Mooseman HIM Bike Course Preview

Im up in NH for the weekend visiting my folks. Im only 45 mins from Newfound Lake so I previewed the Mooseman HIM bike course today. It was 42 degrees and sunny, but I still had on multiple layers of clothing. I was warm though! and the wind was pretty dead, so I think that helped a lot.

Good course. Hillier than Timberman and it has enough turns and ups and downs to keep your brain occupied. There are only a few sections of road where its that boring wide highway stuff where your brain starts to wander.

Im glad I previewd this course this early, because its going to drive how I train on the bike leading up the actual race next June. Here are some bullet points that I need to work on:
- climbing while seated...there are two nice walls between miles 4 and 7 that could ruin your ride if you go too hard up them (i.e. hammer up them standing up with 50 miles to go)
- transitioning from big gear on downhill to small gear to climb, and yet maintain speed during transition....there are a lot of these short but steep downhills where you can gain a lot of speed, but quickly the road pitches up @ the same angle.
- stay in aero position as long as possible on training rides.
- HILLS! you can never do enough hills.....this course is hilly, and you do it 2X. The second go around is gonna HURT!....and I need to do a lot of climbing on the TT bike.

Here is the course:




And here is the power file. I used my TT bike today. Might as well, as I will be racing this course on it.
I took it easy on the ride, only averaging 157 watts and held a 17.6 mph average.