Posted by Dan on 28. June 2010 17:59
July is right around the corner and that means le Tour kicks off next weekend. The coolest thing about this year's tour is that I'll be there. I'll be on the Champs Elysées come the finale, too. Vacation of a lifetime and I'm ready to go. But before our flight leaves, I have a few races to knock out. Then I can pack up the bike and research my routes.
Saturday was Virginia Beach Wheelmen's Smithfield HAMmer Fest Two-Man Team Time Trial. I'd enlisted teammate John Lomogda to ride with me in the 2-man men's open category on the condition that we could get an early start time so he could make an early afternoon wedding. Joshua Goyet hooked us up with a 10:02 AM start time - second team off the line for the day. So far so good.
John and I had every intention of getting together sometime during the week and getting some miles in, practicing drafting in the aero position, timing and rotation. Unfortunately, preparing the office for a month-long absence took a lot longer than I thought so we missed our practice ride. Instead, we met up in Smithfield at 7:30 and got in a good practice ride before a more focused warm-up. After riding the first 5 miles or so, we both had a pretty good idea of how it'd go with the understanding we'd let it evolve as necessary.
We took off at 10:02, one minute after the first team. We quickly settled into a comfortable rotation schedule and were fully prepared to give it hell in "every man for himself" fashion should Dogzilla make another appearance. This quivering, snarling white-hot ball of canine terror launched out of his yard to greet us on our pre-ride so the pucker factor was slightly elevated. He was a no-show at game time and we moved on. With a polite "on your left" per their request, we overtook the first team and set out on our own, now further into the course than we'd made it during our earlier ride.
Long story short, we started passing riders going the other way. We followed the cones around a corner and met Joshua and the Chief Ref who told us we'd missed a turn. There'd been cones marking what appeared to be a left-hand turn so we did that. It turns out there was an arrow painted on the ground instructing us to go straight while the cones were there to direct returning riders through the right-hand turn that would point them to the finish line. We arrived at the intersection sooner than expected and beat the corner marshal by what sounded like less than a minute. After stopping to get the details of our mistake, then stopping again to chat with another corner marshal experiencing a bit of frustration of her own, we tucked in and finished our training ride, completing the entire course, albeit backward, in 1:06:57. Very disappointing. We were flying and John informed me he had plenty of juice in reserve for the last 20 minutes.
John on the home strech.
Me on the home stretch.
We'll be giving the TTT another shot come Church Creek in a few months and you KNOW we've got a score to settle with the Smithfield course next year.
Part 2 of this exciting weekend.