Feb 24, 2025
Florida 500 Race-> One more race in the books this year. Did the Florida500 533 miles from Jacksonville to Key West. Managed to stay under the 30 hours with 29 hrs and 46 minutes. Not happy about my performance and no excuses count. Ok I had to deal with two main obstacles. First bad one that got me mentally distracted was a crash at about mile 285. It was just dark and I had traffic to deal with. So I stayed in the bike lane trying to stay far enough from the passing car. Unfortunately the sand on the bike lane in that curve was not visible to me so I slipped and hit the ground at 19-20 mph. Took me a while to finally get up. Two people stopped while the driver next to me thought its better to keep going. Was in bad pain on shoulder, ribs as well as some pain on elbow and knee. However with help of two people I did get up and checked the bike. It was ridable so I thanked them and told them no more help needed and I keep going. Unfortunately to me it had a bit of mental disturbance effect. I feared another crash and slowed down a lot. Worked on my confidence and heck yes worked on finding a way to avoid the pain. Issue with that was … the last 250 miles no option to reach to my nutrition prepared for it in the rear jersey pockets. Used coca cola on stops at gas stations to get some energy back into me. Again it's not an acceptable excuse to me since I know I should have managed it better. Will work more on mental preparation for such situations. I was able to manage pace better again starting around mile 420-430. Thats why it's not an accaptable excuse. Ok not for me about me as a racer 🤪😉 And second disturbance was that 11 miles before finish the rear tire blew up in loud bang. So … quick decision was to push hard and keep going. Funny thing the guys at finish line could hear me coming early enough 🤣😂🤣. If only looking at regular bikes I finished 3rd overall. Incl recumbent bikes its 4th overall for self-supported racing. Learned a few lessons and will do better with self-support in future.
Feb 19, 2025
Sebring 2025 - 24 hour Race Non-Drafting and Self-Supported -> Finished first 24 hour race for 2025 in Sebring. It was an interesting race and big kudus to the organizers for putting together a cool race. Participation was amazingly good. I fell a little bit behind my target miles but still ok with the overall result. Not trying to find excuses but had a few difficulties in the race. Flat front made me ride about 3.5 miles on flat front before I could swap the wheel. Unfortunate the real issues have been the shifter battery going dead after 21 hrs so the last 3 hours with issues almost riding like fixed gear. And had a long time a noise I could not identify. Learned afterwards that my rear wheel break disk came loose and went partial off. That shows with too heavy workload and zero crew support it requires a few more things for me to check in the future to avoid technical issues. And it shows that even if we have done some type of race that every race is different due to weather and technical challenges as well as our personal condition. So the statistic results ... 5th overall incl recumbent bikes and 4th without recumbent bikes counted in. 2nd overall in self supported racer group. 1st in my age group Its ok for season 2025 start. Ohh ... cool thing .. I seem to have been efficient in my self-support strategy .. out of 24 hours racing I had less than 15 minutes stop time in in the 24 hours. From those I could have cut off 3 minutes switching the front wheel. But looks like my stops to refill water and get sandwiches have been prepared ok.
Jan 21, 2025
Received a replacement bike (Madone Gen8 SLR) for the one I totaled due to an accident into a car last year Thanksgiving at end of my 7 day TT Record. I am very thankful for the local Cape Coral Trek store to help get me this bike and helped me covering a larger part of the cost. Did the setup ride last night and was impressed. Some minor adjustments and yes Seat is now again and Infinity Bike Seat since I do feel most comfortable with those on my rides. Was a bit worried about th size naming changes by Trek (they had the cm sizes before and now have M, ML, L ... So I went with ML as replacement for a 56 cm Madone. It fits perfectly well. The handle bar, Aerobars are no Trek since I could not go with the integrated handle bar. This bike is my key bike for ultra distance racing minor hills plus some stiff climbs. Looking forward to use art in training for the next weeks and its going to be a key bike for my Texas Race.
Jan 20, 2025
Tour de Cape Weekend - had a great time with a bit of 140 mile warmup ride on Saturday and the Tour de Cape ride (incl warmup and cooldown) on Sunday. Wind was very strong making it tough fight on the way back south. We had a very strong group of 6 riders OK .. not a race but as a team we made good effort to push as hard as it would be a race. Good way of training for the first races of season 2025.
Jan 13, 2025
PEDAL FOR A PURPOSE 2025 Team Goal Diggers We had a great team of strong cyclists for the event. Thanks to all 6 cyclists putting in a strong 4 hours of pushing on the stationary bikes. With overall 96.4 miles in 4 hours and average of 271 watts power we have been able to finish first place overall and set a new record. Big kudos to Team Chief Kayla Kozi and riders Ross Lenehan, Jay Trojan, Chris Scott, Bruce Lander and Dave Cato fighting this charity competition together with me. It was a very interesting event and I enjoyed it a lot even its different to what I normally do on a bicycle. to me its a great way to start calendar year 2025 for cycling. Big thanks myself to Heidi Marie Walker who keeps me motivated for new challenges and Giovanni Prosperi as my coach. #hammernutrition #infinitybikeseat with my code #ingolf676
