On Tuesday the rain that had spread across our area and the threat of more to come discouraged anyone from showing up for the TT.   My bleak pronouncement of the forecast didn't help either.  It turned out that the TT course was just about bone dry with only a little moisture under the tree covered parts of the course.  

Black Creek is getting further packed down with a sprinkling of stone crumbs here and there.  I cleaned the turn at the north end so the TTers should be able to hit it at full speed.  

Hopefully, next week will bring decisively good weather for the TT.

The Olympic cycling events have been very exciting.  

Men's Mtn bike race - Pidcock's amazing come back from a flat tire change capped by a cagey sprint through a wooded section about a kilometer from the finish.

Women's Mtn bike race -  American Haley Batten flats short of the pit stop area, calmly gets her wheel change and muscles her way back to the group vying for the bronze. The women in 2nd gets a flat, now the group is fighting for Silver.  Even after her effort to get back to the group, Batten still has enough in the tank to blast past them to take the Silver.

Men's Road Race -  sooo long!  too long!  approx 170 miles  The first 4.5 hours were ridden at a reasonable pace (for pros!).  I saw data for Haller... he averaged 249w for the first 4.5 hours.    The last 40 miles of the city circuits were interesting. These included 3 climbs up the Montmartre.  A large group broke free before the first climb up. Haller was one of them.  He averaged 580w for two minutes.   Previous Olympic champion Van der Poel with Van Aert made a push to bridge the gap to Hallers group.  These two climbed 19 seconds faster (over 700W !) but could not bridge over.  The peloton absorbed them   That's when the human bullet Evenepoel made his counter move !  No one could with him.   He bridged over to the Haller group in about a minute.    He pushed the pace himself for that lap.   Haller's power while clinging to Evenepoel for about 10 minutes was 470w normalized !!   Evenepoel dispatched everyone except the Frenchmen Madouas on the 2nd climb.     With about 8 miles to go, Evenepoel dropped Madouas.  He built up a massive 1 minute lead, but then flatted with about a mile to go!   Luckily his team car had managed to get past the peloton due to the big lead he had created.  So, a quick bike change and he was off to take the Gold and for the first time in Olympic get the Double in the TT and Road Race.     He crossed the finish line and stopped to pose with the Eiffel Tower as the back drop as he performed his phone call gesture.   Pretty cool I have to admit.  He earned the right to do it. crushing the field by enough time to do.  His phone call gesture is supposed to mean he is "dialed in".   He certainly is.     The last 9 miles Evenepoel averaged 29 mph even with the bike change.     

Okay..I'm done!

Til next week!

Brian

TT Directeur

315-727-1458