Shayne
Thought I'd write a quick report and tell you about our first racing experience. My stoker is my 8 year old daughter Haley. The race was a 10 mile time trial. Here's a link with some info on the race:
http://www.teamipro.com/Time%20Trial%20info.htm
The course was nicely laid out and there were no stop signs. A few stretches had some rough pavement
but overall it wasn't bad. About mile 3 there is a really nasty hill that is very steep. Luckily the hill is only about an eighth of a mile long. But still, going up a hill on a 40 lb bike at 6 mph isn't what you want on a TT.
The course is open to traffic, however these are back roads. There were workers with flags at every corner and a pretty nice police presence.
I pre-road the course twice, solo last Tue. and with Haley on Thur. Both times we went out cold with no warm-up. On Tue. I did it in 30:24 and on Thur. it took us 34:20. The hill just kills us. So, based on our practice runs and the fact that I can't be bombing through corners with Haley on the bike, we set a goal of 32:00.
Yesterday, race morning, it was cold when we showed up at 7:45, about 48 degrees. It was really tough trying to warm up because our hands were freezing. First bike off was at 8:30 with a rider off every 60 sec. We were to be 36th rider off. We watched some bikes go off and rode around some, but we only had 3 miles in when it was our turn. It was our choice to use a holder or just go off on our own. Since the racers were all using holders we thought we'd use one also. That's kinda weird being clipped in with someone holding you up, swaying back and forth. The starter counts down 5 4 3 2 1 GO! The holder just lets go and your on your own. We had practiced going from a 1 mph roll the day before. So we had just the right gear and with Haley standing we were over 20 mph very quickly. Later on, several racers complimented us on our great start.
We gave everything we had on that 10 mile course. At least I did :). Haley did awesome. At mile 9 I thought I was totally done, but somehow I dug down deep and was still maintaining 23 mph across the line. The people standing at the finish were cheering the riders in and Haley enjoyed that.
So, how did we do? Here's the numbers:
Time 31.35
Avg. spd. 19.00
Avg. heart rate 172
Max heart rate 186
Turns out that we won 1st in the tandem class!! OK so we were the only tandem there. One of the officials pulled me aside to make sure we could stay for the awards because we would get a trophy. I didn't say anything to Haley other than we need to stay a cheer for the really fast riders, because they had worked so hard to get that good. They saved the tandem class for last, and when they called our names and time, Haley snapped around and looked at me with a big surprise on her face. I told her to go get the trophy and as she stepped up on the stage she got the biggest and loudest cheer of the day.
We'll most likely hit a few more TT's this summer as it's something that we both enjoyed. We learned quite a bit, such as next time we'll bring a trainer to warm-up on and we will not forget the water bottle at home, opps. If anyone has read this far and has any comments or suggestions please feel free to post.
Thanks for listening
Shayne
http://www.teamipro.com/Time%20Trial%20info.htm
The course was nicely laid out and there were no stop signs. A few stretches had some rough pavement
but overall it wasn't bad. About mile 3 there is a really nasty hill that is very steep. Luckily the hill is only about an eighth of a mile long. But still, going up a hill on a 40 lb bike at 6 mph isn't what you want on a TT.
The course is open to traffic, however these are back roads. There were workers with flags at every corner and a pretty nice police presence.
I pre-road the course twice, solo last Tue. and with Haley on Thur. Both times we went out cold with no warm-up. On Tue. I did it in 30:24 and on Thur. it took us 34:20. The hill just kills us. So, based on our practice runs and the fact that I can't be bombing through corners with Haley on the bike, we set a goal of 32:00.
Yesterday, race morning, it was cold when we showed up at 7:45, about 48 degrees. It was really tough trying to warm up because our hands were freezing. First bike off was at 8:30 with a rider off every 60 sec. We were to be 36th rider off. We watched some bikes go off and rode around some, but we only had 3 miles in when it was our turn. It was our choice to use a holder or just go off on our own. Since the racers were all using holders we thought we'd use one also. That's kinda weird being clipped in with someone holding you up, swaying back and forth. The starter counts down 5 4 3 2 1 GO! The holder just lets go and your on your own. We had practiced going from a 1 mph roll the day before. So we had just the right gear and with Haley standing we were over 20 mph very quickly. Later on, several racers complimented us on our great start.
We gave everything we had on that 10 mile course. At least I did :). Haley did awesome. At mile 9 I thought I was totally done, but somehow I dug down deep and was still maintaining 23 mph across the line. The people standing at the finish were cheering the riders in and Haley enjoyed that.
So, how did we do? Here's the numbers:
Time 31.35
Avg. spd. 19.00
Avg. heart rate 172
Max heart rate 186
Turns out that we won 1st in the tandem class!! OK so we were the only tandem there. One of the officials pulled me aside to make sure we could stay for the awards because we would get a trophy. I didn't say anything to Haley other than we need to stay a cheer for the really fast riders, because they had worked so hard to get that good. They saved the tandem class for last, and when they called our names and time, Haley snapped around and looked at me with a big surprise on her face. I told her to go get the trophy and as she stepped up on the stage she got the biggest and loudest cheer of the day.
We'll most likely hit a few more TT's this summer as it's something that we both enjoyed. We learned quite a bit, such as next time we'll bring a trainer to warm-up on and we will not forget the water bottle at home, opps. If anyone has read this far and has any comments or suggestions please feel free to post.
Thanks for listening
Shayne