Yesterday was the first 50° day of 2022 in West Bend. We had not seen 50° since December 16, exactly five weeks earlier. And it probably won’t be another five weeks before we see the next 50° day, but it will be at least one. The snow that melted so aggressively yesterday will be back with a vengeance as ice in the week to come. There’s some new snow in the 10-day forecast and some sub-zero wind chill. Winter isn’t done with us. Not even close.
Sunday’s warmth came from high southwesterly winds: a sustained 20+ mph with gusts up to 40. On a day that would have been attractive without them, those winds convinced me to delay my first outdoor bike ride of the year. My first outdoor ride of 2021 didn’t come until February 25. This year’s debut won’t come until March. On Sunday I contented myself with a 10K walk around town. I had to do something outdoors or I would have cursed myself for wasting all that gorgeous sunshine. Overall, however, it was a bad week of training. I had some lower back pain that came out of nowhere on Friday morning and still isn’t completely gone.
Continuing with the theme of things that aren’t done yet, here’s the 2022 Tour of America’s Dairyland schedule as released last Tuesday:
- June 16: Janesville
- June 17: East Troy
- June 18: Grafton
- June 19: Manitowoc
- June 20: Milwaukee (Bay View)
- June 21: TBA
- June 22: TBA
- June 23: Milwaukee (Brady Street)
- June 24: Shorewood
- June 25: Milwaukee (Downer Avenue)
- June 26: Wauwatosa
Menomonee Falls appears to be the location of the June 21 race, but I haven’t heard anything about June 22. For me, one of the interesting things about this year’s schedule is the placement of Manitowoc on the first Sunday. You may recall that Manitowoc took over the spot in the ToAD schedule that West Bend occupied from 2016 through 2019. For those four years, West Bend had the Monday race, the worst spot on the calendar. ToAD had something less than enthusiastic support from the City of West Bend and its citizens. Still, one wonders what might have been if the race had endured long enough to move from an undesirable weekday to a very desirable weekend.
Yesterday I was asked by a junior racer whether there were any Tour de France-style stage races in Wisconsin. There aren’t. ToAD isn’t one; it’s a collection of criteriums. Racers accumulate points toward an overall prize in a way that is similar to the green jersey competition in the Tour de France, but ToAD champions are not determined by aggregate time. If they were, then an individual time trial would be a very cool—and probably indispensable—addition to ToAD.
Time trials are in the news right now because of comments made by Chris Froome on his YouTube channel back on February 11. Froome has won the general classification of the Tour de France four times. He also has two GC wins at the Vuelta a España and one at the Giro d’Italia, plus several wins in shorter stage races like the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de Romandie. Time trials have been essential to his success, so it’s interesting that he has come out with so much passion to change the way they are conducted. According to Froome, time trial bikes are inherently less safe than standard road bikes, presenting a hazard not just while racing on closed courses, but especially while training on open roads. And, he says, smaller teams are at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to R&D, wind tunnel testing, and other aspects of the specialty, so running time trials on standard road bikes would create a more level playing field where rider ability is more important than technological advantage.
I hate to say it—I have been extremely but, I think, justifiably critical of Froome in the past—but on this subject he’s absolutely correct. The safety argument speaks for itself; I’m more interested in the competition argument, particularly as it applies to us mere mortals. I’ve been in Wisport and other unsanctioned time trials, racing against amateurs who were outfitted with $10,000 in bikes, wheels, aerodynamic helmets, shoe covers … you name it. And what my competitors had in common was that they were mature, mostly Masters racers who could afford their arsenals of high-tech toys. But what about the people who can’t, especially younger racers? USA Cycling, the Wisconsin Cycling Association, and other racing organizations love to talk about lowering the barriers to entry for younger racers or people from economically disadvantaged groups. Running time trials on standard road bikes—or, at least, offering a standard road bike classification within an event that allows TT bikes—seems like an easy win.
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