As the Raven Flies TT–Race #3

Allen Kraft, Joe Cipale, John O’Brien and myself carpooled to McMinnville for the 3rd TT of the series.  Thanks to Allen for supplying the transportation.  Weather was very cool in the early morning, near freezing but soon warmed up to an absolutely perfect day.  Temps in the mid 50’s, sunny and NO WIND. 

We drove the course beforehand with John O giving the play by play since he’d done the first 2 of the series.  I had been pouring over the profile I plotted on ridewithgps.com for most of the previous week.  It is always so different to actually be there than look at gps data.  http://ridewithgps.com/routes/27973#

The course is demanding but in different ways.  They slam you with a 1/2 mile climb 300′ from the start line.  It’s virtually never flat with a constant series of ups/down, turns, changes in pavement quality etc so you really can’t get into a steady effort like a flat TT.  You also get to reclimb that just before the finish.  The downhill finish was fun, hitting 44mph while in the aerobars. The second picture below was taken at that speed.  There’s around 700′ of climbing for a 12 mile course.

I didn’t have high hopes as my legs were a bit sore from earlier in the week and climbing isn’t my forte’ (understatement).  I had considered using my road bike as climbing on the TT bike is less than optimal for me usually.  That would have been a mistake because there are some fast sections that would have eaten more time than I might have saved on the climbs. 

I finished in 32:03, good enough for 9th in the 50+ category and the top 1/3 overall.  Congrats to John O for winning the series in the Masters 50+. 

Poor Allen had a sudden, severe neck pain and had to sit up on the return. 

Here’s a few pictures from a local photographer.