I have been wanting to do this small TT out in Piru for some time. I’ve never done a 40K TT and this particular race has always conflicted with other things. I finally found a weekend that fit and I headed out there to see what it was all about. Ashley came along as official photographer and we also met my long time friend Corey Neuer out there as well. Corey is a long time cyclist who is just getting back in the swing of things.
Late morning compared to triathlons…lol. First rider didn’t go off till 9am. After I signed up I found out my start time was 9:10. Riders would take off every minute. I headed back to the truck and unloaded the trainer to get it a warm up. I rode the trainer for about 20 minutes just to get the juices flowing.
Warmed up before the race
Did I mention that this was the maiden voyage of the new Shiv? Yup, that’s right! First ride out of the box is a 40K TT….LOL awesome!
After the warm up I headed over to the start and watched the procedure. This being my first time trial ever…first cycling race actually, I wanted to see how things went. Oh, but before that, Corey and I headed down the road for a small spin….
Short spin down the road
Corey, in fact, almost missed his start time and actually came rolling down the road just in time and rolled through the start and took off. He was 2 minutes ahead of me.
I waited for my time….
Waiting for the start
Finally, it was my turn….
My turn
I took off and the only thing I really knew not too do was go too hard. That didn’t work. I looked down at my power and it was off the charts. I had to reign it in otherwise risk a massive blow up. The ride was painful and rather uneventful. It’s just you, the road and the clock….The course is a 20K course that you do twice. It has a net elevation gain of about ~300ft for each 20K. Today, we had a pretty good head wind on the way out and a slight tail wind coming back. Conditions were pretty tough. The course is not fast by any means. You are always working. I came to the 30K point and saw that I was 15 seconds back from being on track to break 1 hour. I had to find it somewhere. I gave the last 10K everything I had but came up just a bit short. About 1 mile out, I really thought I had it, but it was not to be.
Giving it everything at the Line
My final time was 1:00:15 on an AP of 247 watts and a NP of 250. So close to breaking an hour on the first ride. I was really happy with my numbers though and my time. I’ll break that bitch next time. A skin suit, better job of attaching number and that barrier is coming down!
Corey and Iafter the race
Dusty Nabor 