Apache 40K TT

For the first year since I've ridden with the Apaches, I was finally able to help with and participate in the team's annual 40K time trial. In years prior, I was either racing or had a conflict with my Luna Chix obligations. It was great to finally be able to be a part of this race.

I arrived early with broom in hand to head out on the course to sweep all the corners to keep the riders safe. About 5 of us rode the course, following the guys putting up the signs for the race, and got out at each turn to thoroughly sweep all the gravel off the road. It was nice to be able to ride the entire course so now I knew I was in for some hills. On the flip side, it took us a while to complete this task, so by the time we were finished and back to the check-in area, we had very little time for warm up.

I headed out to the start, pinned on my number, got the bike out, put on my aero bottle, pumped up my tires and got my gear all on. By this time, I had about 15 minutes to warm up. Not good at all. I'm one of those people that needs a long warm up. I try not to let it stress me out because there's nothing I can do about it now. I just want to get out there and put in a good effort.

At the start line we were waiting for the "all clear" direction to be given. The officials handed a couple of us timers to test them out before the start of the race. Within a minute or two, the green light was given for the race to commence and I took a few deep breaths. As always, they give you a nice little countdown and it was time to go!

I very quickly got into a nice, steady rhythym. It was about 68 degrees at the start and I was a little chilled. But I sure warmed up in a hurry! Everything felt good, though I had already lost sight of my minute-man. I just tried to put forth steady effort on the pedals and downshifted to keep from making my effort too much. About 15 minutes into the race, it started to rain. Just a little sprinkle and I thought, OK, no big deal. But then I heard it before I felt it, the rain started shooting out of the sky full force. It was a cold, pelting rain, stinging my bare arms and I got very chilled. Now I was wishing I hadn't come out for this race. I was just a couple miles into a 25 mile race and I was now freezing cold. And now the pavement is soaking wet and I get squeamish about taking the corners. I wished the rain would go away. Miraculously, the rain stopped. It went away just as fast as it came! A couple miles later, I was already warm again and the sun started peeking out from the dark clouds.

My legs felt a little sluggish, which was to be expected due to the running I'd done just 2 days before this race. But I felt comfortable and strong. Then I hit the section of rolling hills....up, down, up, down. I knew this wasn't going well for me and it was confirmed as I was passed for the first time this day. I tried to stick with my fellow Apache and could do it on the down hills. But as soon as there was any incline in the road, I started to lose ground. It was very quickly after that when another Apache teammate passed by. I couldn't believe how easy they were making this look. The three of us rode together but separate for quite some time. I think having those two in my vision helped push me to work harder.

I came to the turnaround and took it ever so cautiously. Now I was halfway done and still feeling strong, but a little uncomfortable. It is clear to me that I haven't spent enough time in the aero position. Up ahead I notice a big piece of farm equipment moving slowly along our side of the road. I watch as one of my teammates goes to pass on an uphill and I cringe. Man, I hope this thing gets off the road before I have to pass it. Now I start to see other riders coming toward me, on their way to the turn around. Just a few minutes later, I watch my other teammate pass the same wide piece of farm equipment....shoot, I'm next.

I move up to make my pass and I see another rider coming toward me. As I get close to this tractor thing or whatever it was, I notice that the wheels are about twice the size of me and my bike and it makes me a bit nervous. I go to pass when I see that there is a guy making a pass around the biker headed toward me. I fear that I am going to either crash into that rider or be pushed into the big wheel of the farm vehicle, so I quickly grab the brakes. I slow down enough to let the other two riders go by and then try to get up to speed again to pass the tractor. I might have been too cautious on this one, but I'd rather keep the rubber side on the road!

Back along the stretch of rolling hills, I start to feel fatigued and wonder how it is that I sometimes do 112 miles on my bike. I'm quite uncomfortable now and I have to keep getting out of the saddle just to "adjust". One more sharp right turn and now it just feels like I am crawling. What is going on, why am I so slow? Does my computer really say 15 mph? Am I going uphill? Do I have a flat? It was a brutal last 10K of a race that felt like it was never going to end.

I could finally see the finish and I just hammered as best I could. It was at that point that I realized that I once again left a little too much in the tank. I felt very strong and was almost disappointed that I was going to be done without feeling more drained. I was really happy to be a part of Team Apache today.

Team Time Trial

Today was my first ever TEAM time trial. Not that I've done many time trials before (3, to be exact), but I've always done them alone. The art of a team time trial includes peeling off smoothly and drafting...2 people working together for the benefit of both. The clock only stops when both people have crossed the finish line, so it does you no good to leave your partner dragging behind.

I headed up to Garden Prairie, otherwise known as middle-of-nowhere in IL, with Brett Petersen and Sally, fellow Salt Creek Triathlon Club members. I learned a few things in talking with Brett on the way up to the race. First, if you list a team you are racing for, you must wear that jersey. If you race as "unattached" or no club listed, you must wear a jersey with no writing on it. Additionally, you must have sleeves. Therefore, the tri club uniform tops were no good...we had to wear shirts underneath. I guess it's a safety issue, your shoulders need to be covered. Therefore, even the top (which has no sleeves) with arm warmers is considered "illegal." This wasn't really an issue for me...it was chilly anyway, so Sally and I had decided to wear thin, long-sleeved under armor shirts underneath our jerseys.

We arrived in Garden Prairie with plenty of time. We met other club members, Tom, Chris and Miguel there. It was a beautiful day, sunny, seemed like very little wind, but it was a bit chilly. I actually wondered if I should keep the long pants on and pull on arm warmers over my thin under armor!

We quickly pulled the bikes down off the car and prepared to warm up. I don't really know the protocol for warming up for a bike race. I mean, in triathlon, I typically use the swim as the warm up. But a 40K bike race is so short, you need to warm up before the race. But how long? How fast? Guess I could use a little education on that sort of thing.

For Sally, this was her first time trial ever. Sally and I planned to practice riding together at last week's century (or should I say 75 mile) ride, but the courses split up too early and we had no time to practice. We rode together once during the past week and it seemed to go smoothly. We planned on taking 1 minute pulls and when one of us got tired, we'd just shorten the pull for the tired teammate. Sounds great in theory!

We rode around and I realized that, once again, it was pretty windy out! Fellow Apache, Lisa, told me to stop thinking of it as being windy. She said I should figure there will ALWAYS be wind and on the day you get to ride with no wind, consider it a miracle. Interestingly put. Sally and I roll up to the starting line. We are surrounded by teams of men. Men who looked FAST. Majority of them had disc wheels and aero helmets.

Same team of officials at the start line as the last time trial I did. We chatted with them and they commented on the nice paint job on Sally's bike. There was literally no stress or tension as we awaited our start. 5-4-3-2-1 and we were off! As planned, Sally immediately moved to the front. She started hammering and our speed climbed up to 24 mph! I struggled to get on her back wheel and I thought to myself, "Holy cow, this is going to be a fast race!" and I wondered if I was going to be able to stay with her. It's amazing how fast that 1 minute goes by when you're taking advantage of the draft. I pulled in front and my speed dropped to about 22 mph. Then I heard Sally yell, "I'm back!" which meant I had dropped her. In other words, if you are not 6 inches or closer to the wheel in front of you, you are no longer getting the advantage of the draft. And this is the whole point of the team time trial, so I eased up to let Sally catch back on to my wheel.

The wind was strong and it was a nice break when I was able to draft behind Sally. For the first quarter of the race, I'd say we struggled to make smooth transitions, but as we rode along, our communication improved and we learned to read each other better to anticipate what the other rider was doing. The course was flat for the most part, but there were several sections of road with rather large pot holes. As long as you were paying attention, though, they were not difficult to avoid.

As we turned to go out to the "loop", we were passed by an ABD (Athletes By Design) team. They were riding really far apart and the guy trailing looked at me, shook his head and said "I can't catch his wheel!" It was then that I told Sally "There is no way I want us to look like THAT!" That simply defeats the whole purpose of a team time trial. Besides, as I said earlier, it's not an average of your two times, the clock only stops when your 2nd man crosses the line. So why drop your teammate? Just doesn't make sense.

Sally and I cruised along, much slower than I think we both anticipated, but the wind was also stronger than we thought and at times the gusts would threaten to take control of my front wheel. I wondered if my jerking the bike back in line would throw Sally off. I know from riding with other people, you don't want to make any unpredictable, sudden moves. Everything should be smooth and subtle. I didn't hear her complain (then again, the wind was loud!). Slowly but surely, we made our way to the turnaround, where I got confused by the guy telling me "TURN HERE." He was pointing in front of him, but when I asked if I had to go behind him, he said yes. Huh? Confusing. But, the turnaround meant we'd have a little wind at our backs!

As one of my pulls was ending and I was letting Sally slide to the front, I noticed her breathing was pretty heavy. However, she was riding stronger now than she was in the beginning of the race! I told her to take shorter pulls, catch her breath! Now was no time for either of us to blow up. As we continued riding along, we got better at reading each other's signals and we seemed to be making smooth progress toward the finish.

As I saw the grainery ahead, I remember the guy at the beginning of the race tell us to crank it up when we saw this grainery because the finish was near. So I yelled to Sally, "Let's Hammer!" And with that, we picked up our speed maybe 2-3 mph. However, as quickly as we sped up, Brett and Tom passed us with ease. I knew they started about 15 minutes behind us and one of my goals was to not let them catch us. Darn - we were so close! So we pumped our legs even harder. Even though we were only doing about 20 mph when we crossed the line, I felt like we were flying!



This was way more fun than an individual time trial! You get to take a little break in the draft, and you can draw off the energy of your teammate. Though I would have liked to have gone faster, I'd still say this was more fun than any of the other time trials I have done. Can't wait to do another one.

Changing Tubular Tires

In preparation for this mornings time trial (bike race), I decided that I needed to re-mount my tubular tires on my racing wheels. I wasn't very stressed out about it because I haven't even decided if I would be using the race wheels for this short, non-triathlon race. But, either way, I knew it was recommended to re-mount the tires every year or so just to make sure they stay on properly.

About two weeks ago, I bring the wheels (Zipps) up from the basement. They proceed to sit on my living room floor for a few days before I go back down to the basement to retrieve the tubular tire tape and levers to get the tires off. So one evening, I sit down to try to pry the tires off. For 30 minutes, I pulled, yanked, tugged, pryed and anything else you can think of! And I was still on the first tire! These things were really mounted on well! I was sweating profusely and getting more frustrated by the second. This made me think - if and when I ever get a flat with these in a race, I'm out. This is ridiculous!

I was finally able to get the first tire off (total of about 40 minutes). This tire had a big gash in it. It wasn't totally through, but a good section of the tire was just missing. Good thing I decided to take on this little project as now I need to not just re-mount the tires, but I needed to put on new ones. I moved on to removing the second tire. This was a bit easier and took me only 25 minutes. This one had been taped on vs. glued on. But by the time this was over, I had had enough. I was done with the wheels for today. Too much effort.

Several more days go by and I go back down to the basement to bring up my new tubulars I had "in stock". I planned to put them on the rims to stretch them out before I actually taped them on. With the type of race wheels I have, you need to put on a valve extender. I tried this little trick BC taught me of putting a little bit of tape on the threads of the valve before putting on the extender. And here we go again with the pulling, stretching, yanking, etc. I was cursing these tires and I swear they were the wrong size. I think it took me at least an hour to get both of them on...and this was just the stretching out part!!! Once again, I don't see how people can do this when they flat in a race. Putting the stupid tire on is harder than the doing the race itself! Once again, frustrated and thinking this whole process was taking too much time, I left the wheels, with new tires just stretching out on the rims, out in the family room floor for another day.

So when I finally go out and get the pump and try to put air in these tires, it doesn't stay. It just leaks out as fast as I can pump the air in. You've got to be kidding me! I take the tires off, mess around with the valves and extenders and here we go again with the monstrous task of getting the tires to go back on the rims. The good thing here is that it DOES get easier the more times you do this. But, after about 3 attempts, I still can't get the air to stay in the front tire. This is when my hero, BC, offers to help me get this right. And, like magic, he gets this to work in all of about 15 minutes. I tried to pay such close attention because I need to learn how to do this myself! I greatly appreciate his help, but it sure makes me question my mechanical abilities!!

So FINALLY, the tires are all mounted and ready to go. Just hope I am.