Riding in AZ

I just returned from a short trip to Tucson, AZ where I had a business conference. Fortunately, there was enough extra time for me to get a ride in each day (as long as I was up by 5:00 am). After the terrible experience I had flying my bike to CX Nationals last year, I decided I'd just rent a bike this time. The rental was a Trek Madone 5.2. It was a nice bike, but definitely not a SISU. It felt pretty strange to be on another brand of bike while wearing my SISU kit, and it took a little getting used to the Shimano shifting, but I managed.

The scenery was delightful and it was pretty cool to watch the sun poke its face up and over the Catalinas as I rode north on Oracle.


I decided to do the Mt. Lemmon Time Trial on Sunday, hosted by the Saguaro Velo Club. I hadn't had a chance to get on Lemmon before then, so I had no prior knowledge of the route, except that it went uphill. Without a rental car, I had to arrange for a van to pick me up at the hotel at 4:45 am and drop me at the race start 45 minutes away. Upon arrival, I registered and then rode the 30 minutes to the domicile of the Brothers Chase. After the bib-pinning ritual, Topher and I spun back to the start.

Topher started about 10 minutes ahead of me. I knew that it would be very hard for me to catch him on the way up the 12.5 mile course, but I stayed positive, hoping he'd have a few flats along the way or something.

At about 5 minutes into the race, I got passed by the guy :30 behind me. That was frustrating, but not as frustrating as when I looked at the results and found out the guy was a cat 5! Oh well, I guess I'm not a climber. I just held my power slightly below threshold and kept going. I felt pretty good, but not 100%. In the end, my average power was about 2% below threshold, which is about what I would expect given the altitude. I finished in 58:15, a little better than my arbitrary 1:00:00 goal.

Here's the man, the myth, the legend getting ready to go:


And here's me struggling to keep moving (the picture is deceiving, I'm going uphill here):



Topher beat me by about 7 minutes (nice job dude!). After the race we continued up for a couple miles and then descended for about half an hour to the base of the mountain and another half hour to his house. Topher was like my personal taxi driver. He shuttled me all over Tucson to get my bike, return my bike, feed me etc. It was really kind of him, and no matter how hard you all hate on him, I still think he's a good guy. Thanks Topher!

I ended up not finishing DFL, which is a victory in my book. I was 12th of 13 cat 3 racers and 60th of 170 overall.

'Twas a good trip.