We had a decent night for the TT on the first day of Fall.  Temps  were around 63 degrees and there was a light NW breeze.  I'm opting to continue the TTs as long as the weather holds up and interest remains.  We have will have Indian Summer through early next week.  It's now a matter of whether the weather will remain dry

This week six TTers showed up to test themselves against their previous TT efforts.  We had a guest give the TT course a try - ultra-distance cyclist Gary Radford. Welcome Gary!

The FMT goes to Andrew Johnston who powered through the course in a time of 24:02 (24.97mph).  That was only 17 seconds off of his PR which occurred on a much warmer and more favorable evening.  Sam Sampere managed to take a second off of his 2020 PR by clocking a 25:02 (23.97mph) even though he completed a century ride on Saturday.   He is certain to break 25 minutes next week if the weather holds.   

Ken and Mariana were a bit slower this week but had good reasons.  Ken effectively had a 100 mile race on Saturday as he stayed with the A group averaging 20.5mph. Yikes!  He'll need a week to recover from that.  Mariana had Saturday cyclocross clinic and a Sunday hike up Cascade Mtn in the Adirondack to soften the legs.  And Dick said something about having just flown back from Las Vegas having fought in one of the undercard events at UFC Fight Night. Call me a skeptic. 

TdF Prognosticator,  Not!

Well I thought I had it all figured out. Last week I predicted the top 3 on GC would remain so after the uphill TT on Saturday. Boy was I wrong!    

Lopez rode like had put on cement cycling shoes and 35 year old Richie Porte rode one of his best TdF TTs ever to leap frog into 3rd place.  What a great story! Porte has crashed out of the Tour so many times.  He missed the birth of his 2nd child in order to compete in the Tour.  He stated going home with a picture of himself on the podium would be the best gift he could bring home. It drove him to equal Dumoulin's TT leading time. Okay. he was a few tenths of second slower.   Best time until....... 

What can we say about Pogacar??   His performance was one for the ages.  Roglic is a strong TTer.  He did get beat by Pogacar in the Slovenian TT championships by 18 seconds.   But, the course was half as long.  Pogacar had made up most of the 57 sec deficit by the time he got to the final 6km climb.  He beat Dumouliin's climb time by a minute. Leaving Dumo dumbfounded as to how that was possible.  Roglic had a solid TT, but not exceptional.   He would have had to beat Dumoulin by about 25 seconds to secure the yellow jersey.  It just wasn't his day.   The building drama as Pogacar raced through the course was incredible. I was yelling at Roglic to pick up the pace. Easy for me to say.  Although I have to say Phil Liggett was a bit distracting and confusing when he was talking about how far behind Roglic was.  We can forgive him -  he's only done this about 40 times.

I'd rate this year's Tour as one of the more exciting Tours.  Hardly any stages were ho-hum, peloton is together for 110 miles casually riding until the sprint Finale.   Sagan's fight for the Green jersey really made for interesting tactics and you have to give his team kudos for helping put up a fight.  If anything, Sagan let them down.  He just did not have the horse power this year.

Also, nice to see the young Americans display their cycling prowess...   that being Powless and Kuss.  Hopefully we will see them in future TdFs.

Okay, that's all that's fit to print.  Til next week!

Brian

TT Directeur