T-Bones Rare

Once again caught up doing other stuff so I’m a little late on my last racing update. That being said here’s the latest.

On the weekend of July 12 I participated in two events, The Jason Lapierre Memoral Time Trial hosted by Speed Theory and the Stampede Road Race. This proved to be a very full weekend of riding.

The The Jason Lapeirre event consisted of two time trials, a 25km event in the morning and a 11km event in the afternoon. The morning event was over a rolling course with a downhill finish as you can see from the profile below.

 

This was a nice course to ride and we didn’t a have a heavy wind and it actually kind of helped on the way back. This was first time I was off first so it was different experince for me as I’m usually used to having a couple of minute men to chase. Also Speed Theory had built a start ramp so it wasn’t as much work to get spun up to race cadence, thus saving a bit of effort at the start.

Not having anyone in front of me was weird at first, I missed not being able to see if I was catching up or being left in the dust. Just after I hit the turn around I saw some of the riders behind me and I thought for sure they catching up quickly. I just kept my head down  and kept spinning. Things were going well until the I had about 4 or 5 km’s to go. At this point Iheard the unmistakable hiss of air leaking from my rear tire as it starting going flat. Now if I had been using a clincher I would hav e been done for, but the tubular held with about half pressure and I was able to continue although my rear wheel definately felt mushy. I did feel the difference trying to get up to speed on the last leg of the course and I felt like I was not able to go as fast as I wanted. None the less I crossed the finish and waited for other riders to cross the line. It must have at least 2 to 3 minutes before the next rider appeared. Overall I placed second just 7 seconds behind the first place finisher.

The afternoon course had the “killer kilometre”, a steep grade where we were time seperately for a race within a race. This proved to the tougher than the morning race for a number of reasons.

 

 

 

11km Course

 

 

 

 

First off the uphill start, even with the start ramp it required more effort to get spun up. In addition the first 6 km of the course was really rolled, tough to see from the elevation chart do the error in the first height. So it was hard to maintain a constant cadence, I was constantly shifting gears trying to maintain a cadence that wouldn’t burn me out before the “killer kilometre”.

My plan for the “killer kilometre” was to hit the granny gear and spin as easy possible on the hill. It went well and I almost caught my minute man on the hill. OPn the ay back down it was into the drops and try to spin the 53 x 11, as it was I hit about 80 kph. What can I say, I descend like an anvil, the problem is getting up the hill in the first place. End result I placed 4th in the afternoon, whicdh with they calculated the omnium I got 2nd overall for the day.

Sunday was the Stampede Masters Race, held once again out by Madden. This is a great course to ride on although there a couple of sections where the pavement is a bit dicey, as usual. A big difference this year was the duel ITT’s the day before, so some of us weren’t as fresh as we sould have been. My goal for the race was to stick with the main pack, as usual, and not to do too much work out front to save a much as I could for the final lap. This got blown away when I lost my chain on a downshift in the first lap and it took me about 3 or 4 km to catch up with the pack. As a result by the time we got to the start of the third lap adb the surge happened just before the feed zone I wasn’t able to find my legs. Another two laps of time trialing for a 13th place finish.

So a good weekend of racing once again for myself, now some rest and recooperation before the Tour de Bowness.