FEATURE
2016 PIKES PEAK INTERNATIONAL HILL CLIMB – PART I
P114
I ended up only one second be-
hind Langlois even though Cycle
World's Don Canet and the
Victory Electric machine were
another two seconds up the
road. But I felt good, I'd cracked
a nut and now I needed to get
my head right for the top sec-
tion. But it still wasn't to be.
Thursday's practice wasn't
great. Again on the top section,
I finished four seconds behind
Langlois after riding as hard as I
could. I couldn't for the life of me
figure it out. He was so much
faster than me, despite having
Qualifying netted
pole position and
renewed optimism
for the race.
I thought, might be a different
story.
Friday was official qualifying.
Held between the start line and
Glen Cove, this section was
all me—its nature is fast and
flowing, like a real road racing
course. I liked this section in the
tire test—why should it be any dif-
ferent now? The best part was,
it wasn't.
Between the trees, I topped
the timesheets with a 4:14 pass,
10 seconds clear of Bruno. For
some reason or other, every-
thing just worked. It was one of
a slower bike. All I could guess
was he was holding it on longer
than me and gapping me where I
was backing off.
We tried to leave the bike
alone (Tom and I) and just con-
centrated on gaining speed. But
it wasn't coming and I was start-
ing to worry.
I went back to our base at
Apex Sports in Colorado Springs
with a problem. From where was
I going to gain this speed? It
was plainly clear I wasn't go-
ing to catch Bruno over the top
section, but the bottom section,
