Appleton Time Trial Report

On Saturday The Boss, Russ and I headed up to Appleton, WI for a Wisconsin Cycling Association time trial. It was a beautiful day with light breezes, lots of sunshine and cool temperatures. Ideal for an all out effort on a bicycle. The course was a 13 mile affair in the out and back style on a lightly used road along the beautiful Fox River. Russ and I had never done a time trial and while 13 miles seemed like a fairly short distance, trying to figure out just how fast to go and how much effort to expend in the first few miles was going to be difficult. Starting off at 26 miles per hour you are likely to blow up after 3 or 4 miles and have nothing left for the remainder of the race. On the other hand, holding back too much would leave you with a lousy time.

The Boss provided his usual to-the-point advice; ride until you feel like puking, your eyes are bleeding, or both.

Russ was the fourth rider out of the gate, I was fifth and Barry was sixth. We set out at one minute intervals. In addition to almost throwing up twice on the course I kept thinking that I heard The Boss coming up behind me. Not wanting him to catch me I would apply more pressure on the pedals, tuck my head and body lower into the wind and grind away. The logic was two-fold; make The Boss pay for catching me and make both of us go faster. As it turned out Barry didn't quite catch me and all three of us rode fast enough to end up in the top ten in our category. Barry 5th, me 7th and Russ 9th.

All of our smiling faces were covered in sweat, drool and snot. It was beautiful!

Here are some pictures;







That's Barry (The Boss) in the first picture, Russ in the second and yours truly last. And yes, that is drool on my tights. Funny thing about these time trials; your nose is running uncontrollably, you're drooling all over, the wind is whipping the gunk on your face and clothing, and you don't care. I wonder what that says about a person?

A note about the pictures; as you can see by the imprinted copyright notice they were taken by Extreme Photography. I've ordered these prints from Extreme so don't think that I've stolen them. As soon as the picture files arrive I'll update the photos with the imprint removed.