velo bella makes me barf.

seriously.

it might sound awesome, but barfing during a tt is not as awesome as it sounds.
...at least for the guy doing the barfing.

so the hamel tt hosted by super-sexy velo bella cycling team was yesterday.
the course was an a+ by (dis)pencer standards.

tt's are usually pretty boring.
mostly flat, out-and-back, no turns to speak of, and nothing technical.

all-in-all they are not very challenging, (other than the whole going fast part).

i for one love to see tt's with some drama, a la the us nationals tt last year.
boo ya.

hamel was the closest i've seen in mn.
it had more than one climb, it had descents (gasp!), it had corners, and even better the corners were tightened up via a cone-line, so you actually had to negotiate the turns.
something many local tt'ers never get to do.

i think it was the first time we we're really able to see who really knew what they were doing on one of these goofy-ass bikes.



i think the results showed us what's up.
timmer beat everyone else by a minute.
big matt won the cat 3's while sick, and coughing up a lung before, (and again after), the race.

super rookie even put his bike on the trainer to make it look like he knew what he was doing.
it was a psychological tactic, but we all saw right through it.



what sr failed to realize is that the trainer is not to train the bike.
you have to get on the bike while it's on the trainer.

like our cat 3 winner:



i got on the trainer too, (i usually just warm-up on the road, cuz trainers are totally geeky), and it made my ride so much less painful than usual!

i got up to speed quickly, and tried to pace my self at a reasonable level for the first few minutes, and was able to avoid the terrible burning and heavy-as-logs feelings my leg usually get in tt's.
sweet.

super rookie had told me that the finish was about 2 miles after a "descent with a turn right after it".

what he didn't mention was that there were 2 sections of the course that had descents with a turn after...

so after the first one, i ramp it up. give it a fantastic effort that brings me right to...
the actual "descent with a turn".

d'oh!

so i spent the last 2 miles suffering like a dog, trying to recover and put up a reasonable time.

at least i beat that son-of-a...