Life in the pain cave. . .

Happy Mother's Day!

Out at Deep Blue:

Should'a: road tested my bike with the wheel on to find out the tire was rubbing the frame a bit and been more conscience about my warmup.

Could'a: Probably done better as I had 20 more watts in the ITT than the TTT but the TTT was 1:18 faster while I pulled the entire time.

Would'a: Do a TTT again, it is amazing how less it hurts having some one sit on your wheel.

Well a teammate got me interested in Deep Blue, at first I wasn't going to race it because of the long drive, short race to do solo but when he said he was on the fence I said I would do it and drive us if he was up to it. Well after some debate he said ok and so we reg'ed for it. Then the idea of a Team Time Trial popped into my head, never done one thought it would be neat, so I some how managed to talk him in to that as well.

Going to be honest here, I haven't ridden with Luke much before, maybe a few training rides here and there during the off season so we both had no idea how well we each handle our bikes. Him being a Cat 4 for about a season or so, he had more race experience than I and he has been doing well getting consistent results and will soon be a Cat 3. Me, only 11 races under my belt all this season, but I did have a slight advantage over him, I have ridden in 5 TTs before and did 6 triathlons and lots of training on my old TT /Tri rig last year so I knew the style of riding better after his rig was only built earlier this week. So with no practice at this other than a few words about how to start off and the turn around we reg for the TTT.

Well Saturday some wind so kindly decided to move into the area, and it was strong wind with even stronger gusts, lots of wind advisories with 20 - 25mph sustained winds and up to 40 mph gusts. Checking the weather at Port Penn, De. that winds were a steady 30mph on Saturday, and Sunday morning a low in the mid 40s which is half of what is was at Turkey Hill last week.

Well, Luke, Ryan and I arrive a little later than expected after making a pit stop to get some Micy D's and a few detours in downtown Baltimore and then getting confused the few miles trying to find the race, but we found our way and started to get things setup.

As I am warming up I suppose I didn't take it seriously enough or didnt have much time, only about 20 minutes if that I tried to spend as much of that in zone 2 as possible. With a few moments before my start time I switch out rear wheels for my wheel with the cover, and head over to the start line. My time comes and off I go...

Well a few moments into the race I hear something chirp, and then feel it in my frame. While concentrating on trying to keep my bike vertical during the cross winds and head straight with the wind pulling my helmet the chirping is getting really annoying. I knew exactly what it was, on these new fancy pants TT rigs with the rear wheel cutouts and the tolerances being so tight there isnt much room for any type of error. My error was having the limit screws for the rear wheel adjusted for a 20C Conti Supersonic tire I was running at Dismal Dash back in early March. I thought I adjusted the screws enough to compensate for the 23C tire I would be running on the work stand but with weight on the bike it did rub.

During the TT I was passed by my 30 second man a 1/3 of the way in, and kept him in my sight and then passed him back and he passed me back a couple times, we were mindful of no drafting kept our distance and rode on opposite sides of the lane. I noticed that he wasn't using the aero extensions at times and have a feeling this is why I was able to catch back up to him and pass him. After the race I in the cool down area I caught up to him and he said that his left extension came loose and couldn't steer the bike with it and with the winds he didn't want to take any chances.

I also caught up with Luke who started 1:30 behind me and he said it hurt like hell. Well I guess lesson learned this weekend, do shake down rides or ride your TT bike more often because his Vision integrated base / aero bar was not torqued down tight enough and at one point found his aero bars pointed downward and he had to pull them back up.

So with about an hour and half until our TTT we head to the car, chat with a few teammates, fix our bikes, and then sit in the car to stay warm. Luke said he felt his legs were shot and would do the TTT because he said he would and try his hardest to hold on. With a much better warm up this time we head off over to the start line. A quick check for tire clearance and its good to go, although Luke did say he hoped I doubled flatted on way over, we laughed and I said just hang on for the ride. I had no issues pulling the whole time as I wanted some redemption from my ITT.

As we started Luke got to my left to echelon his way out of the wind, which was really impossible because it was just so powerful yesterday. If anything I was more afraid of a gust blowing me into his line and causing issues, but Luke commented at the end that I was very stable and predictable except when the gusts blew us which were just insane. I tried to pace us based off of my powermeter and knowing his wattage so that we could plan for a negative split plus I didnt want to blow him off my wheel a quarter way into the race.

With a couple yells between each other to make sure he is doing ok we make our way to the turn around which was a little confusing as there was a car trying to pass at the same time. On the return trip back I did up the pace a little with the tail wind and Luke would move up on my right and I would push even harder because that meant he was still feeling well. There were a couple times with the last 1/3 of the race where I had to back off to not burn him off and keep things under control. With the last klick to go my HR was finally coming up to the right zone, drooling and snot pouring out of my nose I prayed there wasn't a photog at the end. In the last 200m I really tried to up the pace hoping he would stay on my wheel and he did a great job of it too.

After we crossed the line and started chatting he said he was glad is was over but had fun doing it as the pain was easier to deal with having a teammate suffering with you. He apologized for not being able to pull but was totally cool with me as I was able to use this as a ITT for myself. Turns out the time we had would have put me in second place in the Cat 4 ITT with 20 watts less average and sitting up / soft pedaling a couple times to not drop Luke. Oh well it put us in 7th place according the results on the USAC page which I am fine with.

Some lessons learned, need to re-cable the Dean and get it working perfectly as I want to do well at Church Creek and in the ITT at Tour of Washington County, also I need to get more riding on the TT rig as well to be able to climb, handle, and have my body adapt to the position better.