The crazy things we do on a bike!!!

This morning four of the group (Gav, Brad, Brock and me) ventured up Mt Cootha for a bit of hill work which went pretty well with a couple of PBs set so spirits were high as we rode across the ridge line before we got to the descent.

Now you may have noticed that we have included a link to Strava.com on the blog showing the details of how far, how long and how high the members of Team Powerade are riding each week. Strava is an amazing website which not only captures all of your ride data it also ranks riders on particular ride segments. Check out our Team Strava site at http://app.strava.com/clubs/team-powerade

Recently we have found that we are quite far up on the leader board for the Mt Cootha descent so with near perfect conditions ie. no wind and dry roads we agreed that today was the day to give it everything and attack the down hill to see just how far we could go up the leader board.

There are two segments which start at roughly the same spot with one finishing at a T intersection with the other one continuing through the T intersection to the very bottom of the hill.

We wound it up ensuring we hit the start point at maximum speed and from there it was flat out for the next 2.2km.

Gav led the charge with Brad glued to his wheel I followed with Brockie not far behind. I knew we were on a good run when I managed to glance down at the Garmin which showed I was doing 81kph!!!

Brad passed Gav near the end but not to be denied Gav took him under brakes. We continued to the end of the bigger segment and after stopping for the obligatory coffee checked out Strava.

The results with rankings were as follows:

Mt Cooth front short descent (2.2km)

Gav - 2nd out of 513 av speed 66.1kph
Brad - 3rd out of 513 av speed 65.5kph
Kent - 10th out of 513 av speed 64.5kph
Brock - TBA

Mt Cootha descent (2.4km)

Kent - 6th out of 465 av speed 65.2kph
Brad - 8th out of 465 av speed 64.7kph
Gav - 9th out of 465 av speed 63.3kph
Brock - TBA

To make it even more impressive Craig, another Powerade rider, is ranked 6th and 2nd on these segments respectively making it 4 Powerade riders in the top 10 for each of these!!!