A Weekend Of Bicycle Racing- part 1 The Time Trial
by Pat Gallagher,posted Oct 25 2011 5:41PM
I realized, as I headed into my weekend of bicycle racing, that I have never done a straight bicycle race. Well, once when I was a little kid- there were races around the square and I pulled up on my bike, some guy asked "who's riding on 'sew-ups?'" I raised my hand and he walked over and gave a little twist to the tire. The tire came right off the rim. Apparently I didn't have the tires glued properly into place. I had to race on a borrowed bike. The only other thing I remember about that race was some older guys yelling at me to downshift as I rounded the corner by State Street and started to head up that hill. Looking back, it was good advice, but I remember thinking at the time that the hill wasn't that big- I can handle it in a heavy gear.
So, this weekend's Centurion was my first experience with bicycle racing (no swim before or run after) since that day.
And it went relatively well.
My first race of the weekend was on Friday night, the Media Challenge Team Time Trial. I've watched enough racing that I know some of the strategy behind it- kind of like your buddy who knows how that Packers could have won the SuperBowl the last 3 years- and not just this year. This wasn't going to be a true Team Trial, as each member of the team would start seperately (as opposed to the whole team starting together), so I didn't quite know what to do stratigically. So I just set up the team to ride girl-boy-girl-boy. Beyond that- no real strategy, except- "if I catch you, try to grab my back wheel and hang on as long as you can."
Last week I shared that some of my Ironman team was accusing me of stacking the deck. Well, congratulations to the Brava team who did an even better job of stacking the deck. They brought in a couple of guys who I'm told hold the course record for the Race Across America. And they beat us...by 13 seconds. I know Ricky Bobby would say "second is the first loser" or something like that- but I consider that a pretty good race. And I'll give credit to all the competitors for sportsmanship. One of our racers was actually hosting one of those guys from the Brava team for the weekend and the guys from the Brava team figured out that we didn't know what we were doing, so they gave us some pretty solid advice on how to start the race.
Speaking of starting the race. Have you ever seen a bicycle Time Trial? The race starts with the rider on his/her bicycle at the top of a ramp. Someone is holding the bike upright and the rider is all clipped into his/her pedals before the race even starts. It looks really cool on TV, but it made us really nervous- so the Centurion people were nice enought to give us all a test run down the ramp. That test run went fairly well- I realized that I needed to start in a lower gear, but other than that- I didn't fall over, so I consider it a success.
Then came the actual race. As I brought my bike up onto the ramp, the guy holding the bikes told me to clip in one foot and wait for the announcer to say "10 seconds" before clipping in the other foot. No problem...except I couldn't get the first foot clipped in. I think I was just nervous about getting it right. I finally got the first foot clipped in right as he said "10 seconds." If it took me 20 seconds to get the first foot clipped- how would I ever get the second one clipped in properly? I did it! With 3 seconds to spare and then I was off.
The course was 2 laps- about 6k per lap. I could see my teammate Julie ahead of me, so I just focused on catching her. I caught her about 1/3- to 1/2 way through the first lap, going through the round-about that we had practiced several times. She later said that she figured that is exactly where I'd catch her. As we went through the round-about I asked if she could grab my wheel? She said yes and grabbed on for the next two miles or so.
I wasn't paying close enough attention and let myself get a bit ahead of her when I saw my next teammate, Petra on the second lap. I caught her in that same round-about and asked the same question- this time the answer was no. I didn't worry too much about it because I knew Julie would be along soon and the two of them could work together for the rest of the race, so I sprinted the rest of the way around the second loop. I finished and turned to see Julie and Petra coming to the finish line- so it seems that it wasn't a bad decision to keep going- they were able to help each other and I was able to sprint ahead.
In the end the Triple M/Bicycle Federation team finished second (missing first by a mere 13 seconds- did mention that before?) and both Julie and Petra got medals in their age-group. Matt and I missed medals in our age group, I actually won the 45-49 age-group, but they were giving medals in 10 year chunks- so they gave the medal for 40-49, I think I got 4th there.
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