Carolina Masters Cycling

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Carolina Masters Ride to Victory in LMS 10 mile TTT……Like the 7th President?

Stop anyone on the street in Salisbury and they’ll quickly tell you who’s the most famous lawyer to grace their tiny town. No, you’re wrong -- it’s not your teammate Judge Charlie Brown. Nope….it’s none other than former president Andrew Jackson…the John Kerry look-a-like immortalized on the $20 dollar bill. Turns out “Old Hickory” studied law in Rowan’s county seat in the late 1780’s. Sorry, Charlie…..you’re a close 3rd, just behind Liddy Dole.

For the sake of this story, though, all you’ll need to know about that stodgy old big shot from Salisbury is that Andrew Jackson cruised into his second term in office by dominating the national election in 1832.

Hmmm, 1832. why is that number important? what’s the big deal about 1832?

maybe we could toss in a colon.

18:32.

Ah, now I get it. It turns out that number’s significant to a Salisbury heavyweight once again, since it was the time posted by the Carolina Masters Team of Patterson, Powers, Jenkins and Brown this past Wednesday night when they won the 10 mile Team Time Trial down at Lowe’s Motor Speedway outside Charlotte. For those of you who don’t have a calculator function on your cell phone, let me help you – that’s about 1 minute and 51 seconds per mile….or roughly 32.5 miles per hour. That’s not a misprint – it’s really that fast….and it was good for more than just a win – it was a new track record.

The squad from Salisbury finished ahead of 32 other teams competing that night, including quartets from Mock Orange Bikes, Standard Pacific Homes, Giordana-Cliff Bar, and a makeshift group from South Carolina anchored by time trial strongmen Ladd Lumpkin and Eric Christopherson, who battled the CM Team nearly neck and neck for most of the 7 laps.

The guys started quickly and stayed calm and smooth throughout, posting lap splits that never varied by more than 2 or 3 seconds the entire way. Ryan Jenkins was riding his 2nd TT of the night, having won the individual contest an hour earlier, and Charlie Brown was still getting accustomed to a borrowed bike, but they kept it together and powered around the track at over 32 miles an hour. The Barley’s Taproom Team was only 15 seconds behind at the finish, but the gaps back to the other groups were significant. 3rd place was 42 seconds of the pace; 4th place 1:06 back; 5th place over a minute and a half – that’s almost 16 seconds PER LAP off the winning team’s pace.

The team has produced numerous podium sweeps in the past few years that are arguably more impressive than winning a local time trial. But this win was an example of power and cooperation that to some transcends the tactics one sees in criteriums and road races. The big time gaps might suggest that it was an “easy” win, but it wasn’t. Winning is never easy, and the potential for things to go pear shaped in a TTT is extraordinary. Want proof? Just ask the teams that were rolling around with 3 guys after the 2nd lap. Things can come undone in a couple of pedal strokes. A win in a team time trial demonstrates the team’s brute strength AND their ability to ride as a unit. The photo of the guys in full flight is all you need to see, really. Not just because they’re flying along, buried in the effort and performing flawlessly, but because they’re doing all that yet they look like they’re just rolling along – no strain, no gaps, no panic. If you didn’t know better you’d look at that picture and think they were just warming up, not rolling along at 33 miles an hour. THAT kind of cohesion (plus a ton of wattage) is how you win a Team Time Trial, and anyone at the track that night could see that the Carolina Master’s Team had an ample supply of both.

Derek Powers