Norwell Circuit Race

Cat 3/4 field went off at 1:15PM, no need to set an alarm, right? I slept so late that I nearly missed this afternoon start, that's a first. Rushed to get my stuff together, 50-minute drive, got to Norwell 30 minutes before race start, paid $35 to register, went to pin on my number and realized I left my kit at home, #*&$#*&$*#&$!!!

It was probably better this way. DNS or sit on the back of the pelican all day feeling exhausted, what's the difference?

Working Man's Stage Race - Stage 3

Stage 3 of the Working Man’s Stage Race is a points race set on a quarter-mile track (Star Speedway) in Epping, NH. The track has some cracks in it that looked pretty nasty during warmup, but they weren’t so bad once we got racing. What really made things exciting was the spherical-shaped rumble strips on the inside of the track. If you hit one of these suckers you didn’t know which way your front wheel was going to go. Nasty.

The cat 4 race does 80 laps (20 miles) with every 5^th lap being for points. The scoring system was 5 points for 1^st, 3 points for 2^nd, 2 points for 3^rd, and 1 point for 4^th. The finishing lap and half-way lap were for double points. If you lapped the pelican you were awarded 20 points. If the pelican lapped you it was a 20 point deduction. This stage was rained out in the 2007 WMSR and this was my first time doing a points race.

The pace started off hard right from the first lap. With a points lap every fifth lap, the pace would ramp up and up until the final lap, then go easy as the people that sprinted for points let up to rejoin the pelican. This repeated every fives laps for the duration of the 80-lap race.

I didn’t even think about contesting the first points lap as I was trying to figure out a strategy. Before I knew it, we were at the bell lap for the second points lap and I was in terrible position with no shot at taking points. This kind of turned into the theme for the night, as the points laps seemed to come up much more frequently than I expected.

Positioning for the sprint was extremely difficult for me. Early on, I kept trying to work the inside line and moved up coming up as we came out of turns. The trouble with this plan is that you end up dive bombing people on the inside of the next turn. With the banked corners it is easy for the racer higher up in the turn to pressure you down into the rumble strips. On several occasions I narrowly missed riding over them and quickly abandoned the inside line approach.

The third points lap was my first real effort power-wise. I was about 10 wheels back as we crossed the line with the bell ringing. I stuck to the outside and came out of the saddle to sprint as we came around turns 3 and 4. Watts were great for this effort (1170W for 5s), but the strategy was terrible. Sprinting along the outside line on this tight track was useless because the distance traveled is so much greater. I hardly made any ground on the lead 5 riders and had to give up on my effort as I came out of turn 4 as I had no shot.

After that failed attempt I got the idea in my head that I needed to fight to stay closer to the front to have a shot at these points. In hindsite this was a terrible idea as all it did was make the easy times hard, which left me with no gas for the sprints. On several points laps I found myself in the top 5 as we crossed with one to go, but then had nothing left to sprint with. I was that guy that wasn’t strong enough to hold the wheel of the person in front of him.

Some time after the half-way lap I tried another strategy: find the race leader (Jordan Winkler, Cambridge Bicycles) and ride his wheel to the finish. CB seemed to have a good leadout train going so it seemed like a good plan. After several attempts at doing that it was apparent that it wasn’t going to work. Turns out that another CB rider (Erik Peterson) was playing a sweeper roll and protecting Jordan’s wheel at all costs. For those of you that don’t know, Erik is the ~6’5” 230lb monster that rides with Kevlar-plated motorcycle gloves. You’re not going to push him off of Jordan’s wheel.

As we neared the end of the race, I was getting pretty frustrated as I still hadn’t even scored a single point. It seemed like every strategy I tried failed, and I certainly wasn’t strong enough to just power my way through like John Neagle (Quad Cycles) was doing. With 5 to go I caught a break and ended up in perfect position by sheer luck. I just stayed on the front train of 3 people to take fourth place and one point for the lap. I might have had the legs to sprint for more points on this lap, but the drive to do so was gone by this point. I did not contest the finishing sprint.

So in the end I scored one point (haha!), putting me in 20^th place. By the end of the race I was pretty pumped just to have that one point to separate myself from the people that didn’t get any. Not to mention I was just exhausted and ready to take a little racing break for a while.

While I was a little bummed that I didn’t do better, it was a good experience to do a points race and I think I have things a little more figured out now. A couple of notes that I will try to remember for next time:

1) Go easy when the pace slows down. Don’t use this time to gain position unless you’re going to go off the front.

2) Quality before quantity when going for points. There are too many people in the race to try and win each sprint going at 80% effort, and one first place is worth five fourth places.

3) The track is only 400 meters long. That means that for a sprinting range of 200m, you need to attack with half a lap to go even though it feels like a long distance.

4) Do your passing on the outside to gain position, but make sure to be on the inside line going into final turn before the line.

5) The sprints are typically done in the saddle on the corners, which makes for a slightly longer and less intense sprint.

Some statistics for the race are shown below. Average speed was 25.7 mph which I thought was quite high considering how peaky the pace was. My average power was 244W which is quite a bit higher than usual (even higher than Longsjo criterium, 236W). Normalized power was 271W which isn’t very high, especially considering that average power was on the high side. This translates into a VI (norm power ÷ avg power) of 1.11 which is relatively low, suggesting that the pace was pretty smooth. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that very little speed (if any) is lost on the corners of the track. However, I thought that the pace in general was peaky as we sped up and slowed down for points laps. My strategy of trying to move up when the pace slowed up was probably the second reason for a low VI, as this tended to even out my efforts. I’ve found that I tend to do better at peaky efforts than I do at steady state efforts (climbing *cough cough*), so this may have been part of the reason I felt weak during the race.

Working Man's Stage Race - Stage 2

An official 39th place in yesterday's time trial scored me a whopping 37 points, so no shot at a decent G.C. finish. My goal for the rest of the race changed to try and score good individual stage finishes without worrying about GC contenders going up the road. I wasn't sure what to expect in the road race today, having had very mixed results this season in road races. The downhill finish with a turn would suit me well, as long as the small KOM hill doesn't crack me. The pelican can be a most punishing beast.

Tough day at work today. Every now and then I get totally wrapped up in my work, and I don't leave my desk for anything, including food or water. Today I had a good amount of food, but was very dehydrated by the time the race came around. You get used to eating/drinking for morning/weekend races but it's easy to goof it up for the WMSR. Before the race I was worried that this would catch up with me by the finish.

The race started off super easy, nearly Monday afternoon recovery ride pace. Michael McKittrick (CB) went on a break early on the first lap, but no one was interested. We stayed at our casual pace and picked him up somewhere around 2/3rds of the way through the first lap. There were no KOM points available on the first lap, so the first trip up the KOM hill was easy. I set the pace up the hill at what I considered a nice easy pace, and was surprised no one wanted to come through. Fine by me.

Someone had attacked before the KOM hill on the first lap that stayed away for a very long time. As we crossed the KOM line on the second lap, I heard a spectator say that he had a minute gap. I think this was pretty shocking to people and served as motivation to pick up the pace.

Starting on the third lap we were starting to work harder. It was not a very smooth effort, but instead a few minutes of hammering followed by a few minutes of soft pedaling. We were going faster than before, but certainly not as fast as we could be. Somehow I accidentally fell to the very back of the pelican during this time. At least it was easy to sit in. We finally picked up the breakaway rider half way through the third lap. He must've been pretty beat after a lap and a half of being off the front.

Things picked up at the beginning of the fourth and final lap. A three-man break went off on the short climb near the beginning of the lap. I think this caused a lot of people to freak. There was a strong reaction by the pelican, and the pace picked up as if we were sprinting for a prime. The three-man break was short lived, and was eaten up quickly. Everyone seemed afraid to attack after this and we soft-pedaled until we got to the KOM hill.

I did not have good position going into the KOM hill on the last lap. We had been bunched up forever, and it was impossible to move around significantly. Once we hit the hill the pace went hard. I hugged the right side of the road up the first initial rise and blocked any of the few people behind me from moving up. As we moved onto the false flat there were a good number of people that were struggling. I felt good and used this to get my position, moving from way back (30th?) up to about 8th wheel by the time we went over the KOM line.

Coming down the descent I was right where I wanted to be, but I lost a lot of position by the time we got to the last 90-degree turn that is located about 400m before the finish. Entering this last turn I was in 15-20th wheel and on the safer inside line. We were all weary of a crash here, but luckily I think we made it without any trouble. I came out of the saddle and sprinted hard as soon as I could after the turn. This may have actually been a little too hard because I eventually had to stop pedaling to avoid hitting a line of people in front of me. Luckily, a hole opened in the dead center of this line of people and I used my momentum to move through it. Just as I slid through this hole, I was hit by handlebars on both hips. After sneaking through I finally had a look at the front of the race. There were still 6 or 7 people up about 30m in front of me. I again came out of the saddle with a full-on sprint, and used all my reserves to close down the gap. In the end it wasn't quite enough and I crossed the line in 5th place, about a bike length back from a tight four-man finish at the front.

My power data for the sprint finish was very good today. Coming out of the final turn was a 1000W for 10s effort. The final sprint after sneaking through the bunch was not as explosive maxing out at 930W, but I think this was good for finishing off a 750W for 30s effort after the final turn while dealing with traffic. Power data for the rest of the race was on the tame side, although a super high VI of 1.4 (normalized power divided by average power) suggests that this race was unusually peaky.

Overall this was a great race for me and I'm very happy with 5th place. The weather was fantastic tonight was truly perfect and the course was beautiful. Talk about a 180 from last year. Unfortunately the women weren't so lucky and there was a pretty bad crash. According to the results it looks like half the field DNF'd.

Working Man's Stage Race - Stage 1

I'd been looking forward to this time trial all season. The course is flat and has lots of turns, so if any TT would suit me well, this would be it. I got a new stem with a 30 degree drop and I was excited to be in a more comfortable and faster (hopefully) position.

Unfortunately this race was pretty much over for me before I even started. About 20 minute before the start my rear tire randomly went flat. No idea why. The wheel was my Powertap training wheel with a disc cover, and the tube was probably at least 1000 miles old, maybe even 2000, so I guess it was time. Anyways, this left me with the decision of trying to fix the flat or using my backup wheel. Given that I had 20 minutes, I tried to repair it. This required more work than usual because I had to take off my disc cover to inflate the tube. I was keeping a close eye on the clock and headed over to the start what I thought was 3 minutes early. My cell phone time must have been much slower than the official start time, because I wasn’t even close. I am number 833 and 838 was going off when I got to the start. I think I started behind number 839, but looking at the results that doesn’t make much sense to me. Who knows.

To make matters worse I must’ve messed up my Powertap somehow when making the quick tire repair. It lost all signals and shut off some time around the start. I’ve become too reliant on using that thing for pacing and I started off way too fast. It came on and off through the race, and my heart rate stayed within the 187-190 bpm range, super high. On the long flat after the KOM downhill I puked in my mouth. At least the effort was there.

My official time was 18:28.64 (which is based on my scheduled start time), and I have no idea what my real time was. This puts me in 39^th (4^th to last), so there goes any hope of a G.C. result. I’d love to know what my actual time was just for the sake of knowing, but I can’t tell based on the Powertap data because there is a large deadband in the data. I thought I’d be able to figure out based on the results, but those don’t make sense to me either. Tough day, on to the next.

Attleboro Criterium - Cat 4

Made a last minute decision to race at Attleboro. By last minute, I mean my cat 4 race started at 3:45PM, and at 1PM the day of, I was sitting around eating lunch in Lexington considering not racing because I didn’t feel well. The previous week was a rest week, and I was pretty certain that I would have good legs so it seemed like a waste not to race. I popped a few Advil and arrived in Attleboro at around 3 PM.

Once I got on the road I realized that I didn’t really know where I was going, other than that the race was just a block or two west of Attleboro center. I ended up parking in some totally random place with a handful of other racers. This is worth mentioning because my only warmup ended up being a casual ride to and from the start/finish line.

The course is a short, 1 km track with relatively tight corners and minimal elevation change. It’s about a 200m flat straight to the finish. A brief downhill back straight leads into two successive turns before the finish. The high speed from the downhill and a little bit of uneven pavement made these turns a more technical than most.

As usual I was late to lineup due to a last-minute pit stop, so I took my place at the back. Given my lack of warmup, I did not have any aspirations to go for an early break so sitting in for the first few laps was the plan anyways. The first few laps seemed pretty tame which was good for my warmup, but during that time a significant break of maybe eight riders or so went up the road. It contained two Quad Cycles (QC) guys, but I couldn’t tell if it contained a Cambridge Bicycles (CB) rider. CB had several racers in the field and normally are very proactive in controlling cat 4 races, but I didn’t think they seemed too concerned about the break so maybe they were represented.

After about 10 minutes of being away the break had created a gap of something like 20 seconds and I was starting to get nervous about it sticking. I moved towards the front and was thinking about trying to bridge when three riders on the tail end of the break crashed coming out of turn 2. So with three racers crashing out of the break and another racer dropping back, the break was down to four.

The break had been away for 15 or 20 minutes and the bell rang for a field prime. This helped speed things up a bit. After the prime, Bernie Tan (NEBC) went to the front and buried himself for a little bit, stringing out the field good. I had done next to nothing at this point and felt good, so I took my turn at the front. Initially three of us pulled off of the front and rotated for 5 or 10 minutes, trying to bridge the gap. Before long the pelican woke up and joined us, adding to our horsepower as we chased down the break. Eventually 3 people in the break gave up with the last keeping the hammer down still well off the front.

The last racer of the break stayed off of the front solo for an impressively long time. I’m not sure who it was, maybe an unattached rider in a yellow jersey. A few people organized to keep the pace up and after several laps we did bring him back with around six to go. The pelican ate up all that tried to escape.

Once the last man standing from the break was brought back, there was a lot of shuffling and jockeying for position. The course seemed to suit me well, and I was able to maintain my spot about 10 or 20 guys deep with what felt like minimal effort. My heart rate was running high, well into the 170’s, yet my legs felt fresh and perceived effort was minimal.

With two to go the swarming kicked into high gear, and there may have been a break attempt or two off the front. The breaks didn’t really matter at this point as we were flying at over 28 mph average. The turns kept the swarming in check, and I was able to consistently move up by cornering fast and accelerating early out of turns.

As we crossed the line for the final lap I was around 15^th wheel, and a strong racer attacked off the front going into the slight hill. There was a strong reaction at the front of the pelican, but the attack was successful in getting a gap. We moved up the first hill and around turn one at a good pace. Coming out of turn 1 the wheel in front of me let a gap open and I came around him to the outside. I was nervous going into turn 2 but was happy to be positioned on the inside where it was safer. The pace picked up as we came down the hill, but I attacked early coming out of the turn and moved up all the way to fourth wheel in the single-file line. The rider that attacked at the line was still off the front by 20 or 30 meters.

We went over the bump and around turn 3 at a high speed. Shortly after making the turn, the lead rider pulled off the front to the left, meaning I was now third in line. As we approached the final turn before the finishing straight, the rider now on the front seemed to ease up just a bit, and lined up to take the final turn surprisingly wide. Seeing the opportunity, I attacked hard to the inside and passed the two people in front of me just before the turn. I took the bumpy line on the inside of the corner at a high speed without any braking, and hammered out of the saddle down the left side of the road. I overtook the solobreak rider just after the turn and never looked back, crossing the line in first place. Victory!

Overall the race felt easy relative to some of the more recent races I’ve done (i.e. Longsjo, Twilight Crit, Heartbreak Hill). Normalized power was only 90% of what it was in most of those races, and I did more work fighting the wind than usual. Sitting in the pelican was very restful, and this left me with good legs for the finish. My finishing effort was better than most have been recently, and I was actually able to sprint at over 1,000W on a finishing lap for once. The timing of my attack is probably what got me the win though.

2008 Fitchburg Longsjo Classic

This was my first year doing the Longsjo Stage Race. I was reluctant to sign up for the race seeing as I still can’t climb well at all and most of the stages are full of hills. The points competition is sort of a combo KOM/Sprinter competition with points sprints on top of some pretty gnarly hills. My goal for the race was to place well in the criterium and possibly the circuit race, and shoot for a top 30 in the time trial.

July 3, 2008 Best Western Royal plaza Rindge Road TT

The first day was the time trial. This is a pretty interesting course, climbing at around 3-4% grade for the first 5 miles or so with a couple of brief downhill sections. Total elevation gained is in the ballpark of 700 feet. After reaching maximum elevation the course heads downhill for about 2k to the finish. The road surface was reported to be rough, so much so that the promoter cautioned against using expensive race wheels.

Before the race there was a lot of talk about what equipment to use. Some racers were sporting full aero gear while others used none. Some racers with full time trial rigs were opting to use their road bikes. After loading the course profile into the whitemountainwheels.com Speed Power Excel workbook my conclusion was that a full time trial approach would only be useful if average power output suffered no more than 5% from road bike position. That is, there was an advantage to be had by using a TT position, but only if power output was minimally affected. This is in contrast to the CBTT or Working Man’s Stage Race TT where a decrease in power of even 10-15% can be offset by a good aerodynamic position.

I had practiced my TT position just enough where I felt confident that I could maintain good power output and went with that for the race (as opposed to road setup). My aero gear included aero bars on road bike, aero helmet, disc cover, 44mm front wheel, and skinsuit. Total weight was about 3 pounds heavier with all this jazz.

After a week long taper coming into the race my legs felt good. Strategy for the race was to start “slow”, or at least at low perceived effort and avoid blowing up. This is so much easier said than done. In each time trial that I’ve done with the Powertap (Jesus meter), I’ve obviously gone out way too hard and paid for it with interest by the finish. I knew that throwing a taper into the mix would make it even harder to start slow.

Warmup for the race was about as good as I ever do, 30 minutes total with a couple of efforts around 80-90% of FTP. I rolled up to the start only 2 minutes before my start, as the officials were calling out my number among others. My 30-second man was a DNS so I would have no rabbit to chase. This was probably a good thing for me because it’d let me focus on maintaining power output.

Rolling down the starting ramp I felt calm, but I must have been nervous because heart rate was already 138 bpm. Heart rate always runs high when well rested. Heading up the first pitch I felt like I was going super slowly, but looked down and saw 400W, oops. Decreasing power output to my target of 300W felt almost like a coffee shop ride. I kept the power around 300W the best I could and ground away and felt great for the first 10-12 minutes or so. Heart rate settled in nicely around 183-185 bpm and I found a nice rhythm.

After 10-12 minutes I hit the first significant downhill section. I let my power output decrease to the 260-270W range and kept a tight position as my cadence increased. The course flattens out for a short section of maybe 200-400m before turning uphill again.

Around here I started having issues breathing, maybe a touch of asthma. As I started pedaling uphill once again, my heart rate increased up to 187 bpm despite power staying in the 260-270W range. I freaked out a bit and came out of the saddle to try and open up my lungs. This didn’t seem to help much and my power kept going down and down. At one point I looked down and saw 174W on the uphill. I was crawling. The racer from Tufts staged 1m30s behind me passed me not long before cresting the top. Power output stayed horrible along the downhill to the finish, but being aerodynamic helped minimize my losses there.

Finishing time was 21:31, putting me in 99^th place. It was a very tight race and 20 minutes even was about 25^th place. I was about 90 seconds behind my target time, and I think I lost most of that time during my meltdown. I was very pleased with my power output prior to the meltdown though, better than expected for TT position. Average power durations looked like this:

First 10 minutes: 303W (mostly uphill)
First 15 minutes: 292W (including 2 fast descents)
Remainder of Race: 240W
Average for Race: 278W

Colby, Kieth, and Brian were the top NEBC finishers, but were a little over a 1 minute out so the GC picture for NEBC looked a bit grim. Only a big day in the road race was likely to bring down a 1-minute deficit.

July 4, 2008 Wachusett Mountain Road Race

The road race starts at Wachusett Ski Area and follows an 11.5-mile loop winding through Princeton along 140, 31, and Mountain Rd. The course has some gentle rollers on 140 and 31, but hits a very steep climb coming up and through Princeton Center. Racers get a break at the top of this climb due to the feed zone and a brief downhill. The climbing continues at a gradual grade until the Wachusett access road which is where the points competition line is. On the last lap the course turns up the access road and finishes at the summit.

This was a survival day for me, racing for the right to start the circuit race and criterium. A time cut was in place and racers had to finish within 20% of the winning rider’s time to continue to the next day. Getting dropped early in the race would make it difficult to finish.

The pace along the rolling flats on the first lap was super slow. There may have been an attack here or there, but nothing was remotely serious. It really drives me nuts when the pace is so slow because I end up braking and accelerating frequently as I try to hold my position within the pelican. This wears me down quickly and can make climbs brutal.

More racers got flats or had a mechanical issue in this race than I’ve ever seen before. It was tough for these racers to pull off in the large 130-man pelican. Dodging them just made for more unnecessary accelerations that wore me out even more.

The first climb through Princeton was very tough. I found a good groove pretty early on, but by the time we got to the feed zone I realized that I was in the back half of a split. There were a bunch of us and we were able to quickly reattach without too much trouble, but I was annoyed that the additional chasing effort was required. Heart rate reached 190 bpm in the process.

I was happy to be riding the second lap within the pelican and focused on relaxing and riding as efficiently as possible. All was well until the mile approaching the Princeton Center climb. There is a short moderate climb here and I got caught up behind a racer that dropped a chain. Because the course is so narrow I was forced to slow down dramatically. Regaining momentum up the short climb took a lot more power than I would have liked, and by the time we got to the Princeton Center climb my heart rate was already over 170 bpm. I lost contact with the field on the second half of the climb.

Very few people got dropped on the second lap, only myself and two others I think. We tried to paceline but the Cyclonauts guy wanted to go too fast and the Cambridge Bicycles guy wanted to take it easy. I ended up going solo for pretty much the remainder of the race.

The Wachusett climb was fun and there was a decent amount of spectators. It must have been really cool to do this with the pelican though. I think something like 80 cat 4’s started the climb as a bunch which seems like a lot. I finished in 2h 25m or so which was about 16 minutes down on the leader and within the time cut. This put me way back in the GC though, as very few people were dropped. NEBC teammates did well in this stage with Taylor, Brian, and Colby taking 8^th, 10^th, and 14^th.

July 5, 2008 Fitchburg State College Circuit Race

The circuit race started at 8AM which was only about 17 hours after the end of the road race. That morning was a painfully early wakeup call. My legs felt surprisingly good considering I spent 26 miles riding solo the day before, but mentally I was exhausted. It felt like I was just going from once race to the next without a break. A big sugar-bomb coffee in the morning helped fix that.

The course was a ~3-mile loop that included a somewhat technical chicane section, and long downhill that led into a steep powerclimb to the finish. I have a bit of history with the road that was the finish climb (Pearl St.). This road is also used in the Slattery’s Turkey Trot 5-mile running race. When I did this race several years ago I ended up puking at the top of this hill. Before today, I had no idea that this road was used for both races. Luckily for me I found it much easier by bike.

Like most races I wanted to start near the front. I was seriously lacking confidence from the previous day’s road race and thought that I’d have to sag climb a bit to keep in the race. When I went to the line for staging I was pretty much the last guy there. So much for starting near the front. Fortunately, this course is super wide so it was relatively easy to move around.

Not a whole lot happened during the race. The pace was high and we averaged over 26 mph. Other than the powerclimb (finishing climb), it felt like we were going downhill for most of the course. I think this kept the break attempts in for most fields, even the masters. I still think Guido managed to hang off the front for a while, despite being caught up in a crash (one of two for the weekend for him, ouch).

Surviving the finishing climb ended up being a lot easier than I expected. There was a sharp right turn leading into it, and the racers on the front were able to carry in a lot more momentum than the racers that had to brake. The pace started out very hard on the climb, but eased up just a bit over the false flat and tended to stay easier for the second half. Even though the pace was managable, I didn’t feel like I could go a whole lot harder than we were going up every lap, so I didn’t expect to have a real shot at the finish.

On the finishing lap I was able to move up significantly with ease. The field stretched out after the chicane section, and I was able to move up from mid-field to 20 or 30 wheels back. On the long and gradual downhill I was able to move right up the middle as racers shifted to the sides to try and move up to the front. It was awesome.

Cambridge Bicycles was leading out the finish on the downhill, and 500m before the turn I was in great position about 10-15 wheels back. Unfortunately for me their steam died off shortly before the turn and I was swarmed on both sides. I went into the final turn 30-40 wheels back and was sure that I was about to get caught up in a crash as everyone tried to carry their speed into the hill. We made it around the turn cleanly and everyone went into sprint mode up the first rise. Knowing it was a long hill, I kept it at ~80% on the first hill but went full throttle up the second kicker and passed way more people than I expected. Maybe this steep finishing climb suited me better than I thought. In the end I crossed the line 24^th. I forgot my Jesus meter at home today, so no power data to share. Colby and Bernie had great finishes grabbing 4^th and 6^th on the final climb.

July 6, 2008 Workers’ Credit Union Downtown Criterium

This was the race I was looking forward to doing most. Racing a criterium in a stage race has a different feel than most crits because the GC guys like to go to the front and hammer away with their high threshold power. This keeps the pace up but I was most interested to see how the sprint would play out. I felt that I could have a strong finish if my legs survived.

The course was pretty cool. It was basically an out and back course in downtown Fitchburg, with a hairpin turn on one end and two back to back 90-degree turns on the other. The finishing straight was a gradual uphill and the back straight a gradual downhill with some slight bends.

Despite lining up in the middle of the bunch, I got a great start and moved up to 20 or 30 wheels back. There were still a lot of people left in the race, and I think we started with about 110 guys so it was a crowded race.

The first lap was a good indicator of how the rest of the race would play out. It was obviously easy to move up on the downhill, and a lot of people did so. This resulted in the 90-degree turn being swarmed lap after lap after lap. Racers would dive bomb the inside corner of that turn every lap like it was going to win them the race. This caused the people to the outside to shift towards the outside and brake REAL hard. Some racers seemed to be super edgy about this and practically came to a stop on every lap. If you were behind such a racer this meant that you’d end up sprinting out of the turn.

I was slow to get a feel for this course. I didn’t want to partake in the turn 2 divebombing, so with each lap I moved further and further back. The further back you were, the more power that was required coming out of the 90-degree turns. On a prime lap it seemed to take forever coming up the gradual finishing stretch before the pace let up. Early on I was trying to gain position by moving up a few positions on the left side of the pelican on the finishing straight, only to give them back on the back straight. I was getting nowhere and wasting a lot of energy.

With five to go I finally started to find a groove. I found that I could gain position on the finishing straightaway by going right up the middle of the pelican as we came out of turn 3. This was significantly easier than coming up the side. If I did go to the side, I waited until after the finishing line when the pace eased up just a hair. With three or four to go I came around and moved up to the front 10 or 15 wheels, perfect position.

As I finally got a good spot at the front, the prime bell rang. Being in good position I considered contesting it, but I wanted to save myself for the finish and there were only a few laps to go. Racing these few laps at the front was beautiful; it was a totally different race up there. There was a minimal amount of braking, and we coasted cleanly through the turns. No sprint effort was required coming out of the turns. The only requirement was that you had enough threshold power to fight the wind a bit more and maintain your position there. I don’t think that I was strong enough to stay up there for the entire race.

With all the chaos on turn 2 I decided that I would either be on the front on the final lap, or stay off the back. The last place I wanted to be was 30 racers back, sprinting for a top 20. On the downhill straight with two to go, the front of the race was completely swarmed and I lost a ton of positions. As the final lap bell rang I was exactly where I didn’t want to be, about 30 racers back, so I sat up and dropped to the back to avoid the finishing chaos. Sure enough there ended up being a crash on turn 2, possibly exactly where I was positioned, and I was relieved to have avoided that mess. I coasted across the finish line somewhere mid-pack and somehow still got same time as the leader.

Overall

This was a fun race and I’m glad I did it. It was not so much physically demanding as it was mentally exhausting. TSS and energy expenditure were actually lower during this race than a normal training week, so that wasn’t an issue. My legs actually felt pretty much fine after this 4-day race, as they did during every day of the race. The hardest part was giving up every minute of the long holiday weekend to do my best in the races. It takes me and hour or two to set up my road bike as a TT rig, so that took up a bunch of time on both Wednesday and Thursday night. I also raced back for work after the TT on Thursday. Erica raced the Women’s ¾ race, and that made for a super early morning on Friday when my race didn’t go off until almost 1 PM. Throw into the mix driving an hour each way to the race every day and making sure I was getting enough of the right food. After the circuit race on Saturday finished I would have liked to stay around and watch the later races. Instead I dropped off my bike at Cycle Loft for some minor repairs and went home to sleep. Brad at Cycle Loft hooked me up big time by fixing up my damaged rear wheel on the spot and I am extremely grateful for that support. Having Erica to make us good meals every day was also huge, otherwise I probably would have ended up eating an unhealthy amount of pasta and eggs. Lastly, writing this race report took way too long!

The Twilight Criterium, Cat 3/4

Lots of races in the area thanks to New England Race Week. Between Heartbreak Hill Grand Prix, The Twilight Criterium, and Longsjo, I’m getting in six races in eight days.

Twilight Criterium started at 6:20 PM in Thompson, CT and was a 30-minute race for the cat ¾’s around the Thompson Motor Speedway. The track was a 5/8^th mile banked oval with a grass infield and was silky smooth. With the race being too short to be eligible for upgrade points, my goal was to get in a few short but intense efforts to loosen up for Longsjo on Thursday.

The ¾ field went off with 37 starters. With the track being so flat it was easy to sit in but there was wind coming out of turn 4 that played a slight factor. Right from the start there were two or three racers that launched attack after attack looking for a breakaway. Each time they did, the entire field would respond and shut down the move. I figured with Mike Norton in the field that Cyclonauts would be the only team to potentially shut things down and make something stick. Fortunately Mike had just finished being in a break in the Masters race and I think he was saving his legs.

With no intentions of trying to establish a break, I sat near the back for the first 10 minutes or so to warm up a bit more. At the 10-minute mark, the first prime bell rang. I considered making a go at it even though I was way too far back (starting from the very back), but gave up after getting to the front and seeing how much of a gap the front guys already had.

Shortly after the first prime, the prime bell rang for the second time. This time I was near the front and in much better position. Just like on the first prime lap, a handful of riders attacked off of the front. I did not jump on their train but instead stayed back on third wheel. The two riders in front of me pulled off by mid-lap, and as soon as the second rider did, I went full-throttle (1,325W) and sprinted off of the front. There was a three-man group about 100m up, and another rider maybe 50m in front of them. Sprinting quickly brought my speed up to over 30 mph, and I quickly caught up to the group of three going into turn 3. As I overtook them, I again came out of the saddle to accelerate by and ensure I didn’t take someone along. The lead rider was now in my sites and he was hugging the inside line coming out of turn four. I kept the hammer down as I came around turn 4 and went to the outside. I caught the leader with about 100m to go and stayed strong to win the prime (30s @ 760W). Michelin Pro2 Race in the bag! The field didn’t catch up for almost another lap which gave me nice recovery time.

Another prime lap or two also went off before the finish, but fully committing to the prime that I won hurt a bit and I couldn’t see myself making another big effort before the finish. It was only a 30-minute race and there were probably 10 minutes or less to go at this point.

With two to go I moved up from the back of the field to the front third or so. I wasn’t able to take shelter too quickly and spent more energy pedaling into wind than I would have liked. As we approached the final lap, things really began to wind up and I think it was Cyclonauts/Nor’East Cycling driving the pace. We were fairly stretched out as we came down the back stretch and I was already suffering due to the pace, sitting about 15 wheels back. This was further back than I wanted to be, but I was hurting too much to gain any position. On turn 3 I found the wheel of Frank Leija (Diehard/Think Racing) who was a bigger racer that I had seen making a few fast-looking sprints during warmup. He pulled me up on the inside of the track until we came out of turn 4.

This is where things got hazy. I thought that I popped around Frank with about 100m to go and threw my bike across the line in 8^th or 9^th place, but the results show otherwise. In the Velocityresults.com photo finish I am difficult to see, but I am about a half bike length behind Frank who was even with two other racers. Either Velocity Results took a photo of the wrong place, or I kicked to the wrong line. I’m guessing that it was the latter. Either way I wasn’t in the money, and I didn’t make a very strong sprint at only 800W or so for the last 10 seconds. Some day I’m going to have to learn to do a proper 1300W+ sprint at the finish.