Yankee Springs TT report

Yesterday (Sunday) was the Yankee Springs Time Trial. It was the last day of training for me before a recovery week. Even though time trials are something I would never claim to be that good at I was excited for the race. Ted finished my bike with time to spare so I had new components and brakes to race on. Sweet! Plus a few of my friends came to cheer me on.

BTW, you know you have good friends when they wake up early, drive an hour, and then stand in the cold to watch you go by once :-)

I warmed up a bit and could tell that my legs were still a little tired. Oh well, there was nothing I could do but still try and pedal hard for 22 miles. Everyone was being sent off in 10 second increments, which meant there was no room for error. However, I managed to error at the start anyways. Leave it to me to spend about 5 seconds of my start trying to clip in :-)

I had a decent start once I actually DID clip in, but my overall performance was sub-par. You know how you have those days where riding trail seems effortless? Well I had the opposite! I felt like I was having a battle with myself. I was taking awful lines and shifting at the wrong times. Maybe I was just confused because I couldn't figure out what to do with gears??? Ha ha.

The worst part was racing on a rigid fork(I'm still waiting for my new fork). It was decidedly unpleasant. I know a ton of people who race rigid all the time and all I have to say is, why??? I was definitely slower riding with it and it hurt. The downhills were super bumpy and I actually lost momentum on the uphills because I was bouncing off of everything. Trust me, I'm NOT using the rigid fork as an excuse. The cold, hard truth is that I just suck at riding with one :-) Especially at Yankee.

Photo by Jack Kunnen

Even though I made lots of mistakes out on the trail I had fun. Yankee is one of my favorite places to ride, and there were a ton of people out racing. I'm not sure what the final tally was, but 700 people had pre-registered.

I ended up second overall out of the elite/expert women but was placed in the expert class by mistake. To make a short story shorter I had accidentally registered in the wrong class. I asked to get moved to elite and the wrong Danielle got moved up. Yes, there are two of us and we both race on Salsa's!  Oh well. Personally I think the classes should be combined anyways. All of the women racing in both elite and expert were both equally fast and it would be sweet to have a bigger field.

Afterwards I hopped on my SS and went out for another lap. My SS has a suspension fork on it and I had a whole new appreciation for it while riding the course. It was SOOOO much better. That lap was just a joyride though, because I had nothing left in my legs. I wanted to walk that evil plastic mat...but let the records show that I DID NOT :-)

I will not be tempted to ride extra during this recovery week. My legs need some rebuilding time.

Don't forget that tomorrow is Ladies night #2 at the Ada Bike Shop. Lots of good giveaways and lots of fun.