Slipping up

I don't know how I could let this go. Once again I have slipped up and forgotten a major portion of a tale, and I find myself having to back up and retell a portion of the previous day's events.

As I posted yesterday, three of us took the challenge and rode in spite of the rain. Let's face it, you never know, it may rain race day. You'd still ride, right? We had to man up.

Remember the order was Scott, Roy, then me. Remember I felt that was a hard choice to make between Roy and Scott, as I feel there is practically nothing between them in speed at the moment. One is slightly better one way, the other in another. I felt giving Scott a one-minute advantage would be more than enough to ensure Roy couldn't catch - which turned out to be correct. What we didn't know was Scott helped keep it closer, albeit unintentionally.

We were on the cool-down portion of the ride. We were discussing our efforts and times, calculating roughly our speeds, when Scott had his epiphany.

He'd ridden the whole time trial in the small ring.

Let that soak in for a second. He'd been cautious on the way out because of the wet roads. We layered back off Roy's lead, so I noticed over and over on the way out he was in the low ring. He simply forgot to shift it up when he started the time trial. Chalk it up to the distraction of wet roads, but nonetheless, he rode his best TT time in the low chain ring.

Anyone who rides knows that meant he left a lot of speed out there. What had been a high-23 might have been a high-24/low-25. Easily. Maybe more. It was a great effort, and now passes into club lore in the category of, "You remember that time...?" Hall-of-Fame greats in that category?

• Larry Moffatt wearing his helmet backwards as Galloway clipped in and immediately fell over on his first clipped ride
• Galloway wearing his helmet through T2 and onto the run leg of Cicero Triathlon
• Galloway undressing in the doorway at Cicero, showing his backside to anyone interested in looking up
• Galloway attempting to change his flat tire without removing the wheel from the frame

Hey, waitaminnit... this whole thing ought to be renamed the "Galloway Hall of Shame"!

Congratulations, Scott. It takes a great effort to be aligned with one of the all-time greats.