daily double

Doubled up again today.

A 40k TT in the morning along the deceptively hilly Walnut Bottom Road. 57:13. (Is that just about a 26mph average?)

Mass start South Mountain Hill Climb. 5/25.

...

Yesterday I got my TT rig finished. It's really just my old Fetish road frame converted into a TT rig. Complete with a Josh Beck hand-me-down disc wheel and my new, very dorky, TT helmet. My position still needs a lot of work. I need to get my butt at least a centimeter higher and my whole body probably two centimeters further forward. Also, I need a saddle I can actually manage to sit on for an hour. I finished the race today with bruised sit bones (current TT saddle: a five-year old Selle Italia Flite). It was a delight to get on my other bike a few hours later for the hill climb. Like therapy.

The hill climb was great fun. A 7.5 mile climb up something like 1,300 ft. Obviously that's not very steep. Good for fat guys like me.

Two wraith-like creatures attacked out of a group of maybe ten of us with about two and a half to go. They held on to finish 1-2. I let a gap open up between me and the next three riders with about 1.5 to go, but having the benefit of knowing the climb well, I attacked those riding my wheel on the last steep part before about a kilometer of flat stuff on the top. I caught the others on the flats. Finished third out of that group.

JB Haglund made the drive from Philly to race with me today. The guy says he doesn't ride much, but he posted a TT time about 50 seconds faster than mine and finished right behind me on the hill climb. Humbled.

What's nuts about the TT is that my out split was over three minutes faster than his...so I rode the back 20k over four minutes slower than him...but my backside 20k was still faster than my frontside 20k. Like I said: Nuts.

Also, this was my first 40k TT. I didn't really like it that much. I'd say something like a 20k TT is a more comfortable limit...inasmuch as any TT has anything to do with comfort.

Pictures (hopefully) to come.