Stage 2 TT 4/4/09

6 am alarm. Coffee fig newtons and a banana, is that even a breakfast? Look up my time, 8:40, oh shit. I gotta go. I headed out to The Dalles in such a hurry that I am lucky that I didn’t forget my bike. I ended up with everything I needed. Man it was cold this morning, 36, what the hell are we doin? But once the sun was up over the hills it was perfect mid fiddy’s and sunny. I got a good 50 min. of warm up and headed to the line. Wow cool some guy is standing there ready to hold up my bike for me. Nice! Oh before hand though I was asking people is there a wheel car for these races? What if we get a flat? Everyone was like, “That’s stupid, just don’t get a flat.” So now back to the line. It was pretty cool the guy was giving me a count down like at the Tours, you know the funny hand counting thing, all five digits, then no pinky, then no thumb, then no ring finger, then no middle finger, then point to go all while flip flopping his hand. I would be the assh0le lowering the index finger at 1. But I guess that's why I am on the bike. I was hammering pretty good feeling good for some reason and passed my 30” guy, make the turn, look at the time, nice 12:30, all down hill from here, coming up on my 1 min guy and what’s that? I feel squishy… wait is that my wheel I hear? SHIT! I have a flat on the descent. I was pissed. The corners were sketch riding on a wheel but what are you going to do. I hammered the straights and puckered on the corners. All I could hear was clunk clink clack. I think someone yelled hey you got a flat… thanks. I made it back safe and up right. I felt pretty good about it. Can’t wait to see the time. Off to the Crit.