2009 Blogs
Memorial Day leaves me memories of pain and achievement. My time trial began at 9:58.30. I was on my bicycle at 8:28.30 and rolled over to the start, at Bread, the best darn bakery ever. The owner, Rob was waiting for me with a piping hot Americano. To y’all who raced Tour of California – Rob was the rockstar who gave us all the cookies, bread, granola, and hats!
Everyone brought their A-game with TT bikes, disc wheels, aero gear, rockets, and after-burners. I already looked off the back with just my lucky Leopard road bike, with dorky clip-ons. Little did all the geeked out martian-looking time trialists know that I was angry from the day prior, and anger can breed the most rampant of fires. My warm-up didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. The bathroom was out of order at Bread…darn overly caffeinated bike racers! So I had to go hike off into the woods. Then my shifting was all out of whack, and I couldn’t get into my 53, which I figured I might need for a mostly flat to downhill time trial. After my hike I couldn’t get in or out of my pedals, so to keep from falling over, Michael Engleman had to hold me up! Leggies still weren’t kicking as I would have liked, but after a couple sets of pyramids my heart was beating a bit faster and I was licking my chops.
The 15-mile time trial was mostly tail-wind, and quite rolling on a quaint country road. When living in Durango the year prior, I had ridden the road, but was still surprised by how much downhill there seemed to be. The last half-mile finally kicks up a good climb, which is still big-ringable. My eyes stayed glued to my power meter for the entire race, and it served as a friend – a brutally honest friend. I maintained the numbers I wanted and was pleased with a time not-far-off of some known and geeked out time trialists, and ahead of a lot of silly looking aero pedalers.
Kristin McGrath of ValueAct is coming back from a knee injury, and had the green light on the TT. She smashed the competition, posting a mid-34 minutes. Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita was a minute behind her in 2nd. I was a minute off of Tiffany in 5th place, with Terrie Clouse of CO Bike Law and Marissa Asplund of DFT in between.
Everyone brought their A-game with TT bikes, disc wheels, aero gear, rockets, and after-burners. I already looked off the back with just my lucky Leopard road bike, with dorky clip-ons. Little did all the geeked out martian-looking time trialists know that I was angry from the day prior, and anger can breed the most rampant of fires. My warm-up didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. The bathroom was out of order at Bread…darn overly caffeinated bike racers! So I had to go hike off into the woods. Then my shifting was all out of whack, and I couldn’t get into my 53, which I figured I might need for a mostly flat to downhill time trial. After my hike I couldn’t get in or out of my pedals, so to keep from falling over, Michael Engleman had to hold me up! Leggies still weren’t kicking as I would have liked, but after a couple sets of pyramids my heart was beating a bit faster and I was licking my chops.
The 15-mile time trial was mostly tail-wind, and quite rolling on a quaint country road. When living in Durango the year prior, I had ridden the road, but was still surprised by how much downhill there seemed to be. The last half-mile finally kicks up a good climb, which is still big-ringable. My eyes stayed glued to my power meter for the entire race, and it served as a friend – a brutally honest friend. I maintained the numbers I wanted and was pleased with a time not-far-off of some known and geeked out time trialists, and ahead of a lot of silly looking aero pedalers.
Kristin McGrath of ValueAct is coming back from a knee injury, and had the green light on the TT. She smashed the competition, posting a mid-34 minutes. Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita was a minute behind her in 2nd. I was a minute off of Tiffany in 5th place, with Terrie Clouse of CO Bike Law and Marissa Asplund of DFT in between.