Thomas Domonic of Color Me Safe Racing (a Cat2) and I hooked up for this 2-man Time Trial hosted by WWW.SUMMITFREEWHEELERS.ORG The race was very short at 7.45 miles (I had 8 miles on my odometer and have read others had 7.85) with 5 flat fast miles then a fast turn onto Truxell road and then steadily uphill and rolling uphill to the finish.
Warm-up went well and I finally remembered to bring my trainer and stayed warm till our start time. Ahead of us were about 6 teams consisting of 2-man teams (on seperate bicycles)and Tandems and one team behind us. The Spin team DNS's due to tire problems.
Technically we didnt use any aero equipment, except I wore a skinsuit and td stayed in a tight undershirt. I also taped over my watts on my bike computer and forgot my heart rate strap, not that I care about HR over such a short distance. It worked out great too-more on that later..
We rolled off with td taking the lead. What an idiot I am-I rolled out in my small ring, but I got it sorted and we were off. We decided on longer pulls and just come around when your rested or pull off when your tired. td is in my mind one of the best riders in the area soI knew it would go smooth. td said he wasnt feeling his best afterwards, but he was still pulling at 27mph and then I'd take my turns and as soon as he was in my small draft I would try and step it up and usualy had it about 29 to 30. Its funny when I guy doesnt have his best day-but can still pull at 27 to 28mph!!
Unfortunately I left td to pull the rollers so I started to make shorter pulls on rollers and let momentum take me past. The first 5 miles flew by in my mind and we averaged 27.5mph and I averaged 271 watts. We made the fast turn onto Truxell where the pavement was brand new and we immediately could feel the uphill, though gradual starting to slow us down. There were actually some pretty steep short rollers on truxell and I started to pump up them knwoing that we only had about 1 mile to go.
I gapped td a bit over one of them and soft pedaled a short bit and we were back together. 7.45 miles went by and no sign of the finish. Luckily I still felt great and just kept hammering while td came by over the last roller and the finish was in sight. td was pulling hard now and I sprinted to get along side at the line so wed maximize our time.
The last 3 miles uphill we still averaged 21.9mph and 315 watts. We crossed the tape with the fastest 2-person team time of 19:29 and 25.0 mph. The only one faster was a Tandem team and they clocked in at 19.25 seconds...only 4 seconds! The course record was set in 1997 by Rudy Sroka in 19:08 (solo) so I think our time was very respectable and if I am not mistaken, this was the first 2-man TT event so maybe td and I hold the course record (for now) for a 2-person team?
My only question is the course distance. Were previous records set at a distnace of 7.45 miles and if so-we crossed the 7.45 mile marker in under 18 minutes. But I would assume the start finish have not changed and its just the difference in odometers.
I also equalled or improved some of my best average power figures from 5-minutes to 20 minutes without using Power or HR so even though this was a 2-man effort, I still think I went very well on percieved exertion. I looked at only speed and distance on my computer. I was averaging about 300 to 318 watts on my pulls on AP road so exceeding my FTP a bit, but considering there is coming out of the draft to pull which spikes the power a bit-I 'd say I was about perfect. A bit high is okay because one,you get a short rest in the draft and two the race was very short.
Anyways, its always fun to win and although we didnt win the Fastest Time of Day, we were still very fast tonight. Thanks td!!
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