LA Tri Pre-Race Report

I got in late last night, 10:30 pm Pacific time so my body was thinking 1:30 am Eastern time and it would be at least another hour and a half before I got to my rental. My first concern was my bike, did it make it to LA with me and lo and behold, Air Canada got it here with the rest of my baggage. Next thing on my mind was food. I hadn't eaten and even though it was late I wanted to get a small salad and maybe some cereal on my way from the airport. I found an all night grocery store pretty close and pulled into the parking lot and saw a group of ... umm ... let's say scary looking gents loitering around the entrance. I almost turned and drove away but I was too hungry. I figured if I looked like a wuss I might encounter some hassling but if I looked kinda crazy they'd leave me alone. I wasn't exactly sure how I'd go about looking crazy but I sure wasn't going to look like a wuss, so I just made a beeline for the entrance and didn't slow down till I got inside. Ok good, but I still had to get back outside and to my car. I found my salad, some cereal and some water, paid and practically ran to my car ... in a non-wussy kind of way mind you. I found the rental house, got the key out of the mailbox, let myself in and got out my food. To me it was 3:00 am and I wasn't going to be awake much longer so I ate up and crashed. This morning I was up at 7:30. I had a lot to get done so I started by unpacking the P3. Now normally this is a painless job but not so this time. I got the seat post and seat installed, the pedals and the bars but my first challenge was getting the damn rear wheel installed. The horizontal drop outs make it a pain. I struggled with the chain position and the cassette but I finally got everything lined up and fitting. I put the front wheel on and it looked good, ready to test ride. I took it out to the street and got challenge number 2. I rode a bit and found that I was not able to get into lower 2 and upper 2 gears. What the? This shouldn't happen, all I did was remove the rear wheel to pack it and then re-install it. So without trying to figure out why it happened I did a quick tune on the rear derailleur and I was back to having all 10 gears available. I'm a little concerned though because shifting is often not bang on after a tuning, it needs some more farting around with but I'll just have to live with what ever happens during the race. For now it was shifting fine. Ok, bike done. Now it was time to head to registration. With this race being a point to point bike segment I also had to take and drop off my T2 bag with my running gear so I packed it with my shoes and visor and left for registration. I decided that I'd follow the actual bike route from T1 so I could get any idea of what the route looked like. The first 16 km were essentially a long fairly shallow upward grade. No hills or climbs but definitely a slow rise. The last 24 km were on a road that we'd actually have to do 3 times. It was approximately 8 km of very gently rolling roads to a turn around, back along the same road for 8 km and a second turn around to finish the last 8 km and into T2. I got to registration and parked at a lot about 1 km away. The registration took place at LA Live. This is a sports and entertainment complex which includes the Staples Center where the LA Kings and Lakers play, the Nokia Theater, the Grammy Museum and world class hotels and restaurants. For those of you that follow Hell's Kitchen the LA Market is located here and while I did go in I didn't order anything. Anyway I made my way to registration, got my kit with my bib and stickers to put on my helmet and bike, got my timing chip and cap and dropped off my T2 bag. Then I got my goodie bag. This is by far the best swag bag I've gotten from any race. Not only bars and gels but also a couple of bottles of Powerbar Perform, Powerbar Pro 03 Recover, my t-shirt, a towel, Lava magazine, a power shake mixture, a small box of Wheaties Fuel cereal, Clif Shot Blocks, 2 packets of Lift Off and a tube of Aquaphor Healing Ointment. Nice. From there I went to take in the course talk which was pretty basic and then to the expo. I hate the expo. Well not really, but it always means I get to drool over stuff I want but can't get or I end up getting stuff which costs me. Today it cost me. I've been looking for a transition bag but one that wasn't just a backpack. Well I found it. It is so technical it makes my head spin. It's by a French company called Gyst and rather then trying to describe it it's easier to just visit gystconcept.com for details. Anyway, I got it, the backpack 1-10 model. Next on my agenda was to look at the run route. The run is a 5 km 2 loop route which until the time I saw it, I thought was flat. Not so much. So it's 2.5 km out to a turn around, back for 2.5 km and repeat. It's a gently rising first 1.5 km and a flat last .5 km with a .5 km long wall that needs climbing in between. Let me tell you, this thing was hard to walk up! If I was riding up it on my bike I might be tempted to use my small ring up front! This is not going to be fun, it's going to hurt. I walked the 2.5 km out and back and then got into the car to head to see the swim start. I figured that I'd go back to the house first though to get my bike and ride there. I was planning on riding to the start in the morning so I wouldn't have parking problems and I wanted to get an idea of how long it would take. I got to the house, grabbed the P3 and off I went ..... for about 10 feet. Something was rubbing. I didn't have this when I test rode the bike this morning, what was going on? The brakes? I checked them, no. Could it be a tire on the frame? They looked ok, I spun the wheels and they spun freely. WTF? I checked a little closer and it looked like it could possibly be the rear tire was too close to the curved seat tube and may have been rubbing when I sat on the bike. So I pulled the rear skewer out to adjust the limiting screw in the dropouts and HOLY CRAP, the one screw looked mangled. What the hell happened? No idea but here it was 4:00 pm the night before the race and now what? Well in theory the skewer holds the wheel in place, all the screws do is set the distance for the wheel to the seat tube. I made a few adjustments, eyeballed the straightness of the wheel and locked it in place. It all seemed well so I rode down to the beach to look around and time the trip there. Only 15 minutes, not too bad. I got back to the house and I remembered that Triathlon Lab was in the area so I jumped in the car, got out the GPS for directions and took off. I made it to the store just as they were closing and explained my situation and they told me they didn't have any of the screws but also confirmed that once the skewer locked the wheel in place the screws didn't do anything. While I was in the store I asked if they had any in-line shift adjusters that Chris has on his shifter cables and the techie pulled out a couple and handed to me. No charge. I think he may have felt sorry for me and my mangled screw woes. I didn't spend too much more time in the store because I was starting to drool again and got worried I'd start spending money so I headed back to the house and had one more thing to do before trying to relax. I got out all the gear I'd need in the morning and at T1 and packed it into my new transition bag. Race day tomorrow.