Well that was fun...... Exeter and Visalia

Nice weekend down south ,

We showed up a little late for the TT and I got in about a 20 minute warmup, not the best for the violent effort to come, but whatever.

I love the Snowflake, my old tri-TT, whatever bike- probably the only 650c bike still running around, I did the touch up paint with white nail polish, running some old Zipp 400's with a straight block of gears and a 56 big cookie, but she's my baby and my first real bike someone actually gave me her since they felt sorry for me doing triathlons on a Bianchi Squadra with downtube shifters, she fits like a dream, though.

They made the hills taller since we came down and checked things out last month, or so it seemed.

Good ride for me despite technical difficulties- pedals, chains, shifting, a ongoing theme of my weekend on both bikes.

Hard hard hard on the hills and moving along on the flats, a little bit of hail, but I ignored it inside my comfy TT helmet anyway. Sold out on the final climb and the ride into town hurt deeply, and what was up with the 20 mph headwind all of a sudden?

We came home with 4th, 6th, and 8th(me) in the cat 3's so good stuff.

Excellent meal and crashed early, only to toss and turn most of the night, some snoozing would have been good, as we got up at oh-dark-thirty to make the first race at 9:10.

Cruising along roughly 5 minutes in, good course for us, and I drop my chain off the bike. In hindsight, I know the rule about basically only crashes and flats get a free lap, I should have grabbed it while rolling and stuck it on, but I was in front of the pit, so I stop to see my favorite mechanic, the Shimano neutral support. We stick it back on, and then the blue shirt get's involved;

him- no free lap for you!

me- yeah, I know, I just drove for three hours and we're 5 minutes in, but I get it.

him- well, get back in!

Me- I'll wait for my teamies on the next lap, please. I already TTed for a hour yesterday.

Him, turning to referee, wanting to DQ me- can we pull him?

Referee- it's a small field, let him back in down a lap.

that solved, I jump back in and notify Nome and the Vick I won't be of any use to them come the sprint, but will do whatever I can for the remainder to help them escape the clutches, but no soup for us...

M123 right after, we do the superman in the phone booth trick with the jerseys pre-pinned, then head back out.

Shimano looks at my bike beforehand and we seem to get the shifting solved, I did just build it up this week, so more than a few glitches..

Bigger field with 45 plus in there too and some quality guys, MS, SP, VOS, ya'll know the deal.- we just covered moves and hoped to be in the right place at the right time.
I felt pretty good and was finding a second wind, starting to recognize the players a bit as the season goes along.
I chased a sweet move that double clutched in the corner, I tried to keep the power down to reach em and skipped my pedal hard, hopping over about a foot, landing upright but tearing the tire off, then riding a degrading rim down from 28 or so, big fun.
Back to my buddy in the pit, I was just about his only customer, but still kept him busy.

Shimano 10 fits Campy 10 no problem, BTW.

No static from the blue shirt this time and I'm off, albeit a little nervous about skipping a pedal again, but it was race on there again for a while, till I sucked and gave in to all the excitement.
pulled the ripcord with one to go and got out of their way, tough race, with no one really going away, but with hard endless attacks, it never really lulled up to recover.

I took the bike off the truck tonight and the crankarm swung down like a power cranks commercial- I can't find any damage and took it apart, my guess is just not tight enough and when I hit the ground with it I loosened it, not too sure, but that's why bikes and cars get raced, to find out what works and survives, seems a-ok now though.

Having to file the rim a tiny bit where I skidded, some pockmarks, and the pedal has a little more clearance now :-)

Il Grullense- a nice chain, I never have gone wrong with stopping at a Grullense, even though I can't figure out what a grullense is, perhaps a mariachi style?


Edit- I just heard about the womens' pro crash, ouch!

Hope everyones' ok- those ladies don't exactly back down when it gets going- pure aggression.