Second Rt 29 Time Trial
I guess it is time I updated you on my recent race results. Last Wednesday was the second Rt. 29 time trial on the same Frenchtown NJ course. The good news was that I didn’t flat this time. The bad news is I didn’t do quite as well as I projected from my first week.
I got a late start from work on Wednesday. This combined with heavy traffic in several rain showers in Bucks County shortened my warmup to less than 20 minutes.
I rolled up to the line and started ok. I took a teammates advise ( based on Powertap data from the previous week) and tried to limit my power output in the first 5 minutes. After 4 minutes or so, I was feeling uncomfortable with my cadence. Initially, I thought this was warmup related but finally I decided to shift to a higher gear. Looking at the computer data after the race I was in too low a gear (cadence over 110 rpm). After shifting I was more comfortable at 90’s rpm. I certainly lost some time in these first few minutes.
Half way through the TT the rain hit with heavy downpours from local thunderstorms. Most riders caught in the second half of the race were slower than last week.
Finally at about 20 minutes in, I was confused by spectators sitting at on of the parks. Thinking this was the finish, I let up and lost a few seconds until I noticed the time and realized I still had 4 or 5 minutes to go! Dumb mental error!!
My finish time was 25′ 01″ for 43 overall (out 77 starters). Not considering everything including dumb errors.
Posted: June 27th, 2005 under Bicycle Racing.