were married 25 yrs. before we got one. The view from the stoker's compartment is great.

The key to happy tandeming is to remember that wherever your relationship is headed, the tandem will get you there faster.

Val23708

And then you get real domestic pros such as Paul Mach (Bissel)(blog - https://paulmach.pro) pounding in sub-20 times easily...

I miss this series.. I miss living in Davis...

scottmorrison99

Was that Flandis I saw there last week showing up with some folks from Greatland Cycling out of Missouri? Looked like.

GB Cycle

No Landis in the results list