toothless two-man ttt

I like to classify flatland tt's into three types, type A is the preferred, headwind out, tailwind back. Type C is characterized by the maelstrom of crosswinds that you usually find out on River Road, so it's never really bad and never really good either. Then lastly, there is type B, the dreaded tailwind out, headwind back.

Type B is the devourer of souls
Type B makes you want to step off your bike at the turn around and go home
Type B looks at you naked and calls others to watch
Type B causes your shaven leg hair to turn gray or fall out in patches
Type B sucks
Last Saturday's NOBC Two Man Time Trial was Type B

Keepin it real, or in this case real-ler. We got into Baton Rouge around midnight after driving all day long from Orlando. Somewhere in Alabama, i bit into a piece of gum and voila, my glued-in front tooth popped out... Nice Trick.

Now i'm in Alabama minus a front tooth, wait a sec, i look like one of the locals! badum bum. In my head, i rationalize, no front tooth might mean i can breath easier in the TT, yeah right. After unloading the car, getting Ryan back to sleep, yada yada yada, i probably got to bed around 1:30 am, enough time to get the mean 3.5 hours of sleep then head down to LaPlace with Norm to race. Luckily he was driving, so i could veg a bit.

When we got there, there was no wind, nothing zip zero, i wanted to be the first team off. But, racing in the huge 1,2 field (of 3) meant we'd go off last. We probably chilled for 30 minutes shooting the bull with folks, before we started riding. At that point the course rapidly began becoming type B.

The wind was gusting a bit and you could feel it on the highway. After 20 minutes of that i had enough, and rode Corey's rollers for maybe 10 minutes. I got off of those, got back on the road and the wind had gotten much stronger, i rode there for maybe 5 minutes then got back on the rollers, sick of the wind already.

We got to the line and i could see this flag just blowing straight out down the highway. Oh yeah, this will be good. My lack of a smile here was part game-face, part "I don't want to look like Michael Spinks".

Norm took the first pull, and we did the first few miles at 30-31, after that i don't think it ever dropped below 28. We hit the cone in a little over 26 minutes (28.6 avg) which was cool and then BAM turned around into the headwind. We had Tim and Realdo 2 minutes behind us, then Frank and McBain 2 minutes behind them. At this point, i thought we had a good shot at holding them off. The headwind felt otherwise.

I was afraid, we'd only do 22 all the way back, but it got better. Lots of 22-24-26-22-24-26. In the end, we averaged 24 to get back in about 31 minutes. In the last few miles, the McBain Train of Pain rolled by us, and i thought, "well at least we held off Realdo and Tim." That lasted for about 40 seconds and they came swooping by. At that point we really "coasted" in to do 57:09.

All in all i was satisfied, i couldn't have gone much harder and unlike the last time Norm and i rode this course, i wasn't a complete mess just trying to hold his wheel. Lots of fast times out there though, Bo obviously got his revenge on me, 55:36!