By Chris Baldwin

MONTEREY, CA /Feb. 22/ Valeriy Kobzarenko came in all smiles from his time-trial today, shouting to anyone who would listen that he had rolled in at 36:08.

“If I’m not mistaken, that’s my time,” said the 29-year old Ukrainian, his head wet from the sweat of 17-miles on an oak-lined county road south of San Jose. His teammates Mark Walters and David Ben Brooks looked at him sceptically and began smiling.

“Then that’s the fastest time of the day,” said Walters.

“Like I said, if I’m not mistaken, that’s what I saw when I crossed the line,” protested Kobzarenko.

“When your eyes were crossed and you couldn’t see straight from the pain?” said Brooks, half teasing.

“Maybe it was an eight,” Kobzarenko admitted reluctantly. “Hard to tell. But I rode outside of myself today, I know that. I felt great.”

@##=#<1,L>@##=#It was actually a nine that he saw coming across the finish line, leaving him in 54th place on the day and 36th overall with a 39:08. He smiled shyly and laughed afterwards at his own misinterpretation, gladly joking with his teammates about needing glasses and poor vision and sweat in his eyes.

Kobzarenko’s time trial was fifth best among the seven other Navigators Wednesday, led by the tremendous 38:17 effort of Phil Zajicek, who now lies 2:32 off of Floyd Landis’ overall lead. However, Zajicek by no means out of contention, and is still less than 90 seconds from 5th place and surrounded by the meatiest bulk of competition. The Tour of California is now beginning to look exceptionally interesting, and tomorrow’s killer stage from Monterey to San Luis Obispo will be both scenic and epic.

Irish National Champion David O’Loughlin started from the elevated ramp on Bailey road just outside an IBM office complex in the middle of a hilly cow pasture. A bull chewed grass in the shade of a scrubby oak and paid no attention to the hullabaloo about him. When he tired of chewing, the bull lay down in the shade and remained indifferent to O’Louglin.

What the bull refused to see was first David’s two-minute man coming back and then three-minute man, Australian Scott Davis, being caught out on the road. Davis stubbornly tried to drag race O’Loughlin at first, drawing to the left and matching stroke for stroke along the mildly hilly course. When that looked bleak, Davis ducked behind O’Loughlin to draft and store up energy for an attack, as if this were a road race. Ultimately the T-Mobile rider was penalized for each of the 46 seconds he sat in David’s wake.

@##=#<2,R>@##=#“It was a hard enough time trial, two hills at the start,” said O’Loughlin. “Hard to get into a rhythm straight away. I had the right equipment, maybe I could have used a deep-dish rim on the front wheel to fight the wind on the last stretch. I rode 54-44 chain rings and used the 44 on the first uphill and just spun it up. That was better than grinding it on the climb. On the flat I was down 54×12, 13, 11. I went all out, but I still was a little flat, so we’ll see.”

O’Laughlin finished in 39:17, 54th on the day, placing him in 51st overall in the Tour of California.

Ben Brooks was content to sit in the sun and soak up the warmth of February in California after his individual effort. Not within realistic striking distance of a high placement on general classification, the Australian instead chose to preserve his strength for tomorrow’s long stage along the scenic central coast.

“It wasn’t too bad for me. I didn’t have to go full gas, so it was just a matter of finding a rhythm and finishing within the time limit. I just rode a standard 53×39 with an 11-23 in the back and stayed somewhere in the middle of the block, just ticking the legs over. Today for guys who aren’t in the overall I guess it’s in a way a kind of recovery day. It’s only 40 minutes and it’s not full out, so for lower guys it’s a bit of a day off. For the guys on our team out of the G.C., tomorrow’s a bit of an opportunity to get in a breakaway now that we’re out of the overall. We have a bit of freedom, so I have a feeling that’s what we’ll be trying to do,” said Brooks.

@##=#<3,L>@##=#Brooks finished 5:28 seconds behind the leader in 107th. The energy he saved today will be needed in great portions tomorrow, and because he is in 83rd place overall and more than 15 minutes back, he poses no conceptual threat to the top-20 riders in the race. Therefore Brooks, along with a legion of other riders, will seek instead to animate the twisty roads of Big Sur on Thursday.

The athletes will pass cedar groves on their left and the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean on their right. February is the time of the year when gray whales are at their peak migration to Mexico and the lagoons around Baja California. The whales are shepherding their newly-born away from frigid feeding waters near Alaska and the dangerous jaws of predatory great white sharks along the way. Brooks, O’Loughlin, Kobzarenko and the rest of the Navigators will perhaps find much in common with their southbound traveling companions, keeping Zajicek, Chadwick and young Lagutin safe and sound in the protective pod of the peloton.