Tomorrow I ride in my biggest (longest) event, the 40 km ITT Champoinships. I don't expect to win, or even finish in the top 70...but I will finish barring unforseen circumstances. I have really been looking forward to this event, and training has been going well.
Every time I ride is a learning experience as so many things have changed since the last time I seriously rode a bicycle in 1972. If you re-trace my first couple of posts, you'll see what happened back them. I remember once in '72 I rode 65 MILES in one day. Back then we didn't carry water bottles on the bikes, didn't know what "bidons" were even. We would ride to the local driven hamburger joint, have a coke or root beer, ride to the next town, lather, rinse, repeat...
We didn't have real road bikes, the old "Stingray" was very common, and I had a three speed Stingray for a while. Later, I built my firts "real" road bike. I went to the local rubbish tip, sourced a frame, wheels, handle bars and seat. Shortly after I started riding it, I broke a spoke, but kept on riding. Then I broke another, then another and very quickly, it was ping, ping, ping richochet rabbit, I had NO spokes.
Luckily I worked in the only bike shop in town and got spokes cheap. I had to learn how to lace a wheel and I trued it in the shed at home on a home made jig. I don't recommend this to anyone, and I'll happily pay someone to do this for me now.
Back then, after a few weeks working in the bike shop, I bought a set of dropped handlebars (a novelty back then) and a racing front wheel and tyre. I couldn't yet afford a rear wheel, so I stuck with my one speed coaster brake tyre. My best effort then was one mile in 2 minutes, a 30 mile an hour average which I thought was really good for a one-speeder!
Tomorrow, my goal is to finish, and to finish in less than one hour and twenty minutes. Anything less than that is gravy.
We'll see how things go and I'll keep you posted.
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