191 – Blue Streak

Rode hard and put away wet.

This evening I tried another new thing on my road bike, doing a sprint-length time trial. There is a local series called Blue Streak that has a monthly race around the flight line at Wright-Patterson AFB, so with the evening off from work, I rolled over to check it out.

Torrential rain had threatened to cancel the event altogether, but the storms had finished well before the race start, doing us the double favor of washing out some of the humidity and dropping the temperature by some 20 degrees. On the downside, the back part of the course was underwater, which meant they had to change the route at the last moment to and out-and-back, instead of a loop.

The whole thing was a learning experience for me. The first thing I noticed was that my concerns over not being able to clip in fast enough at the start were shared by a good portion of the field. Riders are released in 30 second intervals, and I watched some very experienced guys with some very Gucci shoe and pedal combos fumble with their left pedal for 10 yards or more. I can clip in with my MTB shoes and pedals very quickly, but for some reason my road combo tends to give me a little more trouble. Still, I was clipped in as quick or quicker than average for the field, and was soon charging off in pursuit of the rider ahead of me.

I’ve never really sprinted on this bike. Sure, I’ve spun it up to see how fast it’ll go a few times, but I’ve never tried to really hold it there for any appreciable distance. I glanced down after the start and saw I was already doing 25 mph, a pace I was sure I couldn’t hold, but it never ceases to amaze me how easily this bike will get there. I caught the rider ahead of me in the first mile, which was both good and bad. I was hoping she knew where the course went, because I didn’t!

Helmet hair is no laughing matter.

It turned out not to be a big problem though, because I was passed in turn about a mile later by another rider, and the course was simple enough, anyway. I pedaled as hard as I thought was prudent, concentrating on moving my feet in smooth circles and trying to figure out my breathing for this pace. I was doing 20 mph or better pretty easily, just trying to find that threshold that I could keep up for a half hour without blowing up. I passed a couple more people and was passed one more time, but I kept my head down, hands in the drops and worked hard to keep my cadence where it felt right.

I was keeping a close eye on my speedometer, trying to maintain a good average pace, but not close enough on my odometer. The finish came on me as a surprise, and so I missed my chance to push it up for the last half mile, which may have cost me a little. I caught and passed a girl on a proper TT bike just before the finish, but was passed in turn by her teammate, which caused me to look up and see the finish line just a hundred yards or so ahead. I kicked it up a notch, but it was probably only worth a couple seconds. Rookie mistakes.

But my performance was satisfactory, for my first outing. I averaged 20.6 mph over the 10 mile course, finishing in 29:57. That was good enough for 69th of 100 overall, and 8th of 11 in my (very competitive!) age group. I beat a handful of people on much nicer and more focused equipment too, which is always very satisfying. I can easily see myself improving by 10 places or so overall, just because I’ll know what I’m doing next time.