Five days to go and ready to rock!

Just five more days until the 2008 Washington State Time Trial Championships and I am ready to go and fired up about my chances to achieve my goal of medalling in the Masters C field. Last night I averaged over 25 mph for a 15 mile training time trial on a slightly hillier course than the championships course in Tenino. I'm definitely feeling on form and riding fast. I've got a sexy and fast new Ritchey WCS deep section carbon front wheel to go with my rear disc so the bike is flying too.

These last few days before a targeted event for me are like waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus. I'm sure I'll be jumping out of my skin by Sunday morning. I'll do a couple of easy rides this week, try and get enough rest, and keep focusing on positive thoughts for this weekend's race. I'll let you know how it all works out.

Two weeks to go

Last time I wrote about my feelings about time trialling vs. road racing and said that if I could do only one it would be road racing. Despite that, I'm now two weeks away from, and very eagerly looking forward to, my biggest goal for the racing season. Last season, I finished 7th in the Masters C field at the Washington State TT Championships but found myself less than a minute out of the medals. During the off season, I set myself a goal of medalling at this year's TT championships. I spent time in the gym over the winter for the first time and have been working hard all year towards this goal. This season, I've been faster than ever in the time trials I've ridden, so it all seems to be working. I've got one more week of hard training and then I'll rest up for a few days and head for Tenino to see what I can do. It's the same course as last year so it will be easy to get a direct comparison to last year's effort. I'm sure I'm capable of going under an hour and if I do, I should be in good shape for my goal.

Two more weeks and hopefully I'll have to think of a new and improved goal. Stay tuned ............

The solo effort vs. the pack dynamic

I was chatting with a friend the other day and was telling him about how my weekend at the Methow Valley Tour had gone. I told him I'd had a good time trial but had been caught up in the crash in the road race and was therefore a little disappointed that I didn't get to find out how well I might have done without the crash. He replied, "That's why I like time trials, you're not relying on others to affect or not affect your chances." We talked a little more and it seemed that it wasn't only that he didn't like the idea of having his chances ruined by someone else's mistake, but he actually didn't enjoy figuring out the teamwork and tactics of the group.

It got me to thinking about what I enjoy in my racing. I enjoy time trialling, but largely because I'm pretty good at it and being a bike "geek", I enjoy all the specialized equipment and choices. Road racing is really what I enjoy though and for all those reasons that my friend didn't. I love trying to work and ride as a team. As a Cat 4, you don't see much of it and it's always rewarding when a few riders can manage to do it right and work together and achieve a good result. The tactical choices of racing in a group are a lot of fun to me as well. There is always that balance of watching out for yourself by conserving your energy vs. sharing in the work of the group which will benefit others while hoping that it will benefit yourself as well.

Time trialling is by definition a solitary pursuit. Even if you have friends or teammates at a given race, your race experience is unique to you. In a road race, there is a shared experience and a social element that is missing from the time trial. If something happens in a road race, or even outside of the race along the roadside, you and your teammates will all have a slightly different observation of it that will fuel the post-race discussions and memories. In a TT, you and your teammates may be many minutes apart on the road and other than the course characteristics or conditions, if you experience something unique or memorable during the ride, its yours alone and it won't mean much to your teammates who didn't experience it.

Because of the social element and shared experience of road racing, if I had to choose only one, I'd choose the pack dynamic over the solo effort.

Pro cycling seems blue

Watching the Tour de France this year I can't help but notice the proliferation of baby blue in the peloton. Milram, Gerolsteiner, AG2R, and now Columbia all feature large amounts of the color in their team kits. What really puzzles me is why Columbia would choose a color that is so close to Milram. If the purpose of the team kit is to be recognized and provide exposure to your sponsors, it would seem that being distinctive (within reason) would be a good goal for your design. It's important to have colors that are consistent with your sponsors image and corporate logos etc. but it seems to me that quite a few other colors would have fit that bill for Columbia and would have allowed their riders to stand out a little more clearly. Oh, well, at least the god awful bubble letter "High Road" logos are gone.