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San Bruno Hillclimb, 2002 and 2003
Gary Gellin has kindly agreed to share data collected from his SRM during the 2002 and 2003 San Bruno Hillclimb, a mass-start race held each year on January 1st just outside San Francisco. The race climbs about 1200 feet in about 3.6 miles. In 2002, Gary finished 6th overall; in 2003 he finished 2nd in his age class, 4th overall shaving almost a minute off his 2002 time. Gary weighed 123 lbs. in both years. The data are available as zipped files in both binary SRM (32kb) and comma separated value (8kb) formats.
Two race reports from 2003 can be read here and here. The plots below show power, speed, and gear choice by distance (in kilometers).
In addition, here are some notes Gary has made on the two races:
"Average power was nearly the same this year and last (306W, 5.4W/kg) but the
time was significantly faster this year (15:28 vs. 16:22). I raced smarter
in 2003 (no suicide attacks at the bottom) which I initially assumed is what
helped shave off the time. However, this plot shows that the slow start in
2002 prior to my attack at mile 1 is where most of the deficit occurred. We
had a nice (inadvertant) lead out by Sterling Magnell, former Junior Track
Champion and Road Pro for 2003. You can see the difference in average speed
starts to come down from mile 1 to mile 2, but then goes back up at the end.
An attack near the finish line this year at the end of the 1-1/2 mile steep
section helped keep the average speed up at 14.5 mph. The flattening out of
the curve is where I moved from 4th place to 2nd and the downward hook at
the end is where I fell back to 4th place.
Other conclusions? A fast start is very important for a time trial of this
duration. I hit a heart rate of 180 in <20s both years and 190 in 2
minutes. (190 is about threshold.) For comparison, at an Old La Honda TT
early last year, I started 30 seconds ahead of Ted Huang and got caught
after only about a mile. We then rode together the whole way to set a PR
for Ted. It took me over 3 minutes (vs. 2) to hit 190 that day, and not
due to fatigue because I hit a new max hr of 210 that day!"
The gear comparison shows that Gary's 2002 attack at about mile 1 (kilometer 1.5) was made by standing up and shifting into higher gears.
Related views of the same data
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