CBR (California Bicycle Racing) Team Time Trial (TTT) Championships

From left, Steve, Dave, Doug, Bob 

It is 0600 hours and 58 degrees on this August morning, and Doug Short, Dave Cooley, Steve Caldwell and I are warming up on Division Street just south of Ave. E. The four of us are going to compete in our first team time trial (see my December 2004 post on time trials.) The CBR TTT is put on by Uncle Tren Race Productions and Tren himself is manning the megaphone alerting all racers to their start times. The TT starts on Ave. E, right at Division Street. The riders race directly East for 20 k and then turn around a pylon in the road, before heading back West for the last 20 k. The finish line is about 200 m west of Division on Ave. E.


The TT Starts (Bob on the left, Doug on the right) 

We are competing in the 180+ category; our combined ages must be 180 or above but not over 220 and we can’t have any racer under 30. I’m the oldest at 48, followed by Doug at 47, Dave 45, and Steve 44. Of the four of us, I have the most experience in racing bicycles in general and time trialing in particular. Doug also has some racing experience and has completed one individual time trial this year. Steve has only 1 individual time trial to his credit, while Dave has never competed on the bike in either a time trial or bicycle race (though he’s completed several century rides.) Our goal, like any TT, is to beat the clock. In this instance, we would like to be below 60 minutes for the TT.


I'm Charging 

As we are warming up on this surprisingly cool desert morning, we can’t help but be somewhat intimidated by the other racers and their gear. Almost every other team is in “full aero” gear. This means skin tight racing uniform, shoe covers, TT helmets, but especially the bikes. Almost all the bikes are TT or Tri bikes with the extreme geometry these bikes possess. Most of the bikes are outfitted with a 3 bladed front wheel and full disk rear wheel. We take stock of our “team bike.” I am actually riding a full TT bike, my beautiful Felt S22. It slices through the air with ease and is tough to draft off of. I do have very aero, deep dish Spinergy wheels for this bike and a Renn carbon fiber rear disk wheel but the consensus of the group is that I’m hard enough to draft behind as it is without the very aero wheels under the bike. The other guys, with the exception of Doug, have regular “slack” bikes and no aero bars. Doug has a set of clip-on aero bars on his regular geometry road bike. So we know we’re a little out-classed in the equipment area before the race even starts. But that’s time trialing; you compete against yourself and the clock, not against other racers riding superior or inferior racing equipment.


Doug is right behind 

We move to the starting point and volunteers come out and hold our bikes up as we clip in. I hear the counter start with, “10 seconds, 9, 8, 7, …) and we’re off. I’m the lead rider and I quickly accelerate to 22 mph and wait to hear that our pace line has formed behind me. Doug is right behind me, followed by Dave, with Steve taking up the rear. As soon as I hear that Steve is “attached” I pick-up the pace to 24 mph and then 25 mph. My 1 minute pull is up and I peel off to the left and watch Doug smoothly pull through. I ease up enough to allow me to drift back to the end of the line and I swing to the right into a position right on Steve’s six. Doug takes his turn holding our speed at around 24 – 25 mph, and now it’s Dave’s turn. Dave is a strong rider and he picks up the pace to around 26 mph. I realize that with a 25 mile TT we need to average over 25 mph to finish under 60 minutes and I know we need to stay at 26 mph or above. Steve now takes his turn and we come back to around 24 – 25 mph. This cycle repeats itself for several revolutions and then the humbling thing happens; our “minute man,” the team that started 1 minute behind us catches us. They happen to pass us as Dave is pulling the line. Dave is an ex-fighter pilot and is currently employed as a civilian test pilot out at Edwards Air Force Base. He has “The Right Stuff” and getting passed so early in the TT doesn’t stick well with him. He immediately jumps our pace to 27 – 28 mph. His jump in speed is so great that for a moment it looks like we are going to join the pace line of the group that just passed us, which you can’t do. In any case, his increase in speed is keeping us with the team that passed us. This causes some grumbling from Doug who is finding the pace to be a little too fast. Doug is a good rider but still needs more training time to find his “racing legs.” Dave pulls out and of the line and Steve jumps in and our pace falls back to 24 – 25 mph and we watch the other team pull away. Steve is a lot like Doug, a strong recreational rider that will become a strong racer with more practice. Right now he is also training to run a marathon in the winter and is thinking he’ll have to back off on the bike training. It is now my turn again, and like Dave, I bring the pace back up to 27 – 28 mph but I’m told to back it off a little by Doug. With Dave and I the strongest two of the team we try a new strategy; We will pull for 2 – 3 minutes at around 26 – 27 mph, while Steve and Doug pull for 1 minute or less at around 24 – 25 mph.


The Pace Line is Forming - Steve Stands to Form Up 

This strategy works well and we are now a good 8 miles into the 25 mile TT. At this point another “full aero” team passes us. They started a good 2 minutes behind us, so even though it’s not a race it is still a bummer. I yell to Steve, who was pulling at the time, “don’t worry, they’re a full aero team.” He told me after the race that he didn’t mind us getting passed, he was just having a great time. This is definitely the right attitude to have in a time trial race. We reach the pylon and the halfway point of the race. I’m feeling great. My lactate threshold is around 161 and I’m now reaching that when I’m pulling the line. But my HR drops to a nice 148 when I’m sitting in the line. Though with the increased pulling time I’m starting to see my HR not recover as much and as the second half of the race continues, my HR is only dropping into the mid 150s when I’m not at the front.


The Author - I'm Tired but Happy 

We get to about mile 20 and we’ve finally passed a team. A full women team is our victim and we sail past them. But the toll of averaging 25.3 mph is starting to tell on our team. Dave and I are still maintaining 27 mph during our pulls but our pulls are becoming longer as Doug and Steve have to shorten their pulls. Doug is starting to labor and his speed drops to 23 mph as he pulls off the front. In his attempt to latch on to the back, a 10’ gap opens up and he starts to fall off. He yells for us and then realizes we are within 5 miles of the finish so he yells, “go!” at the top of his lungs. I was just getting ready to slow down and pull him back in when I hear the “go.” I stay silent and the team, now only three strong, pulls away from Doug. I’ve been “shelled” off the back many times in my bicycle racing career. It is never fun and you get strange feelings of being alone even though many other riders are around you. It is a very helpless feeling to be working at full capacity and still watch the pace line move away from you.


The Gang is Animated After the Finish 

We are now a team of three, and in a four man TTT you must finish with the third guy. The race organizers do not stop the clock on a team until the 3rd guy’s wheel crosses the line. If we lose another rider we’re out. Now with only three riders our pulls come much faster. Steve is tiring faster than Dave and I and his pulls become quicker; only lasting a few seconds in some cases. My heart rate is now going into the high 160s and I’m not recovering at the back of the line but a cool thing is happening. The 2nd team that passed us in the first half of the race is now “coming back” to us. With less than a mile to go we are only 50 or so meters behind them and closing fast. It is my turn and I’m pulling as fast as I can, around 28 – 29 mph but I’ve been pulling for 3.5 minutes and with 100 m to go I pull out and let Dave take over. The other team senses our presence and they accelerate to cross the line, with us almost fully abreast of them. Even if we had passed them we are still 2 minutes behind them but it is a moral victory to us that we can catch up with a team that passed us early in the race and probably got as much as a mile ahead of us at one time.


"We've Got to do it Again!" 

I cross the line and quickly press stop on my watch; 58:55.80. I realize that we’ve broken 1 hour and the three of us congratulate ourselves. Dave is pumped. He has never competed on the bike like this and can’t wait to do it again. We slowly pedal back to Division Street and pick-up Doug. My wife takes a bunch of pics as we animatedly talk about the race. For those of you thinking about starting out in racing, TTs are the way to go. It gives you a taste of racing without the dangers of large pace lines and zooming turns. But don’t underestimate the difficulty of a time trail. They don’t call it the “race of truth” for nothing.