James Peterman on time trial tear, wins 2013 John Stenner Memorial Colorado TT Championships

James Peterman (Sonic Boom Racing) on the far end of the 2013 Colorado Time Trial Championship course

A flat individual time trial course could be called boring. But that doesn’t make it easy.

This year the Colorado state TT championships moved to a route out of Keenesburg east of the Front Range, where tractors and hay trucks outnumber passenger cars on straight roads and hay fields stretch as far as the eye can see.

Nearly all of the senior category riders faced down a 40 kilometer out and back course with a short out and back section tacked on near the end. A few senior age groups rode the 20 kilometer version.

With few trees in the fields the wind goes wherever it pleases here. It blew mostly from the west during the event.

James Peterman (Sonic Boom Racing), winner of the senior men Pro-1-2 race, almost crashed when a gust of wind threw him off balance as he tried to get a drink of water.

Not one road on the course possessed the slightest wiggle, except the two turn around points. The longest straight ran for seven miles. The views it afforded of the competition became a double-edged sword, at times useful, at times debilitating.

“It’s pretty hard because you can see so far away, you can see your 30 second man all the way up to your two and a half minute man all in one straight,” Robin Eckmann (California Giant Berry Farms/Specialized) said after the race. “You think, ‘Oh, I can catch them right away,’ because they are right up there, then you go a little bit harder and then all of a sudden you just crack with the wattage and it’s really hard to keep it up.”

Last year’s champion Eckmann, a strong time trialist and recent winner of Durango’s Iron Horse Bicycle Classic TT and overall, appeared to have an off day after a week of what he described as “ups and downs.”

No one could catch Peterman. The younger of the Eckmann brothers, Yannick, also on the Cal Giant team, tried to hold the Sonic Boom rider’s pace after getting passed by him, but Peterman was too fast, he said. “I couldn’t stay on him, and I went all out, even more than I could hold on. I was doing probably like 340 to 350 watts behind him and he was still pulling away from me…”

Peterman won in 48:21, a minute and a half ahead of second place Andrew Hemesath (Primal Wear – McDonald – Audi).

This season’s results sheets at local TT courses seem to come pre-printed with Peterman’s name at the top. A cat 1 rider from Boulder with a racing age of 28, this year he’s also won Haystack, the Superior Morgul Classic TT, and Boulder Orthopedics TT.

The cat 1 rider explained he enjoys the race against the clock. “I like going fast and it’s just a lot of fun, so if you’re having fun doing it, then it’s good.

“I was hoping to finally win one of these,” he said after the race. “I’ve gotten second here the past two years in a row.”

2013 John Stenner Memorial CO Time Trial Championships, SM Pro-1-2 Top Ten

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