Colorado Season Openers

This weekend marked the first weekend of racing in Colorado.  It opened with the Frostbite Time Trial in Buckeye on Saturday and a training crit across from IBM in Boulder on Sunday.  I did both a learned some lessons a long the way!

Frostbite Time Trial:  Nothing beats a longer drive than you could ever want for a 11.2mi time trial, but I arrived without about an hour and a half to spare.  Just enough time to check-in, find the start/finish and get in a good warm-up.  I started at 11:07 and, let me tell you, the wind was like nothing I’ve ridden in before.  I actually felt bad for those that were using disc wheels.

The ride overall went very well with two notable exceptions.  The first, for some reason, I couldn’t shift into my largest gear on my cassette.  Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem except for the tail wind.  I averaged just over 32.5 mph for the first half of the ride and not being able to shift into the large cog probably cost me several seconds.  The second issue, I underestimated my speed going into the turnaround and completely over shot it.  I KNOW that I lost at least 10 seconds here, which would have made a huge difference.

The outcome?  A decent 7th place overall; only 10 seconds out of 4th.  The guys that got the first two spot, they were total sand baggers.  They had times that would rival the P12 crowd, actually one of them won overall with his time.  As far as I’m concerned I got 5th and should have had an easy 2nd if I hadn’t overshot the turnaround at 35mph.

The Training Crit:  This day should have been mine.  Once again, I show up about an hour early, get a warm-up in and check-in.  Everything’s going great and we roll up to the start line, I’m in the second row.

The gun goes off and the guy in front of me has trouble clipping in so I end up 30 or so riders back.  “No problems”, I think to myself, “I’ve got 40min to get to the front.”  Everything was grand, I waited until around minute 27 to make my move.  I bridged up to the breakaway and just sat on.  The breakaway was soon caught after a decent chase and I decided that this was my moment to make this really hurt.  My plan was to take the far inside corner with a ton of speed and attack.  The peloton was starting to get soft and I figured after the latest chase, I would be allowed to go.  Wrong!  I blew my tube right after getting through the corner and my race was over.  There was a small lip in the road that was responsible for this.  In my genius, I didn’t bring and extra wheel so I had to pull with around 10 minutes remaining.

All in all, it was a good first weekend of racing.  A lot of mistakes were made, but that’s what training races are all about.  I felt good and once I get some of the small stuff taken care of, I’ll be ready to rock.