As I mowed the lawn and fought my weed eater, a heavy layer of clouds began filling the Front Range basin, creeping over the foothills west of Denver. The temperature, in my opinion, was a perfect 62 degrees under sunless skies and still wind conditions: perfect for a time trial. Right on schedule I packed up my skin suit, TT bike, helmet, food and energy drinks and casually tossed my full finger gloves, arm and knee warmers into my bag; kind of a ’just in case’ measure. I loaded the Vanagon and made my way out to HWY 93 in Golden for the drive up to Boulder.
Upon hitting some of the high points of 93 west of Arvada I was afforded my first chance of seeing the dark blanket of cloudy tendrils wrapping the area around Boulder. Drops appeared on the Vanagon’s windshield. “Ah shit” I thought to myself. That would not be the last time I’d think that this afternoon. I continued on and for each mile the spattering of rain on my windshield increased. I tried as long as I could to not turn my windshield wipers onto the regular cycle, preferring to just cycle them on periodically manually; my way of convincing myself the rain really wasn’t that bad. Heading into Eldorado Springs, however, the wipers were on full bore and the road made that heavy, wet, rushing sound like waves on a beach as cars passed.
I pulled up to the start area and parked near the rest of the team. At this point there was a slight reprieve from the rain, and I made my way to the registration tent; apparently the rain hadn’t arrived at the north Boulder region…just yet. Upon returning to my car to pin on my number and change, the rain finally found us. Huddled under our sponsor's, Primal Wear, tent a dozen cyclists on trainers warmed up their legs and eyed the falling rain with trepidation. It was cold, cold and wet. Riders sat in their cars, forgoing much of a warm up. Others sought warmer layers to wear. Like many, I left a dry and warm Denver and foolishly didn’t bring much more than my emergency knee and arm warmers: thank god for that much. Forgoing our on-road warm up and practice, not the best of ideas, we sat under the tent, occasionally pushing the pooling water from underneath so the weight wouldn’t build on the nylon canopy. Time to go.
Would it be too much of a pun to say the race was going to be a wash out? On a quick warm up run to the start line we were disorganized and scattered. You couldn’t see through grime covered glasses, spattered by the spray of water and debris from the tires in front of you. To execute a TTT you must remain tight together, rotating behind eachother's wheels; difficult to do when you get a mouth full of spray and sand every time you cross lines with the rider in front. We had 5 min to stand shivering at the start. I swung my arms to keep warm and bounced my legs to keep the muscles from tightening. We started the 12 mile course at 2:22 pm (MST) heading north into a headwind and sheet of rain and spray from cars passing on the highway. I couldn’t see anything, but with the clear communication from the guys on the team things seemed to be going relatively well. I pushed my glasses to the end of my nose so I could see over them heading into the first 90 degree right turn. We had some mistiming coming out of that turn and things somewhat unraveled from there.
With only 4 of our planned 5 riders present at the start, we needed to get 3 to the finish line to score our time. Heading down the long sweeping downhill rollers on the back stretch of the course one of our riders, who struggled with his bike during the Individual TT earlier in the day, dropped his chain. We couldn’t stop and waste the time so the remaining 3 of us pushed forward to the line without him. The downhill sections were sketchy; hitting speeds in excess of 40, rotating a line of speeding riders all the while in an onslaught of splash back and rain. We were moving pretty well until one of the remaining team members started to cramp; now we had to slow as we needed 3 guys. The humid warm up under the tent and dehydrating, sapping rain pulls moisture out of the muscles and tightens them: cramping is practically an inevitability in conditions like this unless properly fueled up and topped off on electrolytes. We slowed down, encouraged him onward but ended up losing time on the clock.
Finishing 7th of a handful of CAT3 teams we were disappointed with our result, but pleased to have made it through the race with everyone upright and intact. Wet roads, speed and narrow slick tires (toss in some slimy road paint) make for a potentially treacherous event: a miscue could have sent our whole line to the ground. On the way back to the cars the rain was clearly finished for the day. The road spray was no where near as intense and when we approached our cars seemed practically nonexistent. A layer of dirt, sand, brown stains and grime covered the faces and kits of every rider. Bikes were practically unrecognizable under all the filth: it was a mess. But in the end it will prove a memorable mess and will likely make for better stories than many of the other races that will come and go off without a hitch or so much as a cloud in the sky. Here's some video taken of the Primal/ 1st Bank elite squad getting it done in the rain. (Click for video) Some video was taken of my team too, so when it gets posted I’ll link to it, so everyone can see and experience the fun of the Haystack TTT.
My Dirty Bike and Kit after the Haystack TTT in Boulder, CO.
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