The Dirt Field

Upon leaving Gatineau last Sunday, the team sent me home with a time trial (TT) bike to build up and practice riding, specifically in preparation for the TT at Nationals this Saturday. Since I’d never ridden a TT bike before, I was eager to set it up as soon as possible and start dialing it in. Because clearly three days of practice was going to be enough for me to CRUSH it at Nationals.

The bike was ready on Wednesday. Well, ready is a strong word. The bike was able to roll forward (sort of) and be pedaled (with some effort). Andrew labored intensively to build it but ran into a number of minor issues that had to be set aside in favor of getting me on the bike as quickly as possible. When I set out for the inaugural ride that morning, the shifting was temperamental, the fit was nowhere close to set up for my body, and the back tire was rubbing on the frame. Loudly. With each rotation.

(Andrew will protest if I do not acknowledge that he was unaware of the rubbing because it didn’t occur until after I inflated the tires right before the ride.)

I pushed onward (squeak! squeak! squeak!) and rode out of my neighborhood, but as soon as I stood to power through the first short uphill, I almost crashed immediately as my knee slammed upwards into the back of the untrimmed aerobars. After regrouping for a moment, I started rolling and settled into the aerobars. By settled, I mean fumbled awkwardly and timidly while struggling to control the bike.

It got better quickly, except that I couldn’t brake while in the aerobars and couldn’t shift while on the base bars. Then I almost got hit by a tractor that started to cross the bike path without pausing. Not that him pausing would have mattered, though, since braking required the Herculean effort of coming out of the aerobars. If a rabbit had run out into my path, he would have been screwed (although history indicates that he would be anyway).

When the squeaking became too much for my ears and dignity to take, I lessened it by letting a lot of air out of the back tire. That made for a somewhat quieter, albeit mushy ride. The next hour passed uncomfortably – I didn’t mind being hunched over the bars, but the bike felt like work to move forward and I couldn’t find the right cadence. Things started to hurt in weird places and sweat kept pouring into my eyes.

In the last ten minutes of the ride, a car passed by dangerously close and startled me badly. It was the final straw – I floored that bike like a bat out of hell and chased the driver until they parked at their office and I got a chance to unload the frustration that had been building for the prior ninety minutes.

To be fair, I am certain the bike will feel better once the mechanical aspects are smoothed out and the fit is dialed in. I’m also not going to start the TT at Nationals anyway; a persistent sore throat and general malaise this week indicate that I have a virus and would be safer resting a few extra days and conserving for the Nationals road race and the Philly race. And it’s a shame, too, because I was SUPER excited to get back on that bike.