Race results: 2:24:31Placement: 99/129
Average Speed: 14.9
TSB (Biking/SBR): –6.9/-6.3
Morning of the race went fine. Love having a local race that doesn’t require me to get up at 4am or spend money on hotels. Breakfast included couple of egg whites, toast and chocolate milk. I was all packed and ready to go, but still had to put my bike on the rack. While doing this, noticed front tire was flat. Pumped it up and headed to the race. Little did I know this was a sign of things to come.
Arrived at the race with more time than really needed, but knowing 1000 people would be there, thought parking might be an issue. Not so much. As I unpacked, I noticed front tire was flat again. My first WTF moment. I break the tire seal and fill it with Stan’s. I use a Co2 to quickly fill it and started to ride around. Met up with a couple friends (Messing and Rife) and then continued to test front tire. No issues.
I went off in wave #3 and had zero issues for the first couple miles. As the group, and it’s a HUGE group, entered Wildwood things slowed down (approx. mile 5). This section is a sandy, muddy two track with people walking every where. I never dismounted, just continued to plug away. My average speed dropped from 20.26mph to 9.14mph. Given all the bodies, not much one can do about it.
It is after this section that disaster struck. While traveling at 32mph, I misjudged the sharp left turn and grabbed a handful of brakes. Within 12 seconds I went from 32mph to 0. This stopping force put a lot of pressure on my front tire causing it to slide right off the wheel. So, for the third time, I had a flat front tire. I’m prepared for this and even put my Co2 in my back pocket instead of saddle bag. I was off the bike and ready to inflate my tire within seconds. Big issue: Co2 didn’t work. I grab my second Co2 and it’s a non-threaded cartridge. WTF. My race is over so I start the walk of misery back to the start line. However, 12 minutes into my walk, a photographer allowed me to use his bike pump he had in his car. I put a tube in my tire and was off. Total time spent dealing with this: 17 minutes.
From this point on, I felt great. My average speed was 16.6 MPH, which is almost 2mph higher than last year. The one change I would have made to my bike would have been the chain rings. I ran a 38/24, which was OEM. I did purchase a 40/28 ring and they showed up on Friday. But I bought the wrong size. So I was stuck with 38t. I’m sure I had a very high cadence. I’ve been pre-riding this course for two months and knew I needed a 40t-42t ring to get my speed up. Procrastination did me in on that one. Oh well.
The only other issue the entire race was around mile 22 when the police officer stopped us to allow traffic to clear. We were idle for 2.5 minutes. There was a HUGE line of cars so I understand why he did it. Plus my dream of a podium was gone at mile 7. Some other riders were upset, but didn’t really impact me at that point.
Another positive from the race was the two track sandpits at Sager and Shaw road. I say it was a positive because I never had to dismount. I weaved through traffic just fine and when I went to turn on to Shaw, some spectators helped inform the walkers to get out of my way. I’ll never understand why people will walk their bike in the middle of the two track. Common sense should dictate that you stick to one side so other people can get through. My average speed prior to entering this section was 19mph. During this portion I averaged just over 10mph. I do think I could have squeaked out a better effort here. I may have been too conservative with my energy.
My garmin shows a moving time (my actual riding time) of 2:10:23 and a total time (still counts during autopause) of 2:24:19. I did stop it during tire change for about 2-3 minutes. So actual race time would have been around 2:06ish. This time would have placed me around 42nd (approx) place. I’m sure better gearing would have gotten me closer to my 2 hour goal, although I’m not entirely sure that would have gotten me under 2 hours. Regardless, I smoked my 2011 time of 2:24. Actually, my race time was just seconds off 2011 time, and that includes tire change and traffic stop.
Next race: Yankee Springs TT
No comments:
Post a Comment