Perhaps the phrase, "expect the unexpected" best describes the Savage Hill Women's Team’s first attempt in a team time trial event. After tossing the idea of entering this TTT since early this spring, Lisa, Amy, Katherine, and I finally submitted our registration forms last month, and then we practiced for several weeks on the old Franklin Bicycle Club TT course in Hilliard. Just two weeks before the race, Lisa’s hip injury resurfaced, so we sought to recruit a 4th team member at the 11th hour. After tossing around a variety of names only days before the event, we contacted Cindi Hart of Indianapolis (who has a very distinguished cycling career including the title of National Masters Road Race Champion and membership on the Women’s National Track Cycling Team) to see whether she would be available that weekend. Most fortuitously for us, she agreed to serve as our team captain for the race.
Saturday was definitely a great day to be outdoors. Conditions were sunny and dry with temperature in the lower 70’s. Out of 37 teams entered, we were the 8th one to start. Our early start time of 9:16 am helped minimize exposure to winds that were coming out of the west-southwest. The course was as expected for central Illinois—flat country roads surrounded by cornfields with only an occasional minor roll.
Following an uneventful standing start, Cindi, Amy, and Katherine pushed the pace at 25-26 mph with a slight tailwind. I took a sleigh ride in the back functioning primarily as the “reserve,” while Todd followed us in the SAG vehicle. However, after the first of 5 turns before the turnaround, the road became rather bumpy, and the next unexpected thing happened: Cindi’s plastic water bottle cage spontaneously disintegrated, and her only water bottle fell off her bike. Because Katherine was the only one with two water bottle cages on her bike, she was sent back to retrieve the water bottle from Todd in the team SAG vehicle. After figuring out that she was supposed to pick up the bottle from the passenger side of the car (only Cindi and Todd had race radios), Katherine pushed hard to catch up to the rest of us as we continued motoring down the road without her at full speed. Not long after she caught back up to the group, her knee accidentally knocked the water bottle out of her hand again, and she had to make yet another taxing trip back to the SAG. This time around, she was able to motorpace the SAG vehicle most of the way back to the group.
After the next turn, we headed into the wind and our pace dropped to as low as 17 mph on the uphill grades. We had to navigate in single file around a land yacht that a driver had inconveniently positioned diagonally across the road, and then a team of 4 guys passed us. Around that time, I began rotating in whenever possible to try to contribute to the effort. Three turns later as we approached the turnaround point, we passed several lone riders who had been shelled (dropped) from their teams--always a good sign in a TT. The turnaround went smoothly as Cindi led the group through a very tight turn around the orange pylon that was placed in the middle of the road. The next section leading away from the turnaround had a minor uphill grade to it, so the pace slowed down somewhat to 18 mph or so. As we approached the next turn, Cindi warned us that this would be our last tailwind before the finish. We took advantage of the tailwind and the slight downhill grade by picking the pace up to 26-27 mph (unbeknownst to us, the winning team had picked it up to 30 mph!). Then another team of 4 guys passed us. The winds had really picked up by then, and when we made our final turn into the homestretch and straight into the wind, we fought extremely hard to keep the pace between 20 and 23 mph. Todd relayed to Cindi our current average—somewhere in the 22 mph range which we knew was a respectable pace. I remember Cindi telling us to take short pulls at this point. At first, we thought that the orange pylons just ahead of us marked the finish, so we picked up the pace as much as we could only to find out that the finish was still one mile down the road. Jokingly, I said to Amy while she was doing a monster pull at the front, “I’ve got nothing!” (something she heard a guy say during the PUR Tour when he was supposed to pull through in a paceline and knew he didn’t have enough gas). After one more mile of all-out effort, all 4 of us crossed the finish line with a time of 1:22-something and an average speed of 22.5 mph over the 50K course. This was good enough to put us in 2nd place out of 4 teams in the Women’s Open division. Although each team's time is based on when the front wheel of the 3rd team member crosses the finish line, we were one of the few teams that kept the entire team intact all the way to the end--a noteworthy achievement in itself. The first place women’s open team (which reportedly had several triathletes) had a time of 1:19+. Team Apache placed 3rd at 1:23+, and Team XXX placed 4th 1:31+. By comparison, in 50+ Women’s Division, Team Lightning Bolt turned in a time of 1:46.
Even though the drive out to Illinois was a bit long, it was really a fun event and a useful learning tool. I think we’re ready to give it another shot next year—but next time, everyone will be wearing Camelbaks and carrying team radios.
Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to thank several people for helping us with this event. We are eternally grateful to Todd Lee (also know fondly to us as "Dot" because we once thought we might have to throw a wig on him so he could substitute for Lisa at the TTT) for his dedicated assistance during team practices and for providing expert SAG support during the race. We couldn’t have done it without him. We are also greatly indebted to our friend, Cindi from Indy, for serving as our team captain, keeping us organized, and keeping us motivated during the race. Special thanks are also extended to Cindi’s husband, Ken Hart, for researching the course records for us and to Coach Steve Thordarson for supplying pointers for our TT practices.
