Tuesday, May 06, 2008

IOLA

I was pretty busy at work the other day and didn't have time for a proper update....now I'm waiting for a pizza at a new place in town so here goes....

Iola: It was a last minute decision and I almost didn't even make it to the start line. Drankus called and told me he was leaving at 9:30am for the race. I was still in Sheboygan at 10:30 getting some new 29er Hutchinson Python rubbers(with tubes).

I used the full power of the new Hyundai Sonata and made good time to Iola. 1:45 from Sheboygan not too shabby.

First race of the year. Not really motivated with a late start to training. Wanted to get more miles in the legs before giving it a whirl, but with near perfect weather I had to do it.

With less than 10 minutes warm up I was called to the front row after last year overall performance. I knew I wasn't ready for the pace on the first few climbs so I settled into 11th or 12th position on the first 4 climbs.

At the end of lap 1 I had moved inside the top 10 and by lap 2 I had latched onto the wheel of Tom Bender and the Flying French Canadian.









And that's the end of the story as I sat in comfortably for the next 3 laps. We dropped Bender and the F.F.C. was kiling it on the last lap and we almost caught Eppen in 3rd place.


The bike: Gary Fisher Superfly w/ Carbon Switchblade 21lbs











Superfly was nice...slow on the accelerations and there were a lot of them. I felt like I was taking bad lines the first 2 laps and it took a while to get used to the big wheels. No problems with the rigid Bontrager Carbon Switchblade. It's true suspension is not necessary with the big wheels. I was always overgeared coming out of the corners. Maybe if the wheels were lighter(no tubes) I could have accelerated faster. This was the first time I have raced with tubes in 7 years!









Who still rides with a CamelBak? Wasn't that like 7 years ago?

Next time I will be on this bike!!!!!










The 2008 Top Fuel weighing in at 24lbs.

2 comments:

Christine said...

luv the GPS data, realy neat to see the course.

Anonymous said...

ditch the fuel and give in to the sexual chocolate that is the superfly!