Valley of the Sun Stage Race - CycleTime Trial

The course was slightly uphill going out, a 200ft elevation rise, with an avg. of 10 to 15 mph cross-headwind. It was a slow grind at 20 mph. The downslope and wind aided some speed but I couldn't muster any speeds above 30 mph, and avg. about 28 coming back.

Speeds were down significantly over previous years due to high crosswinds.

Nothing

A 20 min cool down


Struggling into the winds.


My OFFICIAL time was 37:30, but I broke the cardinal rule, I was late to my start time at 9:17 am... I was penalised with time. My ACTUAL time was 36:40, this places me with the 8th fastest time of the male CAT 5 group.

My avg. watts should have gotten me to about 25 mph avg., but I guess it was the winds that made the difference.

The winds were a bitch.

During my cool down lap I had an accident when I ran into a metal event sign in the bike lane. I wasn't paying attention and had my head down looking at my computer and WHAMMO! I was taken to hospital for evaluation, no broken bones, moderate whiplash and mild concussion. This ended my racing for the weekend.

These events are humbling, when you're competing against such high quality cyclists. I may be fast as a triathlon ager, but not really that competitive against younger and significantly faster guys and gals. It's astounding how some higher class of cyclists can get 30 minutes in these conditions.