It's no secret that I can't time trial my way out of a wet paper bag.. and that I do not count climbing hills as one of my strengths. Therefore, what better way to improve than by doing a hilly time trial? The Scituate Reservoir course takes you on a roller coaster ride of about 14.3 miles. There are 5 notable hills, and if I had to guess, this course has about 900-1000 feet of elevation gain per lap. The longest hill is 1 mile, though only the first half is what you would rate as steep. The rest of the hills are about a kilometer or less, and more like punchy rollers than hills. I rode there with backpack because I wanted to wear my skinsuit. Other than that, I was pretty much cannibal with my heavy Powertap rear wheel, though I did at least use my light Easton front wheel. No aero bars or helmet, no disk or shoe covers. There were about 15 triathletes there and 2-3 road guys, including a totally cannibal A.B., with long frame pump, saddle bag and all. Said A.B smoked everyone, including the fastest triathlete with TT bike and disk wheel etc.. That's another story. I called it at the start and it was as predicted.
At any rate.. I was slotted in to go 2nd to last, with the winner of past weeks starting right behind me. Long story short: I had one of the best 1/2 way splits, and I paid a price for it. I went out a bit too fast. I sprinted over the first three climbs in my big ring.. My 30 second follower caught me in my 19th minute at about the 1/2 way point and put another 3 minutes into me by the finish. This is a pretty clear indication that I fell apart like a Chinese motorcycle once we made the turn onto Route 12 approaching the last 2 climbs.. Along the way- yeah I caught and passed about 6-7 people. My time of just a hair over 40:00 is probably good enough for 5th or 6th.. whatever. It was my first try and these guys have been doing this for the past 5-6 weeks. The real objective of this TT was to get some decent data on the power meter, and from the normalized power numbers it's evident that I should definitely stick to sprinting and criteriums, but in fairness, I am down about 3 kg and the power relative to weight is actually more impressive than it looks. Will I go back next week? Maybe I'll decide after the taste of puke dissipates. That was hard. I rode another 160 minutes afterwards for a nice solid 4 hour workout.
Here is a link to past results, tonight's will be up in a couple of days. I can tell you that tonight's winning time was in the neighborhood of 35:30. The time trial starts at 6:00 on Tuesdays and the meeting place is "crazy corners" in Scituate, intersection of route 14 and 102. Most people drive there- parking is ample. It's a great bunch of guys and gals and everyone made me feel very welcome. Try it!
Thanks for reading.
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