MEA's Beat the Clock Time Trial Report - May 24, 2008

The very end of April I got my dream time trial bike – 2008 Orbea Ordu (named “Wicked”). The month of May I have been getting in some practice sessions and getting used to riding on the aerobars and gradually feeling more comfortable and confident with the speed and being able to use my power in the TT position. I never rode a TT bike before and even little things like shifting took some time to adjust to (e.g., until I got my arm and hand position correct I had to lift my elbow up to get enough leverage to shift – it is all so different from riding my Orbea Orca road bike). Saturday May 24th was the Beat the Clock time trial on Canada Road and time to put Wicked (and me) to the test. The time trial series is a fund raising event for the Lance Armstrong Foundation http://www.scaledup.com/beattheclock/. There were 100 entries (registration closed at 100 entries) consisting of individual men, women, teams and tandems going out at one minute intervals. Rich was also doing the individual TT and we both had early start times because we were going to then follow up with doing the TT on the tandem. Rich had a 7:01 start time and I had a 7:04 start time; tandem start time was 8:38. The weather was “iffy” with drizzle and wet roads on the drive to the start; temperature was fine in the low 50’s. Fortunately, the roads were dry on the course with overcast skies. The winds were moderate in the early morning and were noticeably stronger later when we did the tandem TT. My individual time for the 9.7 mile course was 27:11 (7th out of the 19 women finishers with aero). The course is an out and back with 400 feet of elevation gained.

I was really happy with my result considering (1) my first TT on a TT bike; (2) I beat numerous Cat 1/2/3 women racers; and (3) with one exception, the women who had better times were pros or Cat 1/2 (e.g., a 21 year-old Cat 2 racer beat me by 13 seconds). I am a Cat 4. The winning woman’s time was 23:36 by Kathryn Curi Matthis (pro Webcor Builders team). I am totally psyched for the upcoming TTs including the Northern California district championships at Sattley in a couple weeks.