getting the TT bike back out for Tour de Gruene

The TOKEN Momenta was already put to sleep for the rest of the year but I decided to jump on it one more time for the Tour de Gruene TT. I've never done the race before but knew the area around the Guadalupe River and it's a need place to ride or race a bike.

We headed down Saturday early afternoon for the 4pm-ish start and it was already a big cycling mad-house by the time we got there. Amazing how one individual can inspire so many people to come out, cheer, and wave US and even big yellow flamish flags! The course was not easy by any means. It was hard to find a rhythm since you had a lot of little rises and twists in the road along with River Crossing 1 through 3 and back home again over a total of 16miles.
After a 30min warm-up in the parking lot I went off, 1minute ahead of reigning State TT champ, newly dad, and wonderman Erick Benz. He had even more pressure on his shoulders as LA rolled off just 2 minutes behind him. I think both his (EB) and my goal was "limit the damage" and not get caught. Getting caught in a TT - no matter who is passing you - give's you a huge psychological blow. Well, it worked out okay as I got to pass my 2-minute man, got very close to my one-minute guy and held off a charging EB and LA. It was one of the toughest TT's I've done for a while - there were no moments of coasting or chilling and traffic on the road made things "interesting" to say the least. That's something to think about for next year. I walked away with a win in the Under 35 category, 3rd Overall to Lance and Benz, and some pretty sore legs :-) Thanks to Will Roetzler for the invitation to ride down there and the GIANT 1 Gallon Wine Bottle! Making sure I keep on hitting my target miles/week I didn't race again in Sunday's TTT and rode 70miles easy instead on Sunday morning.

Fellow MSU student Colt Trant tried his hands in journalism and you can read his report on the weekend in Velonews here.

photo courtesy of Daniel Norton