What does a climber focus on when he starts the season a few lbs heavier that he should be? Or 12 lbs heavier, with an at best semi-functional left leg, like me at this year’s team camp? Time trials.

And now that I’m closer to where I want to be to climb well– hill climb time trials.

So I raced one up by tahoe, it went fairly well. Then on the recommendation of teammate Jim Wingert, I signed up for Diablo.

The deal – Six miles and change up. Riders off in 30 second intervals. The first couple miles roll a bit, then it’s just up.

My condition – I climbed Mt.  Shasta with a few friends the weekend before. Six days later, I was finally starting to walk normally.

Getting there – In case I didn’t already hate the 80/580 merge to the maze stretch of highway enough, this Sunday confirmed that’s just a terrible stretch of road. 6 am and heading to a race – I went a half mile in about 20 minutes. Despite the delay, I was still able to get in a decent warm and make my start time. Really the first part of the race when it comes to TTs.

The race – I hit the course hard and 24 minutes and change later, I took the win. Jim came in second for a solid Team Mike’s  Bikes 1-2.

I was happy with the result and impressed with the event. Great job by the promoter. My zipp 303-404 combo also performed nicely – perfect balance of aero and lightness for this type of course.