FLCC> Thurs. TT

[Jack Rueckheim]

There were three riders and two bikes.  I had all kinds of excuses not to
go, including a late meeting and possible bad weather (it poured buckets
during the meeting).  The only reason I went was because I knew Team Luban
was showing up from the North Country and one or more e-mails or phone
messages, going both ways, included the clause "rain or shine."  And we were
going to do dinner together after the TT.  You're going to have to believe
whatever you read next because although Team Luban did show up with the
tandem, noboby else did.  Except Charles Dietrich, who took one look at the
overwhelming competetion he'd be facing, and declared, "I'm just going for a
ride around the Coddington/White Church loop."  Which he did.

The conditions were fierce.  A nasty headwind was bending 6-inch trees,
rivers of water were coming from the sky and crossing the road.  The hail
stung like crazy.   It was so dark, we couldn't make out the bike-eating
potholes.  Since I've memorized most of these, I used this to my advantage,
and frequently saw first Eddy, then Adam, disappear and re-emerge as the
tandem coasted down one side of the potholes and then climbed out the
other--while I just went around them.  Of course, the holes were filled with
water, and the Lubans reported that it was sometimes difficult to find their
way across the bottoms of the potholes to the other side.  This might have
added significant distance to their ride.  

Anyhow, Team Luban went off 30 seconds ahead of me, after we figured that
I'd have a distinct advantage in the early uphill part of the course, and
that I might just disappear and we wouldn't see each other until the finish
if I went first.  I caught them quite quickly, about where the course
flattens.  The competition then became extremely fierce and very
unsportsmanlike as we traded positions many times--with just about every
change in the grade.  They would get a little gap on the downhills, and I
would come back on the ups.  Neither of us willing to give up an inch or a
second, we each became wheel sucking maggots when the other had the
advantage due to the gradient.  The elder Luban started trash talking and
called me a delisa, or something like that--I couldn't quite make it out and
didn't know what he meant.  Then I'd get on Adam's wheel on a downhill,
knowing that Eddie's attempt to break the draft by swerving would land them
in yet another of those cavernous potholes.  

It was nip and tuck until the downhill coming to White Church, where the
tandem was putting a hurting on me.  I decided to take a little rest there,
took a drink by just opening my mouth and filling it with whatever was
coming out of the sky, figuring I could close the gap by hammering up the
hill after White Church.  And that's what happened.  But I didn't quite
match the tandem after the top of the hill, and they slowly pulled away to
the finish.  I managed to take 20 seconds out of them overall.  

I just missed Danny Timmerman's course record for the season.  I was only a
handful of minutes slower.  Might have been a different story with better
conditions, aero equipment, and if I had clipped in with my left as well as
my right foot.  

The three of us then drove to Viva Taqueria, where we decided which version
of this story would be told.  

Jack
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