Posted by Paul on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 at 4:46 PM
Tyrone Time Trial - Part II
Ouch! Another tough stage. The wind was howling. I started off slow, trying to ease into it. The initial climb just went on and on and on. I was in my 53x21 for most of it and stayed in the aero bars - not sure if that really helped that much at 18 mph. I was catching people all over the place, so that was good. At the top of the hill, I tried to recover some, and eventually put it into the meat gear (53x11) to try to build up some speed. I did the turn at about 24 minutes. A time of 40 minutes total is a usually a top 5 time in the Cat 3's - today that time would win.
I was making up more time on the guy who started 90 seconds ahead of me. I had almost caught him at the top of the first hill, but then he made back some time on me on the rollers. I was sure I could catch him before the top of the last climb. Then something happened to me that hasn't happened in . . . well at least many months if not a year. I was switching down to the small chainring for the 1 mile, Category 3 climb, when I dropped my chain. Damnit! I wasn't Euro enough to keep riding and get it back on so I had to get off the bike, and put it back on with my hands. Luckily, I didn't break a nail.
Then I passed 90 second boy and crested the top. 4+ miles of downhill pleasure awaited me (no, not that kind, Patrick). I blazed down, doing anywhere from 32 to 48 mph. I finished in about 42 minutes.
They had the results up real quick - I got 14th. I'm a little disappointed with that - I really wanted to crack the top 10. But, I'm only 15 seconds out of 10th place and I did have to stop and fix my chain. So I guess that's about right. I'm 1:50 behind the leader. No bother, things will shake up again tomorrow. Check it out. The race bible shows gradients of up to 14% for the last 3 miles, with an average of about 10%.
Time to rest . . .
Ouch! Another tough stage. The wind was howling. I started off slow, trying to ease into it. The initial climb just went on and on and on. I was in my 53x21 for most of it and stayed in the aero bars - not sure if that really helped that much at 18 mph. I was catching people all over the place, so that was good. At the top of the hill, I tried to recover some, and eventually put it into the meat gear (53x11) to try to build up some speed. I did the turn at about 24 minutes. A time of 40 minutes total is a usually a top 5 time in the Cat 3's - today that time would win.
I was making up more time on the guy who started 90 seconds ahead of me. I had almost caught him at the top of the first hill, but then he made back some time on me on the rollers. I was sure I could catch him before the top of the last climb. Then something happened to me that hasn't happened in . . . well at least many months if not a year. I was switching down to the small chainring for the 1 mile, Category 3 climb, when I dropped my chain. Damnit! I wasn't Euro enough to keep riding and get it back on so I had to get off the bike, and put it back on with my hands. Luckily, I didn't break a nail.
Then I passed 90 second boy and crested the top. 4+ miles of downhill pleasure awaited me (no, not that kind, Patrick). I blazed down, doing anywhere from 32 to 48 mph. I finished in about 42 minutes.
They had the results up real quick - I got 14th. I'm a little disappointed with that - I really wanted to crack the top 10. But, I'm only 15 seconds out of 10th place and I did have to stop and fix my chain. So I guess that's about right. I'm 1:50 behind the leader. No bother, things will shake up again tomorrow. Check it out. The race bible shows gradients of up to 14% for the last 3 miles, with an average of about 10%.
Time to rest . . .
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