Yankee Springs TT

Last Sunday started off the the race season for me, and was a great weekend to be on the bike. Saturday I drove to out to Yankee to get in one last pre-ride only to discover they were going to run the race backwards. I tried to control my nerves after the practice lap as any advantage Wednesday's laps would have given me were long gone and it was a "new" trail. Yankee is and interesting start to the season as it is a TT and therefore a lot of the elite riders race the elite class and the singlespeed class making a good placing difficult to come by, and this only made my nerves worse. I woke up early Sunday and rode to the shop to meet Jim, the ride loosened up my legs and I felt good. At Yankee we stopped by to see Mike, the Michigan Trek/Fisher/Bontrager rep, and the Trek demo bus. It was pretty cool to see all the bikes getting ridden around and JJ even scored a Superfly to "demo" for the race. After doing 4 laps of the 2 mile warm up course I spun around the dirt roads and showed up about 10 minutes early to my 11:51 start time to get a little stretching in. The only problem was start times were all snafued and as soon as I got to the start chute I was told most of the Expert/Elite Singlespeeds had already gone out and I had to chase through the Sport/Beginner riders. Adrenaline kicked in instantly and I left the start house on fire praying that I could stay away from the 2 or 3 Expert/Elite riders behind me. After hammering for the first 2 miles or so I settled in and concentrated on recovering as much as possible on downhills, riding the flats steady, and killing the hills. A few hike a bikes due to slower traffic elevated the heart rate left me feeling crappy. I wasn't sure how well the race was going but every rider I passed spurred me on and every rider I could catch a glimpse of needed to be chased down. Coming into the last gravely turn my wheel started to break loose a bit and I thought I was going to lose it on the home stretch but somehow managed to drift left and right before bringing it under control and hammering across the line. I had no idea how my time had compared but after seeing a sub 49 minute lap I felt confident I had pushed hard and could only wait until the results were posted. My 48:47 ended up being good enough for 2nd place making it my best finish ever in the singlespeed class and leaving me wanting more. Fort Custer is only a week and change away, and a few new additions have made their way onto the Rig. Carbon cranks and Ergon Grips...mmmmmm. I probably should have cleaned my basement instead of playing with my bike but Adam had his camera at work and doing housework is lame.

GBK