Sunday morning was the short 10-mile time trial in Baton Rouge, finishing off the 3-time trial omnium event for the weekend. After the previous day's 3-man and 2-man time trials, this one was to be solo. Sam arrived at the house for 7 am and we headed back up the river for the 9:30 am start. As we came down from the elevated interstate around LaPlace I looked up at the tall trees lining the road and said, "It's going to be windy again." I doubt there was any hint of excitement in my voice. As far as I could tell, the wind was pretty much the same as it had been on Saturday, which is to say is was strong and gusty. The turnout for this TT seemed a little on the small side. I suppose the wind may have discouraged some of the fair weather bike racers, but there's also the odd omnium format to blame. I really think the turnout would be much better if they'd offer separate prizes for each race and de-emphasize the omnium scoring. It's just too difficult for a lot of riders to put together a team in the appropriate category, and I think that keeps a lot of people from showing up at all.
So once again I squeezed into my skinsuit, strapped on my ill-fitting pointy helmet, and tried to get in a decent warmup. Although this was an individual time trial, there was no holder. At T minus 2 seconds I hit the start button on my computer and at zero I stood on the pedal and clipped in the other foot. The start was pretty much directly into the wind for the first quarter mile, so I was being super cautious about controlling my pace. I knew that after the first mile or so I'd turn right and start picking up more and more of a tailwind as the course gradually followed a big bend in the river. I held my effort level down to about 70 percent until I started feeling the tailwind. Still, I was afraid to push myself too hard because I knew the last four miles would be brutal. Right away I passed Michael H., who is just getting back on the bike after an extended layoff. Although we had started at 30-second intervals, I couldn't even see my one-minute man.
As the river curved and the tailwind improved, my speed gradually increased to 29 - 30 mph. I could certainly have pushed it up to 32 for a couple of miles there, but again I was afraid of those last four miles of headwind, so I kept it in the 53 x 14. That was probably a mistake. As the road continued its curve to the right the tailwind turned into crosswind, and then rather suddenly my speed started to fall and the real battle began.
I detoured around a dead Red Fox, and moments later a Kingsnake slithered across the road right in front of me. Is that bad luck? With about four miles to go I was down to 24-25 mph, and my effort level was up to maybe 85%. I knew it would only get worse and as is usual for time trials, my motivation was somewhat lacking. Then with maybe two miles to go I hit this wide open section with no wind protection and before I knew it I was down to like 22 mph. Not good. I gradually got back up into the 23-24 mph range, but the damage was done. Those last couple of miles were pretty ugly. My time of 24:51 was way down on the list, somewhere around 16th. The fastest of the day was a 22:19. On the plus side, Brady did an excellent 23:12 which was 3rd fastest overall and Jorge wasn't too far behind with a 23:44 (8th). After everyone finished, a bunch of us went out and did another lap of the course, since nobody wanted to log a total of 10 miles for the day. I knew the results would take a while to finish, and I was right. Even after our 10 mile cool-down, we must have waited around another hour before all of the results were posted. I knew that Ricky, the CR for the race would be driving back to Monroe after the race, so I wanted to get the results file onto my flashdrive before he left so I could get them up on the website that evening.
I went out this morning for a ride along the river. The bike path was quite deserted. I guess one factor was the wind, but I'm sure the fact that it was the day after a great Jazz Fest weekend probably had something to do with it too. I swear, the wind was still just as strong as it had been on Saturday and I ended up riding as if was a recovery ride, even though I didn't really have anything from which to recover.
So now I'm two races behind on the LCCS points. Hopefully I'll be able to get that up to date tonight. The MS Gran Prix should be pretty easy since that's scored just on GC. These team time trials, however, with all kinds of mixed categories, will be a real pain.
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