Hines Park TT

We were greeted by one of the coldest days of the summer when we awoke at 5:00 am Sunday for the Hines Park TT. James, Maria, Abby and myself loaded the bikes and hit the road at 530 am for the ritual stop at Starbucks before driving to Nankin Mills for the race.

Almost immediately after arriving, the wind began to stir which is a bad omen at 630 am. That would be the main feature of the race this day. Steady winds blowing out of the northwest yielding a tailwind for half the course and a headwind for the other half. This begs the question; does this result in a faster course, a slower course or null effect? I somehow remember a fragment of my college days that say drag doesn't increase linearly with an increase in speed. Dr. Speed, can you help? If I am right, this day's conditions result in a slower course but I will defer to those who have the letters before and after their name.

Maria helped me get the kids ready so that I was able to get a reasonable warm up in. James and Abby both got off without a hitch. James turned in a 31:34 which is a new personal best. Abby turned in a 46:?? cutting a minute off her 20K from earlier in the year.

After multiple trips to the bathroom, I hit the road at 8:54 am. Riding downwind was a hoot as my speed was over 30 mph for much of the time. Then the turn around and the inevitable slowdown. My power looked good holding steady at 300 watts and the average speed steadily fell. I watched it drift down rapidly into the 28 mph range then it slowed and began to settle in the 27 mph range. It clicked down slowly from there. I knew it was going to be a good time but I was loosing hope that I would equal last years Hines time of 27:14. The wind was pretty strong and I sensed the rider who could best get out of the wind was the one who had the best chance. I hunkered down as low as I could go and suffered on.

There wasn't a lot left as I saw the finish coming into view but I dialed it up to 500 watts and proceeded to blow myself up. When I crossed the line I was just happy it was over. It hurt a lot this time around. The last few miles I was thinking about the team TT coming up and that I really didn't want to do it.

No one noticed my time so I rode back to my car to get some recovery going. Giff came over with the run down on everything. He asked, "What time do you think you got?" I said, "27:30". "Wrong, 27:03," said Giff. So I won right? Nope. Third place. A 27:03 nabbed a third place in a cat 3 20K! My time from last year won by 30 seconds. This time I missed second place by a whopping 15/100's of a second and first by four! It is too bad we don't have announcers like Phil and Paul who could showcase this kind of competition. No one there realized the battle royal that was raging for this race. Pretty cool really. The winner, Steve Andriese took 4th overall with the second place finisher Jimi Minnema in 6th and myself in 7th. Considering the overall winner was Graham Howard, a pro from Bissel, I would say the cat 3's were outrageously fast this day.

My TTT partner John Burrows was working hard at recovery along with me. I was trying everything in box of tricks to get myself together in the hour and fifteen minutes I had between races. It didn't look too good until right before the start. When we rolled up I felt like I was ready to race and as we flew downwind I realized I was feeling better than I did in the first go. We battled the wind but the elements and tired old legs did us in as we crossed the line at 28:04 good for 4th place. Dybo and Kroske whooped us pretty good for 3rd. I came at Scott like a "spider monkey" but he fought me off this time! Dybo isn't afraid of monkeys apparently.