It starts off at "crazy corners" in Scituate. I had no idea why it was called that until I stepped out of the car and looked at it. I think there are seventeen stop signs and 12 yield signs there. Its an odd intersection. The first five miles of the course go fast... but they are not easy. Its a lot of climb a hill, descend a hill, climb a hill, descend a hill. In fact your either climbing or descending for that entire first five miles with the exception of the lovely bit of road that crosses the resevoir. Its really pretty there. In fact the whole course is really quite beautifull. Feels more like your riding in new hampshire or maine than RI from the scenery.
Miles 5-8 had some nice flats and gradual descents where I was able to try and build some speed up, catch my breath a little and hang out on the big ring for a while. At mile 8 you cross the dam. The road there is really bad and theres lots of lovely potholes and other bits of nastiness up there. And just when you think its over the exit of the dam does its best to shake the teeth right out of your head. But wait theres more! Just when you think right... time to get back smooth fast roads a rather large hill greets you. In fact it keeps greeting you for what I think was about two miles. That hill was humbling. I was down to the lowest gear and fighting my way up it doing a mix of sitting and standing. Speaking of which I'd say my ass was out of the seat on this course for about 40% of it. Which probably says something about my cycling skills more than it does the course but the hills are nothing to laugh at.
Once over the top of that monster the rest of the course is a mix of rolling terrain that you can really get some speed going on. Enough so you can use momentum to get you over all the rollers into the finish. Theres a hard right turn at the stop sign which I took a bit too tight and found myself with a good sized lean going and both tires slipping through a big pile of sand. I thought I was going to dump but miraculously made it through. It wasn't the prettiest turn however. But speaking of the finish the road gets a bit bad in that last stretch too so you have to keep looking down and paying attention to dodge the rough bits.
I was quite pleased all in all with the results and I think now that I know the course I can dial up the speed a bit on the descents and try and make up more time there.
Final results were 17.1mph average over 14.27 miles in 50:04.
Detailed results can be found here:
Be sure and look at the elevation profile especially. Not a lotta flat stuff in there!
I'm looking forward to trying the course out again on tuesday. I need to reshuffle my training schedule though. My quads and hammys were really feeling the result of yesterday's 1 hour swim / coaching session with Jacki and the 5pm hour of strength training especially. So the thought of next tuesday doing a swim, strength training, AND the TT course isn't going to work. So maybe I'll turn Monday's day off into a strength training day only, and swim / TT on tuesday. Sounds like that might work. And I still need to get in the pool at least two more times before meeting with Jacki again, get the group ride in with Providence Bicycle on Sunday, and get another run in this week. Oy! Theres just not enough hours in the day. But with any luck I'll be able to sneak away from work and hit the pool for a 30 minute session of balance drills today. We'll see.
Heres a shot of a happy me after finishing the TT course and a few miles of cool down. Which considering how fast the hills come in on the TT course a warm up ride would probably make sense too. The leg warmers and base layer were because it was 50 degrees out early this morning. Which is pretty chilly when your descending.
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