Three Man

Nope, it's not a throwback to my favorite college drinking game, the kind you play to lose. No, that was the theme for this morning's LAMBRA road opener, the Raising Cane's Three Man Team Time Trial.

Yesterday's weather was perfect, today's was not exactly as good. Windy and cold, not Yankee cold, or Rocky Mountain cold but cold none the less.

How cold? Well i met Norm and the rest of the crew at 7:00 to set up registration. Sitting in the shade, registering teams for 2 hours left me a shivering mess, even with blue jeans and a sweat shirt pulled over my duds with full warmers on. The same thing happened last year, you would think i'd learn.

Once reg was done, we learned we had about 20 minutes to get ready, warm up and race. Just like last year. So off we went. A quick spin on the trainer, then a few adjustments to the bike, and we were ready to go.

On the start line we took the opportunity to catch up with old friends and taunt the Peake boys for their new threads which are seemingly Gerolsteiner-inspired. We would learn later that questioning a team's sexuality minutes before they start 60 seconds after you isn't a good plan. In other words, we saw those baby blue shirts again about 10 miles down the road.

But i digress, i rode with Norm and Brandon, the last time we rode together was the day i dinged the Orbea after touching wheels with Brandon, so i was anxious to stay perpendicular to the road as much as possible. Looking down the road from the line, you could see the weeds in the field laying down away from us, big tailwind. Norm took the first pull, i thought this might mean an easy transition into tt mode. But instead he took us right to 32 and left it there for nearly three minutes. From there we probably hit a dozen different headwind/crosswind combinations doing 24-28 before the end of the lap, right where the Peake guys passed us.

Back in the tailwind, Brandon dropped off, so the last lap was just me and Norm. I thought we'd slow down a lot, but instead we just upped the suffering/barfing and finished up.

We got 2nd in the 1/2, which means i get 0 LAMBRA points. This whole point thing made a lot more sense when we scored 1/2/3 all together. Instead i keep getting donuts in ttt events. I don't think there were enough 1/2 or 3 teams to even merit points, so maybe they should be together.

Just to put some perspective on Herring's winning ride. In the last kilometer, Norm and i gutted out a 28 mph finish. Frank told me that he, Bain and Realdo were all together until then and Bain kicked it up to 38 and Realdo dropped off. 38? after 21 miles at tt pace? Good God

My bad mojo from the last ttt passed to TCF, Stan went down and destroyed his frame and both new aero wheels. I've heard different figures on the cost of this crash, but even the most conservative one makes me cringe big time. Luckily no real injuries on that one, just skin loss and severe wallet hemorrhage. Some ladies went down too, but i didn't hear the final word on their injuries.

Speaking of TCF, i'll go out on a limb right now and say that they will win the LAMBRA Points Competition for 2007. They turned out in droves. I can't tell you the number of TCF's i signed up but it was impressive. The key to winning that competition is having point-scorers in all categories and that they have. Also a big "new jersey" phenomenon going on with new S3, MidSouth and Precision Bike teams showing up in big numbers.

I think the results will probably be up sometime in April or May.