State Championship TT

I had this dream the other night that I had a lot of hair. A lot of blonde hair. It was down to my shoulders and curly as shit. Yeah, that was weird. Just thought I would share that.
So anyway, in reality I don’t have any hair – or not much, and I am a pretty piss poor bike racer. That’s what I found out this weekend at the state championship time trial. About the bike racing thing I mean, not the hair. I already knew about the hair.

So the race was a rolly polly 40k individual time trial. That’s 25 miles in American. As it turns out, that is way too far for a time trial. Especially if you suck like me.

I guess the most remarkable thing to me was that of all the people racing there, I only saw one without any special time trial equipment – you know a Darth Vader helmet, or deep dish carbon wheels, or a sweet tricked out tt bike. I am pretty sure there was like a billion dollars (retail) worth of equipment out there. Seeing all that made me think that the best way to stimulate the economy would be to make all the middle-aged guys in America compete in a time trial – that would get the money flowing.

I guess I am anti-american because I borrowed the tt bike that I used. It’s always good to ride a bike that isn’t yours in a bike race. It is always better if you borrow it like the day before and have very limited time to practice on it. Nonetheless, that is what I did.

So yeah, I rolled up to the start line on my (borrowed) Cervelo tt machine. For a little added bonus I had a borrowed front wheel from someone else. Yeah, the bike and the wheel had never even met before. I did have my own back wheel (borrowed cassette), and my own Darth Vader helmet though, that was ok. I don’t even know what the bikes name was. I will call it Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Anyway, I started a minute behind state road race champion Tim Doelman, a minute behind state criterium champion Tim Doelman – how many state championships do you have to win before they make you cat up anyway? Apparently more than 2, not that it really mattered to me – there were like 10 other guys there better than me anyway.

The race itself was uneventful. Started a little faster than I wanted and suffered a bit. Then I passed Sarah Brown who was on her second lap. Then I suffered a bit more. I wanted to pass Sarah Barber too, but she was too fast and finished before I caught her. Then I suffered a bit more. Then I passed some 4/5 dude wearing knickers, a bit warm for that eh? Then I suffered a bit more. Then Rob Floth flew by me like I was standing still. That was nice. Not unexpected, but nice. I think he may be a bit faster than me? Then I suffered some more. Then I passed someone. Then I suffered some more. Then Dan Bechtold flew past on his way to glorious victory. Didn’t even say hi. Hi Dan. Then I suffered some more. Then I finished. 59:27.

I was shooting for an hour, so I guess that was good. Just a little disappointed about all the other people who were apparently shooting for a bit less than an hour. At least I didn’t finish 13th.

CCBB performed well. I think I went about as good as I could have, I don’t think I left too much out there. Maybe next year I will try training harder – nah, maybe I will just take more naps.