|
SO WHAT'S THE POINT? THE CURTAIN DROPS ON THE NEVER ENDING 2007 SEASON Despite my plans and previous assertions and promises to The Lovely Kathy, the 2007 season didn't end with the big win in Grand Rapids. I laid low for a week then I decided it would be at very least a venial sin to sit on the form I'd been enjoying in August and September. Thus, on Sept 21st I drove my sedan to Hooterville and registered for the night at the Cloverdale Motel 6. It's the nicest hotel in town and there is a KFC in the adjacent parking lot. My ultimate destination was the Monrovia TT on Sept 22. After a sumptuous yet nutritious meal at the KFC all you can eat buffet I returned to my clean comfortable room and retired for the evening. The cell phone alarm woke me at 5:30 a.m. Hooterville time. It was 4:30 by my Central Standard body clock. Luckily I had set myself to sleep with muscle relaxants and vodka. By 8:30 p.m. Hooterville time I was out cold. I woke feeling fresh and well rested. My pre race breakfast consisted of two (2) Krispy Kreme apple fritters, an Egg McMuffin and 48oz of gas station coffee. Why is this worthy of mention? It goes to the point about proper nourishment and peak level performance. I was peaked and nourished. I arrived at the registration locale for the TT - the parking lot of Hooterville High. I was alone and it was still dark. I set my bike up on the trainer and proceeded to burn the magnets of my Minoura Mag Stand trainer in the early light of dawn under clear skies with nary a breath of wind. I was frothing and I thought this must be how Vino and Tyler feel dosed up on Some One Else's Blood ®. When Daly finally showed up to open registration I was soaked with sweat and demanding an answer to the question "where the hell have you been?" It was 6:30 a.m. Hooterville time. The sun had barely crested the horizon. The first start time was still over an hour away. 5…4...3…2…1. I was off and I was angry. Why so frothy? Why so angry? Why the chip on my shoulder? You see, all season long fast times had been laid down on the Monrovia TT track and the best I could do was only good for 4th on the list of fast time. Two (2) Smart Guys had bested me and I was determined to prove once and for all that power trumps brains. I'd been hearing all year about how those guys with their diminished rolling resistance and minimal CdA were faster than me and it was embarrassing. After all, I am a National Silver medalist and a state champion. I can't have two guys who didn't even go to Nationals beating me. It's not good for the ego. Not being a Smart Guy, I had to muster up enough power to overcome my shortcomings as a time trialist. I must confess though - in order to hedge my bet, I adjusted my Zipp Vuka Aero bars a bit to lessen my CdA (smart guys know what this means). I still had a Tufo Elite Jet<160 tubie glued firmly to the Zipp disc on the rear. It was there to prove a point. Once the initial lactic acid burn subsided and my lungs stopped hyperventilating, I found a happy rhythm. I passed my 3 minute man at 10k. I was clicking off the 5k's that Daly has marked off on the pavement anywhere from 6:10 to 6:45. Though I was in full rage I was "comfortable". I hit the turnaround and blasted back with a zephyr of tailwind toward the goal of besting the Smart Guys and their low CdA and crr ratings. I had a slow ass tire on my disc and a CdA hovering somewhere near five (5). According to science I had no chance to go faster than the Smart Guys but I had an ace up my arm warmer. I was angry and fueled with caffeine and apple fritters. I was banking on the chance that rage and power can overcome intelligence. Hell, the Republicans have been proving the concept in politics and I was willing to take a chance that it might be true in cycling as well. Plus that, I ride an online store bike costing roughly 1/10th of the fancy schmancy Cervelo bikes that the Smart Guys favor. I was also riding for Joe Sixpack who can't afford fast equipment. I was out to make a point. All was well as I hit the 30K mark at 38:18. I had dried spittle on my cheeks and I was going fast. As I did the math, I figured that if I could finish the last 10k in 12:30 or so I was on track to go UNDER 51 minutes for the 40K. Boy that will show the Smart Guys and my smart alec brother who had been tormenting me since I finished second to Thurlow in July. I was on track to set a course record! That was until the Caterpillar Combine pulled out of a field about 400 meters up the road from me as I turned left for what should have been the fastest mile of the course.. I quickly caught up to the combine and began frantically gesticulating toward and cursing the farmer at the controls of the two lane wide behemoth. I had to cruise down from over 30 mph to between 15 and 18 mph for one quarter of one mile. I was livid. Now instead of beating the Smart Guys and owning the course record, all I had was a WouldaCoulda story.
Eventually the brain dead operator of the combine allowed me 2 feet on the left hand side of the road to pass his massive vehicle just before I tuned into the village of Little Point (not making that up). I took the opportunity once I verified no traffic was on coming. In my rage I stamped on the pedal and barreled out of Little Point toward the finish. With the possibility of beating the Smart Guys gone, I was simply wishing to set a personal PR for the course. I gave my all for the ensuing 8k and believe it or not, I managed to roll a 51:24 despite the handicap of a Tufo tire! I still beat the Smart Guys! I still set the course record! Oh….the combine consumed some time as well but the greater impediment was the Tufo tire. One of the Smart Guys in California who has been a great help to me this year and whom I trust to be objective and accurate calculated that the combine likely cost me a meager 20 sec, while the Tufo tire added about a minute to my time. He says I can go faster when I stop being such a Meat Head.
The following week, I received a Zipp Sub 9 disc to test. I was rather hoping it would not show up in time for me to glue a tire to it but it arrived on Friday with a tire already attached for the Saturday time trial of the ABD Fall Fling. I was hooked into it. I'd promised. Damn. I had designs on emptying a bottle of quality bourbon on that Friday night but it would have to wait. I needed to remain clean and sober for the Zipp equipment test. I arrived in the middle of nowhere at roughly 8:30 a.m. for my 10:00 start time. I would ride two (2) ten (10) mile time trials on this day with temps in the high 60's and winds at 15-20 per. No worries, I had a Zipp Sub 9 disc. Wind tunnel testing shows that this wheel acts as a sail in quartering cross winds. AKA "yaw". We (the royal we) were set to test the wind tunnel data with real world riding. I was on a largely West to East course with a mile long North/South jog and a full turn around at 10k. The wind was out of the SSW. Here
is the final analysis. On my first fling of the Fall Fling, I
average 28.8 mph. On ride number two (2) the average speed was
28.4 mph. Contrast that with the flat 29 mph average under perfect
conditions (sans the combine) of the Monrovia TT and the even
as dim a bulb as I can ascertain that perhaps there is some credibility
to the marketing hyperbole that Zipp issuess regarding their new
Sub 9 disc producing negative drag numbers in certain wind conditions.
OTHER MUSINGS AND SUCH The next day at the Fall Fling criterium, my team mate Moso Man won the race. He's a stealth bomber. He sneaks up on you and before you even know he's arrived, you've detonated and he's gone. Team Delta Faucet is no longer. We're getting bigger and better. We're lining up new sponsors, designing a new kit and adding quality riders to the roster. Official announcements will be made when all is finalized. We are also in the process of developing a "club" level to introduce new riders to racing and provide an opportunity for strong clubbers to train like racers if they wish. I am on a personal mission to thin the Hubbard herd. My goal is to do what I can to reduce the number of hairy legged fatties who show up for Masters Races in billowy generic jerseys sporting rearview mirrors on their helmets and frame pumps and saddle bags on their bikes. It's the right thing to do. Education is the key. Weekly group rides will be starting soon in Champaign from the Refinery Fitness Club. If you're ever in the area, drop me a note and I'll let you know when and where. Look for the new Leader 785TT frame to arrive in early 2008. I'll let you Smart Guys with expensive TT rigs in on a dirty little secret. You like ratios? Aspect ratios and such? Guess what? Your cost/performance ratios suck! Your $4000 time trial bike won't make you faster than what you can get with the new 785TT. As with the 2008 735TT the 785 will have an 80mm deep airfoil down tube with a roughly 2.9:1 aspect ratio (Smart Guys know what this means). I've been talking to Sal Lombroso and he's been very receptive to slight tweaks to make an already great product even better. To prove this, he went back to the drawing board on the 785TT and changed the chain stays and top tube shape. In addition he's added INTERNAL CABLE ROUTING for the down and top tubes. Hey, Leader is dancing on the same stage as Cervelo, Kestrel and Trek for less than half the cost. I'm telling you people, this guy is serious about making quality bikes. Don't let the price tag fool you! There is no intelligence in paying too much for something that you can get for less. Reports indicate that Rev Billy finished the entire 2 days of The Hilly Hundred in Hooterville without eating a single piece of fried chicken. As far as we know Billy is the sole human being to do the Hilly Hundred without consuming at least a fried chicken wing. Back to my quest to reduce the number of Hubbards in the cycling world…What is the deal with riders feeling the need to SHREIK when identifying a car approaching from ahead or behind? Jeezus, a simple acknowledgement of approaching traffic is sufficient. Rev Billy tells me that he had his ear yelled into on a number of occasions during the Hilly Hundred. A rider would roll up behind Billy and yell into his ear "CAR UP!" at the top of his lungs. Billy may be old and feeble but as far as I know, he's neither deaf nor blind and is capable of seeing a car approaching in the opposite lane. The standard response when rebuked is "I'm just trying to be safe." How, by startling someone so badly with your shrieking that they ride into a ditch? Billy's experience reminds me of a time when I was cooling down after a race with a team mate on rural roads in Northern IL. The team mate had in a past life done Brevets like Paris, Brest, Paris and double centuries. As he and I were cooling down, we happened upon a group of cyclists who were tuning up for such a Brevet. We passed one of these cyclists and the rider got into our draft. As fate would have it my former team mate recognized the rider from long ago and he was having a conversation with the rider about double centuries and such when suddenly the rider literally SHREIKED "CAR BACK!" in such a frantic and emphatic tone of voice that I instinctively braced myself for an inevitable impact. I was scared shitless. As it turns out, the car was about a quarter of a mile down the road and eventually when it passed, the driver gave us a full lane of clearance. The rider continued to do this for 10 miles. Every time a car approached he screamed and I would jump out of my skin expecting to be nailed. Eventually I ended the cool down with an attack to get away from the shrieking Hubbard. I have to finish up. Gotta train for indoor time trial season. Enjoy the winter and avoid ice patches. Druber
|
