Berkeley 2-Man Team Time Trial Report

The Berkeley Bike Club TTT is basically one-lap of the Berkeley Hills Road Race Course. It's a lumpy 16 or so mile loop that is pretty challenging, rhythm-wise, for a 2-man TTT. From the Webcor/Alto Velo Team, Peter and Rand entered the P12 category and scored a podium spot in 3rd. Rob MacNeill and Brian Peterson entered the 70+ combined group and also scored 3rd of 32 teams in their category. Below is Rand's report from his and Peter's race.

Official Results

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BBC TTT
Pinole, CA
03/07/09
Weather: Cold, foggy here and there, breezy
Teammate: Peter Cazalet
Placing: 3rd of ~12 teams

At the last minute, Peter Cazalet and I were able to secure ourselves a start spot in the P/1/2 BBC TTT last weekend, in spite of the fact that registration had closed days previously and the field was supposedly full. This seemed like an awesome idea at the time...

Fast forward to Saturday morning at 5am when my alarm went off, and I no longer considered it such an awesome idea. Regardless, Peter and I booked it over to the San Pablo Dam in time for 6:30am registration.

After a long warmup, I thought I was ready to go. Legs felt a bit sluggish, but I chalked that up to the early wakeup time. Peter and I lined up at the start line, ready for 40 minutes of pain.

I was not warmed up, nor was I ready for the pain. The first 5 miles of this race were miserable for me, and Peter was probably cursing his choice of partner as he had to back off over a few rollers to keep from dropping me. Ugh. I felt awful, which sucks enough when you are TT'ing alone, but feels even worse when you are letting your teammate down.

Anyway, Peter was a champ for a while, keeping the pace as high as he could until my legs finally came around as we hit the rolling false-flat back section of the course. I started feeling good and was able to start pulling through strongly.

The course is punctuated by two hills toward the end, and we kept a good steady tempo up them. Definitely not killing it, but we were turning it over pretty well. We finished with a time around 40 and a half minutes, which is respectable on that course. It was enough to put us in 3rd place in the P/1/2, but we were over a minute and a half down on the winners. Bummer.

Overall, though painful and brutal, it was a good way to start a Saturday morning. Hats off to Peter for dragging me around for a few miles while I got moving.

Rand