If you ready the masters nationals tandem race report, you will recall that was really more of a warmup/test run for a potential 90+ Tandem 40k record. For better or worse, we’ve got one of the fastest certified 40k TT courses in the country just an hour south of me, in Moriarty, NM. I think more national records have been set there than any other single TT course in the country.

My partner on the tandem Andy Coggan and I had done some figurin’ after our nationals win, to see whether or not we even had a shot at the 90+ record. It’s not that we don’t want to do races we “can’t win”, it’s more that Andy had to fly out, take a weekend away from his wife and kids, while I spent much of the latter half of August tracking down fast tandem equipment and then putting the bike together.

This is as good a time as any for all the ackowledments & thank you’s…Although our bike (probably sub 28 lbs) garnered a lot of attention at the event, Andy and I owned very little on it.

Frame/fork/drivetrain: Thanks to my old teammate Dave Wykoff for use of his custom Calfee tandem.

Bars: Thanks to Zipp and Angie Coggan for lettng us drill and use a set of Zipp Vuka TT bars. Andy had to dremel out mounts for brake levers on these track specific bars.

Rear wheel: My client and friend Rob Garwood (who used to kick my ass repeatedly in NJ TTs a decade ago!) was nice enough to loan us his Zipp Powertap disc. Robbie Douangpanya supplied a second CPU so Andy and I could both see speed and power, Robbie also housed Andy for the weekend.

Front wheel and tires: Colavita NM p/b JNF Enterprises provided the very fast Zipp 808 front wheel. We ran tubulars front and rear because we knew with a combined weight around 350lbs we’d want to run very high pressure (150psi), team-supplied Vittoria Corsa CX tubulars were the ticket here.

Powermeters were already covered, but I should thank my client Barb Wetherill right up the street for loaning me her wireless PT CPU and wheel for most of August.

Record Challenge promoter Randy Corcoran was very flexible in letting us ride either day we felt would be fast (it’s a twoday event – tandems typically go Monday), as it turned out Sunday was literally a wash so we rode Monday only anyway. Randy also paired with US TT legend John Frey as the other 90+ tandem on the course that day, and I can honestly say that knowing they were in the event, and knowing we were roughly even with them at the halfway point really had a lot to do with how seriously we took our preparation, and how hard we went on the return leg. Randy and John also broke the old record by 55 seconds, we were fortunate to come in 10 seconds ahead of them.

So, the ride itself? Like nationals, after all the prep the actual ride is sort of a blur. Again, very cool to look down and check speed to see numbers in the low to mid-30’s for an entire 40k TT. We had a couple pretty fast tandems start 2 and 4 minutes in front of us (Bush/Mauderly and Buntz/Mathias both rode low 50-something times), so having them in our sights and passing them on the road was more good positive feedback. Knowing Frey/Corcoran are probably going to beat the old record (Arnie Baker and Phil Coats) means you can’t just ride to a schedule, you’ve got to give it full stick.

Full stick we gave it, for a couple middle aged never was’s anyway. I’ve got to be somewhat conservative in the first half of any TT over 20k, to keep from blowing up…Andy doesn’t compete at 6200′ altitude, so we both started the thing pretty conservatively. The powertap shows 547W for 24:11 on the outbound leg, 583W for 22:26 on the return. That slightly uneven pacing might have cost us a few seconds – but we have the record now, 46:47 is a 1:05 improvement over the old 90+ record, and nearly a minute slower than the current 70+ record (Frey/Warsa).

A couple things we cold have done better – a bigger drive ring than the 56 we had, a longer, lower cockpit for Andy, and a longer, lower stem for me…but I’m not sure with those modifications that we’d have gone substantially faster to where the 70+ record would have been within reach.

Only my 9th event of the year, and my second tandem TT ever…but nice to set a goal and actually reach it. Thanls to John Friesen for the unwavering support throughout the year, to all the supporters listed above, of course to my rear admiral Andy, and to everyone who provided verbal and moral support throughout the season!