You should look at overall place and not time. 6:44 last year was 404th place this year is 320th place. 400th place this year was 7:32. So it appears you are in better shape 6:30 last year was 362nd. So no matter how you look at it, your time this year is better.
I guess this is a silver lining, I did improve 10%. I was looking at average speed, which I guess could change based on course conditions.
Bike rides - average speed or total time, almost never is comparable. There is drafting, surface, tire choice, tire pressure, aero of kit, brake rub, your chain lube , temperature. Way to many variables.
% placement in Overall or Gender is usually a good start in long attrition style races without power.
I appreciate everyone’s insight, feedback, and help walking me off a cliff. A couple of take a ways and lessons learned:
1 - Don’t trust best bike splits, it had me coming in at 5:30 to 6:00. Maybe I used it wrong.
2 - When comparing year to year races use overall placing, not time.
3 - Trainer Road has increased my overall fitness with less time on bike, when compared to last year. Last year I was averaging 14+ hours per week. This year with Trainer Road I average 8ish and feel fitter.
4- What I am lacking is durability (important for Leadville), I’m going to increase my rides to 5-6 hour on Saturday and introduce fatigue resistance the last 30–60 min by doing threshold work and/or hill repeats. I might turn off fatigue detection.
Again thanks everyone.
If you are looking to increase “durability” (we called it endurance in my day) for an event like Leadville you may want to think about gradually increasing to last year’s volume. You can certainly finish it with less but you mentioned you wanted to max out your effort. Just something to think about.