Drafting and Dropping

Team TT Start

The past couple of weeks have been a little more than just hot and humid. You know those morning rides where sweat is already dripping onto your top tube and into your glasses before the sun gets above the horizon? Those rides where you get home absolutely soaked in sweat and walk into the freezing cold air-conditioned house that's really only at 75F, down a quart of whatever cold liquid comes first to hand, and then you shower and the sweat washing down from your hair stings your eyes and the bottom of the tub is covered with a fine black grit that the water washed from the fronts of your legs? It's been like that. Every day.

So a couple of weekends ago we had the LAMBRA Team TT championship over around Vacherie, LA, which is on the south side of the Mississippi River, not far from New Orleans, where it runs mainly east to west. We've had the TTT there for a few years now, using a nicely paved highway for the 30 mile event. I was riding with teammates Pat, Steve and Rick this year, and Steve had brought along a Zipp 440/880 wheelset for me to use. Although I was the only one not on a TT bike, the combination of those wheels, my clip-on aero bars, and my TT helmet probably got me pretty close anyway.  There was a light to moderate wind blowing and we figured we'd have a mile or two of tailwind before the road turned and it became more of a crosswind. As it turned out, the wind wasn't nearly as much of a factor as I'd expected. We started out smoothly, determined not to overcook ourselves until everyone was settled in. Steve and I were the shortest riders, Pat the tallest. I think this comparison of Pat's heart rate data with mine kind of tells the whole story.

You can see how I would take my pulls at around 170 bpm, dropping down when I was back in the draft to around 145 in the beginning when we were taking longer pulls, or 155-160 later in the ride when we were taking shorter pulls and had more of a headwind. Pat, on the other hand, was getting barely any recovery at all with a heart rate consistently in the 175-185 range. Huge difference. I felt pretty good the whole time. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something to this whole "aero" wheel thing. Pat, on the other hand, suffered the whole time. Anyway, we posted a respectable time at an average speed of 26.2 mph, which still put us last in the 40+ category. Meanwhile out on that same hot ribbon of asphalt through the sugarcane fields, the Palmer Cycling team was head-down, drooling, killing it on the way to setting a new course record with an average speed of over 30 mph.  Our max speed had been 30.2 mph.

Thibodaux Criterium (Shannon Atkinson photo)

The next day was a criterium in Thibodaux on a very tight 8-corner course. For the second or third time this year I fumbled badly clipping my left foot in and was basically off the back by the first turn. With a number of the Palmer Cycling masters, plus the Acadiana guys, the first few laps were, unfortunately for me, very fast. I was in chase mode for most of the first lap, finally getting up to the tail end of the long strung-out group and hoping for a little chance to recover, but I was not to be so lucky. The last rider in the line was taking the corners way too slowly and opening gaps on every one. There were few opportunities for me to move up past him, and I was still so gassed from chasing that I wasn't willing to try anyway. Then he started to blow up and motioned me to come around, but of course by then there was a huge gap in front of us, so I was in full-on chase mode again for half a lap. I was completely toasted when I finally got close, and the pace still hadn't eased as I came into one of the turns a little too hot and had to tap the brakes.

Packing up (Shannon Atkinson photo)

Well, that was it.  That little gap was just more than I was willing to deal with, so I backed off and figured I'd let myself recover, get lapped, and sit on the back of the group.  That worked out fine, so at least I got my exercise even if my placing was DFL. It was pretty frustrating, actually, since I really liked the course and was feeling quite good despite the prior day's team time trial effort, but I just can't do those back-to-back maximum efforts any more without a lot of recovery time in-between.

After a fairly solid week of riding, I headed out to the Saturday Giro with Danielle who was back in town. There was a pretty big group, and omniously a number of TT bikes, but even so, I was surprised to see a small group already fifteen seconds ahead of us as we were rolling out on Lakeshore Drive. That part is usually neutral, but that day we were barly keeping up at 23 mph and ended up chasing to bring it all back together.  There was a pretty strong tailwind, so I knew things would get even faster, but once we hit Hayne Blvd. I got stuck behind someone who let a big gap open. By the time I finally went around, it was too late.  I think I hit 34 mph trying to close the gap, but it was clearly not working, so I got together with a couple of riders who had come off the front group and we took the Bullard short-cut, meeting back up with the group on Chef Highway.  The return trip had a pretty strong headwind, but the pace stayed pretty fast anyway, so by the time I got home I felt like I'd been ridden hard and put up wet.

Hazy Tuesday morning out on the lakefront bike path

Sunday's Giro was smaller but the tailwind and the TT bikes made the pace really fast on Hayne Blvd. I was sitting in what I thought was the front group and breathing hard at 31 mph when I decided I'd had enough and pulled over to drop back to the pack.  When I looked back, however, all I saw was empty road. I think some riders  had taken the Bullard short-cut, and maybe some others had turned back or were so far behind I couldn't see them, but whatever the reason I was on my own. I eventually caught up with Adrian, and then Rich caught us after having taken the short-cut, so we had a nice little paceline down Chef Highway until we turned around near the far end to merge back into the group. It was another long, hot ride. I spent a couple of hours out in the sun cutting down a little tree on the fenceline when I got home.

This week's morning rides have been fairly tame for some reason. I rode out on the river levee bike path on Monday, meeting up with Mignon for some of it, and then the Tuesday morning ride was fairly steady for a change. This morning's WeMoRi was missing a few of the usual breakaway artists, so when I met up with it everyone was still together and the pace never got all that terribly fast.