This morning the mighty SDBC category 4/5 team headed out to Fiesta Island to do some team time trial practice. With a team time trial coming up on the island in September, it's time to start preparing. There were a couple goals today:
1. Get comfortable riding close together. Riding in a tight pace-line when using aerobars is fairly dangerous. When you're stretched out you don't have any brakes at your fingers like you would on a road bike. If you want to slow down on the TT bike you've got to move your hands out to your wide bars, so your reaction time is time delayed a second or so.
2. Figure out how we want to divide our group of 12 guys into teams of 4.
Last season I planned to participate in the team TT. Obviously my accident sort of got in the way of me taking part. This season I feel like the time trial is going to fit right into the sweetspot of where I'm at with my training. I'm riding great on longer threshold rides on flat ground.
As it turns out, I'm not only feeling good about my ability to time trial, I am time trialing well. Our agreed method for determining team combinations for the time trial was to do a short individual time trial around the island. For those who know the course, we did a short lap, rather than the long way around. My time for one lap was 4 minutes 39 seconds; which was the best time of the day. Very few people even beat 5 minutes.
Now that I know who I'll be riding with, the goal will be to start practicing as a team of 4 every week or two such that we can start working like a well oiled machine. The time trial itself will be 40k and should take less than an hour to complete. Team work will play a huge role in the success or failure of any team. Being able to work as a cohesive unit, keep the speed consistent, and ensure that the entire team stays fresh is key.
So things are definitely coming together well. Next Sunday I'm going to race the Ladera Ranch Criterium. I'm going to be approaching this one with the intent of winning. We'll see how it turns out.
1 comment:
Eric, very cool that you maintain a record too….
Since I started writing I have found that MANY people do write and keep records of their adventures….
BTW, dont know what happened to you (other than you messed up your hip pretty bad), but with time everything comes back to normal man. The only limiting factor is the mind. That is the great advantage that professional and gifted athletes have, they have learned to believe that they can do it AND execute it. Not saying we are mentally weak, just we dont have enough time to practice the skill…
Keep on writing. I will be checking.
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