An indoor TT on compu-trainers in January? I honestly can’t remember how I got talked into this thing. The way I remember it, a few of my buddies said they were doing it. They said there would be beer there (it’s at the Harpoon brewery, it’s like a giant bar you can ride your bike in!). I said yes. Then they unanimously decided to bail. Leaving me, “The Watt-less Wonder” to embarrass myself soundly in front of bunch of roadies and triathletes who put out more watts shaving their legs than I do during a lactate threshold test. That’s not true. I don’t even know what a lactate threshold test is! It just sounds like something a smart person might say. I think it has something to do with being hooked up to lots of tubes and wires and running on a treadmill really fast while scientists make you drink as many milk shakes as you can possibly stand before you throw up.
I was committed…to taking this event as not-seriously as humanly possible. What better way to accomplish that than by riding it on my Superfly Single Speed.
The six stages of causing myself grief:
1.) Hey guys! This isn’t so bad. Wait…this thing is getting hard to pedal, I think it’s broken. 2.) Alright, the shirt’s comin’ off, can somebody turn down the heat, I don’t get this wet when I swim. Does that sign behind me really say “Harpoon Hot Stool? I better back off…don’t want to end up having to sample that hot stool. 3.) No, no seriously, this sucks, I hate it, Kevin, where’s my beer feed? 4.) Wow, I have a stack of hot dogs on the back of my neck, I am fat! 5.) I can’t watch anymore, that little pink block (how did they know that was my color?) isn’t even moving. 6.) Wow, this is way more fun when you sit back and spin your legs while drinking a beer and watching everybody else suffer. I’m tired, get me some nachos.
So my brilliant idea was to ride the single speed. I put a MASSIVE gear on it — a 34 X 15. Whoa dude! Too bad what might make for a huge trail gear is, on a road course, incredibly puny. I also knew that a knobbly rear tire would probably not work on the compu-trainers and be deafeningly loud and obnoxious if it did work. So I threw a 700 X 28 road tire on the rear and I was good to go, or so I thought.
Marv and Gene helped me figure out my gearing. Marv is more of masher, he wanted me to go with the 15t. Gene Simmons, he’s more of spinner, he wanted me to go with the 16t. I had to side with Marv on this one.
When I got to the brewery, I was informed of an hour and half delay…so I ate cookies and went to get a beer. And another beer.
After hanging around for over an hour, I decided to warm up. Just as it did at home, my DT RWS rear skewer worked fine in the Cycelops trainer. But then when it came time to mount my bike on the Compu-Trainer, things went all to hell.
The skewer was very far from fitting. I wound up scrambling for a replacement bike. Hold on…that’s a lie. I was more than stoked to get out of this thing. On the “start line” we had former USPRO and Cyclocross National champ Mark McCormack. We had former Messenger World Champ Pete Bradshaw. We had roadie bad asses like Dylan McNicholas, Robbie King, and Alec Donahue. Oh and some kid (u23 Triathlon World Champ Ethan Brown). Other people scrambled for a replacement bike…and they found one. Although it was way too small, and had a compact crankset, it was geared, number one on my long laundry list of excuses was out the window.
Thanks to to some help from the neutral support guys from Mavic (I guess I’m the reason why an indoor TT needs neutral support) I was able to jump in just in time. Oh yay! The thing started and I was dumbfounded by how horrible I felt so rapidly, “this is horrible” I said. “Kevin, did you hear me? This is horrible.” Kevin was my beer feed man. It was hard to take the feeds though. The only way I could average more than 180 watts was to stand on the pedals in the 50 X 11 (ooh that 34 X 15 would have been awesome!). Eventually, when I’d really given up, I took the feeds, sitting back on my too low saddle and spinning, watching the pink block that represented me not move perceptibly.
Kevin was very supportive too: “Everyone else is almost done. They’re pushing 400 watts…comfortably. Ya see Alec Donahue? Doesn’t he look comfortable? He’s pushing 400 watts! That’s OK, you’ll make it up in the rock garden!”
And apparently averaging 258 watts for twenty-something minutes was good enough for 101st place. Outstanding!
Speaking of outstanding, next time I go to a Harpoon ITT I’ll be out-standing in the hall drinking beer while all those damn roadie and tri fit-in-winter types blast everyone in the face with their mad, mad watts.
“Horrible”
They had replacement skewers at every station. Wouldn’t that have been simpler?