Black Dog TT Recap - "You must be Skibby"

First things first, the laugh of the night. After his TT, Skibby spots Scott Flanders, and rides over to tell him he has their money from Opus. He stops, fails to clip out of his fixed gear, and goes down, lying on his back with the bike in the air. Scott quips "You must be Skibby." To top it off, his truck is such a mess, he couldn't find their money anyway. Classic.

The weather could have been better, but could have been worse. It didn't start coming down hard until just before 6PM. Turn-out was light, as expected, but a few notables were there, likely as a warm-up for Saturday's State TT. Doug Swanson, Scott Flanders, and David Zimmerman were among the new faces.

I decided to move from my normal parking spot to under the Cedar Ave bridge for shelter from the rain. I parked next to Waataja, which is always an experience in itself. I took my time getting our bikes ready, as the rain continued to pour down. As I'm finally mounting my trainer, Mike reminds me that they've already started. I had a 7PM start in my head from TNT, where BD starts a 6:30. Thanks to Mike's reminder, we quickly headed to the start, with a few minutes to spare. Whew.

Just as Jordan's about to start, there is lightening, and the officials call a 10min delay. Then more lightening, and another delay. This is actually good, because I had zero warm-up. I got on the trainer for 10 minutes to loosen my legs up, and we headed back to the start.

Now the rain has stopped, the wind was down, and the sun is even peeking through the clouds. With the delay, I knew I'd have no one to pass, except Jordan. I like to have a few people to pass, but having an open road in front of me was good too. I rode more towards the middle of the road, knowing the were no riders coming the opposite direction forcing traffic into the middle of the road. As I approached the turn around, they were just placing the cones back down. They must have figured the night was done, since no one had come for several minutes. That was a close one. My turn around was terrible, but safe. From there on, I felt good. My HR was up, but so was my speed. I was spinning an easier gear, and every time I went one bigger, my speed dropped, so I just stuck with the easier one.

Coming into the start area, a slow car was in front of me, and I had to scoot by them in the corner under the bridge. I hate when that happens, especially with slippery roads, but I don't think I lost any time because of it. I finished in a time of 14:51. Ave speed was 27.5mph, ave HR was 170, and max HR 185. 1 second faster than my best time last year, and my new best time for the current course length.

Doug ripped a 14:19. Cripes. 1st TT of the year. How does he do it? Casper improved greatly to 14:25, and Timmer rode a respectable 14:35. Scott Flanders popped a 14:51 to match my effort. Zimmerman rode a 14:57, but the results don't show it due to a flat and missed start. Dobbertin improved to 15:06. Jordan rode a 19:32, 7 seconds off his PR from 2 weeks ago. He can live with it since it was his 5th race in as many days. Nice rides by all. The State TT is going to be great. See you all in St. Peter.