Category: M70+
Result: 4th

Mike Z. and I rode the Pinole TT on Sunday in the M70+ class.

We were lucky with the weather. The roads were damp, but there was no rain. I managed to be running a little late getting to the start, but was still there a little over an hour before our start time.

There was time for a reasonable warm-up, but not quite as long as I would have liked, and then we rode to the start, timing our arrival so that we had about 2 minutes before we were off. Perfect.

Once we got going, we cranked along well. My HR was well above LT, but as I was feeling pretty good, I didn't worry too much. We caught our minute men at 3 miles.

Once round the turn onto Castro Ranch road the two rises hurt my legs, but unsurprisingly, Mike appeared to be floating up effortlessly. We charged down to turn onto Alhambra Valley Road. Along here we caught our 2 minute men at 10 miles, but I was beginning to suffer from the high early pace and was limiting our speed.

Once onto Bear Creek Road it was a steady grind to the base of the 3 bears. Up Mama Bear I got into a good rhythmn and was able to pick up the pace as we climbed. It helped that there were several groups on the climb ahead to act as carrots - one of them our 13 minute men. At the top, I was again well above LT.

The Baby Bears were also hard, but I was steeling myself for the final climb up Papa Bear. Once there, it was time to repeat what happened on Mama Bear - grind it out and force the pace where possible, passing another group on the way up. Once at the top it was time to crank it up to the finish which was just after the short downhill at the base of the final rise. It was very nice to finish the TT in my 53x12!

Mike measured our time as 46:45, but it was hard to judge how well we had ridden. I certainly felt put through the wringer as I was clearly slower then Mike and was feeling disappointed with my ride. Neither of us stayed to discover our placing.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we were a clear 4th in the 70+ category, over a minute behind 3rd and around 45s ahead of 5th. Overall, we did the 20th time of the day. A solid result in retrospect.

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