Results spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p0dGdZHV_Way5PNxiOmxrXA&hl=en
The wheelsucker recalls that a summer lasted nearly forever when he was a young boy, but the older he gets the faster time moves. This past road racing season has just flown by, and not long after it started at Jeff Cup, it was down to the last MABRA road race of the season, the rescheduled Deep Blue TT, October 4th, in Augustine Beach DE.
Never heard of Augustine Beach, DE? Neither had the wheelsucker, but rest assured it is just south of Port Penn DE. Never heard of Port Penn DE? Neither had the wheelsucker. Fortunately there were directions on the bikereg registration page and a link to a Googlemap of the course on the team website, which the wheelsucker was able to get Googlemap directions to.
The TT course starts next to the Delaware River, or it might be Delaware Bay; the wheelsucker is not entirely clear on exactly where the name changes as the river widens into the bay. It is downstream of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, a little downstream of the Delaware end of the canal between the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River (or bay).
The course starts along the river, crosses a few low bridges over creeks and marshes and then turns inland slightly. The turning point is triangular where the road you ride in on ends in a "T", using a small "Y" configuration, and then it is back down the road to the starting area. The course is roughly 11 miles long, which had the wheelsucker thinking it would be easy, after doing Church Creek twice.
Looking at the registration page and the "confirmed riders" page on the bikereg listing, the wheelsucker noted that not a single field had 12 riders, so at that point in time, EVERYONE who showed up was going to get BAR points. This made doing a second race quite attractive at the time (it was rather less attractive when it actually came time to start the second race, but that comes later). Looking at the list of confirmed riders, the wheelsucker registered for 50+ and picked what he thought was the field with the fewest registered riders, that he was also eligible for. He picked "cat 3" because there were (at the time) only about three riders registered. This was a mistake, because there was ANOTHER field the wheelsucker overlooked, the 30+, which had ZERO registered riders at the time. Fortunately, this error was fixable, after a series of e-mails with the organizer, and the wheelsucker was in fact racing 30+ and 50+ on race day (this worked out very well as the wheelsucker was the only Latitude rider in both fields, so was not risking taking points from a teammate or vice versa).
A number of riders besides the wheelsucker were planning on racing twice, so the starting order was all mixed up, not in field order, as the organizers tried to accommodate everyone's wishes. One result of this was that the wheelsucker's first start was his 30+ race, while the one he really cared about, the 50+, was his second start.
Spencer warming upLatitude/ABRT was well represented with Tom Mackay, Aaron Canale, Steve Owens, Spencer Becket and Bobby Phillips all there. Some registered riders were unable to make the new date (recall that Deep Blue was postponed due to a tropical storm), so though they were registered, Arch McKown and Bill Neumann were not there.
Somehow, despite arriving an hour before his start time, the wheelsucker found himself with only 5 minutes to warm up, in contrast to Spencer, who spent over half an hour riding on the trainer. Actually, Spencer was the best organized and best warmed up rider of the team.
Tom and Aaron had their starts very shortly after 9:00 (they had the second and third slots), with the wheelsucker starting at 9:17:00, and Spencer a minute behind at 9:18:00.
Steve's first start was 9:21:30. There were a lot of no-shows, so neither the wheelsucker nor Spencer had 30 second riders to pace behind. Feeling rushed and disorganized, the wheelsucker started too hard and it took several minutes to get the power numbers down to what his target was. The course had several turns that the wheelsucker could not take at full speed/target power, and a few rollers. The wheelsucker passed several riders, but since starts were not by field and one did not know who one was passing, this did not provide much useful information.
At the turnaround the wheelsucker still had a good gap on Spencer, but was suffering from going out too hard. All the way back, every time the wheelsucker checked his power, he was below target. He would push harder, get the number up, suffer more, but the next time he checked the power would be down again. He never looked back (do NOT turn your head when wearing a TT helmet), but suspected that Spencer was closing.
Sure enough, at the finish Spencer had not passed the wheelsucker, but closed considerable time on him.
The interval between races was far too short for the wheelsucker, just enough time to have race numbers swapped and grab a drink, as his next start was at 9:58:30. It was a tired and suffering wheelsucker lining up for his second start (who thought doing two races was a good idea!), with Steve Owens starting 30 seconds behind him. Being tired, it was much easier to start on target power numbers. The wheelsucker made it to the turnaround, and even passed a few riders on the way, but he was clearly not going as well as the outbound leg in the first race, and it was harder and harder to hold power.
It did not appear that Steve had closed much at the turnaround.
The ride back after the turnaround was misery. Unable to get to even threshold power numbers for long, the wheelsucker worked on being as aero as possible. The wheelsucker suffered all the way to the finish line, hammered (for the wheelsucker) across the line and coasted down the road, too spent to even sit up, turn around and see where Steve was.
After a short wait in the parking lot finish places/times were posted.
Once the wheelsucker fought his way through the crowd reading the finish times, he saw the yellow highlighted winners. Spencer had won 40+! Tom had won juniors 17-18, with Aaron second! Tom had also finished 4th in cat 3, despite riding a road bike not a TT bike, in both his races! Steve Owens had very good finishes in cat 4 (2nd) and 40+ (4th), five seconds behind a rider in one, and seven seconds behind the same rider in the second.
Bobby Philips was 4th in 60+, and the wheelsucker learned to his amazement that he has won 50+ and 30+, and even more amazing, his second race time was only nine seconds slower than his first. This led the wheelsucker to conclude that he would rather be aero than good :-)
Indeed, the wheelsucker has an exceptional TT bike, which must be EXCEPTIONALY aero, because the wheelsucker's sustainable power is not what a strong experienced rider can put out.
For example, do you see a front brake caliper? Does the wind see a front brake caliper?Winning 30+ was a gift, as only two 30+ riders had started, and the wheelsucker had the faster time of the two. Winning 50+ was great, even though the strongest time trialers the wheelsucker had raced against at the Church Creek races and the Tour of Washington County TT were not there.
Winning a TT is 15 BAR points and second is 13 points, so a very good day for Latitude winning five fields, and getting some seconds and fourths. for a total of 111 BAR points. The wheelsucker cannot remember any of the finishing times, but does recall that Spencer had a REALLY good time, having the fastest time of all competitors including two man teams, tandems and cat 1-2.
The results/times spreadsheet is available at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p0dGdZHV_Way5PNxiOmxrXA&hl=en.
What a great end to the season!
No comments:
Post a Comment