Palmer Road Race

This week was a low volume week in the training program which meant choosing only one race for the weekend. Looking at the elevation profiles of Sturdbridge and Palmer, I thought that the more gradual hills of Palmer would suit me better. Mike Norton offered a lot of choices for cat 4 racers, including a 4/5, 4, and 3/4 race. The 4/5 race runs 2 laps/~39 miles while the 4 and 3/4 races run 3 laps/~59 miles. I wasn't convinced that the 4/5 race would necessarily be easier than the 4 race, but I chose it for the shorter distance. 60 miles of racing was more than I wanted to do.

There was light rain in the 30-60 minutes prior to the race, but it lifted just before rollout. Warmup was minimal to non-existent, <5 miles. We went neutral for the first mile or so, but then went on to stay neutral for the next 20 minutes. The pace was ridiculously slow, 138 watts sitting in the middle. Trouble is the road was narrow, and the 8 guys up front seemed content cruising at a leisurely pace.

20 minutes into the race we came to a hill with a nice wide breakdown lane. I attacked as we came over the top and no one came with me. There was one rider about 200m up. When I came up to him, I looked behind and the pack looked like they were still taking it easy. I pedaled hard(ish) for about 5 minutes and finally the field came through and started working. For a moment I was really beginning to think they were just going to let me pedal away, weird.

After that other people started to actually race, sort of. A weak attack would go off the front, pick up a 200m gap, then the pace would go to hard and the entire field would work to bring it back. This happened over, and over, and over again. I tried to make a few moves myself, but th efforts felt pointless. It was super easy to stay at the front though, and I was rarely more than 2 wheels back.

There was one Nor'east cycling racer, Dylan McNicholas, that kept things interesting. He had won the cat5 race at Turtle Pond and the 4/5 race at Sturbridge, and was definitely my marked man. He spent a lot of time further back in the field, but every so often when the road got wide enough, he would come up to the front to lay the hammer down. If the hills were steeper he probably would have shattered the field, but I think we stayed together for the most part.

Coming through Palmer for the last time (~<10 miles to go?) the pace went to super easy. I was second wheel, and a bunch of riders came up on both sides. I dropped back a ton of positions and was locked in the middle. The road got narrow and the pace went to neutral pace easy. I wanted to get to the front to hammer, but was entirely blocked in and there was nothing I could do.

This is when disaster struck. I can't recall exactly what happened, but all of the sudden the rider in front of me had his rear wheel locked up. I hit my brakes hard but it was too late, we crossed wheels and I went down. Then I got ran over, and ran over again. Luckily (I guess) I was only about four or five rows from the back at that point so there weren't 100 riders to flatten me. Powertap shows we were doing 21.5mph when we crashed.

I'm pretty much OK but I destroyed my new Zipp 303 front wheel in the process. This was a real heartbreaker because it was only my first race using it. I also had spent something like 8 hours the week before making sure the tire was glued on well. Merlin (SRAM) gave me a new front wheel, but I also broke my SRAM Force shifter levers and couldn't continue. I'm still assessing the damage, but it looks like my Force rear deraileur and powertap wheel are in rough shape too.
While I'm pretty bummed my bike took a beating, I think I'm most disappointed about not finishing and that my training may be interrupted. My legs felt awesome today and it would have been nice to have something to show for it. At this point I'm just hoping get the bike back together quickly.

Tour of the Battenkill - Battenkill Roubaix

The Battenkill Roubaix is the largest single-day race in the United States and had over 1,300 racers this year. I signed up for the cat 4 wait list way back on Christmas day, and was something like 70^th position. Fortunately for me, so many cat 4’s signed up on the wait list that the race hosted two cat 4 fields of 125 racers each. The two fields were not split up by age like I would have thought, but instead alphabetically by team name. The course itself is either 55 or 56 miles and includes about 25% of unpaved dirt roads. The hills on the course are not particularly long, but are instead very very steep.

Race day was unseasonably hot, with temperatures over 80°F. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun beat down on racers all day. Initially I had been deciding between two or three water bottles for the 2.5-3-hour race. By the end of the race I had put down 4 bottles (thanks to a neutral feed). This ended up being one of the hottest races I’ve ever been in and it was April!

The awesome course and weather were about the best part of the day for me, otherwise I actually ended up having a pretty bad day. Due to a last minute pit stop, I rolled up to the line about 3 minutes before the gun was scheduled to go off. For some reason I had a mental block and thought I was number 865, instead of 665, which lined me up with a master’s field. I was looking around me wondering where my teammates were when I heard an announcement over the megaphone: “Cat4 black, roll out!” I looked up to the front of the field and caught glimpse of a few NEBC apples. I charged to the back of the cat 4 field and barely managed to not miss my start.

So nearly missing the start was bad news #1. For the first three miles I was super jittery, and the stop and go action in the peloton drove me nuts. We were doing a lot of sprinting and braking at the back of the field. I was either doing 600 watts or braking hard at zero watts and I was ultra jittery. On the first dirt climb just three miles into the race people were already falling off the back, and I was having a heck of a time dodging them. The advice teammate Colby gave before the race was to make sure to be at the front in order to avoid exactly this. I moved up a lot of positions on the first climb and got much closer to the front (and even found my teammates), but I climbed a lot harder than other people did. I went very anaerobic here and tried to recover before the next climb, but couldn’t seem to get comfortable.

The second big selection point is a pair of climbs around mile 9. The first climb is only about 3 minutes and is followed by a brief descent that goes into a super steep unpaved climb that riders called the wall. I was dropped about half way up the first of this pair and blew myself up badly, struggling to push over 200 watts. “The wall” was just ridiculous. I could see probably 30 or 40 racers about 200m in front of me (which might have actually been the front of the field), but 200m at a pace of 2.5mph is about a 2-minute gap. The unpaved dirt was loose and slippery, which made it super difficult to stay balanced. Most people walked up this part, and many of the people that tried to stay mounted ended up falling. I’ve never seen anything like this in a bike race before, it reminded me a lot of the 2008 Tour of Flanders.

After “The Wall” things were chaotic. The descent was screaming fast, and there were a lot of master’s riders and cat4 riders mixing together. After finally recovering slightly I hopped on a chase group of 12 or so people. The course goes through a wooden bridge that was super sketchy. We were two riders wide and a third rider came to my outside just before the sharp turn onto the bridge. The contrast between the sunny outdoors and dark bridge made it so you couldn’t see a thing in the bridge, and I prayed that the surface wasn’t too slick and that my tires would hold. Luckily, it wasn’t a problem.

Five minutes of riding with the chase group felt like an eternity and I gave up on the race. I just couldn’t get my head into it. Just sitting in and pedaling at 200W felt like a sprint. I’m not sure if I’m a bit over-trained right now or if I was just frustrated, but I sat up and soft pedaled at my own pace for a solid hour. I wanted no part of pacelining or group riding despite a ton of chase groups passing me. I pedaled a little bit harder towards the end of the race but for the most part I just enjoyed the scenery wishing I had my camera. I wasn’t the only one riding like this either, even p/1/2’s were just strolling around. You just knew that everyone else at this point was just as frustrated as yourself.

Despite being frustrated I really enjoyed the course and can't wait to come back next year with better form. Like everyone says this truly is an epic race and if you have the legs its one you don't want to miss. The rolling dirt hills on Meeting House Road looked like a ton of fun to race over. The descents were screaming fast and I hit a maximum speed of 53 mph. Spectators lined the course and people were cheering us on very enthusiastically. Event photographers on motorcycles were zipping past us to get good photo ops. The only negative thing about the race was how much dirt kicked up. My lungs felt horrible by the end of the race as if I’d taken up smoking. Maybe next time I’ll bring a surgeon’s mask.

This week I will really tone back the training volume, I really need some rest. I’ve spent about 15 hours per week in the saddle each of the past three weeks, and had a TSB of about -40 for Battenkill. I do think the sudden spike in training volume after winter is finally taking its toll on me. Hopefully these painful saddle sores on my backside will go away too.

Charlie Baker Time Trial - 4/16

Wednesday night was the first Charlie Baker Time Trial of the season. The weather was amazing for April, Sunny and ~58°F at 6 PM. There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. Philip Keyes took some great photos at the event, they can be seen here: http://singlespeedphoto.zenfolio.com/p75019710

I’d never ridden with aero bars before this week. On Monday I set up my road bike with aero bars and adjusted my saddle position up a bit and forward to the 5cm UCI limit. I took some photos, tinkered with it a bit more, tried sitting on different parts of my saddle, and eventually decided it was good enough. I think my hip and arm angles were pretty close to 90 degrees. My head tube prevented me from getting as low as I’d like, but I was still able to get about 7cm of handlebar drop with the aerobars and raised seat.

On Tuesday I did 2 hours at tempo pace to try out the position. I thought it was a little sketchy at first, but I was pretty used to it by the end of the ride. I was surprised how much differently the bike handled in this position. The high saddle position and increased center of gravity really does make it more difficult to corner. Maybe I shouldn’t have made fun of Michael Rassmussen when he ran off the road time after time in the ’06 TDF TTs. On second thought, naw, he still deserved it.

I made Tuesday’s ride down a route that I had ridden the previous Tuesday but in my road position, also at zone 3. The idea was to try to gauge any differences from riding in the position (weather was similar). Power for the two rides ended up being within 1%, but my speed was 0.8 mph faster with the aero position. Actual time spent on the aero bars was probably around 70% (due to climbing and accelerating from stops), so maybe the position made around a 1 mph difference at cruising speed. However, heart rate was 10 bpm higher. Both rides were after a day of rest, so it did seem like I may not be able to produce the same power as my road position. I’ve read that this is common early on with aerobars and that the difference gets small with practice.

On Wednesday my hands and forearms ached from the day before. Even shaking hands was painful. In addition, my upper quads and hip flexers were unusually sore, no doubt the result of the new position. I’m sure I’ll get used to this. I rode 30 miles at Z2/Z3 before the race and was plenty warm, maybe even ever so slightly tired. My legs did not feel fresh and springy, but felt strong doing short LT intervals. Not ideal for setting a big PR, but perfect for getting in a strong workout which was the goal.

I always wonder if it is better to sprint off the line of a time trial and get your speed up quickly or just ease into your pace. It seems like the pros look pretty relaxed off the line but maybe they’re really hammering it, who knows. My plan was to ease into the race but adrenaline got the best of me and I powered off the line at 700 watts. The first minute was something like 325 watts, the first five minutes 290 watts. Average for the race ended up being 258 watts. This didn’t blow me up or anything, but certainly wasn’t the plan.

Two riders passed me during the race and my finish time was 26:26, pretty slow. Average speed was 22.1 mph. I remember thinking before the race that 250W with aero bars would get me into the 25’s, but I guess not. Maybe the course is rough? Windy? My position isn’t very good? Maybe it’s a combination of all and I just need more power.

Last year I did this race in June without aero bars while sick and my time was 27:30. I recall thinking that was about as slow as I’d ever possibly go. With aero bars and better fitness I figured for sure I’d be able to take at least 2 minutes off of that time. All things considered I’m definitely a little disappointed not to have been faster, but I’ve also definitely caught the TT bug. Wheel covers and an aero helmet have moved way up on the wish list. Hopefully I can close the gap between aero position power and road position power.

Oh yeah, this wouldn’t be a complete race report if I didn’t mention that my grundle area felt like it’d be run over by a cement truck by the end of the race. I kept sliding further and further forward onto the rock-hard nose of my Specialized Toupe saddle. The pressure was just ridiculous. I gotta do something about this.

Super Criterium Weekend

Despite the ugly weather this weekend, all three crits that I intended to do this weekend went off without any problems. These included the Chris Hinds at Ninigret, Wells Ave, and the Boston Beanpot Classic.

Chris Hinds Memorial Criterium

The cat 4 field for the Chris Hinds went off at 9 AM. This required a 5:30 AM wakeup call to eat a huge breakfast and make the 2-hour trek down to Ninigret. I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight the night before, so I was lacking sleep. Breakfast included a cheese omelet, toast, oatmeal with strawberries and blackberries, a banana, and yogurt. Had two cliff bars and half a coffee with milk on the way down and before the race.

On the drive down the sky was black, rain was coming down in buckets and there were several flashes of lightning. I knew there would be a chance that the weather would cancel the race and I was sure this would be the case. However, as we got close the sky turned blue and suddenly the weather was fine. It did cloud up again before the race but at least it wasn’t raining.

Warmup included 30 minutes of medium spinning with 3, 10 second bursts. I had installed a new chain and cassette the night before, and had to make some adjustments during warmup. Legs felt good and warm before the start.

The cat 4 field was small, 18 starters, no doubt due to the weather. No other NEBC racers in my race. On the second turn of the first lap, the front two riders on the pack crashed. I’m not sure what caused it, the track was a little wet still but traction didn’t seem too bad to me. At least one of these riders continued to race on the next lap (a Quad Cycles guy), and he ended up finishing second. Very impressive I thought.

The pace overall felt pretty easy, I thought it felt easier than any of the Wells Ave B races I did in prior weeks. Maybe this was due to only having 18 racers? The pace was smooth and steady, very seldom did the pack get very stretched out.

Half way through the race the prime bell rang, and Tim yelled at me from the sidelines to move up in the pack. I thought I was sitting 10 or 15 guys back, but I guess in a field of 18 people that’s pretty much at the back. My heart rate was in the 150’s (threshold is ~180), so when we got to the back straight I attacked hard up the side (900W, 5s). I drew a good gap and put the hammer down the best I could. A rider was off the front already by about 100m, and I quickly overtook him. Coming around the last turn I was really starting to hurt, so I gave a quick peek back and only saw the field way back. Down the finishing straight I was mashing too big a gear, and I was really blowing up. As I approached the line I could hear a racer coming up behind me. I stomped on the pedals with one last effort but ended up losing the prime by inches. Hit my max HR of 199 in doing so. The effort ended up being a 540W 70s effort. When the field overtook me half a lap later it was very painful to hold on the back.

Not a whole lot else happened during the race. Two riders did ride off the front for 5 laps or so, but I don’t think they ever got more than 10 seconds or so away. The field did a good job of keeping them within reach.

My finish for this race sucked. I figured I probably couldn’t try another 1-minute break after my prime, so I decided to practice a sprint finish. My plan was to get on the wheel of the racer that beat me out in the prime. He had won the first prime as well, and I thought he looked strong. Staying on his wheel during the last lap lost me several positions, and with half a lap to go I must’ve been 15^th wheel. I kept hoping my guy would make some heroic move to the finish and tow me along but it never happened. Coming out of the last turn I was still way back, so I jumped ship and sprinted in (933W, 13s, 1006 5s max). This wasn’t nearly enough, and I finished 9^th. I crossed the line feeling like I had a lot left, and my heart rate never even hit 190 (199 max). In hindsight I should have spent more energy jockeying for better position. A top 5 or possibly top 3 finish seems like it would have been a realistic possibility with more experience.

Wells Ave

Normally about a 10 AM start, and with only a 30 minute bike ride down this meant I could sleep in a bit. Had a similar breakfast as Saturday. Also got 9+ hours of sleep. Legs felt good upon wakening. Saturday volume was smaller than I had hoped due to bad weather. The weather was better this day, but overcast skies made things a bit chilly.

The A & B fields were combined, likely due to having both Turtle Pond and the Beanpot going on. The race had around 40 starters in it, maybe slightly more with more riders entering late. NEBC had 4 riders in the race, including Josh, Pat, Rick (I think?) and myself.

After two calls for riders to line up, no one was there, so I decided to grab a spot on the front line. I normally don’t worry too much about where I start, and it’s unusual that I start here. At roll out, I clipped in right away so I decided to start out at a hard pace and make those that had trouble clicking in suffer a little bit. Turns out I started way too hard, averaging 500W for the first minute, 400W for the first lap. Two other guys went with me and we enjoyed our one lap of glory taking a big (and totally 100% pointless) gap. Around turn 2 of lap 2, a handful of riders went flying by. I jumped to this group and hammered for another lap but man did I hurt by this point. They were going way too fast for me so I drifted back to sit in.

The pace in the A/B field was a good amount harder than the previous B races this season. I think we averaged another 2 mph faster or so (25 mph maybe?). It turned out that three of the riders that emerged on that second lap break would stay away for the entire race. The field struggled to work together and never had a real chance of bringing them back. I don’t think it would have mattered much anyways, two of those guys (Bikebarn?) looked ridiculously strong. Even if caught I’m sure they would have been able to break away again without any trouble.

This race was mostly uneventful for me. After my race yesterday, I decided to spend as much energy as it took to stay at the front. My intention was to get good position for prime laps and hopefully the finish. I think I buried myself a little too hard when I got to the front though. In the back of my mind I wanted to try and catch the break. This caused me to be way too gased to make a real effort at any primes. In fact, I hardly can recall the prime bell being rung more than once or twice. Too much time spent being anaerobic.

The last 10 laps or so were going great. I was on Josh’s wheel for a good 6 or 7 laps, and we were poking around nice and easy in the front 10 riders. Went I got to the front I took it much easier and didn’t kill myself.

With 3 laps to go all hell broke loose for me. I was swarmed by riders on both sides and got totally boxed in around the middle. I lost a ton of positions and couldn’t move at all. After a lap of losing positions I must’ve been mid-field, but I was finally able to swing to the outside to move up. As I was sitting on the outside of the three-man wide field another racer came up on the outside. He sort of paused just to the left of me, and kept creeping closer and closer, perhaps trying to get more drafting benefit. Before long we were bumping elbows. Suddenly the rider to my right must’ve bumped the rider to his right and I got completely sandwiched, hard contact on both sides. My handlebars totally locked up with the rider to my right, and then broke free all at once. I was thrown completely off balance and shot off to my left a good 5 or 10 feet, nearly taking out the rider to my left. For an instant I was sure I was going down. I was extremely lucky to stay upright.

On the last lap I spent a lot of energy moving up. By turn 3 I was about 15^th wheel, but was definitely starting to feel it. The marshal at BSC yelled to us that there was a car up the road, and in turn 4 riders sat up and waved there arms in the air. I think all but 8 racers or so thought we were neutralized and sat up. Turns out that the last lap wasn’t neutralized, and that was it. Very anti-climatic. I probably didn't have a real shot anyways but it would have been nice to be able to actually finish strong. Seems like all the racing is for nothing when that happens, oh well.

Boston Beanpot Classic

The third and final race of the weekend for me was the Boston Beanpot Classic crit through Tufts. After Wells finished it started to rain and I considered not going, but the forecast said it would clear up so Erica and I rode over.

The course is described as being a highly technical six turn, 1km course. It was hard to move around by bike before my race because the ‘A’ race (college race) was going on. I only had my bike shoes with me so I couldn’t walk the course. The ¾ race started immediately after the A race finished, and I didn’t get to see more than half the course. Watching the A race was really impressive though, one rider (Josh Lipka) nearly lapped the field twice.

There were only about 20 racers or so, including a handful of college racers and one other NEBC racer. Again, I think the weather was probably the cause of this.

On roll-out, I clicked in quickly and was able to get a decent position in the front half despite starting in the back. The pace for the first two laps was blistering fast and unbelievably sketchy for me without getting to see the course. Turn two came after a pretty steep downhill, and turned onto a narrow street with big six-inch curbs on the outside. There were a ton of hay bails stacked up here. Word was that there were some pretty ugly crashes on this turn in the earlier races. I could totally see why. Luckily our field was pretty conservative on this turn and slowed down significantly coming into it.

However, although we slowed down significantly for the turns, the pace coming out of the turns was extremely hard. On the first lap my power meter shows 800+W accelerations after each turn. Turn 3,4, and 5 were especially important because they were each uphill turns, and excessive braking meant you had to use that much more power to accelerate up the hills. Turn 5 turned onto the steepest rise of the course, which must have been at least 8% grade.

The first lap included way too much sprinting then braking for me. 440W average for the first minute which includes almost nothing but 800W or 0W. I smartened up for the second lap and was able to expand a ton less energy. I didn’t power nearly as hard coming out of the turns. Instead, I gave the rider in front of me just a little more space (we were super strung out) and accelerated into the turn. As a result I didn’t have to sprint coming out of turns and mostly just coasted in between.

Unfortunately that first lap completely cooked me. By just lap 4 I was shutting down and fell off the back coming up the hill. There were a few other racers that had been dropped also. I tried riding with them to catch back on but I was toast. My power wasn’t really that high for the five minutes it took me to get dropped, I think the other races this weekend had taken their toll.

This was a really cool race and I really wish it had been my first race of the weekend rather than my last as it was certainly the hardest. I’ve never raced on a course anywhere near this technical and it was a good experience. It looked like the pace may have really slowed down a bit after the initial hammering. In the future I’ll have to be more prepared and inspect the course better in order to survive the initial selection.

Summary

This was a great race weekend. My legs got a good trashing and I learned a lot about finishing tactics. In addition, when off the bike I got to practice recovering for the next race. I’m hoping this will help build stage racing strength.

The forecast for this week looks great. After 3 big volume weeks I’m considering taking rest, but I think I’ll wait another week. The first Charlie Baker TT is Wednesday, and I’ve outfitted my bike with aero bars. I took some pictures and made some tweeks, and I don’t think my position is too ugly, especially for a rode bike. On Saturday I will be up in Salem, NY for the Battenkill-Roubaix, my first road race of the season. My training has been geared mostly towards this race, and my goal is to make selections on the steep dirt roads and go from there. My weight is down to about 170lb (at 6'1") which is about as light as I've been since freshmen college years, so weight-wise I'm right where I want to be.