Two Wheel Blogs

I took advantage of a rare day - sunny and warm - yesterday to catch up on yard work and to get in a quick ride. While I was out riding (You really don't want to hear about the yard work, do you?) I ran into a guy, Bert, from the ICCC team, whose conversation helped the time go by. Five tough climbs come and gone in a flash.

Looks like more rain today. Good thing I'm planning to take it easy, relatively speaking. 50 or 60 TSS is a walk in the park on the trainer.

Today's story is about pushing one's luck. In this case, just a little too far.

Dave, Jordan and I set out this morning to pre-ride the state road race course. None of us had seen it so we wanted to get a look at it before next week's race.

A quick look at the weather before heading out showed we'd be OK. Sun would turn to clouds, which would turn to thunderstorms later in the afternoon. No problem, we thought. That gives us plenty of time to ride it. Twice even.

Can a 20 minute long race be considered epic? It may not by the strictest sense of the word; but for me the 4th Wednesday Night Timetrial falls into my epic category. And I don't think I'm alone. More accomplished racers than I used the same term tonight.

I think we sat and chatted for an hour before a third competitor showed up. Joe runs the races. I help him put them on. If a third hadn't shown up we wouldn't have ridden.

As it turned out three others braved the chilly wind and rain tonight. Four men and one woman in total would compete. Add two additional volunteers and a USCF official and we had a race.

The wind switched itself around for tonight's event. a tailwind pushed us to the turnaround, putting a premium on power management.

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Oh the irony.

The winds today are forecast to be all the way down in the single digits come time for tonight's TT Series race. That's quite a bit better than it's been in the three previous weeks. Temperature looks good too - high 60's to low 70's °F.

Too bad about the Heavy T-Storms part though. Lightening and flash flood warnings don't bode well for bike racing.

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I thought it was supposed to rain today. What happened? I followed up Saturday's uphill attack-o-rama with a hard Sunday expecting today to be awful, weather wise. Awful weather would match the way my legs feel. Instead we get a day ready made for riding. I'm out of sync with the world lately.

I woke up yesterday to one of the brightest spring days I can remember. The newly leafed out trees were a vibrant green; but most importantly, they were standing stock still. No wind.

This was an opportunity not to be missed. I loaded up my Timetrial bike and headed for a private session in the Andy Coggan wind tunnel for a little aero testing. I wasn't going to let my tired and sore legs get in the way of my quest for a little free speed.

Oh yeah. I got myself spanked good today.

A little after 8 this morning I headed out the door to meet up with Alan, Cody and Todd for what turned out to be one righteous climbing smack down.

Nearly three hours later I dragged my sorry butt back through the door and sat down on the floor to take off my shoes.

Humbling.

I want a bowl of ice cream.