On September 11th, the Visit Britain team of Alex Gulla, Mike Henson, Ken Harris, and Craig ‘Smilie’ Upton broke the 3 lap TTT record with a stunning 37:46. They were the only team to break 13 minutes for a lap, and they did it for all three laps. Everyone’s rider of the year Alex Gulla dropped off the pace after a lap and a half, but he had done his part by helping stake the boys to a 12:26 first lap. The next two laps were clocked at 12:39 and 12:41. Here are some impressions from that day, from Mike, Ken, and Craig. By the way, if you know them you’ll see how each account is totally in character.

The Fab Four: Gulla, Harris, Henson, and Upton (Gulla photo courtesy Marco Quezada)

Mike Henson:

Looking back on the 2004 season, 2 things stand out for me: One is the experience I had racing in Ireland at the FBD Milk Ras and being a protagonist in the winning breakaway on stage two. The second “stand out moment” is the TTT.

I’m proud to be part of a team that came together with no experience riding together as a 4-man squad and rode as fast as we did for 3 laps in the park. As always, Smilie was a moto. He and I have a lot of experience riding together in training and racing (we rode the 2 man TT together in July), so I knew exactly what to expect from him. He set the pace out of the start and made sure that we kept the effort even. Ken and Alex did what they do best — ride very hard and fast. It was a full team effort and every man pulled his weight. You began to get the idea of how fast we were riding when we started passing other teams. It was a phenomenal feeling that made you want to go even faster. And this with our only practice as a team being a warm-up lap of the park! Our team communication during the race was excellent as we continued to talk to one another and keep everything smooth and steady.

Personally, I had a great day. It felt like I was floating on the pedals for the first 2 laps. I was experiencing the “flow” on the bike that we always dream about. The power was just there, as if I didn’t have to try to produce the watts. I found myself talking to Smilie and encouraging Ken and Alex as we were hammering away at 50-55k/hr!

The third lap was a different story as the intensity of the effort really hit me. That third lap, however, is what made the whole effort and the time we rode feel so good. The nature of suffering in our sport, and its necessity, is what individuates cycling and makes it unique in the sports world. The TTT is all about suffering. Pushing through the pain in that 3rd lap and driving forward for the record, knowing that your teammates were counting on you as much as you on them, made the ride even more special. Our 2nd and 3rd lap splits were within 2 seconds of one another. If you could experience the difference in sensations that I had in each of those 2 laps, you wouldn’t believe that we rode essentially the same split time for laps 2 and 3. I couldn’t believe it! Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of Smilie and Ken over those last 10km. There aren’t enough adjectives to do their rides justice. When we crossed the line and I looked at my watch, the pain went away and I felt pride in our teams’ effort and relief that we had accomplished the goals that we set for ourselves; win the event and in so doing cement Visit Britain’s victory in the CRCA “A” Team Cup as well as convincingly break the existing record.

Ken Harris:

Firstly, I want to say that the success of the TTT squad is really a testament to Justin Reid’s management of the team, and Craig Upton’s and Mike Henson’s training methods and dedication.

My perspective on the ride is different than Mike’s or Simile’s. This is my first year racing since the ’80’s, and I was the slowest, oldest, and least accomplished member on that squad. The only TTT I had done in twenty years was a two man with Alex Gulla, where the whole ended up being rather less than the sum of the parts. The only really good TT I have done this year was at the prologue at Fitchburg. By good TT, I mean not only a good time, but one where I fully enter the experience, and by that I mean getting beyond self-judgment, neurosis, and the known ‘facts’ of my ability: I mean pushing myself to the limit of my ability, settling in, and first watching pain empty itself of suffering, and then becoming nothing other than the doing of it. While that may sound either pseudo-mystical or simple-minded, I find it hard not to watch the clock as I ride, and alternately gloat over good numbers or fret over bad.

My spot in the rotation was behind Alex. Considering that we have similar strengths and size (he having more of both), we ride surprisingly poorly together. My experience in the two man TT was that Alex had yet to learn how to modulate his effort through the rotation–i.e., he would catch on my wheel and then drift off. In that this four man team had not practiced together, I expected the same thing to happen, which it did. Through the first lap, I found myself coasting, braking, or jumping about 1/3 of the time. It was far more painful to catch-on than to be at the front because of the whiplash. At 29 mph, it doesn’t take but a few unnecessary jumps to put me in a shitty mood. I started refluxing, and I wanted to drink, but there was never a moment when I had enough confidence to take a hand off the bar.

On the second time down the hill the around the Harlem pool, I pulled too hard and split the group. I think it was around then that we started really losing Alex. I remember coming in behind Mike as third wheel after coming down the hill near 100th. Alex got back on, and I twice I tried to move him back up to his spot in the rotation, but he was fully gone when I looked back at 72nd. Perhaps my trying to move him up was not a good use of energy, but I was trying to deny him the option of falling off.

Once we were down to three, the whole endeavor became a game of avoiding negatives. Realistically, I was the one most likely to screw up next–have a mechanical or get dropped. I was behind Mike now, and getting a lot less draft. I started taking shorter pulls, riding more heads-up, and just watching for anything else to go wrong. I felt that the main thing I could contribute was a making sure three men got to the finish. Up to that point, I felt I was pulling my weight, but I didn’t feel like I could risk that anymore. I’m sure my caution cost us much more than 10 seconds.

My experience in no way diminishes the outstanding performances of Alex, Mike, and Smilie. The speed really came from the other three. I felt my job was to ride responsibly, which meant not getting in their way and riding decidedly within my limits.

Craig Upton:

Yea that was a crazy fast one all right. The guys did a great job–everyone was smooth and super fast as you can see from our first lap (12:20). This lap was the most important and really set the day for us. At the end of the 2nd lap Mike told me we were at 25 minutes. Now that’s fast, and showed me a record was achievable. My mind started thinking about pulling out a super fast time. The guys had really done their job until now–it was time for me to step up and draw on my TT experiences.

Third lap went like this, I pulled hard and long from the cat (start line) to about the end of Engineer’s Gate, then the boys came through strong and fast…I was back on the front about the downhill into the pool area and stayed there until about 1/3 up 110th St. The boys came through going up the hill keeping me from bogging down. Ken flew down 110th st, and I came through again until about 95th St (west side)…Again the boys came through which kept the effort honest…I was back on the front by “the bump” and remained there until heading into the long straight on the west side, this is where Ken and Mike excelled–the speed through here was incredible…I hit the front again going up the hill towards tavern and purposely stayed until the very bottom of the park to give the guys a breather…Then the boys hit the front for the final push home, I came through another time until the ‘sprint’ for the line (Ken won!). I pulled plenty during the last lap, and feel proud we were able to pull out such a great time to finish off the first lap that set the pace.

Just to clarify I pulled long on the lap just as the TTT text book says, if you’re feeling stronger, pull longer–not faster! Not because the boys were hanging on for grim death as seems to be the common thought.

(Ed.’s note: For you TTT techies, that’s six complete rotations in 12:41, or an average of 42 seconds per pull. By all accounts Smilie was the strongest, which means he was probably doing 50-60 second pulls.)

I was thinking this morning while riding around the park with Julie’s team (it brought back memories of Saturday) that on the early laps the team was very keen to pull through. I remember thinking a couple of times ‘wow these guys are coming through fast, eager and often’. Whereas I was more conservative but had more gas at the end. This made me wonder if during the individual TT’s, I might just be a bundle more experienced, and better at distributing my effort. Mike mentioned this to after the 2-up TT–he was amazed how slow I start.