Chief
11-05-2006, 07:03 PM
I did the Tour de Gruene two-person team time trial this morning in Gruene, TX. You are placed into groups based upon the sum of the ages of the two individuals and Cat. I believe that we must have been the oldest team at 133. They lumped us in with the 100+ group where we finished 8th overall with a time of 1:17:11 on a 26.2-mile course for an average speed of 20.2 miles with our road bikes (Ottrott in my case) without aerobars. We were a pretty well matched team with my partner, Jim Olsson, being slightly stronger than me. He did a ride across the USA this past summer and has a coach; both of which have provided huge dividends. We feel we could have done better if we had ridden the course before, but were happy to finish it unscathed which is better than what some people did. For example, I was right behind a woman who had just crossed the finish line and who apparently decided to impress the crowd with a spectacular crash.
For comparison the top time was 1:02. Years ago Lance Armstrong rode it and this was also very close to his time. I think he finished second. Very few people have broken an hour.
It is really great to be able to go out and do this type of thing when you are such an old f_rt. I thank my lucky stars that I can do it.
For comparison the top time was 1:02. Years ago Lance Armstrong rode it and this was also very close to his time. I think he finished second. Very few people have broken an hour.
It is really great to be able to go out and do this type of thing when you are such an old f_rt. I thank my lucky stars that I can do it.