Mt. Hood update

I haven’t quite done as well as planned so far.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’ve been sucking very much so.  On a scale of 1 to suck, I suck.  But not to get anyone in an upset mood after reading this post, I want to also let you know that I’m having a good time anyways.  Now, on to the sucking:

Wednesday:

My chain broke eight pedal strokes into the 3 mile prologue.  Snapped apart real good just like a bicycle chain isn’t supposed to.  I came down hard on my right pedal stroke and swerved jaggedly to a stop as my left quad rammed the pad of my aero bar.  The pad broke, so now it’s being held together with duck tape.  I got off the bike, yelled the f bomb loudly enough to let people around me know that I was indeed upset, and then handed my bike to the mechanic who had run up to me.  I gave him my bike and told him my chain was broken.  He said that he could see that and ran back down the hill to the pit stop.

Damn was he fast.  He took out the broken links, put a new link in, took the bike off the stand and stood on the pedal to snap the quick link into place in record time.  The record being of a made up criteria that I just invented, but you get the idea.  No?  You don’t?  Ok, well he fixed the chain so fast I hadn’t even finished yelling fuck.  He fixed that chain so fast it actually turned back time a quarter month into the past.  He fixed that chain so fast he had time to eat a really really big sandwich with grilled chicken, cheese, bacon, spinach, hummus, and salsa.  Yo’ momma so fat and stupid I saw her running after a garbage truck with a shopping list.  Oh, I’m getting side tracked a bit.  Back on topic.

I hopped back on the bike and did an all out effort to get a time of 7:52, which wasn’t too bad considering the circumstances.  I’d like to have known what my real time was because it might have been smokin.

Thursday:

My dad drove the support car for Chris and I and the Therapeutic Associates team and had a fun time listening to the radio chatter and speeding down the hill at 80 mph after us.  And it was a good thing he was there too, because on the second lap on the downhill section, I ran over a large chunk of gravel and got a front flat.  I grabbed a wheel from the car and caught back on without too much panic, but I’d have to say that was , unfortunately, the hardest part of my race.  I was feeling fine sitting in the pack all day despite the heat and the constant battle to stay near the front on the uphill section of the laps.  A break away went off on the first lap and got up to 4 minutes, and with a couple big teams without anyone in the three man break, everyone pretty much knew the break wasn’t going to last.

Bissell put in the final dig to bring back the break with about 10k to go in the 85 mile race.  The pace stayed consistent with the other four times up the hill, and I didn’t make an effort to move forward coming into the final 5km climb.  I started maybe 60 or 70 back, and immediately realized my mistake when I got a glimpse of the front of the peleton sprinting up the hill as they rounded the first corner of the finish climb.  I frantically started passing people and bridging gaps as the strung out pack disintegrated.  A few kilometers into the hill, with about 3k to go, I gave up.  The lead group was now out of sight and there was no hope of catching it.  I rode tempo for the rest of the way up, pissed that to have made such a stupid tactical error, and already planning my vengance on Saturday’s road race.  But even though I sucked yesterday, I did manage to move out of 101st place and up to 50th.

Today.  Friday.

I have never ridden a good time trial, so today I wanted to change that.  I did not.  I rode probably a sub par TT, although I don’t know the results.  I did the 18 mile course in 49 minutes.  The wind was insane to the point of being in and/or around the membrane.  That’s from a song in case you didn’t catch on.

The wind was gusting so much that I rode a good portion of the corners and the downhill in my drops instead of my aero bars.  My front wheel was vibrating and shaking like a gasping fish and I gripped on for dear life.  Well it wasn’t that scary I guess.  I only peed myself a little, but not very much.

Basically I went way to slow on the decent and flat.  I noticed that during these times my breathing was way too relaxed.  I did manage to push it hard on the hills though, and passed one guy with 3k to go, but then he passed me back going downhill somehow.  Stupid guy.  Didn’t know his place.

Tomorrow is the final road race and sunday is the crit.