Mr. Marti came back from his underground lair in CT to show us again how to ride a time trial. Nice! Two PR’s today – Henry by 26 seconds and Ben by 22. Lots of heat, lots of humidity and lots of wind out of the south tonight. I think even Henry and Andy, who did the TT earlier, encountered similar conditions.
It’s not often I get to highlight my weather forecasting skills, but, DANG!!! – I nailed it tonight! I didn’t think that canceling made any sense. Sure, the roads would be wet but the big storms had just rolled through around 5 and there was a clearing that looked to be destined to hold for a while.
I guess some people are so confident in their series standings that they can afford to miss a time trial because, well, really, they kind of have a lock on things. Maybe they have to mow the lawn tomorrow and don’t want to be too tired.
The intense heat of the last week finally gave us a tiny bit of relief – 85 degrees at the start – and it felt like jumping into a lake that, while not cool and refreshing, at least didn’t make you feel like you had just taken a hot shower on a hot summer day.
A warm, muggy night but the elusive rains that moved through the region earlier, depositing the usual 10 raindrops, cleared out well in time for our 6 pm short time trial. Ben not only took the win tonight but set a 3 second PR too! Lots of close battles tonight as well.
OK, so much ground to cover today! Finally, some great weather that didn’t result in any heat stroke casualties!
A week ago, I was camping and hiking in the snow and snowfields of the Cascades and was really happy that I had brought my long underwear, winter hat and gloves and my 3 season sleeping bag. Today, I felt like I was on the verge of heat stroke within the first few miles.
As Melissa and I were just gathering some serious speed on the descent after the hillclimb was over, right before we were about to hit the half mile of chip and seal road on the Westhampton side of the Westhampton/Chesterfield town line, she said that tonight’s hillclimb was beautiful.
