Today I did the first stage of the Lyle Pearson Classic. I wanted to use this week as a low volume, high-intensity week so I’d be ready for the Elkhorn Classic this weekend. With a day off on Saturday for driving back from Redlands and short easy rides since then I thought I’d be nice and rested and be able to gauge how I’m climbing. I had a great warmup and felt good at the start line. But I went out pretty fast and redlined it too early. The whole second half of the climb I was in survival mode.

I usually don’t time my TTs, but I did reset my cyclo-computer at the start line. They had us start 10 meters back from the “real” start line where the chip timing sensor was. Then there was a sensor at the top finish line. After the finish, I quickly turned around and remembered to look at my time. By then I had 7:10 on my clock. The record for the climb is held by Rebecca Twigg, something around 6:20. Supposedly there was a huge wind blowing up the canyon. I overheard that someone did a 6:30 today so an estimated race time of around 7:05 wasn’t too bad for a non-climber like me.

It wasn’t until the results were out that they had me down at 7:26! I think chip timing may work OK for running events but so far I haven’t been impressed with its accuracy for bike races.