I rolled out of bed in the dark around 5:15 am and stumbled down to the basement to load up the station wagon with race equipment for the morning's LAMBRA Time Trial Championships. I stepped out the door and immediately noticed that the air was cooler and dryer than normal for this time of year. The night before I'd bolted on the clip-on aero-bars, thus effectively converting the Orbea into a Time Trial bike. I'd also removed the water bottle cages, just for the psychological benefit. I arrived at the race venue, aka the Swamp Tours parking lot, near LaPlace around 6:15 and immediately sprayed myself with mosquito repellent. I then unloaded the car, setting up the pop-up tent for registration, then running down to the start line to put up the race clock. A bit farther down the road I planted the big finish line flag at the big "40K" mark on the asphalt. By then a bunch of the NBO guys, who were in charge of the event, had arrived. Since pre-registration was required for this event, everything went smoothly, although there were a couple of people who had missed the registration deadline. The promoter wasn't about to open the door on exceptions, so there were two riders who just rode exhibition time trials and weren't scored.
So once things were under control and the Chief Referee, Adam, had arrived, I pulled the bike down from the roof and got in a little warmup. There was a moderate wind blowing out of the north, which on this course meant it would probably be a long way to the turnaround. After all of the stressing about the LAMBRA equipment, registration, results spreadsheets, etc., it was a relief to finally be thinking only about the impending 40 km of solitude and suffering. As usual, I was only about half-primed for this time trial. For one thing, I've rarely found them to be a lot of fun. For another, I think I'd need a few thousand dollars worth of new equipment in order to feel like I was on a level playing field. Even so, one can at least take some satisfaction in simply putting up a respectable time on a regular bike.
Eddie counted me down as I balanced at the starting line. At five to go I started the stopwatch on the computer. At one to go I grabbed the brake and stood up, and at "go" I powered away from the line, staying out of the saddle until I was up to 26 or 27 mph. A couple of downshifts later I settled into the aero bars as my breathing went into "gasping" territory. I could feel the headwind immediately and knew my current speed was unsustainable. Up the road I could see Tom H., my minute man. Over the next few miles my speed gradually dropped down until it finally stabilized at 24-25 mph when things were good. Every now and then I'd lose my focus and find myself down to 22 mph, requiring an effort to get back up to 24. Riding into an unsteady headwind, it was important to maintain an aero position and smooth pedal stroke, and although I felt I was being successful at that, I was still disappointed with my speed. I knew that I'd need to be seeing at least 27 mph all the way back just to go sub-hour.
The turnaround finally came and I rounded the pylon reasonably well. I'd already passed a couple of riders and could tell I'd made up some time on my minute man. As usual, the tailwind was a bit less of a relief than I'd hoped. It was also rather inconsistent. For the most part I was seeing 27 and 28 mph, with occasional stretches at 29 -30. Tom offered some encouragement when I passed him around halfway back, and by then I was really starting to hurt. The last five miles were a struggle and my speed was fluctuating a lot depending on the momentary status of my motivation. Finally I could see the finish about a kilometer away and started to gradually ramp it up, crossing the line at around 30 mph for a time of 58:33 and a mediocre but respectable average speed of around 25.5 mph. It was only the 18th fastest time of the day, but still good enough for first place in the 55-59 age group.
As soon as I got back to the results table I was told that my laptop had gone into hibernate mode and couldn't be revived. I took a look at it and for a minute was confused as to why it wouldn't power back up. That was until I looked down and saw that the power strip it was plugged into was in the 'off' position. Then, after entering the first batch of times and successfully printing out some of the results, the printer and laptop stopped communicating for some unknown reason. We were never able to get them to talk to each other again and had to resort to pen on paper for most of the results. Woody plugged his camera into my laptop after I finished the results and those photos, taken by his wife, I assume, are on the NOBC website. They're all kind of blurry for some reason. You really need to give some cameras a little while to finish auto-focusing. So the time trial event was a success with a good turnout of about 100 riders, and a really good turnout from the club.
Today was another Jury Duty day and sure enough I got called up to be on a jury again. Luckily I was once again rejected. I guess I'll never know if it was because I knew one of the defense attorneys. Anyway, it was about 3 pm before I made it back to the office. Tomorrow I have a big Board of Regents Support Fund meeting up in Baton Rouge, but luckily it isn't until early afternoon, so I'll be able to get in the usual long Tuesday ride. I have to admit that I was really happy to be removing the aero bars from the bike for the last time this season!
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