Archive for May 2009
Not so scientific testing
A few weeks ago at the Saltair TT a friend gave me some ribbing about my tire choice. Since I know he’s up-to-date on the latest and greatest I took some advice. I have been struggling with the time trial for a few years now. I pretty much ride the bike at Saltair and at the few stage races that have TT’s during the year. It’s been quite a few years since I approached the discipline seriously and I know it would make a difference, but I have posted decent times and have just not found the big motivation.
I peeled off the old offending tires and glued up Vittoria Corsa CX 21′s. If you’ve ever ridden these tires you know they have a great ride. Apparently these bad boys were going to save me 20-23 watts. That sounded pretty good. The only problem was I didn’t get a new glued to the disc and the tire on that is crap. So when I got things rolling out at the Saltair this past Thursday I decided to go without the disc and roll the 66′s with the new Vittorias. I ended up posting a 14:22, the same time I posted 2 weeks prior with a 66/disc combo and crappy tires. I’m going to get the Vittoria glued on the disc this week so I can rip the State Champ TT…well, maybe finish 4th.
On a non-testing note, always pin #13 upside down! Previously when I’ve worn #13 I’ve had good luck. Yesterday at Garden Creek Gap it didn’t go so well. I told Lori that #13 is lucky for me. I should have just pinned it upside down and been done with it. The second time up the climb I was feeling great and actually made it with a split of 9 or 10 with the Krieg drilling things on the front. We’re going along and out of nowhere Booth and Hageman were hitting the deck and I was locked up skidding into Booth. I flew over the handlebars and was headed for a landing on my left shoulder (broken collarbone from last CX season). Somehow I barely scuffed the elbox and landed hard on the scapula. Not too bad. The bike took a few to get rolling again and I had the pleasure of chasing for 20 miles until I caught the group about 2 miles from the climb. Fortunately Jesse the Body was up in the break and he finished things up in 3rd.
To stress me out more, when I crossed the finish line someone told me that Lori had crashed badly and was ripped up. What?!?!?! I tracked her down to find out that she had been taken down on the final climb of her race. She said she felt great all day and was ready for the finale smackdown. Bummer. I think we got all the previous #13 luck in one day. The good news is we’ve had some great training leading up to Masters Nationals at the end of June and neither of us were hurt badly and the bikes are OK.
