Okay, the first race of the season is in the books. I did some things right, some things okay, and some things stupid.
20 km TT in the morning. I got there in plenty of time, warmed up on the course, and rolled around for a few minutes before I was called to the line. This went almost perfectly according to plan. I went out a little hotter than I planned, then figured I'd leave it there and see what happened. I ended up fading a bit (7 watts, I think) by the end of the course. My time of 35:10 was good for 9/13 in Cat 5. I rode my road bike. My teammate (who's bigger than I am) put up the same power I did for the course and beat me by 40 seconds on his TT bike. I think that's what's called a
clue. The only other 20 km TT I've done was the one for the Senior Olympics last September and I improved my time by 1:50 on a similar course.
The crit was a different story. I was there in plenty of time, did a decent warmup on the course, which let me figure out the lines for my corners, and got to the line in time to place myself in front. When the start came, I pushed down on the right pedal, swung the left up to clip in and missed...and missed again...and missed again...and missed again...and missed again, and finally caught it. By then the other 16 guys had streamed by (only 17 total in the Cat 5 crit) and I was pretty much screwed. I pushed hard and got within about 15 meters of the group and stayed there for about two laps until the string stretched, then broke. I commenced my second TT of the day.
I had refined my cornering to the point where I wasn't slowing for them, including the one 120 degree one, when the group caught me about 2/3 of the way through. I latched back on - sweet relief! - and came up to the next corner only to have to hit the brakes, then do a hard acceleration. A bunch of non-cornering mutha...well, never mind about that. I lasted about two laps like that; my legs were too fried to deal with the constant accelerations. A couple of guys popped off the back; I worked with one for a while until he pulled himself, the other guy I just passed (he finished). I ended up 15/16.
I learned more from the crit than from the TT. The most noteworthy is that not all PRs - five tries to clip in! - are good things. I know that had I not screwed that up, staying with those guys would've been no problem, and I'm guessing I would've been towards the front due to the difference in cornering skills. All the time I spent grinding through the valve covers on my BMW R90/6, flipping them over, then replacing them when I ground through the other side hasn't been forgotten, though three decades have passed. I learned that I couldn't imagine pulling myself.
One cool sight - one of the guys was riding a late 80s (?) black Paramount, complete with downtube shifters.
However slightly, the needle has moved off the DFL peg.