6-12-24 World TT Championships, Report from Borrego Springs: brief

Jim Parker

Cruzbike, Inc. Director
Staff member
Here is a bullet list, with photos, of some highlights of the event.

1) Cruzbike racers Jason Perez (24H), Kevin Gambill (12H), and (moi) Jim Parker (6H) each set the overall recumbent record in their events. Here are all the new and historical 6-12-24 Hour recumbent results:
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2) Big thanks to crew John Rock, Gretchen Gambill, and Genevieve Hill who kept us in the race on what turned out to be a much hotter than expected day. Temperature on my Garmin were in the high 90s in the afternoon. That's Gretchen and John tending to Jason in the photo.
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3) Jason Perez came in second only to Austrian phenom Christoph Strasser. Jason's 510 miles beat the indoor and outdoor track world record holder, Marko Baloh, of Slovenia. Jason was the only American to make the podium. A podium he shared with two of the world's best ultracyclists. In my opinion, this should be the cover story of competitive cycling publications. Isn't it great to see Jason up there?

Jason Perez (2nd place), Christoph Strasser (1st place), Marko Baloh (3rd place).
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4) Kevin Gambill raced 248.4 miles fighting the desert heat and beat Jim Verheul's 2012 record by about 8 miles. He came in third among all the men in the race.
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The high temperatures definitely cut his mileage down, but still a great result.

5) I wasn't expecting much competition in the 6-hour event, but Larry Lem and Sven Jorgensen came with their low-racers. Our race started at noon, and the first two laps went great. I was holding power at under 200W as planned, and was ahead of everyone. Then the heat hit and my muscles started cramping. I had to drop my power to about 110W. Finally, it cooled off a bit near the end and my power came back enough to hold off the recumbent competitors.

That's me chatting with Larry Lem on his lowracer before the start.
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and this is Sven Jorgensen on his lowracer.
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Hey, what's that on my rear wheel? These CNC'd parts showed up at my house literally the day before I flew out to the race. I've heard it's always good to test new equipment in a race. These bolt-on brackets dropped my backrest angle about 4-5 degrees (to about 18 degrees) and head tube angle to just under 70 degrees. The bike handled great and probably was faster for a tall guy like me. Official Cd*A testing to come later.
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These are my Ninja V-18 adapters about to be installed the night before the race.
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And the best part is talking about the race when the dust has settled.
Kevin, Jason, and I found some cool grass to relax in.
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BJ686

Well-Known Member
Congrats on a great race Jim, and thanks for the write up. Congrats to Kevin as well. Enjoy following the exploits of all you guys. As you allude to, Jason's performance was mind blowing given the competition he faced.
 

trplay

Zen MBB Master
Enjoyed following all three of you. Great job all around. Yep, you had me worried on that one lap where more and more riders kept popping up but no Jim in sight. It made it even worse because a timing error had Kevin dropping back. This was about the same time Jason had his slowest lap and it was looking bleak for Team Cruzbike. Then ya'll answered the bell, righted the ship, and it was happy days in Cruzbike land once again..
 

Cruzbike Chris

Well-Known Member
Super awesome and super fun following. Thanks all and the crew for shaping us their way!
Congrats too all the racers!
 

Robert O

Well-Known Member
I followed the realtime updates all day, I'm pretty sure I drove my wife nuts with the frequent fill-ins. Incredible performances!
 

trplay

Zen MBB Master
So Jason did you get the leaky tire sorted out or just make a swap ? What did you eat?
Jim were you racing on a keto fuel plan? If so what was your diet during the race?
 

RojoRacing

Donut Powered Wise-guy
swapped to a tube in the rear because I didn't want to take any chances, it'll be awhile before I get time to figure out what was going on. I used infinite nutrition powdered mix as my primary fuel. I ate 3 half PB&Js and drank around 5 mini 8oz cokes. I also took 3 or 4 caffeine pills which I conveniently taped to the top of the boom for use any time. I don't recall getting very hungry ever but my energy levels did have some low stops and I know the first sandwich helped. Sadly the race really does seem like a blur and I'm having a hard time remembering enough details to tell an interesting and coherent story. No mechanical issues to speak of during the race and the waxed chain must have stayed quite enough strait to the end because I didn't think about it until I loaded the bike the next day. You guys watch the live time only got to experience 10% of the excitement during the last 4hrs. That one very long lap was from me throwing in the towel from heat exhaustion and just sitting in the corner with several bags of ice draped over me to cool me off. Every but my team thought I was out of the race including myself but they got me back out there just in time. Marko also had to sit down and ice down the next lap which is what put us back in the game.
 

trplay

Zen MBB Master
No I remember that very long lap. The best part was the next one was better than the last 5. A leaky tubeless is usually around the stem. Dip that part of the tire under water to check or spray a soapy cleaner to see if you get bubbles. The quick fix is to rotate the tire and saturate the area with the sealant.
 

Jim Parker

Cruzbike, Inc. Director
Staff member
"Jim, were you racing on a keto fuel plan? If so what was your diet during the race?"

I went in completely keto and planned to only drink water and take salt tablets during the race. When I suddenly had the power loss and leg cramps after only two laps I wasn't sure of the cause. By the 4th lap I switched to drinking Gatorade in case the problem was not not enough energy production from fat and ketones. Based on prior water-salt-only-events and looking back on the temperatures, I now think my issues were related to the heat. That theory is supported by the fact that many other racers were getting zapped at about the same time I was. Therefore it had to be the heat.
 

trplay

Zen MBB Master
We've seen Jason's strava data, We've seen Strasser's data but the real question is where can we see Baloh's data? Jason and Marko were just a few miles apart. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare their data?
 
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