Man, I'm glad that's over. The last 5 days included a few, 12+ hour days helping the new shop and getting ready for the ABD TT series finale, a drive back and forth to St. Louis, a 90 mile suffer fest in Hillsboro, a windy, rainy John Fraser Memorial TT, and throwing my back out somewhere along the line. But now the TT series has been wrapped up in style, Prairie Path Cycles Batavia is open for business, and I managed to get a couple of great race efforts in.
Most importantly, ABD members are the best — such good people. We packed Qi Yong's Mr. Samurai restaurant last Wednesday night for some great food. It was great having so many of us together. Then over the next few days everybody chipped in huge in to pull of the JFMTT: Brian Hildreth pulling late nights to catch up on the waterfall of registrations (325 people!), Susan P. and Big Tom setting up prizes, Alex Sharon chauffering me to Hillsboro while I plugged away on last-minute TT details in the passenger seat, and then all the volunteers on Sunday who braved "Wizard of Oz"-like conditions. I snapped a few photos over the last week that I'll try to get up to the ABD site tomorrow morning.
The Hillsboro race, as always, was b-r-u-t-a-l. Due to whatever I did to my back I hadn't ridden in three days and when I woke up on Saturday I couldn't stand up straight. I wasn't even going to race but told the team I'd go with the first move and they can play off of that. So, less than 5 miles in and 83 miles to go, the first move is: me, Bryce, Reid, Puffer, Jelly Belly pro Brian Dziewa, former Pro Brian Jensen, former Pro Andy Crater, Jensen's teammate and Jordan of IScorp. Oh boy... I just sat on policing things for the team and I still averaged 260 watts for the first two hours of the race. It was insane. After 40 miles or so everyone started attacking and blew apart. After an hour or so of being in the 3-man chase group we were caught and I finished out the race with the remnants of the field in order to get some miles back in my legs. Even after "pulling the ripcord" and riding it in, I still ended up averaging 240 watts for 4 hours. Props to teammate Schroetlin, whose lack of outdoor riding hasn't hindered him a bit. He was attacking like mad in the last hour to try and get away from a chase-happy field and finally put in a monster attack to shatter the will of all but a few guys.
The JFMTT, on the other hand, really wasn't too bad except for the wind. A 22 minute effort was nothing compared to Saturday, and riding it aboard the Trek TTX was a bonus. I'm not much of a TT guy, but that bike was fast and comfy and after I'd spent a couple of hours dialing things in, fit like a glove. My previous experience on TT bikes have been somewhat harsh, but not so on Sunday. Of course, having to focus more staying upright in the 30mph gusts and driving rain probably took a little bit of my attention from either the suffering or the bike.
Thanks for reading, gotta run.
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