This past weekend I raced the Yankee Springs TT. Well attempted to anyway. I had to borrow my wife's bike as my fork is currently in need of some repair. I was unsure that I was even going to race but I didn't want to use it as an excuse. My wife's bike is a Niner Air 9 with a Reba XX fork. It's a really good bike but as I found its not mine and I was totally not comfortable riding it. Not to mention I never road the race course before and it wast first Cat 1 race. So all new stuff at a race. How many triathletes would do that?
The race started out ok but as it continued I just didn't feel that great on that bike. I had some of my parts off of my Specialized but it still wasn't the same. The biggest issue I had was with the shifting. Since I was using my wheels with my cogset I needed to readjust the shifters but I didn't. It totally slipped my mind. I found myself missing shifts and not getting all my gears when I needed them. I made some passes on a few guys and got passed. Thats just how time trials go. I came though the first lap in 52:06. Not bad but not to my potential. I had just passed another rider and was heading up a climb when my shifting started slipping again and real bad. So bad that the chain sucked and I ended up snapping the rear deraileur hanger and the chain. That was pretty stupid of me. I should have not continued to push but I was in full freak out mode. In Ironman racing I never freaked out like this.
So not the best showing for my first Cat 1 race but I have a lot of racing ahead in my mountain bike career. The takeaways from this race are first, don't race just to race and second, stay calm in mechanical situations. Doing something stupid can be very costly both to the race and financially.
