Yo Vinnie!

This was one of those "only in Rhode Island" things. Since I was too old, feeble, and slow to get my shit together in time to capture digital imagery of the moment, I'll need to dig deep for the writing skills to draw the picture with words. Something tells me the Ocean Staters among you already have a good idea of what this is about. Imagine a mid nineties Mercury Cougar, some sort of special edition with not only a white vinyl landau top, but a matching white trunk treatment as well. Teal metallic paint, wire wheels, and white leather interior. Vinnie, sportin' an open collar, gold chains, heavy facial stubble, has the driver's seat properly pushed all the way back, reclined to 45 degrees (thus making room for his imaginary Stella's head-bobbing), long hairy arm properly extended straight out to the top of the steering wheel. He's doing eighty down the left lane of I-95, and we can only imagine what was blaring on his cassette deck. Maybe you had to be there, but maybe you just have to be from around there.

Why was I driving through Warwick? The Bob Beal masters' stage race was this past weekend. The race is two days, three stages, one of which is a short time trial. I signed up for the 45+ category, but turnout was light (to say the least) with only 18 riders partaking in the full omnium for this group. About an equal number of others chose to skip the time trial and omnium and just enter the two criteriums. The entire event takes place in Charlestown, RI at the town-owned Ninigret Park, a former Naval air base that has been converted into a sprawling recreational facility. Ninigret features what may be the only dedicated bicycle criterium course in the country. We would do a 4 mile time trial out on route 1 in front of the park, and then each day contest 20 laps of the 1.5k multi-turned, pancake flat circuit. In an omnium points are awarded for the top ten placings in each stage, and the highest point totals determine the omnium general classification placings. Got it?

The TT course was new this year. It also used to be in the afternoon, with a road race in the morning. This year my TT start was at 8:15 am. Ugh. It rained all the way down, but Ninigret must have been the driest spot in New England Saturday, as the roads were just a little wet. I'd considered winging it and going cannibal so that I would not have to clean two bikes at the end of the day. Having not raced in quite a while, I did not expect to have good enough form to contend for placings anyway. At the last minute though, I relented and loaded up the TT bike along with my aluminum bike for the crit. I am slow to pack up and leave the house as it is, and even more so when it's both dark out and raining, thus I did not hit the road until close to 6:15, getting to the park just after 7:30. Not exactly enough time for a premium warmup, let alone course preview. The good news was that a) the course is pretty much a 4 mile straight shot with just some gentle grades anyway, no turns, and b) most of the competition was in the same boat.

My bike was ready to go anyhow, tires inflated and all that, so I just kitted up and headed out on the course. No time for the trainer. Racing had not started but I did not have enough time to head all the way to the end, as route 1 is a divided highway and so I had to make my u-turns where I could and this added distance to the trip back to the start. I did a few jumps to try to get my heart and legs going and got back to the starting queue right on time. They had the fancy timing equipment with the robotic (female) voice doing the countdown. I knew this event would take less than ten minutes, but that still does not mean you can go out at a full sprint (although I'd bet most riders did). Try doing a nine minute interval some time and get back to me on how it feels if you go out too hard. I've worked on pacing a lot this year, and I must admit that on a flat course where an even effort is appropriate, using the power meter is somewhat helpful for gauging the rhythm. I'm starting out a lot easier than I used to in TTs of all lengths, and it seems to be helping. This time though, there was a slight rise in the first 500 meters, and try as I might to pace, I still found myself over 400 watts in the initial minute. Since my CP5 (on a climb) has tested out to 410 watts in the best case, holding 400 for nine minutes sitting down was unlikely. I was optimistically hoping for 370-380 average, but honestly I had no idea because I've only done testing and training at five minutes standing (Blue Hill) and twenty minutes seated (Rehoboth). So all I really knew to expect was something between 300 and 400.

The opening kilometer was followed by a brief downhill stretch. I was just trying to maintain over 100 rpms. That dumped out onto route 1 where we met a short, shallow grade. I did well here. Others complained of headwinds but honestly I did not notice. At the crest the race was half over and it was time to start emptying the tank. I had not seen this part of the course in warmup. On the gradual downhill, headwind or not, I glanced down to see I was going 52 kph. I was in my 53x13 and this quickly took me to another gradual rise which really sapped the speed and cadence. Clicking down gear after gear my speed plummeted to 36 kph at one point. There was over six minutes on the watch and that meant dig as hard as possible. It crested out and I got it going better, just trying to stay low and aero and fight for every bit of speed I could muster. Eight minutes came and passed, I kept digging, and mercifully the finish line cones appeared. Never getting off the saddle, I rolled through and clicked my timer at 8:49.

On the cooldown, even though I was sucking wind, I was able to calculate that this was just better than 2:13 miles, 43 kph (27 mph). My old standard when I was 30 was 2:12 miles, even in longer TTs. Only recently have I been able to again come close to that. I knew this would be a decent time, but honestly I figured that Peter Megdal (NEBC) would average 28 mph and beat me handily. When I got back to the parking area I was rolling around and ran into Pete and another guy, with Megdal saying he was not sure that he did a great ride. I told him my time and he said "you probably won" and it turns out that he was right. Pete was actually 4th, with Mike Pavlov (CCB) in second just three seconds behind me and John Stonebarger (Bicycle Link) an second or two behind him. The infamous Wolfie was 5th.

So I finally won something this year. Most of all I was pleased to learn that only one rider from the 35+, Scott Giles, had beaten my time. Actually he destroyed it, but he is the guy who lapped the field with Jonny in the 35+ race back in June. There were some other damn good riders in both the 35+ and 45+ fields that did not break 27 mph so I guess maybe there was a headwind after all. Anyway I was happy and leading the omnium. My average watts were 368 and my average cadence 98 rpm. I would be happy with that except that for the first half it was 395/107 and then falling to 344/91 in the last two miles. Part of that was the long grade sapping my cadence but with better pacing (not to mention a real warmup) I should have been able to improve my time over this distance. Next year...

I can't believe I've gone on this long already. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to come back and learn how I managed to not only lose the omnium, but completely miss the podium as well.. And I turned on RSS again, happy now? Thanks for reading, and a shout out to all the Vinnies in RI!