Monday, February 18, 2008

Ifs, buts, candy, and nuts - Tundra Race Report

If youre a wide receiver that can get open every time but can't catch a cold, you won't be very effective. You have to put all the pieces together to score.

Here's what happens when you don't put all the pieces together in an out-and-back time trial:

At the Tundra Time trial on Saturday we had super weather for a February morning - sunny and 50 degrees.

I had a good warmup and felt great. I eased into the 9.5-mile course without blowing up early, and I was looking at 11:18 coming into the turnaround - good enough to significantly improve on my last-year's time of over 25 minutes.

That's when one or more of the following happened: 1. Seeking a quick turnaround, I came into the u-turn way, way too fast, 2. my adrenaline was pumping and I grabbed the brakes too hard, 3. my worn pads caught on the carbon rims and locked.

Whatever the reason - it was 100% stupidity on my part. And in about 2 milliseconds I converted my new rear Vittoria Crono Evo-CS tubular tire into useless blog fodder and ended my TT. I found myself yelling damn damn damn pretty forcefully, then looked around to make sure I hadn't scarred any kids for life with my outburst (safe on that front).

Then I asked if anyone had an extra wheel. One of the volunteers ran down a path away from the trail (to his house, I guess). A minute or two later he returned with a 1982 30-spoke, 700x26c road wheel inflated to about 70 psi (If you're reading this, Randy, I'm not complaining - beggers can't be choosers). Our first attempt to mount the wheel was unsuccessful because it rubbed the cutout in my frame. After a little work, we adjusted the wheel in the rear dropouts and, using friction to hold it in place, locked it down. It felt like I was dragging an anvil on the way back, but the fact that I noticed it at least means that my shredded wheel/tire had low rolling resistance.

In short, I screwed up and ruined an opportunity for a good result for the team and a course PR. But at least it was in a 1-day TT and not the Tour of Atlanta. I'll bet that I don't enter a u-turn too fast again - at least not until my adrenaline gets back up.

2 Comments:

James said...

Sorry to hear about your bad luck Robert, sounds like you were on a great ride. I saw that the rest of the team did great. Good luck to everyone on the team the rest of the season.

sl149q said...

Tough luck.... I had a flat 12K into my 36K "A" TT of the year last August,... Not much you can do about it.