Donaldson's Made A Mess Of It Again!

This morning, at roughly 8:30, I knocked Kenny Picco off his bike because he deserved it.

Just kidding. He didn’t really deserve it. At 8:30, Mr. Picco and I were cruising through Floyd Bennett field warming up for a time trial (as hard as I tried to convince Mr. Picco to spend the $15 to register for the race, he refused, explaining he’s a conscientious objector to time trial racing formats . . . whatever that means) minding nobody’s business but our own. With Picco on my wheel, I pointed to the left as I wanted to cut a U-turn and start heading back the way we came although considering we were only a hundred feet or so from an upcoming STOP sign, I should have tossed in a “slowing” or “stopping” hand signal. I didn’t, though, because clearly I’m not that bright, and when I began swerving left to cut the U-turn, I inadvertently cut across Picco’s front wheel which was overlapped with my rear wheel and the next thing I know, Mr. Picco’s on the ground.

Says a lot about my riding and communication skills, doesn’t it?

Luckily for not just his wife but also the rest of the world, Mr. Picco survived. (I can hear Paul Sherwin’s color commentary voice in my head: “He has done it--he has survived!”) He took a few scrapes, including a bloody knee, but Mr. Picco got back up and pedaled away like the Staten Island badass we all know (and love). In hindsight, I should have snapped off a few pics of the bloody knee to show the world just how much of a badass he actually is (I can again hear Paul Sherwin’s voice in my head: “Look at the blood on Kenny’s right knee there. He went down very hard indeed yet he’s on the attack again,”), although it slipped my mind. Instead, I offered Mr. Picco a Dunkin Donuts napkin and a bottle of water to wash the wound which he did without so much as a grimace, just like Rambo would have done if Rambo had been in the same situation.

Apart from Mr. Picco’s spill, I had my number---116--pinned to the back of my jersey and reached the staging area (sounds a lot more official than it really was) a few minutes before it was time to start.

“It’s four laps, right?” I asked the guy with the megaphone calling out rider’s numbers.

“Five laps,” he said.

I glanced at Mr. Picco. “Good thing I asked, huh?”

At the line, a guy in a golf shirt (withought a megaphone) explained the rules while another guy put his hands under my ass and took hold of my . . . seat post.

“Five laps,” the guy in the golf shirt explained, as if he could just tell by looking at me that I had no idea what I was doing. “And you better go fast considering you’re wearing a yellow jersey.”

What can I say? My yellow Cannondale jersey is the most form-fitting jersey I own.

“No drafting,” he continued. “If you’re going to pass someone, move out of their line at least five to ten bike lengths out. And stay to the right of the orange cones.”

A girl standing to my left, the one holding the stopwatch, announced, “Thirty seconds.”

I had both shoes clipped in. I began tilting to the right and I started worrying that, even with the guy-the official seat post holder--keeping me upright, I might fall, so I compensated by leaning left. Least I could do for the guy who had to grab over two hundred asses in one morning, almost all of them belonging to men wearing tights.

It was then that I realized I hadn’t reset my computer after having taking some leisurely spins with Mr. Picco half an hour before. I glanced at the girl with the stopwatch. “Do I have time--”

“Five seconds, four, three . . .”

Needless to say, I did not have time to reset my computer, which is such a bummer considering it was my first ever time trial.

Off the line, I cranked it up to just under 25 MPH, made the first right hand turn, held that pace until my heart race reached 175, and then backed it off to 22 MPH so my heart rate dropped to 170. At the next right, I hit the headwind and dropped the speed even further to try and keep my heart rate between 170 and 175. The plan was to keep it in that range and then hammer it as much as possible during the last lap, heart rate be damned.

All that pretty much went according to plan, yet a few things began bothering me during the race. First, I got passed, and not just by guys riding time trial bikes wearing one-piece skin suits, but by guys without aero bars riding the same Cannibal category I was riding. Getting passed upsets me, plain and simple, and while it does serve as some sort of motivation, I wanted to try and ride something of a smart race by holding a steady speed the entire way without fading, meaning no matter how pissed I might have got, I needed to let that go.

Second, my ass was killing me. I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that perhaps I need a saddle softer than the Fizik I’m riding now or if it had to do with my hands being in the drops the entire 11.5 miles, but my poor butt was screaming for help. And who wants to deal with that?

Finally, I’m the kind of guy who likes to move his hands around while he rides, and I mean move them around a lot. Keeping them in the drops for as long as I did meant that they, much like my butt, were rather unhappy with the treatment they were receiving.

Yet by the time I hit lap number four, I almost lost count of how much of the race was left. I do this all the time, in all walks of life, and I was worried I would do it this morning. On the fourth lap, I somehow got it into my head it was the fifth lap.

Don’t get excited--I didn’t quit riding after four laps. Realizing I most likely miscounted, I kept going to put in the five laps and finish the race, yet I’ve spent the past half an hour (it’s now 5:00 PM Sunday evening) analyzing whether or not I might have actually ridden six laps.

Let me explain the dilemma.

Crossing the line, I hit a button on my heart rate monitor watch to see I had been riding for 39 minutes and 57 seconds (take about five or six seconds off considering I didn’t start timing until I was a few seconds off the line and a few seconds over the line when I finished). At first, I thought, “Forty minutes for 11.5 miles? Maybe that headwind was stronger than I thought.” Because I had neglected to reset my computer, I didn’t have much else to go on, so I asked Mr. Picco. “Any idea how many laps I did?”

When he said, “I thought you only did four,” it really didn’t help my ego, but then again, I had knocked the guy off his bike an hour earlier, so helping my ego probably wasn’t top of his priority list.

So again, after having analyzed the situation over the past thirty minutes, I’ve reached two conclusions.

1. I actually rode six laps and averaged 20.8 MPH over the 13.8 miles. A small part of me is tempted to believe I actually rode an extra lap because whenever I glanced down at my computer, I was never below 18 MPH. Heading into the wind over half the course, I averaged between 18-19 MPH and on the other half of the course, I was always between 20-22 MPH, meaning the 20.8 MPH seems accurate.

2. I only rode five laps yet despite my computer, I did so averaging 17.3 MPH. This would mean my computer needs a touch of calibration. This is probably the correct scenario as I most likely did not ride six laps, yet if it is the correct scenario, I only managed 17.3 MPH? That’s freaking pathetic! The guy parked next to me who also rode the Cannibal category did the course in 28:00 or so (at least that’s what he said). How in the world did I mess it up and come in at 39:57? Humiliating.

Anyway, that’s the story. I’m hoping they post the times on the website shortly so I can put the above to bed and move on with life.

And if anyone ever wants to find out firsthand what it’s like to take a spill on the pavement, just let me know as I seem to be getting good at handling stuff like that.