Ride Reports and News

The weather gods dealt us a perfect hand tonight, with temperatures feeling more like July than April, the storms holding off until just a bit later in the evening, and even perhaps a bit of a tailwind.

David is off gallivanting across Europe, so the scorekeeping duties fell to me. There were ten of us at the start, including newcomer Owen, who lives right at the top of the hill. Ryan took off at the gun and built a 20m lead before we even turned the corner onto Shutesbury Rd, and I never saw him again after that. Andy and I hung together for a while before he dropped me, and for me it was a solo slog the rest of the way, brightened by Owen's family, who were gathered in his driveway with cheers and cowbells, providing some much-appreciated support.

Ryan took the win easily with a blistering time of 14:55, maintaining his lead in the hillclimb series, and moving into striking distance of the overall lead. Madeline finished a few seconds ahead of Melissa to maintain her series lead on the women's side.

Next week we'll head back across the river for the Deerfield TT, hope to see you there!

Full series results here.

Conditions tonight for the long time trial were such that I was looking for any reason to cancel it. A few snow flurries - no. Temperatures hovering around the upper 30's - no. Swarms of locust - never materialized. Possibility of a haboob (is this a new word for you Melissa?) - almost. A nuclear holocaust - maybe soon. What astonished me, however, is how many people showed up - 10!!

I had a few bike issues at the start so ended up going out last. By the time that my 70 year old rapidly aging body finished up, half the participants had taken off to get home before hypothermia kicked in. No blame here!

No PRs (anyone surprised?) but Andy said that he clocked a PW! Charles M spanked us all and his average power was 300 watts. I can only dream of hitting a number like that!

Here are today's results:

1. Charles Mathers; Time: 46:40; 23.66 mph; 10 points

2. Shawn Lakota; Time: 48:15; 22.88 mph; 9 points

3. Frank Sleegers; Time: 48:51; 22.6 mph; 8 points

4. Sam Veggeberg; Time: 49:45; 22.19 mph; 7 points

5. Jonathan O'Keeffe; Time: 50:16; 21.96 mph; 6 points

6. Andy MacDonald; Time: 52:00; 21.23 mph; 5 points

7. Madeline Nagy; Time: 54:24; 20.29 mph; 4 points

8. David Goodwin; Time: 55:51; 19.77 mph; 3 points

9. Tim Pitkin; Time: 56:50; 19.43 mph; 2 points

10. Charles Bohl; Time: 58:39; 18.82 mph; 1 points

I'm away for the next 2 months on a cycling, eating, drinking, swimming and cavorting vacation with Suzanne. I will leave the time keeping and reporting in the capable hands of Mr. O'Keeffe. Send your times to him because if you send them to me, I may only be speaking French and Italian so may not understand what you say.

Next week is the Shutesbury hillclimb. Have fun and I'll be thinking of you all.

Maybe it's just me but this is one really hard hillclimb. We had a great turnout today of 15 riders. I think the mostly dry (and seriously potholed) road and temps hovering around 70 brought a lot of folks out.

This is a first in all of my years doing this - we had a mom and toddler come out from a nearby house and the kid cheered us on as we started the race. Very nice (said in a Borat voice)!

Ryan scorched us all and his teammate Garret was about 30 seconds behind for second. Ryan set a PR by 16 seconds and Shawn by 7 seconds. The results don't show this but Nick's time was artificially high as he was encouraging and supporting his teammate Jake. That's how I beat Nick so don't read too much into this.

It was great to have Dan participate after many years of absense, especially on his stunning new Cervelo. Very nice (again, think Borat)!

Melissa was MIA as she's nursing a sore knee. I'm sure we can all relate to that! Get better soon, you beast!

Here are today's results (Frank, Tim and Donna did their climbs earlier and Charles finished a few minutes behind as he just missed the start):

1. Ryan Davis; Time: 23:44; 16.94 mph; 15 points

2. Garret Theberg; Time: 24:15; 16.58 mph; 14 points

3. Patrick Sullivan; Time: 24:50; 16.19 mph; 13 points

4. Dan Coady; Time: 28:50; 13.94 mph; 12 points

5. Jonathan O'Keeffe; Time: 29:32; 13.61 mph; 11 points

6. Madeline Nagy; Time: 30:33; 13.16 mph; 10 points

7. Shawn Lakota; Time: 30:38; 13.12 mph; 9 points

8. David Goodwin; Time: 31:20; 12.83 mph; 8 points

9. Jake Poirier; Time: 32:16; 12.46 mph; 7 points

10. Nick Davis; Time: 32:17; 12.45 mph; 6 points

11. Charles Bohl; Time: 33:21; 12.05 mph; 5 points

12. Frank Sleegers; Time: 34:00; 11.82 mph; 4 points

13. Joe Lellman; Time: 35:25; 11.35 mph; 3 points

14. Tim Pitkin; Time: 35:46; 11.24 mph; 2 points

15. Donna Wilson; Time: 38:42; 10.39 mph; 1 points

Next week is the dreaded (at least to me) long time trial.

Welcome to the 2026 outdoor time trial and hillclimb season. Two weeks ago, with all the snow and frigid weather, it seemed hard to imagine that we'd actually be doing this today. Au contraire, mon ami (getting ready for our trip to France and Italy soon).

Five riders showed up for the 5:30 start (Andy, JOK, Madeline, Melissa and Tim) while 4 of us did it earlier (maybe later too?); me, Dusty, Frank and 1st timer Charles. I did drive over to greet the starters, cheer them on at the halfway point (Tim waved, Melissa blew me a kiss and the rest just ignored me while I was out there jumping up and down, cheering and making a fool out of myself which defied my doctor's orders, in fact doing the time trial defied my doctor's orders too) and get their times at the finish line.

There was some sort of Madeline's dog-on-the-course incident. I can't really shed any light on it but Madeline rode off after finishing, almost as fast as her TT speed, to go find her dog. Maybe an explanation will be forthcoming.

Okay, enough of this fluff. Here are today's results:

1. Jonathan O'Keeffe; Time: 24:26; 22.59 mph; 9 points

2. Frank Sleegers; Time: 24:41; 22.36 mph; 8 points

3. Dusty King; Time: 24:46; 22.29 mph; 7 points (birthday boy!)

4. Andy MacDonald; Time: 25:44; 21.45 mph; 6 points

5. Melissa Warwick; Time: 26:12; 21.07 mph; 5 points

6. Tim Pitkin; Time: 26:24; 20.91 mph; 4 points

7. Madeline Nagy; Time: 27:04; 20.39 mph; 3 points

8. David Goodwin; Time: 29:07; 18.96 mph; 2 points

9. Charles Bohl; Time: 30:48; 17.92 mph; 1 points

Next week is the first hillclimb - Leeds to Chesterfield. Hope to see you there.

We wrapped up our winter TTT season tonight in Watopia with one lap of the Waisted 8 route for a total of 18 miles. The core team of Carson, Melissa, Dusty, Shawn and I welcomed newcomer Tim Watkins on his first-ever TTT effort.

We lined up at 6:20 PM and started out at our usual 3.6 W/kg pace. Tim knew that this pace would be challenging for him, but he was eager to give it his best shot. We assigned him 30-second pulls, while the rest of us went with our typical one minute pulls to start. The course is quite flat, with the only noteworthy climb being an ascent of the Jarvis KOM early in the ride. We stayed together and maintained a tight formation through the initial flat section, and then attacked the climb. Tim made it up and over the top with the rest of the group, but he was gassed at that point, and asked the rest of us to go on without him.

The remaining group of five pushed on through the remaining flat sections, which was quite nice after the hilly courses we've had over the past few weeks. Nobody sang tonight, having learned their lessons last week. Nevertheless, I ramped up the pace to 3.8 at the halfway point, and then again to 4.0 with 5K to go. There seemed to be some grumbling about that, but everyone answered the bell, and even ramped it up further on the final run-in to the finish. We ended up finishing in a tight group of five with a time of 45:18, which put us near the bottom of our division (105th of 116 teams), but I think we had more fun than any of the other teams, which is what it's all about.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this winter's time trial series. It was a great experience riding with all of you -- riding in a group to support a team really made me push myself a lot harder than I would have in my solo efforts. Hope to see you all back out on the road soon!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday March 5 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is one lap of the Waisted 8 course in Watopia, for about 19 miles total. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/MSsvV0t6eXpGTXZUNlpnd2g4cUNKWG1JMTY4eWRDNjQyR3pMN2xFT0lKQT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Tonight's team time trial took us to Yorkshire. Carson, Melissa, Dusty, Shawn and I lined up at 6:20 PM for two laps of the 2019 Worlds Harrogate Circuit, a very demanding course that features constant ups and downs and hardly a bit of flat ground.

I spent a few minutes before the start trying to work on our organizational strategies, after realizing that I had been giving some conflicting advice previously regarding positioning within the group. It's tricky to hold a proper paceline formation in Zwift, and particularly to maintain the selected pull rotation order, so that the next rider is consistently in the #2 slot when the front rider pulls off. Tonight we decided to emphasize proper sequencing a bit more than we have been doing, while still prioritizing holding a line formation as the number one goal. I think we were quite successful in this, particularly early in the ride before fatigue started setting in. We spent a lot of time lined up perfectly in the correct rotation order, setting up some nice pull handoffs.

As usual, we started out at 3.6 W/kg. The group was chattier than usual, and by the end of the first lap Melissa was breaking out in song again, trotting out some Mon Rovia tunes. To me this is always a sign that we're not going hard enough, so I treated the group to my rendition of "Let's Go to Three Point Eight" by the Chainstompers. This was not well-received by the crowd. Carson retaliated a couple of minutes later with a few bars of "Let's Go to Three Point Nine", by the classic Icelandic folk-metal duo High-Powered Heart/High-Hearted Power. This was enough to put a stop to the serenades from Shutesbury.

Nearing the end of the second lap, motivation was starting to flag a bit, so I broke out the big guns in the form of "Let's Go to Four Point Oh" by the Powerheads (from their seminal 1978 album Pukebucket). Carson was very on-board with this, and soon opened up a bit of a gap. Fortunately Dusty and Melissa were able to close it down, and we crossed the line in a tight group, with just 0.7 seconds between our first- and fourth-place riders. We finished in 72nd place out of 105 teams in our division, which is by far our best result since we upgraded earlier in the winter, and a negative split of 20+ seconds on our two laps. Great work everyone!

We are going to do one more week of these TTT events next Thursday night, before our thoughts turn to hopes of spring and melting snow and outdoor rides. Come and join us!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday February 26 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is two laps of the 2019 Worlds Harrogate Circuit course in Yorkshire, for about 17 miles total. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/NTg2eHNrWnJ6M2hkcFN1MmpqZUd1UFhLUnVkeVNCOHRWUVhuMzBCMTlpOD0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

For tonight's race, we fielded our largest team of the season thus far, as Dusty rejoined our crew after missing several weeks with an injury, and Austin joined for the first time. They joined our regular crew of Carson, Melissa, Shawn, and me, as we took on two laps of the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop course in Watopia. This course features a significant climb and descent each lap, and at 24 miles total, is the longest TTT we've done so far, clocking in at almost an hour.

Having six riders felt like a luxury compared to our usual team of four. We started out with 60-second pulls at 3.6 W/kg, and having five minutes to recover in each rotation is great. In retrospect, we probably could have gone a little harder with such a big group, as there was quite a bit of chatter during the first lap, with Melissa even serenading us at one point.

After the first lap, I bumped the pace up to 3.8 W/kg, and the chatter died down a bit after that. Carson unfortunately had to leave us at around the 40-minute mark, so I assigned him a longer "death pull" right before he had to step out, which he handled admirably, pulling at over 4 W/kg for his final three minutes, taking us almost into the base of the climb of the second lap. Shawn fell back on the climb, and Austin, Dusty, Melissa and I forged ahead to the finish, arriving in a tight group at 58:35, and posting a negative split on the second lap of almost 30 seconds. Our effort was good for 89th place in the Frappe division out of 107 teams, most of which are stacked with strong A and B riders.

Next week we'll race on the hilly World's circuit in Yorkshire -- come out and join us!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday February 19 at 6:20 PM Eastern. The race is two laps of the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop course in Watopia, for about 24 miles total. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/Z2NzQXdkOC9mWTFZYm9NR09vd1Eza1l2WXc4L2FOYkRjMG0rby9GamJFbz0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/) Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here. (https://is.gd/nccdiscord)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.