Went down to Baton Rouge this weekend for this year's first time trial. It was my first TT on a real TT bike with all the equipment so it was my first real test. Baton Rouge isn't a bad town at all. I had assumed that the town was falling in on itself and that LSU was a dump, but I was surprised to find myself completely wrong. I can see how people could live there and go to school there, that isn't saying that I would ever do the same.
It was a two-man TT and done on a road that to the casual observer looked as flat as a board. I had never ridden with my partner until that morning so there were undoubtedly going to be slight issues to deal with. However, largely those issues never materialized. My partner was from a category below mine so he had to race up, but despite that we still finished 6 out of 9.
It was decided that we would do one-minute pulls which seemed consistent with what everone else was doing. Has he weakened and I grew stronger it turned out to be more like 1 1/2 minutes to 1 minute. I cannot fault him at all because he road really strong and I was impressed by his speed and his dedication despite the fact that he was cracking all over the place. A little more time in the sadle for him this season and the story will be different.
I cannot wait to try my hand at a solo-TT with all the fun equipment. I could only imagine what it would have been like out there by myself. The road was one long false flat that followed the course of the river levee and at about mile 8 you could really feel the false part of it. The wind was also at all times cross or cross-head. Which just slowly killed you. I think I was lucky to get out of it alive.
