Born to spin

I was in Charlestown, Rhode Island for the Bob Beal Masters only stage race, a two-day, three-event bike race that attracts top masters racers from all over the northeast for competition in 5 year age groups. Charlestown is a small, rural town on the Rhode Island coast, about halfway between Narragansett Bay and the Connecticut line. There's a twisting, turning, rolling 14 mile loop for the road races and a smooth, straight, almost-but-not-quite flat stretch for the individual time trial. Three miles long, it's more pursuit than time trial. Those two races take place on Saturday. On Sunday, the criteriums are held at Ninagret Park, right on the ocean, on a course specially constructed for criterium racing on the site of an old airfield. The course is perfectly flat, about 8/10 of a mile long, with 8 turns, and it’s perpetually windy.

When I arrived at my hotel on Friday night, just outside of Mystic, Connecticut, the sky was overcast, but it was warm and humid. A few raindrops had splattered on my window on the drive up, but the rain, although forecast, so far had held off. Earlier that day, I received an email from Heather Labance, the only other member of the Skylands Cycling team entering the race, wondering if I would be bringing the club canopy to shelter us while we warmed up. She referred to it as the "tent/tarp thing." The pop-up canopy was packed in the back of my Jeep, along with a large golf umbrella, rain poncho, extra shoes, spare helmet, lots of extra clothes, spare sneakers, towels, extra hats, as well as all the other stuff you normally bring to a bike race.

I also had a clear plastic rain cape for Heather to borrow, the kind the pros wear on rainy days. I never wear the thing. It's bulky, makes you sweat a lot, and it interferes with my primary strategy for dealing with riding or racing in the rain, which is denial. I usually just ignore the rain, pretending it doesn't exist, which works well for me, except when the water shooting off all of the wheels in the pack starts trying to pressure-clean your eyeballs. If you wear clear glasses, they just get covered with water drops, or fogged up, which makes it hard to see. So, sometimes, I just keep one eye open at a time, giving one a rest, getting the other one pelted with water, which usually contains a fair amount of road grit. According to the forecast, it was going to be that kind of race tomorrow.

I got a wake up call at the Econolodge at 5:00 a.m. Before I even picked up the phone, I listened. I could hear no rain. Maybe we'd get lucky, I thought. Maybe the storm would swing away to the west and we'd be spared. I got dressed and stuck my head out the door. It was warm, more than 70 degrees, unusual for a mid September morning on the New England coast. No rain. I drank some orange juice, had a bowl of cereal and made a couple of turkey sandwiches for later. At about 5:30 a.m., I tossed back a can of Red Bull and headed up Interstate 95. Although my race did not start until around 8:00 a.m., I wanted to get to the start/finish at the Charlestown school early, to get a good spot to park and put up the canopy.

Heather Labance has taken the New Jersey women's bike racing scene by storm in her first year of racing. She rode her first race, a Tuesday night training race, in April. In May, she was second woman overall in the 40k state time trial championship, beaten only by many-time national champion Betty Tyrell. In June, she won her first Category 4 race, almost lapping the field in a solo breakaway. And by Labor Day weekend, she won the women's open at the prestigious and challenging Tour of Basking Ridge criterium in a furious solo attack at the start of the last lap. When she crossed the finish line, the pack hadn't even rounded the last turn, 300 meters away. Talk about putting the hammer down.

Her category at the Bob Beal Masters race will be 30-44 women. Heather is 32. This is a regional event, and there will be some high level women here, including a few pros. But Heather's husband Bill and I agree. She can win this thing.

A guy comes over as I wrestle with the tent. "I'll help you put up yours if you help me put up mine," he says. "Good deal," I reply. It is possible for one person to put one of these things up. I have seen it done, but it's a whole lot easier with two people. In less than three minutes, we have both canopies erected. "I hope they don't blow away," the other guy says. I tell him that you need the big nine-inch nails to hold down the legs. You've got to be prepared here in Belgium, I think. The other guy's tent is partially on blacktop, partially on grass, unsecured, and later, in fact, it does blow away. The Kelly-green Skylands canopy stays right where it is, through everything to come. There's no substitute for those huge nails.

The canopy is on the edge of the parking lot. I have the Jeep backed in so the opened lift gate just protrudes under the edge of the canopy, creating a kind of portico between truck and tent. On one side, I put the cooler. I position my rollers near the liftgate, so I'll have something stronger than the tent to hold onto when I try to mount these slippery things a little later. I hang my Trek road bike by the seat from the canopy frame, and put my time trial bike on the ground, resting on it's wheel-less fork. Later, when the wind picks up and catches the rear disc wheel, it blows over a few times before I finally put on the front wheel and lash it to one of the tent legs with a bungie cord. I take my wheel bag out of the truck and put it on the ground, get my helmet, gloves, shoes, water bottles all laid out in an orderly fashion, then select my clothing. I don't know what the other guys will be wearing, but for me it's just the normal bib, lightweight undershirt and jersey. If it rains, it rains, but I'm making no concessions to the probability of the impending Hurricane Ivan, other than to wear my training shoes, so if they get drenched, I'll still have dry shoes for the time trial and the crit tomrrow.

At 7:15 a.m., I put on the bib, shoes and undershirt and hop on the rollers to warm up. It's still warm, in the mid-seventies and humid, and I quickly work up a sweat. Later, it will be hard to believe that the temperature has dropped a full fifteen degrees. Just before 8:00 a.m., I slow-pedal over to the starting line in a total sweat. The 45-49 group is just rolling away, and my group is next. We stage in the parking lot, nodding to each other and saying good luck. The race will be three laps of the 14 mile loop, 42 miles, with plenty of rolling hills but no real climbs. A pretty good wind has developed and it coming out of the northeast as the hurricane approaches, so the finish will not only be uphill, but it will be into the wind. The sky has grown dark and rain is obviously imminent. I like these conditions. This is going to be fun.

We're less than a mile out of the parking lot and a guy attacks. I am not about to start chasing guys with 41 miles to go, and neither is anyone else. Joe Saling always says the best two times to attack are early in the race and late in the race—early because no one takes you seriously and late because everyone is usually too tired to chase. So I just cruise along, keeping an eye on a couple of the top guys, last years winner Glen Swan and Chip Berezny, Pennsylvania sprinter extraordinaire. If they're not chasing, I'm not chasing. After a couple of miles, we turn onto Route 1, and Glen goes to the front. I follow him. We can see the lone attacker ahead of us on a long straightaway. He has a pretty good gap—400 meters at least—and Glen must have decided to keep him a little closer.

When it's my turn to pull through, I accelerate a little and gradually my speedometer shows 27, then 28 miles per hour. I'm riding hard, but not all out by any means. The wind is at my back. This, to me, is chasing speed. In our New Jersey 45+ races, you have guys who can time trial forever at 27 mph, so you have to ride a little faster to reel them in, right? I cruise along at about 28 for around a minute or so and see I'm getting closer to the guy up the road. I swing to the left to let the next rider pull through, slow down a little, and nobody appears. This is not particularly surprising, because in most of amateur bike racing, it's very difficult to get a good chase organized. Guys just don't want to go to the front and pull. I look around in the hopes of getting some relief and am shocked to see that I am at least 200 meters off the front, maybe more.

A little confused as to how this happened, I figure I might as well keep chasing. The lone attacker is not going that fast, I've been gaining on him, and by now, it looks like I'm closer to him than the pack. All I really want to do at this point is catch him and bring him back, so to speak. I pick up the pace a little and make the right turn onto Kings Factory Road. I'm sure that 250 years ago or so, the King of England actually had some kind of factory on this road. It's a cool road for bike racing, few cars, few houses and some hills. I don't doubt my ability to catch the breakaway rider. Although I'm no climber, I'm not as weak on hills as most of the guys because I climb them all the time.

Sure enough, after the first couple of hills on Kings Factory, I'm less than 100 meters behind this early leader, whoever he is. I look around. There's no sign of the pack, but a rider in yellow is bridging. I soft-pedal a little to let him catch up. "Come on," he says, as he passes. I don't know this rider, but he's clearly pretty good. He is lean, with long legs and a smooth fast-pedaling style. Do I get in a three man break, 40 miles from the finish of the first stage of a three stage race, with two guys I don't know? Not me, I decide, and let the yellow rider go. It's unlikely that a breakaway so far from the finish would succeed, and even if it did, the effort required to make it work would no doubt take it's toll in the time trial later that day, and the criterium tomorrow.

I sit up, downshift, and pedal easily at about 16 miles per hour, waiting for the pack to catch me. After what seems like a long time, I turn around. I can see the pack, but it's still a good 150 meters behind me, not exactly tearing up the road. It's raining now, a steady drizzle. I begin to realize what's happening—one of the guys ahead of me has some teammates in the pack, and they're blocking. Sure enough, when they finally catch me, there are two guys in red prancing along at the front of the group at 18 miles per hour.

I know who these guys are. They're Masters Velo Club, good riders, and highly organized. In last year's road race here, when everyone was noodling along watching and marking each other a quarter mile from the finish, these three Masters Velo guys took off in a train. I jumped on their wheel. I've got this knocked, I thought at the time. About 200 meters from the finish, as we pedaled furiously uphill, the guy in front of me simply stopped pedaling. He was what they call a sweeper, charged with the responsibility of keeping rivals off the wheel of the second guy in the train, who was obviously the designated sprinter. I stopped pedaling for a second to avoid hitting the sweeper, and when you stop pedaling on an uphill finish, you're done. You lose momentum and speed so fast, your head spins faster than your pedals. I went from 3rd to 22nd in about 50 meters. No points that day.

So these Masters Velo guys now had a team member off the front and were imposing a snail's pace on the peloton. I cruised up along side Glen Swan and said "We are not going to chase those guys?" He shook his head and said "if they can stay away for three laps…" I finished the sentence "God bless 'em." So off they went, while we idled away the time at 20 miles per hour, an excruciatingly slow pace, even for us old guys. A couple of times on Kings Factory, I went to the front and tried to pick up the pace a little, but just ended up going off the front, a place I did not care to be. If I'm going to attack, it's going to be in the last half of the last lap, I thought.

We chase haphazardly, occasionally, never getting organized. If there was a true effort by several riders to reel in the break, I'd go up and get in the rotation, but this is the kind of chase where they seem to expect one guy to pull 'till he cracks, and then hope some other fool does the same thing. As we head past the start finish line at the beginning of the last lap, I am at the front, having pulled the pack up the quarter mile hill. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing there, other than wasting energy, but I like riding uphill, and someone has to do pull, so I figure I'll pitch in. Just as we crest the hill, and my legs are starting to burn pretty good, Glen Swan streaks by on my left, a perfect move.

I get out of the saddle and pump the pedals a few times, but realize I can't respond. I need to recover a little, then I'll try to bridge. But Glen was going so much faster than us when he hit the front of the peloton, and still accelerating to boot, that he quickly opened up a nice gap. This guy can really ride--he later wins the time trial decisively, as well as the whole GC enchilada—and he's flying now. A lone rider passes on my right, and I try to jump on his wheel. Glen is disappearing into the gray drizzle, and I realize that there is no catching him. I sit up and get absorbed by the pack, as does the other chaser on my right.

The race seems to have lost it's heart, as we cruise lackadaisically up Kings Factory Road. Chip works at the front now and then, but he can't do it himself. The two Jaeger Wheelmen take the front once in a while, but it's like a club ride now. Honestly, most of our club rides are a lot more vigorous than this last lap. We turn the corner onto Rt. 91, flat and wide, the time trial course, and face the brisk headwind. Everybody knows the TT is going to be brutal: three miles directly into the wind. Maybe that's why we roll along at 18 miles per hour for the last couple of miles. We are resting, resting for the time trial later that day, resting for the sprint for 4th place that will shortly be upon us.

Finally, we reach the last turn. After that, it's a quarter of a mile uphill to the finish. Just before we start the turn, the skies open up and it begins to rain heavily and steadily. Perfect, I think. Big Chip Berezny is in second position. He has a teammate in front of him. Chip wins most of the field sprints in our neck of the woods, and he'll go on to win this one and the next one, in tomorrow's criterium. His wheel is, obviously, the wheel of choice, and a few of us are jockeying for it. I swing wide in the turn, then dive toward the back of Chip's bike in the pouring rain. Water is spraying up from the road, falling down from the sky. I have one eye closed to minimize the pressure-washing of my eyeballs. Two of the riders behind Chip flinch and back off a little. I'm in, solidly on his wheel coming out of the last corner with 400 meters to go. Sweet.

Sometimes, in sporting events, I suffer from an inability to think clearly. On this day, sitting on the wheel of one of the best masters sprinters in the country, who was behind his leadout man, with the finish line just about in site, I somehow, for some reason, decline to accept a rapid tow up to the finish line. Instead, after fighting for the wheel, and getting it, I almost immediately hop out of the saddle and jump, going around Chip, out into the wind, uphill, in a downpour which is quickly reaching torrential proportions. Probably, I later tell several people, the dumbest thing I've ever done in bike racing. Like I said, I don't always think clearly at crunch time. About fifty meters from the line, ten riders pass me. I am 11th in the sprint, and 14th overall. Probably should have gone with the break, I think.

I turn around in the road as soon as I slow down and head back to my truck and the shelter of the canopy. There is a hard rain falling, blowing sideways now and then in the gusty wind. Heather is on her trainer warming up, skinsuit half on, wearing a fleece top. Bill is fiddling with a pump. As I come in out of the deluge, Heather and Bill both look at me. "How'd you do?" one of them asks. I've come to hate that question, because I hardly ever have a good answer but it's a standard query at road races, almost a sign of friendship, or closeness, or some kind of bond. I feel compelled to confess that I had been third in line coming out of the last corner, on Chips wheel, and then jumped like a fool, only to be passed by nearly half the pack 50 meters from the line. Feeling the momentum of the confessional, I continue to blabber about on about giving up the opportunity to be in the winning break. One of the common answers to "how'd you do?" is "I missed the break." Well, I didn't miss the break, I made the break, then let it go.

Heather and Bill don't say much, they just smile and seem to be shaking their heads a little. They're probably thinking what an idiot I am. Heather is in her first year of racing, but she's blessed with good racing sense and doesn't do these things. But, all in all, I'm in good spirits as I stand under the canopy, being pelted by the lateral rain, and start to remove some of my wet clothing. The road race was a lot of fun, and that's what I'm here for.

I ask Heather if she's glad we rode in the rain two Thursday ago on one of our weekly club rides. It had been cloudy all day, and the forecast was for rain, so only 12 riders showed up. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes into the ride, the skies opened up and it started pouring. I just started riding harder, went to the front, attacked, trying to keep busy and forget about the rain. You have to train in the rain because sooner or later you are going to have to race in the rain, I commented at the time. Riding in the rain is just like riding when it it's not raining, only wetter. But you have to get used to it.

Heather continues to ride her trainer, smiling and wide-eyed, seemingly unperturbed by the nasty weather, the driving rain and gusty wind. I've changed into jeans, long sleeve top, fleece vest and a rain jacket, along with dry socks and sneakers. Standing under the tent, the back of my jeans and my sneakers become soaked within minutes. Bill and I joke about being in Belgium next spring as Heather's support team. We can see the start line from the tent, and the women are staging in the parking lot. As Heather takes her bike from the trainer, she notices that the rear tire has gone soft. Bill frantically runs and gets another wheel, quickly pops it in place, and Heather is off for the start line, wearing the clear plastic rain cape.

Bill heads off to his Explorer, to keep little Madeline company. I get in the front seat of my Jeep, recline the seat back and check the clock. Heather's race should be coming through in about 35 minutes or so—11:20 a.m. I turn on the public radio station coming from New London, Connecticut. They are playing a set of Buddy Miller, because it's his 52nd birthday. Buddy Miller and the Sacred Cows, good music, good guitar and Buddy can really sing. It's country music the way it would be without Nashville's commercialization and glitter. I slowly drift off to sleep.

I wake up to the sound of a siren giving a couple of short wails. My immediate thought is that there has been an accident. I look at the clock and see that it is a little after 11:20. The siren was the lead police car signaling that a pack of riders was coming through. I grab my umbrella and run over to the start line just as a group passes by. It looks like the women, and I think I see Heather, in her plastic cape, in third position, half a bike from the front. But it's raining and I just woke up and I'm not sure. "Was that the 30+ women?" I ask a guy standing on the side of the road. "Yeah," he says. "They only did one lap because of the rain."

Heather and Bill go back to Heather's aunt's house in Barrington where they are staying, after we jump start their Explorer in the rain with jumper cables Bill borrowed from a cop. I contemplate returning to my room at the Econolodge, but it's a half hour away, and I have an early time trial start. I tell Heather that if I go back to my room, they'll not see me again until tomorrow. I settle into my front seat, feeling a little wet, and eat two turkey sandwiches. It's 12 noon. Under the canopy are my rollers, Heather's trainer, my two bikes, and some towels, getting soaked. Later, I doze off to the sound of rain pelting the Jeep, hardly noticing the wet jeans and sneakers.

I wake up, doze off again, then awake again. The rain, still falling, has a different character, not as frantic, more straight down, less sideways. And the sky is lighter. I feel a hundred per cent confident that the rain will stop before my time trial starts. I listen to more music, watch people run from their cars into the school and back, drink some Gatorade, and the time passes. I'm finally warm and I don't relish the thought of getting into a damp skinsuit and going out in the cold to warm up. The temperature is sixty degrees. I have considered blowing off the time trial but deep inside, I know I'll do it, no matter what.

I gather my time trial clothes, my dry shoes, my shoe covers, gloves and helmet and lay them all on the front seat next to me. Exactly at 2 p.m., I put all this stuff on, except the helmet, and get out of the Jeep, and walk around to the back to get on the rollers. It's still raining steadily, but at nowhere near the downpour level of the past couple hours. I know it's going to stop. A few minutes earlier, I had actually seen a patch of blue in the sky, high above the trees off to my left. I stared at this little patch intently, watching it slowly drift from left to right, hoping to see it get bigger. It didn't grow, but vanished into the clouds in front of me. Then another little patch of blue appeared in the sky to the south. I know the rain is going to stop.

The rollers are, of course, drenched. So is my time trial bike, although I had a baggie over the seat which has blown away and is probably halfway to Nova Scotia by now. I have 200 pounds of pressure in my Tufo tubular tires—they are hard as rocks, smooth and wet. I throw my leg over the bike, clip into my right pedal, and delicately try to lift the wheels onto the rollers. Once on the rollers, the bike is leaning to the left, and I still have my left foot on the ground, so I have to grab the lift gate on the Jeep and pull the bike upright while I on settle on the saddle and clip in my left foot. It's not difficult, normally, but with the wetness and the slick hard tires, I sense the strong possibility of a rollers disaster here. At home, when I get on the rollers in the comfort of my den, I have a soft leather couch next to me, perfect for a bailout should the need arise. Here, there's nothing to my left but Heather's trainer and some wet towels, and to the right is the back of the jeep.

With some caution, I get myself in position and start pedaling while still holding onto the lift gate with my right hand. The bike is leaning a little to the right now, with the rollers humming, so I push off to straighten up the bike and release my hand from the lift gate. There, I think, free at last. After a couple of wobbles, I settle down and begin to spin smoothly in a low gear. I breathe deeply and feel water dripping on my right hand. Rain is apparently hitting the open lift gate and being channeled to the edge which is protruding under the canopy, then cascading directly onto my right hand, which is on the top of the bars, a little behind the brake hoods. I move my hand forward, onto the hood. I still feel the dripping. I move my hand back, and position it directly next to the arm pad for the aero bars. More dripping, right on my hand. This is Chinese water torture, plain and simple, and it is starting to drive me crazy.

I study the falling water and continue to change the position of my hand. Sometimes, when I move my hand, there is a brief respite from the dripping, but it invariably resumes because the wind is blowing the drips around, somehow, remarkably, always finding the back of my hand. I resolve to ignore the water, as I will shortly have to ignore searing pain and unrelenting breathlessness in the short, pursuit-like time trial. I fix my eyes on a spot on the ground about two feet in front of the bike and continue to pedal.

After a time, I become aware that there is no longer water dripping on my hand. I steal a glance at my hand and realize that the dripping has stopped entirely. Looking out from under the canopy, to the surface of the parking lot, I see no rain splatters. The rain has stopped. It's 2:30 as I put on my new aerodynamic time trial helmet and head down to the time trial start, a little more than three miles away, for my 2:58 departure.

To get to the start, I have to ride the time trial course backwards. I get low on the aero bars and spin in the small chainring. Pretty soon, without effort, I am spun out and need to go to the big chainring. There is a huge tailwind here. Although the rain has stopped, the northeast wind is still going strong, and we are going to see some slow time trial times today. Time trialing into a headwind isn't, in my opinion, really any more difficult. You are always riding at the highest pain level you can tolerate for the time it takes to complete the ride. But I think in a headwind, riders tend to get discouraged at their slow speeds and maybe let up a little. So I am in favor of headwinds, as I am in favor of anything that slows down the competition. Going slow doesn't discourage me; I am used to it.

I get down to the start and roll around for a few minutes, chatting idly with the other riders in my group. When I roll up to the start to get in line, my back tire pops. These really are track tires that I'm using, and they don't belong on the road with all the post-hurricane debris. I guess I should have driven to the course, because my Jeep, and my spare wheels, are over three miles away. "How much time do we have?" I ask the guys standing in line. "They're about four minutes behind," somebody says. I ask whether they think I have enough time to go back to the school to get another wheel. That would be a six mile ride, half on a flat tire. No chance. One of the guys at the line turns his bike around and motions for me to follow. "Come on," he says. "We'll go over to my car and get you a wheel." A couple of minutes later, I'm back with a nice nine speed Ksyrium on the rear. It's not a disc, but I notice that a lot of guys aren't riding discs: the wind is not a straight headwind, it will be coming from off our right shoulders, partially a crosswind. It is possible that a disc could slow you down in that kind of wind.

There's no announcer and no holder today, as there usually is. The driving rain has driven away a few volunteers, obviously. I clip into my pedals and start thrusting my pelvis forward toward the bike's stem as I stomp on the pedals to accelerate up the slight grade away from the line. When the road flattens out and the speedometer hits 29, I know I have to slow down to avoid the most common error in time trialing: going out too fast. Too much effort in the excitement of the start will cause a buildup of crippling lactic acid that your body will never clear until after the time trial is over. So I back off a little, settle onto my aero bars, and plow into the headwind.

I had worked out a plan during my training for this time trial—how many RPMs in what gear would give me a high enough average speed to finish in the top ten. I knew I couldn't win it, but top ten would be a big accomplishment and a huge improvement for me. I can feel the wind pushing my deep dish front wheel to the side a little, and I can't remember what gear I had decided I wanted to be in. It makes no difference anyway, because with this wind, all bets are off. I remember the cadence, though. I want to ride in the high 90s. And I want my heart rate to be in the low to mid 160s, slightly above my lactic threshold, although I figure I can ride the last mile or so a few beats above that.

As I try to spin the pedals and not grind too much, I keep the cadence at 98, according to my computer. The heart rate, though, is another matter. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get my heart rate above 156. In fact, it seems to be stuck there. Maybe it's the wind, maybe it's the 720 pounds I had on the angled leg press three days ago, or maybe it's the 42 mile road race that morning. Who cares, I conclude, and keep plowing away. I am pleasantly surprised to see that I am keeping the speed around 25 mph, not bad in a 20 mph headwind, but gradually I start to slow down. The course is not completely flat, and I'm on a slight upgrade. I shift gears to keep my cadence up. On my road bike, the computer tells you what gear you're in. On this time trial bike, I'd have to look back at the cassette to find out, but I don't want to know. I just try to keep low, pedal smoothly and hope I can nudge my heart rate up a little. Finally, the road turns from smooth tarmac to this blacker, new stuff that is quite rough, like they used cheap asphalt. I know we are not far from the finish. The road turns slightly uphill, the only visible upgrade on the course. I try to pedal harder, and finally, my heart rate reaches 160. Up ahead, I see a small white tent on the right side of the road.

In a road race, when your legs are burning and you are gasping for breath, there's almost always a possibility that relief is just around the corner. The pack might slow down, you might catch a draft and the suffering will be over. In a time trial, there's no hope of relief. Maybe that's why you accept your lot in life for whatever the duration of the race: pain, pain and more pain, unrelenting burning and suffering. Eddie B. says if it really hurts, almost more than you can stand, you know you are doing it right. I imagine I am Ekimov or Padrnos setting tempo on a flat stage of the Tour de France. With the wind or against it, that's their job, just keep cranking along. Today, on Rt. 91 in Rhode Island, it's my job and frankly, I don't mind doing it. Nobody's going to come around me, nobody's going to box me in. It's just me and the course for somewhere around seven minutes. The race of truth.

Well, actually, it was 7:42, to be exact, I learn the next morning. Not a particlarly good time for three miles, only an average of 23.4 mph, but good enough for 7th place. I finished ahead of a few pretty good guys, including the guy who started the break in the road race that morning. He was 15th, a tad fried, I would say. Rolling back to the school, I catch up with Chip. "Pretty nasty wind, eh?" I ask. I'm not sure exactly what he said in response, because the wind kind of drowned him out, and my time trial helmet covers my ears, but it was plainly venomous, and may have contained some explicit language. He was not happy. Later, I find out that he finished 8th, behind me, so it was not a good time trial for a rider of his caliber.

"Did you win the field sprint this morning," I ask, to change the subject. He looks down, and says that he did, in a kind of humble, almost bashful way.

"There were a couple of guys up the road," he says. "One guy attacked right out of the parking lot. I was fourth." I tell him that he did a lot of work in the race and he thanks me for cranking up the pace in the end. "My guy was kind of slowing down," Chip says.

"Probably the dumbest thing I ever did," I reply.

"Well," he says, smiling, "I was surprised when you came around me." I think back to the week before, when I was also right behind him out of the last corner in the Philipsburg Criterium. When he really started to wind it up, I couldn't hang on his wheel. Art McHugh passed me, with Joe Saling glued to his wheel, and I ended up 4th. "I thought I'd give it a try," I said, laughing.

When I roll up to the tent, Bill and Heather are trying to decide whether she should use her brand new Zipp 909 wheels, as Heather rides her trainer. It’s still well over an hour to her race. The issue is whether it might be difficult for Heather to handle the disc in a diagonal headwind, having never ridden one before. Bill asks what I think. "Use 'em," I say. You bought the wheels, for big bucks, no sense leaving them in the car. Plus, this is no ordinary rider we are talking about. Her strength is so great, that any buffeting effect will be minimal compared to her forward drive. Heather decides to take the wheels for a spin before deciding. Good idea.

Bill and I discuss time trial aerodynamics as I change into another set of dry clothes. I point out to Bill that I brought a set of dry clothes for after the road race, and another set for after the time trial, correctly anticipating that the first set of clothes would get wet between the races. "I'm ready for this," I proudly tell him. "That's 'cause you know how to plan," he replies. I tell him that I'd be good in Belgium next spring, perhaps as one of Heather's soigneurs. "You're in," he says.

Heather is gone for what seems like a long time, and Bill is starting to worry. I think I know what she's doing. She's riding the course to try out the wheels. That's Heather. She's not only gifted, she's obsessive, a powerful combination. Pretty soon she rolls in and gives a thumbs up, smiling. She likes the wheels. It's her first experience with tubular tires, they're pumped up to 160 pounds, and you've got to love that feeling. Add the deep dish front and dimpled disc rear, and the reduction in rolling resistance is palpable.

There is an issue with Heather's long blond hair. It seems you just can't have it flowing along behind your head in a time trial, as you normally might—it's not aerodynamic. Bill helps Heather put it in a bun, under the helmet. I suggest that we have spare wheels at the start so Heather does not have to beg for a wheel, as I did, in the event of a flat. Bill says he'd like to be at the finish. I suggest we go to the start, then drive to the finish. It's a plan. Heather takes off on the bike; Bill and I take separate vehicles. It's only a little over three miles away.

As we stand across the road from the start, watching the line of 30+ women, Bill points out that the only riders with disc wheels are the three women from our area. I wonder why that is. Bill thinks all the other girls are making a mistake. "At Sandy Hook," he says, "everybody rode a disc. "

Sandy Hook is a narrow strip of land at the New Jersey shore that separates Raritan Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. It is a national recreation area that is the site of the first time trial in New Jersey each April. The course is flat, seven miles out-and-back, and always windy. Two years ago, there were snow flurries. This year, the wind conditions were very similar to today's: a strong headwind coming off the left shoulder going out. Because of the wind, I made the decision not to use a disc, opting instead for my carbon road-racing wheels. It was a big mistake. There were a couple of guys who beat me in that time trial by twenty to thirty seconds who haven't beaten me in a time trial since.

At the Bob Beal, they are using an automated starting system with a recorded voice telling you when there are fifteen seconds to go, then ten seconds. At five seconds, it beeps every second until the final beep, louder and more high-pitched that the others. Pretty cool. But there's no holder. Without a holder, Heather has to clip herself in after the starting beep. It is not surprising that she has some trouble. It's her first year of racing, really her first year of cycling. She had a bike last year, but only rode it a few times. And the pedals she is using are somewhat notorious for being hard to get into. "There's five seconds," I observe, as Heather finally clips in and takes off, and Bill and I head for our vehicles, parked about 50 meters away. Bill breaks into a run. I follow.

We are both parked head on in the same row of cars, and we quickly back out in tandem. Bill noses the red Explorer onto Rt. 91 first. I have to wait for a couple of cars to pass. I'm expecting to come upon Heather pretty quickly, because we hustled away from the start, but I overtake a couple of riders and neither is Heather. As I continue to drive on, I wonder whether I could have passed her without knowing it. Finally, I see a rider ahead, no more than a dot at first, who as I get closer appears to be wearing blue, one of our club colors. It's Heather.

Bill and I discussed following her in the car, riding along side shouting "venga" and "allez." I didn't think there was a rule against it, but no one else is doing it, and we decide not to. But as I approach Heather, I slow down and roll down my passenger side window. "Great job, Heather," I scream. " You're killing it !" And she was.

I've ridden a lot with Heather, and watched her race plenty. She has that ability the pros have: to ride at her limit and maintain a totally placid, expressionless, closed-mouth face. She really makes it look easy, never looks like she's struggling or tired. On this day, her mouth was open, her face sweaty and twisted, almost contorted, as she titled her head in my direction, her long lean legs smoothly turning at just the right cadence. Heather has a time trialist's natural ability to know how much torture she can endure for the length of the required effort—on this day, about seven minutes—and you could easily see she had it at the absolute max. I continue up the road to the finish, park on the grass, and stroll over to the line where Bill is standing. It isn't long before Heather comes into site. She's flying. "Do you have the time," I ask Bill. "No," he says, "I accidentally stopped the watch when I got in the car."

Heather won the time trial in 7:22, reportedly setting a women's course record. She moved into first place in the General Classification. Her time was twenty seconds better than mine, and I'm proud of her. There was a time, earlier in the season, when my time trials were a little better than Heather's. Those days are gone.

The next day, the weather has cleared, but the criterium at Ninagret Park is a disaster for me. At the start, I charge to the front, determined to spend the race in the top six. As we spin around the serpentine course the first time, I find it increasingly difficult to stay near the front. It seems like a hugely fast pace. After a couple of laps, I look down at my back wheel to see what gear I'm in because my computer wasn't turned on. It's a 52x19, and I can't turn the gear over. I've done the Bob Beal twice before, and each time, my strongest race was the criterium on the second day, so I am baffled by this turn of events. After a few laps of struggling to hang on, we pass my jeep parked on the side of the course and I just ride on the grass and stop. I started the day 10th in GC, but there will be no points today.

As I slowly ride around the parking lot to warm down my burning legs, I hear a slight sound coming from what seems like the front wheel. I stop to check if a brake is rubbing. No dice. When I continue to ride, I hear the noise again. I stop and spin the wheel, but can't hear anything. I release the skewer, then close it and spin the wheel. Nothing. I then take the front wheel out of the dropouts and put it back in. When I do this, I notice that the wheel is not settling evenly into the dropouts but is in fact a little cockeyed. How could I have missed something like this, I wonder, bitterly. I take the wheel off, turn the bike upside down and examine the dropouts closely. One of them has some mud stuck to the inside. I flick the mud away with my finger, put the wheel back on and it settles squarely in place. I had been riding with an out-of-kilter-wheel. That will increase the rolling resistance, I would say. I think I must have set the front fork down in the grass or dirt sometime after yesterdays race. A little later I tell a couple of guys what happened. They look at me skeptically. Hey, I couldn't believe myself at first.

I fill up my water bottles, put my seat bag on, and head out of Ninagret Park and up Rt. I. It's a gorgeous day, although a little chilly, about 60 degrees, and I have decided to ride for a few hours. Heather's race isn't until 3:00 p.m. so I'll get in some easy miles, burn some calories, cruise around Rhode Island and do some sightseeing. I have a turkey sandwich and a power bar in my jersey pockets. Some people call this kind of riding junk mileage, reasoning that the low pace doesn't do anything for your fitness, and the long distances create unnecessary fatigue. I disagree. A lot of mileage toughens your body; I'll be riding at an easy recovery pace, and it will be relaxing and enjoyable. I don't know of any rule that says you can't be a racer and a tourist.

I ride up to the road race loop and head up Kings Factory Road. It seems hillier today than it did yesterday, and longer. I do the 14 mile loop twice, along with a couple of out-and-back legs on Rt. 1 and Rt. 112, then head back down to the crit course, completing 55 miles in 4 hours. As I pull into the park, the 40-44 race is just finishing. There's a guy a couple of hundred meters off the front, it's the last lap, and the CTS/Cranford Bike guys are chasing hard. With about a half lap to go, one of the CTS guys, Bernie McGarry, who is leading the MCRA season-long competition in this group, charges off the front and starts to bridge. It seems like too little too late, and the announcer observes that it will likely be impossible for Bernie to catch the solo break. The two riders disappear behind some trees, and emerge to our left about three hundred meters from the line, at the end of what once was a runway on this former airfield. McGarry has made up an incredible amount of distance in a short time. The two are charging hard into the headwind, and McGarry just passes the other guy at the line for the win.

The women's crit is the last race of the day. It's cold, a lot more cloudy than sunny, and the wind is blowing harder than ever. The 45+ women will be on the course at the same time as the 30+ women, with a staggered start. The 30+ women stay together for the first half of the race. There are a couple of attacks that are chased and easily caught. Eventually, one of the Verizon girls gets away and opens up a 400 meter gap. Nobody is chasing, and you can see Heather looking around impatiently. She wants to take off. After a time, Lisa Jellette, Heather's friend and rival from New Jersey gets away and starts to bridge up to Brenda, the leader.

The criterium course at Ninagret park is a sort of rounded dog bone. The homestretch and the backstretch pass within about 20 meters of each other near the start/finish line. You can almost see the whole course from the start, where Bill and I and Heather's aunt and uncle were watching, except for the extreme right end of the dogbone, which is kind of far away, and the extreme left, which is blocked by some trees. As the pack passed directly in front of us one the back stretch, Heather rose from her saddle and started cranking some serious wattage with her long legs. In what seemed like seconds, she was off the front and well on her way to catching Lisa. Brenda disappeared behind the trees to our right, then Lisa, then the charging Heather, who was clearly riding much faster than the other two. When they emerged from behind the trees about fifteen seconds later, the three were together.

Lisa won the sprint and Heather was second, earning enough points to seal the GC win. They talked excitedly about the race, while the other women gathered around these two Jersey girls to offer their congratulations. You wouldn’t see the guys acting like this. It was nice. After marveling with Bill about Heather’s bridge for a while, I said good-bye and jumped in my car and headed for home.

Bob Cary October 2004