I woke up to find some dark skies and hard blowing winds outside. It was going to be a tough day for the flat out and back TT. The course is just about 15 miles away, but I still drove there since the wind would have been at my nose the whole way there had I of ridden. A quick warm-up felt pretty good and I was ready to go. As I was rolling to the start area some guy riding a spaceship-like TT machine says, “Hey your seatbag!” “Oh yeah,” I reply as I spin back to the car to shed my tools along with my frame pump.
Without these un-necessaries I was in full-on TT mode, as much as a MTB Pro can be… Of course I was the only guy on a full stock road setup, but that didn’t prevent me from placing sixth in the pancake flat, 20k event. Even with fancy equipment no one put too much time into me and since the weekend is based off of points rather than time, I’m still in pretty good shape for the GC.
Yesterday I drove out to the road course and found it to be a real gem. The first twelve minutes is all uphill at five percent or more; sweet. A section of rollers goes for a couple of minutes before there’s a ripping fast downhill for about ten minutes. This is followed by a flat section that lasts for about fifteen minutes. Finally there’s a six or seven minute stretch to the line that’s at about three percent gradient the whole way. Apparently last year some MTB racer took off from the start and soloed the whole day for the win. We do three laps which works out to about 48 miles, so the thought of pinning it from the gun sounds enticing… You’ll have to check back tomorrow evening to see what unfolds. Good luck to everyone racing the Oxbow back home. Keep it real. -TJ
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