Ironman Louisville 2009 The Bike

Ironman Louisville 2009 PART 2

THE BIKE:

The start of the bike was a bit chilly but not as bad as I thought it would be.
I had put one of the transition bags I didn't use(special needs) in my t1 bag to stuff inside my suit in front of my chest to cut some of the cold and it worked great I had done the same thing at imf last november. I didn't get rid of it until t2 this time though.
Less than a mile into the ride I look at my garmin 310Xt and somethings not right it should be on bike but its still on other sport which I'd set up for the swim. So I click lap see if it changes.. Drats I realize I hit start under multisport mode instead of Enter then start so its just doing timer for other sport.
So only think I knew to do was stop this activity save it then power down and back up in multisport mode. I had to hit start then lap through until I got to bike and all was well.
Of course messed up my whole video gps thing so I had to do some manual manipulating of the data to piece it together for this video.
Of course while I was doing this I hear a voice say "Hey Gary we must have had the same swim time"
It was Brian and sure enough our swim splits were pretty close.
Brian zips by me but I keep him in sight get the garmin reset and a few minutes later after I pass him again. I was feeling pretty good at this point but had to keep in mind its flat right now and I still have 110 miles or so to go.

At the athlete meeting they mentioned a railroad track crossing and said they painted arrows over the best spot to cross and watch your water bottles. I saw the signs coming up and slowed down went over that spot(my brakes were squeaking all day you can hear it in the video).
Well I go across and hear this thud... You can hear me in video going "Ah Crap" as my brakes squeak to a stop. My bottle with my boost fell off. Now if it had been water or gatorade I'd never had stopped but I was going to need my calories so I stopped turned around made sure I wasn't in anyones way and went back as a volunteer handed me my bottle.
Point of note when turning around in a race turn toward the curb get off the road if possible because there are bikes behind coming fast.
There were water bottles all over the place you can see in the video.
Also you can see Brian passing me as the second set of riders after I turned around come by.
Crap I was going to have to catch up to brian again.





I finally passed brain a couple minutes later for good at least until another 104 miles or so.



First part of the bike course is pretty flat and fast at least for 8 miles or so.
Its very scenic in places with large lawns and homes on the right river on the left in some spots.
Wind was out of the North to North west and gusty at times.. I decided to use my old hed double deep front with renn madiera disk on the back. I have been using a hed c3 on the front since 2005 but I think my bearings were getting rough after lake placid last year in the rain so opted for the other wheel until I can replace the wheel bearings in my c3.
This made for a few suprises when I was riding with my left arm crossed at 45 degrees to my right aero bar to give the shoulder which was hurting some relief. A gust would hit me and that front double deep and things would get squirly for a moment. Nothing major I'm used to wind
and riding like that but I had to keep my left arm in regular aero more than I wanted or use the drops at times.
I was suprised the bike course wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be. The time trial start certainly helps but with the addition of 1000 more in the race than in 2007 I was wondering if the hill at 9 miles or the first out and back would get a bit crowded but so far so good.

The course was a little bit different from 2007 because of construction on a bridge on river road we had to divert and this diversion sent us up a double hump hill that seemed to last forever.
Granted on both courses we eventually had to make that climb just this one was sooner in the race and over a shorter distance and when finished we descended some more and had to climb again so it did add some overall elevation gain to the course.

Right after I made the slight right to go up this hill on Wolf Pen Branch Rd I shifted to my small chain ring and my chain came off on the inside. I'm used to this from time to time so just shifted back to the big chain ring to get it back on and then make the attempt to go back to small chain ring before I slowed to much and fell over.
Well as you will see in the video below it didn't quite work as planned.
I made the shift back up fine but then it wouldn't shift down to small chain ring and I was starting to slow down fast as the grade increased. So thinking quickly I came to a stop as far to the right as I could since it was starting to get crowded on the climb worked the shifter lifting back wheel up and worked like a charm and I was back on the road in a matter of seconds.
Sure wish you could hear the audio on these videos but might have to censor them....



You can see here it gets a bit crowded for a while and you will note me being passed by alot of riders but some of them overextended themselves and I passed them back.
As always on a climb you get folks pulling in front of you or blocking but for most part it was civil and polite just a lot of "on you left" and "go ahead" when I'd see in my mirror someone coming up fast I'd get out of the way when I could and motion them to go ahead.
Here is a 2 minute snippit of the climb.



The hill wasn't as bad as it looked when I drove up it the day before but I did forget it levels off then one more hill.
At the athletes meeting they told us we would make the left onto 42 but stay on the left shoulder into oncoming traffic for a while.
I was concerned due to the rumble marks on the shoulder but what they did was turn us into the actual far left lane so that was not a problem. This section was narrow and headed back downhill
and sure was fast. Of course you know what that meant another hill on the way back of course and also we had to climb back up because we still weren't at the plateau of the course yet.


We shifted over to the right lane I believe at the base of the downhill. It got a little crowded but not too bad along this section. I saw some terp shorts(the new ones with the big stripe) and jersey up ahead and it was nancy so I took a short video of her as I passed.
These two videos show you a little of the downhill and the uphill as well as nancy from my bike cam and then from my handheld olympus cam.
The second video will show up toward the end on the right side close to same timeframe as the left one.



The bike was quite pleasant sometimes cool in the shade and cross wind warmer those few times we had tail wind. I like the time trial format because I saw no packs only a few one two drafters.
This one guy I saw in my mirror was on my wheel for a bit so I reached down behind to my rear camera(even though it was on or at least I thought) and acted like I was starting it and said
"smile for your video cheating". You can see me wabble a bit at one point in the video and as the guy came buy I said "got you on camera drafting" and his answer was "man theres 3000 people out here" of course I said "and your the only one I've seen drafting. Turns out the guys a teacher.
Back in 2003 at ironman hawaii this teacher from kansas city kept hanging on my wheel off and on coming down from hawi I dropped him on the climb before getting back on the main highway but he showed up a little later. Well I saw back behind him a motorcycle so I figured was a draft marshal. Well he turned around saw the motorcyle and started to back off so I just slowed down too and as the marshal went by he pointed to him to pull over and I saw the whole thing.
It was worth it wish I'd had cameras then and yes I remembered his number so could look him up after the race which is why I knew he was a teacher.
Well I had hoped this guy at ironman louisville was on video but my rear camera never started for some reason but heres short video right before and after he passed me too bad you can't make out our conversation.





For the most part though there was plenty of room on the bike and everyone was well behaved in fact some spots was it was a bit lonely.
Now of course they didn't shut down traffic for the whole bike route and it became a problem at least for me two or three times.
At one point on second loop just before the special needs a guy pulling a big ski boat was on the road in front of us and right at the special needs a few of us had to come to a stop.
Finally the truck with the boat sped up above what I was riding speed wise but not far down the road he slowed again due to slower riders in front. There was myself and 2 other guys at that point who got stuck behind this guy for almost a mile. I'd swear I remember the exact same guy with the boat back in 2007.