jtheskier

Winter

2011-01-16T17:42:00.003-05:00

It's winter. There's not much to blog about. Certainly no races. I'm more interested in photography and short updates right now, so I'm trying out Tumblr. It looks a lot more slick than blogger and is easy to update. Not sure if I like it for race reports yet. I'll decide that come race season. Here's the link:

jtheskier.tumblr.com

2010 Josh Billings Triathlon

2010-09-13T13:34:00.011-04:00

Road season is over, cross season is heating up, and perched perfectly between the two is The Great Josh Billings Triathlon in the beautiful Berkshires. What a great event that has a little something for everyone. The first leg is a 500 person mass start 27 mile road race with a couple of moderate climbs. It attracts anyone from pro’s, to mtb’ers, to cruisers. Although come to think of it I’m yet to see a hipster here. That would be something. Paddling is just fun whether you have a kayak, fishing canoe, or a 20 lb carbon fiber racing boat. And runners? Well, I don’t run and have trouble appreciating what makes it fun, but being the final leg of a three leg team event has to help. (just kidding runners)

Per usual I was part of my family’s team, although this year we did have to mix it up a bit. Todd is normally our runner but he lives in Cali and couldn’t make it back for the event. So about 2 months ago Shawn decided to come out of the canoe and take up training for the run. Dad opted to paddle his Cobra Eliminator one-man kayak (K-1). Both canoes and kayaks are OK in the family division.

There were two other teams that my buds put together. The first was Erica cycling, Pat and Jamie paddling, and Pat running. The second team was Andrew cycling and his buds Bob and Greg paddling and running.

"the barf bike"

Since my Tarmac seatstay cracked at GMSR I had to build up my old Six13 in a hurry (which is also has a minor crack). I did everything I could to better my chances of getting in the breakaway and ran my carbon tubulars as well as my skinsuit. That presents some logistical challenges. I can’t repair a tubular flat on course and there’s no wheel car, so my plan was to call my high paid soigneur (THANKS MOM) if need be. Well that presented problem #2, which was that I didn’t have a pocket in my skinsuit to carry my cell phone. We got a bit creative and ended up pinning a plastic zip lock bag underneath my race number, and you couldn’t even tell it was there. Great idea Pat.

Naturally we get to the start later than I want, about 40 minutes before the start. Warmup was a bit rushed and I got to staging late. I line up at the back of the USCA racers and when the first rope dropped (think GMSR criterium staging) I was able to get to the front row although on the far left side. Nice.

On the line I finally have a chance to look around and start sizing up the competition. What do you know, the guy behind me is wearing an aero helmet and an Indy Fab kit. I think it might be Robbie King because I’m a pro results stalker and do race against him from time to time, although it’s usually a p123 race and I’m going off the back while he goes off the front. Turns out it is him. Our conversation went something like:

Me: Should I be concerned that you’re wearing an aero helmet?

RK: No, not at all. Should I be concerned that you have Edge wheels and pink handlebar tape?

How witty. We shook hands, wished each other good luck, and I was blessed with his pro/cat1 roadie power and it was awesome.

Actually it turned out that there were a few more fast guys than usual. Will Dugan (who also had an aero helm!), Josh Dillon, Josh Lipka, Chris Fischer, Todd Roberts, Dieter Drake were some of the other upper category racers. No Jamey Driscoll or Nat Faulkner this year. OK that’s enough name dropping, but you get the idea, a few more fast people here than usual.

me and a girl in pink leading out robbie king with 27 miles to go

I was too busy posing for photographs and wasn’t paying attention when they dropped the rope for the start. Somehow in a panic I clipped in right away and off we went.

The start through Great Barrington seemed faster than usual to me. 500m in I thought I even saw 3 or 4 guys with a gap and thought that would have to be some sort of new record for the earliest break ever. But that may be too early even for riders of this caliber and we booked it through town as a big bunch like usual.

I rode the right side of the pack and it was one of those days when I just couldn’t get in a good spot. I was sliding back too quickly and kept having to come up the outside taking more wind than I’d like. When we hit the right hand turn to the first hill I was about 20 back on the inside.

I may just be stronger than the last time I did this race for real, but I’m pretty sure the pace up the hill was way slower than usual. No power meter to know for sure but about two-thirds of the way up the climb I was barely under pressure and we were super bunched up. The fastest guys tend to dictate the pace, and with so many new fast guys I think there may have been less of a plan than usual.

Attacks came near the top I was boxed in ~20 back and couldn’t respond immediately like I wanted. A few holes opened up as some of the people in front of me reached their limits and I started riding like a madman. 9 riders had gapped the rest of us by 50 meters already. I really did not want to let this move go and dug as deep as I could like it was the finish of the race. Another BCA rider was in the same boat. When we weren’t able to catch them at the top of the climb I gave up. I’ve fallen trap before to chasing down groups on the descent that immediately follows. With so many cat1’s it seemed like suicide.

However, the BCA rider was more spirited than me and he continued to chase. I really thought he didn’t have a chance. I watched him chase and chase and chase in no man’s land as I settled in to what would become the first main pack. He must’ve been riding alone for nearly 5 minutes, but he did actually make it onto the breakaway group. I was really impressed.

Our first pack was HUGE after the first hill. Like 40+ huge. In 2008 I think we were only 20 at this point. And we were motoring too. The breakaway group was going a lot slower than I expected and I’m pretty sure we were slowly reeling them in, all the way to the second climb, but we never did catch them. The gap was probably down to 10 or 15 seconds at the minimum though. I did nothing to contribute because I couldn’t. I had really spent myself trying to claw back on to the breakaway group over first hill and went deeply anaerobic. My legs were shaking, my breath short, and just recovering in the draft was difficult. The second hill that was coming up is usually the hardest of the day for me and I needed a good recovery.

In 2008 our smaller first pack hit the second climb at what I considered to be an easy initial pace. It seemed much harder this year. With the breakaway group still in sight, two or three people attempted to bridge. They didn’t make it, but it was a darn brave move that really made me suffer and you have to respect that they tried. A lot of people were sag climbing or blowing up at the last little kicker of this second hill and I think there may have been some additional selection.

With the 2^nd hill behind me I was recovering well and confident about not being dropped. I contributed a small bit to the pace making including a long pull on the big descent of the day. I hoped my aero toys would let me go fast so I really drilled it like we were on an uphill. I may have given a little too much on that downhill and actually had trouble getting back in the group.

Around the time we went through West Stockbridge one of the Battenkill United guys made a crazy move across the bunch and just missed chopping off my front wheel. That really shook me up and made me especially irritable for the next 10 minutes or so. I didn’t have many nice thoughts during that period, and I don’t really want to write about them, so let’s just skip ahead.

starting to move up along the false flat after stockbridge

Things were pretty uneventful until after the Stockbridge hill, other than more stupid riding and near crashes. I was sitting on the very back of the field going up the steep parts of the Stockbridge climb, but on the long false flat after that I went straight up to the front. That was refreshing; less people to worry about.

Some dudes were drilling it along the fast rolling downhill section just before the Stockbridge Bowl causeway and the final climb of the day. I was being a pest wanting to stay at the front but not contribute much to the pacemaking. I knew people would attack the last climb of the day and wanted my legs to be ready.

Sure enough, people attacked the second the road kicked up. Actually, several people attacked on the false flat just before the climb really begins. I remember thinking, yeah right, good luck holding that pace. Sure enough they didn’t hold it once the road got steep, and that’s when the counters came.

I was all over the counterattack and we held a fast pace all the way to the top of the climb. My legs were screaming but the course was packed with spectators and you can’t stop pedaling. I heard the guy in the Cherry Picker call off my number, 168, also motivating. Four or five of us had a little gap, and someone had the legs to keep drilling it even at the top when it flattened out. I was totally at my limit and could never have been pulling at that speed, so I was surprised when some people were able to reattach to us on the flat.

There were lots of punchy little moves the rest of the way to the finish, and I don’t think anyone really got ahead by much. I generally stayed within the first 3 to 5 wheels, just hopping around as I could.

Like everyone else I was almost in a sprint as we pulled into the finish where all the paddlers awaited. I was right with the front of the group and was beyond anxious to hand off my wristband to my Dad so he could run over the chip timer that would stop my cycling split time. He had a humble position far from the front of the masses and it took him maybe FIVE SECONDS to take my handoff although to me it felt like FIVE MINUTES. And when I finally did see him I thought it was a good idea to toss the wrist band to him. You know, so he could save 0.5s from reduced running distance. Of course I tossed it poorly so he couldn’t catch it and ended up costing us more time.

By the time I finished clowning around I was scored officially 14^th place, 1:07:13. The guys that I remember finishing with were in 11-12^th place, 1:07:02 to 1:07:05. A few seconds isn’t a big deal in the overall picture even those it’s an eternity in a road race. I can’t knock on the handoff too much though, it was probably pretty average overall. One of the other guys I finished with is scored 10 seconds behind me. And I heard Robbie King threw his wristband deep into the mass of paddlers that were standing around and that it took a good minute for anyone to find it. Another paddler was in the John when his cyclist came in. Yea, so it could’ve been a lot worse.

Erica finished in 1:19:53, 5^th bike split for woman I think, and Andrew did a respectable 1:23:26 after getting dropped from his pack due to a dropped chain. Who built that bike anyways?!

The paddlers had a slightly longer day in the water than usual (see below). Dad finished in a respectable 1:06, Pat&Jamie in 1:09, and Bob also did a 1:09.

Shawn did a 46:02 10k to get us finished in just under 3 hours which is always a big target. Solid split for a 230 lb’er too. I wish I had a powermeter on him! Pat did a 44:46 and Joel a 48:25. All real solid splits. I don’t think I could get under 50 minutes. That course is hilly!

We were happy to finish under 3 hours and got 4^th in the family division. Really exciting considering we were a man down this year. Results are here. Great pics here.

bike splits plot

You can really see a lot about the race when you plot time and place. The cycling plot is the most interesting because you can see the different groups. The 10 person breakaway group split into 3 and 7. The 3 finished very fast while the 7 weren’t particularly fast for a breakaway. The first pack was the biggest that it’s been in years (23), and it also finished fast too (the two probably go hand in hand). The second pack was quite large as well. Beyond that, things were pretty typical.

canoe splits plot

Here’s the same plot but for the boats. Like the cyclists, the very fastest boats are abnormally fast. Generally the fastest boat time doesn’t vary much either. This year’s fastest boat time was nearly 44 minutes, which is really slow for a winner, and they beat out 2^nd place by over a minute. Times stay slow pretty much all the way out on the placings. Having not paddled in several years I don’t know if this is due to wind or buoy placing or what. Assuming that the race isn’t any less competitive (more entrants this year), the trend seems to be that the boat leg is getting longer.

GMSR, cat3

2010-09-13T10:40:00.001-04:00

Since when is it September? What happened to June, July, August? Cyclocross has already started for the real lunatics. For me, all I’ve been thinking about is GMSR and what a weekend that was. I trained my butt off in July and August and went into it fit and ready.

I targeted the points competition. That plan basically eliminates the TT and last 50 miles of the road stage from my weekend since there’s no points there. It seemed like a good plan since I still can’t seem to be competitive on long steep climbs. I like to blame it on Boston since the longest local climbs are less than 5 minutes long, but then you get local guys like Stephen Pierce that fly up the mountains. Maybe I just don’t like to suffer.

Stage 1 – Warren Store ITT

This is the same TT as 2008 and 2009. The course climbs 500’ over the first 2.5 miles, then drops about 200’ of that vertical over the next 3 mile with a technical 10%+ dip with 500m to go. The average gradient of the climb is mellow but it kicks up to 7% or more in places. Equipment rules are mass start legal equipment only, so aero helmets and disc wheels are OK, aerobars are not.

Wind direction makes a big difference on this course. 2008 and 2010 had a favorable wind while 2009 did not.

In 2008 I got smoked here and I think it was my flat pacing strategy because my average power wasn’t bad. My plan for 2010 was to go 100% to the top of the hill, which would be 8 or 9 minutes, then hold on the best I could. I was thinking somewhere around 330W for the climb and 250 or 300W or whatever I could muster after that.

I got 45 minutes of warmup in rolling up and down Rt 100 and somehow that still didn’t feel like enough. On Thursday I was on my feet all day at work which made my legs feel like bricks. What can you do though. Doing 60 or 90 minutes seems like overkill.

And just like that, 5,4,3,2,1, GO GMSR had started. I punched it hard in the little ring, get up to speed, take the turn, and up we go. I went with my Edge wheels and not my Powertap so I was pacing on feel. 400W always feels like 200W in a TT so I tried to keep my effort reasonable.

However, this TT is supposed to hurt with all the elevation gain being early. When the grade kicked up a bit just a minute or two in I ramped it up. And as the road kicked steep for the second time I was already breathing hard, and couldn’t really punch it like I wanted to. I was a little annoyed that my 30s man seemed so far away (he eventually put a minute into me), and I was really deflated when the dude 30s behind me made his pass just before the top. To make matters worse, the 60s behind me guy also passed me on the start of the downhill.

I shouldn’t be surprised though because I never got that feeling like I was really crushing it on the climb. I’m not a strong time trialist. If I’m not on the verge of blacking out it’s not going to be a great ride. And after I got passed twice, I just had no motivation to really go.

The two people that passed me didn’t really put much distance on me on the descent, and I was taking it easy especially right before the dip. I sprinted hard enough up the dip that I caught the two of them and held on to the finish. Sprinting up that steep grade brought back a 10 or 15s gap in no time. I think it was well worth backing off enough to really hammer the dip.

Finishing time was 16:22 which was 62/80 for the 3’s. Placing was not so good but I was actually pleased with that time. Given my effort was far from stellar I was surprised to still sort of be in the mix. Sure, I was +1:55 on leader Victor Taomina (Seaside Cycles) but I’m pretty sure that dude clicked the cat3 box by mistake instead of cat1 when registering. His winning time of 14:27 would be solid for the 1’s. So compared to normal 3’s I was only +1:30 on 2nd place and a minute out of the top 20. I’ve had TT’s that have been far worse.

Stage 2 – Bridges Resort Circuit Race

The 3’s did 3 ½ laps for 72 miles total. Each lap has a 700 foot climb and sprinter’s points paying 4 places deep on every lap. I wanted to get as many of those points as possible. My teammate Oscar was in the race and our plan was to approach this one aggressively. I checked out the course after the TT on Friday to get familiar with the finishing section and feel out the climb.

Two guys snuck away on the little Rt 2 hill on the first lap and stayed away to snag the points. That left 3^rd and 4^th place points available. Before the race I decided I would sprint for 3^rd place points but not for 4^th so it was time to play. With 1k2go Oscar was drilling it on the front but it was a strong headwind so it was a longer effort than it appeared. Sweet Open Roads’ Cosmo starting drilling it Renshaw style after Oscar was done. He was leading out his sprinter Patrick Barter and I was on his wheel. I was ready to go to the inside of the slightly left-bending downhill turn and Patrick went hard to the outside with 200m. He got a great jump and absolutely crushed me and I took 4^th place points uncontested.

For whatever reason it was hard to recover after that. I was out of breath before the climb even started. I took my feed from Erica then had to dig super deep to get over the climb. I was worried. This climb wasn’t supposed to hurt this much. But, I was still with the field and ready to sprint some more. I thought a few other people may have been dropped but it looks like they clawed back on.

No breaks got away on the Rt2 hill although people did try. The pack was ready this time and the same move didn’t work twice. With max points up for grab the field was packing in tight. Much more interest in the points than on lap 1. 3k out I think someone hit a pothole that crashed out 2 racers. Luckily, I wasn’t affected and was in excellent position, sitting 2^nd wheel on the left side of the bunch all the way to 1k to go.

Turns out there was a problem with this position. Sweet Open Roads lined up their train again, this time with a 3^rd man added for more horsepower, and they were on the far right side of the bunch. So, when they started drilling it with 1k2go I was boxed in, scrambled and still missed the train, torching my legs somewhat in the process. I watched 4 of my competitors sweep up the points just up the road.

I didn’t think that lap 2 effort was too deep, but I was in trouble when we got to the climb. It comes up surprisingly soon after the sprint, especially considering the counter-attacks that ensue after the finish line. The trouble for me is that my anaerobic juices weren’t recharged when we got to the climb. I rely on anaerobic power a lot for these shorter ~5min climbs. If I can do a max of 100kj of work in 5 minutes, but only have 25kj out of 35kj max anaerobic capacity available, I’m down 10% on my 5min average for the climb. That means I can do 340W average instead of 380W, which is a huge difference.

So when we got strung out single file, I assume because the KOM sprint was on, I got dropped. I just couldn’t dig into those reserves to go harder; there was nothing there.

Three of us tried to get back on during the descent but the gap was too much, even with the caravan of traffic that had built up behind the field. Our chase group grew and ended up finishing about 12 minutes down, but more importantly I had missed out on the sprinter’s points.

This stage was more of a learning experience than I had expected. I thought I was perfectly suited for this stage but it ended up being my worst of the entire race. The extra work required for the intermediate sprints was far more taxing than expected. I expected this race to be similar to the KSR circuit race. The elevation gains on the KOM hills are similar, but KSR seems to be longer and more gradual, requiring significantly less anaerobic power.

Stage 3 – Mad River Road Race

This is the queen stage of GMSR and I can’t think of a better road race in New England. There have been a few variations of this course over the past few years, but the general idea is to have lots of climbing and end on App Gap 60 or 70 miles later. This year we started at Mt Ellen base lodge, went through Waitsfield Center and did the TT course backwards, adding a pretty significant 500’ climb to the stage. After that we took the usual route over Middlebury Gap, a slightly different route through Bristol, and once again up App Gap. Sprint points were available paying 3 deep, 23 miles in at the bottom of Granville Gulch.

That new climb right after Waitsfield had me nervous after being dropped in the Circuit Race. I figured the field could shell me pretty easily if I weren’t careful, but we ended up just crawling over it as if we were warming up. It was actually a really beautiful addition to the course, going through the covered bridge, by Round Barn Farm, all with spectacular views of the valley that you don’t appreciate during the TT.

Attacks ensued over the top of this climb, likely sprinters trying to get away for the points. We descended pretty rapidly and I was able to get right to the front. We bombed through Warren Center in full on chase mode. Onion River Racing had the green jersey and were leading the chase, keeping the attacks within reason.

As we turned onto Rt 100 and started ascending Granville Gulch there were still 2 guys off the front and we were going hard, still strung out. I was dreading this pace, thinking it’d make for a brutally hard day. We still had 55 miles to go that included Granville Gulch, Middlebury Gap, Notch Road, and App Gap.

When Onion River eventually reeled the last escapee in I prepared for a counter attack to come, but it didn’t.

I figured everyone probably felt like I did: a bit winded and ready for the pace to mellow out a bit. So, I decided to do a counter myself. Instead of sprinting like a mad man, I just gradually picked up the pace while hugging the gutter and slowly rolled off the front. I kept looking back, checking to see if anyone wanted to come with me, but no one did.

At first the gap was 10m, then it slowly increased to 20m, and a bit later 50m. There was a headwind going down Rt 100 and I’m sure no one wanted to work into it. Eventually my gap stretched out to 200m or so with only a very minimal effort, and when the gradient got a little steep I started hammering and got out of sight.

I felt strong, but I was a lot further from the top of the climb than I realized. Closer to 10 or 15 minutes than the 5 or 10 minutes I was thinking. Partially because that headwind was brutal. Eventually I realized I was getting caught and I backed off since I knew I was still a few minutes from the top.

When I got caught Oscar was the first to pull up alongside me. He asked if my legs were toast and I said that they were not. The green jersey wearer started yelling a whole bunch, and at first I didn’t understand why. It turned out that the bunch hadn’t caught me. Instead a group of 7 had bridged up to me and I couldn’t see the main field behind us.

This breakaway got organized around the top of Granville. Oscar and I were both there for NEBC, Sweet Open Roads had two including their sprinter, the Green Jersey was there, so too was Chris Wood (Sound Solutions sprinter), and Nevin Rallis (Bikeman sprinter). It was like a big sprinters’ party and this was definitely the move I wanted to be in.

Sweet Open Roads attacked on the descent and Oscar immediately chased him for me. Everyone else sat on. We were ripping down this descent and I knew the sprint well. The line is hidden and doesn’t come into view until 200 meters out which is exactly where I went after Oscar led it out. I launched on the left side just as Nevin went to the right. I felt like I had all the snap in the world, but Nevin still pulled away from me, and then I also got nipped on the line by Barter and Wood. So zero points for me despite having everything go nearly perfectly. Dang. I just got straight up beat.

We sat up and chatted for a minute after the sprint. Two guys charged ahead showing their intent to keep the breakaway alive. Then Oscar went up to them so I did too. Before long we had 6 guys and shortly later we had 2 new faces that bridged up.

A motorcycle told us we had 3 minutes and I liked the idea of having a head start over Middlebury Gap. We had a pretty decent paceline going and worked well through the feed zone. When the climb got steep we broke up, with 5 guys going up the road from me and 2 going back. Oscar went backwards, having been struggling with a stomach issue. The last kilometer was miserable for me, grinding out a cadence of like 50 with my 40x26 gearing.

Oscar and another guy weren’t far behind me at the top of Middlebury, and there were more guys just up the road. We formed a chase group that kept growing and growing, and before long we had 8 again.

At the bottom of Middlebury the situation looked like this: 43 miles down, 27 miles to go. Lead group of 3 was up the road, I was in Chase 1, a group of 8, and the peloton was chasing us.

When we started heading north on 116 we got a tailwind, which I really thought would favor us. However, when the motorcycle started giving us time gaps I was kind of shocked to hear that the lead 3 had 5 minutes on the peloton, and that we were only a minute ahead of them. Those 3 had to have been absolutely drilling it if the 8 of us were losing ground to them.

As the time gaps got less and less favorable we lost more and more people. When the peloton got really close we even got a few new faces. I eventually disconnected from our group on Notch Road. That road is so ridiculously steep, I didn’t have a chance. In fact, I was so slow going up it that the peloton caught me just shortly after getting on the dirt section. My 40 miles of breakaway glory were over.

Speaking of the dirt road, boy is that section miserable. This is coming from someone that generally likes flat, selective courses. I’d be OK with it if it were smoother like Battenkill’s dirt roads are, but those sharp potholes are deep, sharp, and plain nasty. It’s more like a game of avoiding flat tires than anything else.

The pace ramped up as we got to the Baby Gap turn. The motorcycle informed us the peloton was still 5 minutes behind the leaders. Those 3 guys must’ve been crushing it. As we strung out single file I realized just how shot my legs were. When we came to the turn onto Baby Gap I just let everyone come by. I didn’t want to screw up anyone else’s day by getting gapped.

Despite being pretty shattered to start the climb, it was actually the easiest it’s ever been for me thanks to a wicked tailwind. However, 40x26 was still too much gear and I should get something smaller if I ever want to try and compete on that sort of gradient. I finished a whopping 15 minutes off the leader who came from our breakaway.

There was some controversy about our break because the main field got neutralized when the master’s group passed them. The complaint was that our break didn’t get neutralized as well. I’m not sure what the rulebook states but after having been in that break for so long I’m pretty impressed that the stage winner was able to hold on. The fact is he did 50 miles in a breakaway and still had enough left to stay away on App Gap. That’s impressive.

Stage 4 – Burlington Criterium

This is the 1km, 6 turn, super technical downtown criterium that keeps some climbers away from the stage race altogether. Cat3’s do 34 laps and there are sprinters’ points with 30 to go, 5 to go, and on the finish. I would have needed to win pretty much everything to get the green jersey so I gave up on that goal. I just wanted a decent result.

A ton of people get dropped in this race compared to most criteriums. It’s hard to say why exactly, but a lot of it has to do with super strong people drilling it at the front while nervous bike handlers get sloppy at the back. The race gets so strung out right from the start that it’s impossible for even the stronger guys to avoid getting dropped if they have to keep closing gaps.

That being said, this race is all about the start, and the start is totally unique. Top 10 GC and jersey wearers get a call up. The remaining 70 people in our field go through a staging fiasco. We line up on a side street as much as 30 minutes early. When the time comes the officials drop a rope and we sprint like madmen to a second staging rope that’s on the course. Then that rope gets dropped and we again sprint like madmen to the real start line, behind the people that got a callup. It’s a race before the race.

I nailed it this year. I lined up super early and sprinted to the spot behind Stephen Pierce on the first rope-drop. When he got a callup, I took his spot in the first row. On the next rope-drop I got out in front which let me chose which of the top 10 GC and jersey wearers I wanted to start behind. The obvious choice there was the green jersey who would be going after the lap 4 points and needed a good start. After getting behind him I was please to see he had speedplay pedals, easy to clip into. When the whistle blew for us to start, he clipped in instantly and so did I. I moved up slightly before turn 2 and was on the front of the race, right behind the pace car. Perfect!

If only I could have raced well on the first few laps of the race. For some reason I lacked any confidence and handled my bike in the turns like a total idiot. There were only 2 people in front of me yet every single turn I let a gap open. Then I’d have to close them. This went on for the first 2 laps. I was surprised it took 2 laps for anyone to come around me. I would have passed myself in a second.

Victor (Seaside Cycles) came by me when I was still at the front and sort of just rolled away, and I knew I needed to go with him. He had lost the yellow as a result of the breakaway in the RR and I expected him to try and lap the field. I thought if I played my cards right I could ride his wheel most of the way. But I was too gassed from closing up gaps and essentially watched the race ride away from me. He took a few others with him and eventually there were only 3 that would lap the field.

I did settle into the middle of the field as my cornering ability improved. The gap to the 3 leaders stretched out every time we came around but I figured there were stronger people than me to chase it and was pretty content to sit in.

With somewhere around 15 to go I was right in the middle of things. On turn 1, I was on the outside lane when someone came flying around me on the outside at a ridiculous speed. There was very little space for him and I think he ran into the curb on the side of the road. After that, all I can remember is his bike being sideways in front of me and plowing into him. I went down on my right side and somehow the 20 or so people behind me managed to avoid piling up. I tried to get up but my tailbone was throbbing in pain and I couldn’t do it without help, so that was it for my race.

Summary

Back home I talked to my doctor about my tailbone but passed on doing x-rays after being told there isn’t much that could be done for a break anyways. If the pain gets worse I will get them done, but hopefully it won’t come to that. Unfortunately the seatstay of my Tarmac was also cracked in the crash so I need to look into a repair job.

Despite the crash, this was still the most fun I’ve ever had at a race, probably in part due to the long build up to the race. The time trial was OK, we had some great sprints in the circuit race, the road race was amazing between being in the long break with my teammate and throwing down for the sprints there too, and the criterium was cool too until my crash. My roomie Colby won the green jersey in the 2’s and it was fun to be part of that. Erica made great food all weekend long and we love soaking in the central VT atmosphere.

I have lots of pictures to add and will hopefully get around to that soon.

Fall River Criterium, cat3

2010-08-16T12:18:00.003-04:00

Fall River Criterium, I think this may go down as a race that few people love but few people dislike. It’s a great closed course: 4 turns, semi-technical, a fast downhill, and a moderate uphill to a long flat finishing straightaway. The fastest strong man will win a sprint. Weaker sprinters will be too gassed from the hill.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to get very excited about racing in an industrial park. Especially when the entrance has an arrangement of toilet bowls set up artistically with letters on them spelling “Industrial Park.” I was going to snap a photo on my way out, but we ended up leaving in another direction so no photo.

That being said, I was really looking forward to a good competitive crit with the 3’s. It seems that these are a rarity compared to p123 and 4/5 races. Mostly because I don’t want to travel to southern CT, so it’s my own fault.

Boy did I feel lousy the morning of the race. Dehydrated, shaky, high pulse, hungry. Not at all ideal. Possibly the result of being at the tail end of a high volume training week. Or maybe the previous night’s wine was a big stronger than I’m used to. Or maybe both. Who knows. The 3’s didn’t start until 1pm so I had a lot of time to eat up, relax, and get ready.

Actually, the morning flew by and I didn’t even get to the venue until 12:30, 30 minutes before the start. So much for a warmup, and my legs felt like rocks. I also just glued a new tubular the morning before. It took me a week of prep and I was anal about every last detail but I still hate riding things untested. Especially after reading a story like Jonny Bold’s at masters nats. You want to make sure everything is perfect when you’re running tubular.

So per usual I rush the reg, kit up, Erica makes me Gatorade and pins me up, and I’m on the line. But it’s all good because I have a sweet new s/s skinsuit formally worn by NEBC legend Todd Rowell. His sweat, tears, and chamois creams have surely saturated the lycra threads with empowering upper category awesomeness. Actually I was just happy to have a kit without any holes and working zippers that fits me right (it seems I’m a medium now) but either way it was cool.

The whistle blows and we’re off. We had 30 pre-reg’d but it looked more like 50 on the line to me. Lots of tired masters were doubling up for the day. I took an outside line on the first several turns, thinking if I were to roll my tubular it would be good form to only crash myself. We hit some turns fast early on and by mid race I was pretty confident that it was going to stick.

An early break of two got up the road, I think Wheelworks and some younger guy in mostly black with yellow lettering, something “.nl”. Kind of cool looking in a Livestrong sort of way. They dangled about 10 seconds up on a relaxed field until the first prime, which was probably a third or more of the way into the race.

After they came back a few much shorter lived moves went off. I was trying to stay within striking distance of the front, waiting for the right move to go with.

Nothing seemed to be a winner though. Green Line Velo (GLV) only had 3 guys in the race, including a seemingly unbeatable Sam Rosenholtz, and I suspected they were banking on a sprint finish, similar to Norwell. I decided I would only attack if one of them were in the move, or if the going got really hard making the race too hard to control.

With about 8 to go it was announced that there would be back to back to back primes. The first two were $25 and the last was $50. I stuck to the front hoping that I could snag one with minimal effort, but all three ending up being won on mini-breaks. GLV did get off the front for one but I ignored it thinking it was a pure prime effort.

By the end of the third prime I was chomping at the bit to attack. I was hoping that these 3 primes would really lift the pace and launch a winning move. Tom Stevens (Gearworks) countered when the final mini-break came back, but he was alone. And the pace still didn’t feel too hard somehow. I passed again on attacking in order to contest the bunch sprint. There were only 5 to go so attacking would mean playing all your cards.

Paul Curley also came out of hiding around this point, moving very near the front. I didn’t even know he was in the race. If all else failed he would be a good wheel to follow to the finish.

The pace seemed to back off significantly after the Stevens move. I found myself on the front barely pedaling for nearly a lap. I couldn’t believe no one wanted to come around but I didn’t really care, soft pedaling is soft pedaling.

That all changed with 2 to go. We came out of the turn 2 downhill and there was a full on rush to the front. There was a tailwind on the section which made it extra fast. Mike Norton seemed to be starting something off for his Cyclonauts team and took over the pacemaking. I was swarmed on either side and lost all sort of position, and the pace was too hot up the hill to get it back there. We came through for the bell lap and I was lost in the middle of the pack.

I needed to get move up. I was under very little stress and in great condition to contest the sprint. On the downhill I went to the outside and picked up a few spots. The bigger opportunity was between turns 2 and 3 where the road is wide and the tailwind helps. Just as I went to sprint up the side a few others did as well, which I believe was a Cambridge Bicycles (CB) duo. I got to within 10 wheels of the front before making a scary fast lefthander up the hill for the final time.

This point of the race is tricky. It’s roughly 600m out, but it’s slow with the uphill and headwind on the finishing straight. At 10 wheels back, I could potentially be in a very good position, but it’s risky. If someone in front of me cracks and a gap opens, I lose. If the pace eases off and I get swarmed, I lose. I think you have to sit in and if the pace feels too easy for a half a second you move up. Before the top of the hill too.

Stephen Pierce (CB) was on the front setting the pace up the hill. I know he’s super strong when the road tilts up but I didn’t feel under pressure. I came around the outside and moved into third wheel as we approached the top of the hill.

It was an awesome position but I burnt a serious match in doing so and I knew it. Any anaerobic juice I may have had was now gone. I needed the pace to back off for just a few seconds to re-energize. We did ease off shortly after making the final turn when Pierce called it a day. The Wheelworks rider (I think it was WW) behind him had no interest in going hard, and I can’t blame him. If I had anything at all good left in my legs for the sprint I would have gone then, albeit being a long 300m into the wind. But I stayed tucked away, hoping I could ride wheels to the finish.

And that’s exactly when Rosenholtz went, to the narrow ride side that was only wide enough for one racer. Boy is he fast. His acceleration was too fast for WW to get on his wheel and I had no room to maneuver being passed on both sides. Not that I could have grabbed his wheel either. It turned into an awkwardly long in the saddle sprint of trying to hold wheels.

For a moment, at about 100m to go, things were looking OK. Somehow I was still in about 5^th place but I was about to move back fast. My legs were toast. I got passed by so many people in those last 100m it’s a wonder I didn’t get crashed into. I ended up in 14^th.

I probably spent more work being towards the front than I should have if I were planning on sprinting for the finish. That’s the problem when you race with no plan and just try to do it all. You don’t do any one thing really well, and unless you’re silly strong for your category, you need to do one thing really well in order to win. I did get a good workout though, and it was a good experience before GMSR.

Beverly Grand Prix

2010-08-05T12:35:00.008-04:00

this is what my evening looked like. 30 miles in 2 hours, you do the math

i got a new camera (Sony NEX) for my birthday

break of the day lapped the field

coming up to the bell lap, dylan nearly knocks my camera out of my hands

winning move

ken wins the 4/5, podium girl, and awkwardly large podium prizes

Norwell Circuit Race 3/4's & p123's

2010-08-02T16:15:00.004-04:00

Ahhhh Norwell, it seems like just yesterday that I entered this race for the first time. And now I’ve done this race 4 times. Where does the time go? I like this race. One relatively short sprinter’s hill and you get the whole road to race on so none of that yellow line cramped feeling. It’s also close to home. Good stuff.

I registered for the cat3/4 field and doubled up with the p123 race since it was only $10 (another plus). Pre-reg for the 3-4’s was big, but the phenomenal weather brought in huge day-of numbers. We had a full 100-man field in the 3-4’s and 45 in the p123’s.

Cat3/4

The 3-4 race went first. NEBC had Bernie (who is making a late start to his season), strongmen Chuck and Jerry doubling up after their master’s races, a new racer that I’m yet to meet, and myself. Ken was there too. There were also a whole bunch of faces that I didn’t recognize.

Last year I was warming up with Ken when he got a flat at the school a little ways down the main road. And wouldn’t you know it? The exact same thing happened to me this year. My tubular burst and I was left running back to the car 5 minutes before we start. Great!

Unlike Ken I was lucky enough to swap out my race wheel and get to the start line in time. Unfortunately it did put me at the back of this gigantic swarm of racers which would end up being the race’s major challenge.

Our race was 10x 2.3-mile laps for 23 miles total. It took me 5 full laps to go from the very back of the field to the front. Why? Because there were 100 dudes bunched up the entire width of the road every inch of the way. It was hard to tell from my “obstructed view” seat, but there couldn’t have been much, if any attacking. I finally got to the front by going hard up the hill when a lane opened there. It may have just taken a few laps for a little attrition to set in.
Once I was in the top 20 or 30 it was much easier to move around. The front of the peloton was arrow shaped and not the entire width of the road. Lots more room to work with.

There was very little action though. A few little attacks here and there, but nothing with enough commitment to get a real gap. I tried ramping up the pace myself on the back-side roller but didn’t do anything beyond string out the field.

Approaching 3 to go Stephen Pierce (CB) commented on how nothing had really gotten away. He also noted that a lot of the strong riders may have been at the front.

I agreed, and when we came up to the turn before the finishing hill I went again. This time I attacked hard and didn’t look back until the top of the hill. I’d hoped that a few people would come with me but it looked like absolutely no one moved. Oh well. I settled into a TT position and started thinking about how long of an effort this would have to be. 7 miles, probably somewhere around 20 minutes. I was going to need help.

Around the bottom of the downhill someone in a red/blue kit that I didn’t recognize bridged up to me. He was strong and was ripping my legs off. I may have just been tired. When I pulled off I swear I was working harder just to stay in his draft. That’s not supposed to happen!

The field swept me up right before the hill. It looked like they were working hard at least. I think my breakaway mate surged again to stay away a bit later. He must’ve had a lot left.

Getting swept up at the start of a hill is awful. It was especially bad this time because I wanted to avoid floating back too far in the field with 2 to go and miss the sprint. I dug deep but was able to keep it in the front 20 or so.

We were at 2 to go and a car was parked on the course right at the bottleneck section where the cones take us down to 1 lane. Brakes were screeching and we came to a standstill as we went around the car. I lost all sorts of position and ended up in the thick of the bunch. Stupid. I should have done anything I could to keep towards the front.

After that it was like being in jail. I couldn’t move. Everyone around me was gunning for position but we weren’t doing much more than passing each other over and over. I was in a terrible position when we hit the final turn.

A lot of people popped really early on the finishing climb, like not even half way up. I ended up sort of sprint/coasting, powering through holes then easing off to find the next hole. Pretty bizzar, I probably should have just sat up altogether but my legs felt great. Oh well, that’s bike racing. I think I finished up 28th or which means I probably hit the final turn in at least 40th. Ouch.

Pro123

Luckily there was still the p123 race. I felt like I hadn’t even really raced yet so I was eager to get out there again.

The contrast between the two races was huge, right from the beginning. People actually attack in the 123’s! Good hard attacks too, none of this rolling off the front stuff.

Each lap going up the hill a group would attack. Seemed like it was all new faces each time too. The breaks would generally stick each lap until the long false flat uphill to the finishing hill. Then a new group would go.

My legs felt great after the first race and I had enough left to go with two or three moves early on. None of these moves amounting to anything though. The pace wasn’t hard enough yet.

About half way through the race there was a crash on the right side of the finishing climb. I saw someone go down, and then another guy to his left. It was an awkwardly slow crash. The second guy to go down was barely moving, and he seemed to just sort of tip over to his left side. When he tipped over he rolled, causing his bike to go even further to his left.

I saw all this happening right in front of me. My immediate reaction was to go left, then go left more, and more, and awww darnit… no more road! The dude was on his back, his bike up in the air, and I think his pedal or something got caught up in my bike. I didn’t actually crash, but I came to a screeching halt when our bikes locked together and I had to unclip. Banged my shin on his chainring and drew some blood too.

The mechanic said I needed a new wheel and by the time I got one the field was gone. No free laps in this race. The officials said I could hop back in but that I’d finish a lap down. At least I’d get a workout.

I think I missed the most selective point of the race on the lap I missed. Before I rejoined the bunch there were a whole lot of people that came by me looking like they were just TT’ing on their own. Made it hard to know where to hop in actually. Gavin and Skip were motoring away.

So I finished up the race and thrashed the heck out of my legs each time going up the hill. I was starting to weaken a bit by the end but hey, it’d been 50+ miles of racing at that point. And that's the whole point right?! Boy that was a fun race.

2010 Keith Berger Cat 3 Video

2010-07-30T10:31:00.002-04:00

Sprinter della Casa makes some very sweet race videos, especially with his insightful commentary and editing, and they're even10x sweeter when you're in the same race. In this one I enjoyed reliving the final lap terror at the end of the Keith Berger (check out the back straight action), and then getting totally owned by Luke Fortini in the sprint.

Tour of the Hilltowns, cat 3

2010-07-26T13:17:00.003-04:00

Tour of the Hilltowns. Massachusetts’ 56 mile road race that includes the beastly East Hawley Road climb. This race intrigues me for a number of reasons. Unlike most hilly road races, the hardest climb (East Hawley Rd.) is over 30 miles from the finish. The finishing miles aren’t exactly easy being a long and gradual uphill grind, but the last kilometer is actually flat. This combo gives me a slight of hope of success despite being considered a hilly road race. It’s still a climber’s course though. I also love the location being in the general area I grew up. I’ve driven up and down West Hawley Rd (West, not East) so many times on the way to Berkshire East that I know every last corner. Also, the course is just one giant loop which is kind of a rarity in New England.

Last weekend I did the 6 gaps ride which obviously transformed me into a climber overnight. Ok not really, but I do feel more comfortable than ever climbing out of the saddle, and for reasonably long durations too. Not just short little 2-5 minute climbs. Killington is the only other real climbing race I’ve done this year and I wanted to try again, just to see how I’d stack up. No pre-race aspirations of soloing away in the first 20 miles. Just hit the climb in decent position and hold on as long as possible.

East Hawley Road is a brutal climb. It’s not just the 1,250 ft of elevation gain over 3.8 miles (6.2% average) that makes it tough. The gradient kicks up to 12% for sustained sections and drops back down to a more manageable false flat. But the road also twists and turns so you can’t see more than a couple hundred meters ahead of you. If you don’t know every last inch of it this forces you deep into the red without knowing when the next break will come. Average power will be high, but to maintain contact with the leaders like a true climber your power will be up and down which means its happy lactic acid fest suffertime.

taken from brentacol.com

Like so many others, all I did for the first 20 miles of the race was sit in and conserve every last KJ I could for East Hawley. There wasn’t any need to warm up or anything. A few people went off the front right from the gun and everyone seemed content to let them go. I’d heard that West Hawley Rd was in rough shape so I moved up to the front 5 right before making that turn. It made the descent a lot less stressful. I really didn’t want to flat or crack my rims. In hindsight this road wasn’t half as bad as people made it out to be. Much better than the KSR road race.

I have to gripe about racers going over the yellow line because it happened over and over on West Hawley Road which really fired me up. Sure, there may not be a yellow line actually painted in places, but to go to the far side of the road on a 40+ mph descent and blow by an entire field when no one is even pedaling? Come on. Is that really how you want to get an advantage? That’s worse than attacking the only person in the race that can beat you when they have a mechanical. Not to mention it endangers not only yourself but the people around you.

Anyways, enough with the sour grapes because this was an awesome race. There was a single lane bridge near the bottom of West Hawley that we were going to be neutralized over. Right before we got there a huge 18 wheeler was crawling along. We slowed to practically a standstill and got to pass the truck before too long. Didn’t matter much I suppose because we were going to slow down for the bridge anyways. I played this poorly and lost all sorts of position.

In the last mile or 2 before the climb I took some risks moving up on the inside. I didn’t get too far forward, but at least I wasn’t on the back. When we turned onto the climb I was maybe in the 2^nd quarter of the field which was about 4-5 seconds behind the leaders.

On the lower parts of the climb I just watched out for riders that were cracking. I came around a few and was feeling OK. After about 2 km the road kicks up to 11-12% for 400m or so. This is really the do or die point because it levels out at about 4% after this. You need to be able to go into the red and recover on the 4%. I was hanging on for dear life as we got to the top of this kicker, just barely intact with the tail of the group.

And that’s when I did something stupid. I was riding on the far right side of the road and I rode off the side of the pavement onto gravel and grass. A bad combo of being deep in the red and too close to the side of a winding road. The pavement was elevated a few inches and I couldn’t just ride back on. I tried but I banged my nice carbon rim on the side of the pavement and nearly fell over. I quickly unclipped my left foot to get back on but the damage was done.

This was 2.4 km into the 5.8 km climb. I rode at what felt like LT after that, but it was probably on the low end. There may have been a drafting benefit along the 4% section. The pack was motoring away from me. Matt from Threshold pass me somewhere along the long straight part but seemed to blow up shortly after the hairpin turn. I was able to recover kind of quickly towards the top and picked up 3 or 4 riders.

We formed into a chase group with everyone taking turns pulling. Just as I was thinking it seemed like sort of a comfortable pace, a giant dude from Bethel Cycles with a deep carbon rear rim and a box section front rim went FLYING by us. I assume he flatted.

So huge Bethel Cycle guy goes by and we all had to sprint to get on his wheel. He turned around to see who got on his wheel and laser beams came shooting out of his eyes. Anyone that can get up a climb that steep while weighing as much as he did would surely put the hurt on us.

For at least the next 10 miles we chased and chased and chased thinking the lead group was not far in front of us. I think we were “Chase 2” on the road. We dropped one guy and picked up another. The Bethel Cycles gorilla kept the pace super high and I was too afraid not to work. For us mere mortals though, our pulls at the front got shorter and shorter and some began skipping pulls. This is when I got into trouble. I pulled through a few times when I shouldn’t have, then we came to a hill and I cracked.

My crack came right before the feed zone which was a pretty crummy place. Once you hit 112 the roads get way flatter and I could have really used a little help. I got a feed from Mom (thanks!!) and pretty much solo’d it all the way to the base of the climb on 9. The only help I got is when the Master’s field passed me and the long line of cars took some pressure off for a few miles. Otherwise it was just a long miserable grind.

A small pack of 7 overtook me about a mile or two before Rt 9 gets steep. At first I thought it was all Master’s but there were two other cat3’s hanging on the back so I hopped on too. Pretty much just rode with those guys to the finish although I did drop off the back in a little confusion caused by an attack/rain/ and someone dropping his glasses. Whatever. Didn’t make much difference at that point.

I finished 43/64, about 15 minutes off the leaders. I had to have lost 10 minutes of that riding alone but the real race was on East Hawley. Still don’t have the horsepower to hang with the leaders there. If I do this race next year I should aim to at least get across that long 4% section. The chances of chasing back on after that are likely much higher. Too much time is given up otherwise.

My power isn't bad right now and my weight is pretty much as low as ever. I gotta wonder about my training specificity, in terms of cadence, duration, and position. If I had a power meter for racing that would huge. My 40/26 seems OK at pace but is definitely too hard after a blow up. No that it matters so much at that point. That gearing works great for 5 minute out of the saddle climbs where I seem to go fastest with a cadence in the 60’s, but 20 minute climbs may be a whole different story. My legs are just shot after 10 minutes of that. Maybe a wussy compact crank is in my future. Maybe. It's criterium August so who needs one of those!

Chet Warman Memorial Ride (6 Gaps)

2010-07-19T15:57:00.006-04:00

The 6 Gaps ride is considered to be one of the hardest single day rides in the northeastern US. Most versions of this ride start and finish in Rochester, VT and cover 132 miles including Brandon, Middlebury, Lincoln, Appalachian, Roxbury, and Rochester gaps, in that order.The Chet Warman Memorial Ride included that same route but start/finished in Pittsfield, VT, about 10 miles to the south, adding almost 20 miles of flat roads. It was $100 to participate but was for a good cause and was fully supported.

This type of ride isn’t one that I try and tackle very often. In fact, my previous longest ever day (May 2010) was ~125 miles in something like 6.5 or 7 hours saddle time. That day included Wells Ave and several other high intensity efforts.

6 Gaps would be different.From what I’ve read, 7.5-8 hours is a good saddle time for the 132 mile route. That means I would be doing great if I ended up with 8.5-9 hours saddle time for our 151 mile route. I didn’t know how my body would respond after that many hours.My worst fear was not finishing, and I really did not want to blow up completely and not be able to make it over a gap. On the flats you can move at a decent pace even if you’re only pushing say 2 W/kg. On 10% grade you won’t even move with that low of power. If you blow badly on this ride you’re done.

Then there’s the question of how beneficial this is to my training. As a cat3 very few races are longer than 3 hours.Even the p12 races rarely go longer than 4 hours. What good is it to practice riding for 9 hours? I’d sacrifice intensity training, risk injury, and likely miss additional training days while I recovered.

But of course I had to try. I’ll never know if I don’t. Plus, when my teammates Landen and Alex said they wanted to do it, I couldn’t say no. None of us had ever done a ride quite like this before.

We stayed with Landen’s parents’ place in Barre on Friday and Saturday nights which was great. The 6-gaps group started at 6:30 AM which meant a 4:30 wakeup call. I still felt rushed and didn’t really get in my usual race-morning routine. Unfortunately, my Powertap is once again not working and I do not have power data for the ride.

It was a cool morning, near 100% humidity, but it was going to heat up fast. There were about 30 of us doing the 6-gaps ride. The 2 and 4 gaps groups went off later in the day. I was surprised to see a wide range of bikes were in use including everything from road to triathlon and even mountain bikes.

Riding to the Brandon Gap turnoff went fast. We were cruising right along at first as a larger rider on a p2c led the way across the flats. Then he lost his water bottle and had to stop. Then Alex decided he needed to adjust his saddle height so we stopped again.Yes, we gave him a hard time about that. Then, as we were sort of chasing back on, Landen and I both lost bottles over the same pothole so we stopped again. Great start!

It might have been for the better though. We rode over Brandon at our own pace. For me it was a nice solid tempo effort although I did back off a little and get gapped by the top. No big deal though as the three of us regrouped at the feed station at the top. If every gap went that smoothly it'd be way too easy.

There were feed stations at the summit of each of the 6 gaps. I grabbed 1 or 2 bars, 1 or 2 bottles of water/sports mix, a banana, and maybe a cookie or something at each one. I was trying to stay topped off fuel-wise and I think I did a pretty good job.

The descent on Brandon is mostly straight with only a few big turns and I hit my highest speed of the day, 54.6 mph.You hold 30-40 mph for what feels like forever.

We took turns in the wind as we made our way around Lake Dunmore and to Middlebury Gap. Rt125 was under some major construction and we were advised to take the dirt road option which reportedly doesn’t sacrifice any vertical. The construction really murdered this road though making it miserable to ride on. I like riding on dirt, but this was more like riding on gravel with sharp potholes. I was relieved that none of us flatted.

The middle section of Middlebury Gap is flat when you approach it from the west and we were still in take it easy mode. We passed a few riders around here but were then caught by a group of 6 or 7 right before things got steep. I’m not sure where they came from.

When things did get steep, the presence of the additional riders made the pace much more aggressive. Again, I backed off the pace before going into the red. Landen and Alex fought it out with another rider and we regrouped at the summit. This didn't hurt too bad because I still had my race legs.

Another fast descent and before I knew it we were heading north on Rt 100. What a beautiful road for cycling. We were a group of 8 at that point and made great time. Everyone was cooperative. A quick natural break before setting a very reasonable pace up Granville Gulch and suddenly we were on Lincoln Gap.Saddle time at that point was about 3.5 hours but it felt more like 45 minutes to an hour tops.

Lincoln Gap Road kicks pretty hard immediately after turning off 100 but then goes flat for a mile or two. Landen charged ahead of the rest of us who were all approaching the climb very cautiously. Everyone’s heard of the notorious 20-24% gradients that lie ahead. I’d driven it once in Erica’s car and we barely made it!

The real part of the climb starts on dirt. That was steep, but I pedaled as softly as I could get away with knowing that the worst was yet to come. I had made no changes whatsoever to my gearing and that left me with a 40/26, a much bigger gear than I would have liked. I prefer to grind a big gear, but this was just ridiculous.

Once I hit the pavement I knew it was about a mile or 15-20 minutes of super ridiculous 20% average gradient. At first I tried to straight shot it but it quickly became apparent that there was no way I would be able to pull that off. My cadence was like 3 and it was so hard to produce power. I resorted to making a slalom course out of the climb and slowly made my way, 1 turn at a time.

Most of the others in my group kicked my butt, except Alex, who had a worse gear than me (39/25). He was walking before we were half way up. I think he refused to zig-zag. It didn’t matter much anyways because walking isn’t really that much slower than zig-zagging. I did lose my balance at one point because of a car and have to put my foot down, so I can’t say I cleaned the ride. Maybe I’ll have to go back.

We went all the way down to the valley floor after Lincoln.The descent was a bit crazy because I was using 99% braking power with all the tight turns. We had been warned that the road was washed out in places, but it didn’t seem so bad. Once again the roads between the climbs were enjoyable and we were at App Gap in no time.

Next up was App Gap, which can be broken up into Baby Gap and App Gap Proper. There is a descent in between the two. I felt darn good on Baby Gap considering I had nearly 5 hours of saddle time.We were a group of 6 at that point and climbed at a pace that felt like it was right around my threshold. On the lower parts of Baby Gap I set the pace but I started to fade quickly on the top half and got a little gapped. I think Landen was gradually increasing the pace and he rode away from us once again.That allowed me to catch back on the group before the downhill section where we soft pedaled. I rode hard until the top parts of App Gap Proper where it got steep again. This is where I really started to have the power sucked out of me for the day.

Alex wasn’t feeling well on App Gap and had to abandon. This put our group down to 5.

It was getting really hot at this point, mid 80’s, 50% RH, and a brutally hot sun. I felt like I was on a frying pan on the top parts of App Gap. It was OK though because I was pretty sure I would finish the ride at this point. I was tired but still had a little gas left.

One of our group members pulled a Sylvain Chavanel move on the descent and tried to go it alone. Brave soul.When we got to Rt 100 again we could see him dangling out there about a minute ahead, but there was a wicked headwind and he eventually came back. The cracks on this road were also pretty bad.Seems like they get worse every year. I’ll be nervous running my carbon wheels here come GMSR.

Roxbury Gap was the only one of the 6 gaps I’d never seen before. The others I had ridden or at least driven. The lower part of Roxbury goes up the new GMSR TT course so I was familiar with that. We rode a pace that was either hard tempo or threshold for me.Once again I detached from our group not long after making the right hand turn to the upper half of the climb. I was obviously the weakest of our remaining 5.This was actually a pretty good point to be the weakest guy because it meant I’d get a ride to the final gap after we regrouped.

I plugged away really slowly on the top parts of this one and again had to make slalom turns to get to the top. I was shattered. No cramping, and I’m not even sure it was a true bonk. My legs just couldn’t press on the pedals very hard. I think it was more just frustrating than it was painful. I also stopped to try and have a natural break but was too bloated.

My group had waited for me at the top of Roxbury which was a huge relief. For a while there I got worried that I’d be so far behind that they’d leave. Once again I topped off my bottles, reloaded on food, and set off on the descent. Unlike most of the other descents though, this one was no fun. The road had such bad washboard bumps that it was super painful for your hands.

The haul on Rt12 south was very long but we were crushing it. When we were on 100S it was obviously a nasty headwind and we weren’t even going 20mph. Somehow we were holding closer to 22mph on 12. We made a quick stop at a market where I had a cookie, Coke, and Starburst candy. I think I was lacking sugar, and I definitely benefited from the caffeine. I just need enough to get to the top of the next gap.

On the very bottom of Rochester Gap I said goodbye to my group and rode at my own extremely easy pace after a successful natural break. Like the other gaps, I knew that this one was way steeper near the top so I wanted to pace myself accordingly. I also tried to avoid doing the slalom turns as much as possible, and for the most part, I didn’t need to.

Landen was waiting for me at the tight right-hand turn near the top where many of the trees go away. He had ridden hard to that point and was cramping badly. He knew I was shattered and figured we might as well finish up together.

It was so hot by this point that I was eyeballing tree shade up the road (which there was very little of) and counting down the seconds until I got there. Any time out of the sun was helpful. We decided that this was one of the very few times where it would be OK to ride without a helmet and we went bare-head the rest of the way to the top.What a difference that makes when you’re climbing at 4mph in the scorching hot sun.

But we were done! I was euphoric. The Rochester descent was great, and we took turns pulling back down Rt100 to Pittsfield. Somehow we still had the legs to keep the pace around 20mph and it went by fast. Flat roads are so much easier than the gaps. I stopped the computer at 150.1 miles, 9:02 ride time, and almost exactly 10 hours total elapsed time. Faster than I expected to go.

So I made it. My legs are toast but in a good way. I was worried that my knees would take a beating by doing this but so far they feel fine. That’s a huge relief. I did 1.5 or 2 hours of snail’s pace riding on Sunday and will do more of the same on Monday. Possibly on Tuesday I will be able to ride hard again, but it may not be until Wednesday. Hopefully this will make me a bunch stronger but if not, I still had a darn good time.

I did ride with a camera and got some pictures but it fell apart in my back pocket and needs a little repair. Hopefully I can add some pictures soon. Thanks for reading.

How's it going?!

2010-07-14T16:25:00.002-04:00

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. How about a graph?

Attleboro Criterium, cat3/4

2010-07-12T17:37:00.000-04:00

Attleboro is a great race to follow up Longsjo with. The course isn’t very difficult but its unique 1km layout keeps things interesting. I can hop in the race after a week off the bike and have a good time. It’s also close to Boston so I don’t need to dedicate the whole weekend to it. Win!

Ken and I drove down together in plenty of time for the 3 race. He was racing the 4 race which was scheduled for immediately after the 3’s. The p123’s were racing when we got there and it was scorching hot. Humidity was the real killer. Big Jim had a heat stroke and was taken away on a stretcher.

Shortly before we went off the sky turned black and we had thunder and lightning and a whole lot of rain. Our 3 race was combined with the 4’s. Sweet! I went from having no teammates to an out of uniform ally.

Being a combined field I thought there was a good chance that some sort of split or break could sneak away pretty early on. There were 26x 3’s, and 40x 4’s. As usual a lot of people lined up earlier than I wanted so I ended up on the back row. I wanted to be at the front for the first few laps. Sprinter Della Casa has a sweet ninja move where you line up 10 or 20 feet off the back, then watch for people to clip in quickly and move up with them. Boy that worked well. The inside lane moved up like a rocket so I followed it and was in ~20^th by turn 2.

Glowa (Svelte) seemed possessed to make a break work from the gun. It was tiring just watching him go. He hung out there about 5 or 10 seconds up the road for much of the first half of the race. I think he might have traded break mates a few times but it stayed under control. Threshold was keeping the pace relatively steady and Green Line was driving it for the primes.

We cornered very timidly for the first 10 laps or so. The pavement was soaked and there were plenty of cracks and potholes to make for a rough transition around the corners. Our cornering speed picked up as we started getting more confident and then the crashing started. I cannot even believe how many crashes there were, especially on turn 2. People weren’t hitting each other or anything, just losing traction mid-turn and going down. I got to see several of these crashes up close and couldn’t tell for the life of me what was causing them. Braking mid turn? Bad tires? Cracks in the pavement? There was an annoyingly high amount of dive bombing going on but I don’t think that was the cause.

Whatever the cause, I started racing like a girly man. I’m still hurting from my 2 crashes at Longsjo and really didn’t want to crash again. I was cornering like a moron and before long I was tailgunning. 20 feet off the back seemed like the best place to be. I thought it was OK for a little while because Threshold seemed content to let the break dangle just up the road.

Sometime shortly after the mid-way prime everything came back together. Then a group of 5 including GLV, Threshold, Fortini, and 2 others got a gap. It wasn’t huge, but I freaked. With 40 racers left in the field, GLV and Threshold must’ve accounted for 10 of them. Also, the race was being scored as separate 3 and 4 races which made for an unusual racing dynamic. It was unclear if this break contained any cat4’s, but if it didn’t, what incentive did the 4’s have to chase? There would be no one left to chase it down.

Glowa was still in the field and I was relieved at first when I realized that. He was dominant in the first half of the race and would probably make for good help in the chase. But he attacked in a bridge attempt (which caused a lot of panic) and hit the deck on some of the turn 2 wet pavement. Darn.

I went to the front to see if I could pull things back some and maybe encourage some chasing. I didn’t think I could bridge it. At first I could see the break going into turn 2 as we came up the little riser. Despite some tiring efforts, the gap didn’t seem to budge. The break must’ve been flying.

I think the wet corners may have slowed the chase a little. It was at least a thousand times nicer cornering in the front and not having to worry about braking or dive bombing or any of that foolishness. The trouble was that we would try and keep the pace up through the corners but gaps would open and we would slow down. No good.

Near the end of the race I lost all sense of time. I got into a rhythm of pull, recover, pull , recover and stopped paying attention to lap cards. After pulling off the front one lap I was gasping for air when I heard it announced that we had 3 to go. Because I’m really good at math I thought gee, it’s like 1km per lap, which means we have like 3 or 4 minutes left! I gotta recover!

So I sit in for a lap and lose all sorts of positions. Only like half the starters were still with us and with 2 to go I was on the very back. Geez. I was able to move up to mid way in the group on the little riser but I was hurting.

The bell rings and we’re at 1 to go. I’m half way back on the inside lane looking for an opportunity to move up again on the riser. Ken (Comp Racing) attacks, and everyone responds because it’s the last lap. The pace is too fast and I can’t go anywhere.

We were fortunate that the pavement dried up a lot in the last couple of laps. We went around the corners at good speed with minimal braking for a change. I think Ken may have gotten a gap coming out of turn 2 because I didn’t notice anyone off the front on turn 1. He corners well.

I thought about trying to advance coming down the hill but we were strung out and I was way too far back to get even into the top 10. I also didn’t want to risk dive bombing turn 3 at speeds approaching 40. I saw Ken come around the corner first with a good 30m gap.

Turns out we hit the turn too fast as it was and there was more crashing including the guy directly in front of me. I forget if he washed out or bumped someone else because all the crashes have blurred together for me. I just remember having to turn very tight and that my front tire was about an inch from his head. Yikes.

That crash basically split the bunch in two and I sprinted against some other guy, just off the back of the lead group of ~10. Ken held on to his flyer move to take 5^th overall and 2^nd for the cat4s. Apparently someone in the break crashed out during a last lap attack so only 4 people finished up the road, one of which was a 4. I finished 10/26 for the 3’s.

Fitchburg Longsjo Classic, cat 3

2010-07-06T16:47:00.001-04:00

Ah Longsjo, the Tour de France of New England. With few exceptions, you can count on the top contenders within your category being present, making it a must-do race. What better way to measure your fitness than in a four-day stage race that has a little something for everyone?

This year’s format went Fitchburg State College Circuit Race, Wachusett Road Race, South St TT, and ended with the downtown criterium as usual. It’s different putting the TT on day 3 because the GC is a big mystery. Like 2009, the road race did not end on top of Wachusett, but instead in Princeton Center. I imagine the pure climbers weren’t a very big fan of this. The TT was again on the new fast and flat course where aerodynamics play a huge role. Certainly not a pure strong man’s TT, but personally I like the idea of having a fast man’s race. If you race bikes you should be able to go fast. If you’re strong but can’t go fast, what’s the point of being strong?

Keith signed up last minute, actually after last minute, so I had one teammate for the race. We were both in the same position, sort of lost in the midst of the season without any specific goals for the race. In our pre-race “meeting” we agreed to have no pre-race plan. Sa-weet!

Circuit Race

A ~3-mile loop with the finish line sitting atop a wall. The rest of the course is generally flat or slightly downhill which makes for very high average speeds. Cat 3’s did 9 laps, with points competition sprints on 8,6,4, and 2 to go. That means we were sprinting on lap 1. The wall is pretty short, less than a 1 minute effort, and I generally consider it to be a decent course for me.

Keith and I got right to the front on lap 1. With less than a kilometer before the turn into the wall we were side by side, and I asked Keith if he wanted a leadout. He said sure, so I went to the front and drilled it around the corner and up the first little kicker. I expected someone to have come around me by that point, but it wasn’t until I eased off half way up that anyone did. Unfortunately it wasn’t Keith. I should have paid better attention to who had my wheel. About 5 seconds later the eventual points competition leader, Luke Fortini, came by, and he was reeling in the first guy fast. I wasn’t really interested in the points competition so I didn’t contest it. One more person came by me and I ended up fourth, one place out of the points. Pretty cool for a leadout (albeit a failed one).

That little effort gave me some confidence. I’m sure I wasn’t the strongest person there for the uphill sprint, but I thought I could get a good result with smart positioning and confident cornering. For the remainder of the race I practiced different lines going into the wall and tried to conserve energy.

Fastforward to 2 to go and all heck broke loose. Going through the woods I heard the sound of bikes on pavement. I was happy to be in front of it. There’s something about a crash though that makes everyone nervous and twitchy. Just after that we made the tight turn onto John Fitch Highway and we were lucky not to crash again there. Too much pedaling into the turn followed by hard braking resulted in some creative cornering.

Per usual we sprinted out of the turn and eased off on the downhill. My calf was showing the beginning signs of cramping, so I stood up to stretch it before it became a problem. Just as I did, there was slowing in front of me and before I knew it my front wheel was crossed up. It wasn’t ridiculously overlapped, more just a crossing of tires, but I was knocked way off balance. My weight was shifted way to the right as my tire broke free and I shot to the right side of the peloton. I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but there was an extended period of time where I thought I was going down. I failed to regain my balance I bounced off of at least one other rider. Before I knew it I sideswiped the curb and I fell beautifully onto a soft patch of grass. My ankle hurt like heck and I had a minor amount of rash but I was OK. Quickly checked my bike and started chasing like crazy.

I finished the race about 3 minutes down and out of the GC picture. Keith finished within the lead group so he was our GC man.

My handlebar tape got pretty ripped in the crash. I had just ordered parts to do new bars, cables/housing, and tape so that night I swapped it over. In the future I need to avoid doing this much mechanic work mid-stage race. Being on my feet all evening was not good for recovery.

Road Race

Waking up Saturday morning was brutal. We had a 9AM start, which meant the alarm went off well before 7. When I rolled out of bed my whole body hurt and felt whiplashed, and my legs were especially tight.

The road race is 6 brutal laps around Princeton. The wall itself that leads into Princeton isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but the terrain around it makes it especially tough. A series of three little rollers, with a pitch that probably does exceed 5%, precede the wall. Another steep kicker comes right after the turn in Princeton that is followed by a false flat through the feed zone. All in all it’s one hard effort that’s a lot longer than you might expect.

There was no way I was surviving this race and it really didn’t matter because I was already toast on the GC. My plan was simple: suicide attack when the opportunity arises. Maybe the peloton would let me get away because there’s a long way to go in the stage race. Maybe I would get a few points in the points competition. It was the only sensible plan!

I lined up in sort of the middle, so not that close to the front. Somehow I found myself on the front of the pack in the first mile or so. And wouldn’t you know it, Keith was right there too. There road is pretty narrow for 80 or 90 racers, so it’s easy to be boxed out of the front. I looked around for the green jersey thinking that would be one person that might be interested in early breaks, but he was nowhere to be found. Perfect! Maybe I would be able to get away solo. I turned to Keith, confirmed that we weren’t neutral still, and said cya later as I went on the attack.

For the first minute or two I didn’t look back, just go, go, go. When I finally did, I was slightly surprised to see someone from CLR on my wheel. I hadn’t heard anyone there. Anyone at the front of the field would have known I was attacking after my little conversation with Keith, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise. The field was nowhere in sight. Surely Keith was trying to slow things down.

Boy did he pull through hard. It occurred to me that I had buried myself on a downhill and that it was probably much easier to sit in. We traded a few pulls, like two, before I was skipping pulls. Geez was I smoked. Maybe he understood because he went into a TT position when I didn’t pull through and set a nice tempo. The field seemed to be well out of sight already so I was happy to fall into a more sustainable pace (not that I had a choice).

After another pull or two we made the right turn onto 31 and I couldn’t hold his pace on the first of the rollers. A CLNoonan rider passed me as I went backwards. Shortly later a strung out field ate me up.

What better excuse to get dropped on the first hill than say you got eaten up by a break just before? Sure enough I was off the back around the time we made the turn through Princeton. Oh well, I didn’t really feel like “racing” this race anyways.

Finishing the race at my own pace was a lot harder than I expected. I was so toast by the last lap. I drank 5 bottles of Gatorade and took 4 neutral water feeds. My legs still cramped up so badly I could barely pedal. I lost over 10 minutes to the winner on the last lap and barely finished within the time cut. Ouch!

I wish I could have been there to help Keith who absolutely crushed this race of attrition and scored a 6^th place finish in what had to have been a furious uphill sprint. I was psyched that we had a GC guy. Unfortunately time trialing might be his weakest ability.

Time Trial

I was so destroyed after the road race I couldn’t even think of racing the time trial even thought it was a fast 9-mile rolling course much like the CBTT. It felt like I had hopped in the race after months of being off the bike. Everything hurt. Obviously my legs, but my entire upper body was as tight as could be. My guts also felt like I was going to be sick. I also had a splitting headache. I hadn’t felt this badly in a long long time.

Not really by choice, I did everything you’re supposed to do for recovery. Basically I put on my compression stalking, passed out, woke up to eat, and passed out again. Wowy tired.

12 hours of good sleep can do a lot for you though. I still didn’t feel great, but I felt at least a thousand times better in the morning. My time trial wasn’t until the afternoon so I picked up some lattes from Deisel Café and came back to watch the tour in the dark. Every hour or so I had another bowl of Corn Flakes. It was awesome and I actually felt kinda good when I left for the TT.

I got there early so I could see some of the pros. Time trial setups are so cool. In stage races you get such a wide variety of setups too. As a general observation, it seemed like a lot of people must have had equipment on loan or something. Either that or the wheel rentals business is booming. Seemed like everyone had a disc or at least some sort of deep wheel profile. I also liked the road bikes that had been converted to TT bikes with bullhorns and index shifters. Some serious preparation time went into this race.

Keith got a sweet Fuji C-7 on loan from a teammate that had raced the master’s category. Extremely generous and also very cool considering he was making a run at the GC. We did our best to get him fit in the parking lot but there were only so many changes we could make. The bike was set up just a little too relaxed for my likings. The handlebars needed to go down another inch or so and the elbows needed to come in. Considering it was on loan, we limited the changes to only the saddle. I’m sure it was still a huge help.

As for myself, Tim hooked me up with a sweet sweet HED Stringer disc and a Zipp 1080 on top of it. Normally I would just run my disc cover over my PowerTap wheel and my Edge 1.68 front. Seeing as my PT isn’t working, yet again, I opted for his wheels. Given my recent internal cable routing issue I was a little nervous at first about the shifting on a different cassette, but it worked out OK.

The only other change I made from my 6/30 CBTT setup was that I packed a bag of ice in my skinsuit. It was in the upper 80’s and all I had was a L/S skinsuit. I took the bladder out of my camelback, filled it with ice, then dropped it in the back. No straps or anything, just the tightness of the skinsuit to hold it in place. It was a little lumpy with some of the plastic attachments which might have caused additional drag, but it also seemed to line up with my helmet better. Who knows without a power meter.

I was the third cat3 to go seeing as I was 3^rd to last in the GC. My poor 30 second man had no aero gear and I passed him by the SRAM tent maybe 2 or 3 miles in. Coming down the long downhill leading into the causeway I could see my 1 minute man. I didn’t have a CPU so I don’t know how fast I was going, but I was turning the 53x11 at a good clip so it wasn’t too slow. Again approaching the turnaround I was in the 53x11 and I backed off big time knowing that it would be a grind coming back.

Around the turn turnaround cone I was super conservative. I wonder how much time you can make up or lose there? I sprinted back up to speed and caught my 1 minute man shortly after.

After that I was at the front of the 3’s and had a motorcycle escort in front of me. That made for a good carrot as I kept trying to get in its slipstream. Much to my dismay, the official didn’t let that happen.

The wind was out of the west and the hill after the causeway felt easy. It wasn’t a true tailwind but it did seem to help here. I didn’t need to go any higher than the 53x17 or 19.

I was tired at the finish but didn’t blow up or anything and had enough gas left to sprint up the final kicker to the finish line. It certainly wasn’t an earth shattering effort or anything but OK for a TT Probably on par with the 22:48 CBTT effort I did on 6/30. If I had to guess I’d say it was around 3.5 W/kg.

I had one little issue with the sweet disc wheel. When I sprinted out of the start it shifted slightly in the dropouts. The wide C-2 profile rubbed ever so slightly against my chainstays. Throughout the race I thought I had a brake pad rubbing.

My finishing time was 20:56 which put me in 38^th place at +1:56 and right in the thick of things for the 3’s. A lot of 3’s finished around that time. Just 20 seconds faster would have put me in 23^rd. Another minute would have bagged a top 10. All things considered I was pretty pleased with that.

Keith did a 21:24 which really shattered his GC hopes, dropping him all the way down to 30^th or something. The crit was going to be purely for a stage result.

Criterium

I felt good Monday morning. I think it really helps that I can’t seem to TT at much better than 90 or 95% of lactic threshold power. 20 minutes at that kind of an effort is almost like doing openers. The day after a TT always seems to be a good workout.

But geez almighty was it hot out on Monday. We parked on this garage with white pavement and I was absolutely boiling before I finished kitting up. I had planned on riding the trainer for warmup but just kitting up was enough for me. I couldn’t take it.

My plan was simply to sit in and sprint for the finish. The course has two long straightaways with a 180 degree turn 1, and two back to back 90 degree turns 3 and 4. It’s a little over 200m sort of false flat uphill on the finishing straight. It’s rare that breakaways succeed on this course.

During the early laps I was sitting in the first third or so, but by mid race I was more in the back third. I wanted to race the second half in the front in case anything happened. Trouble was its harder racing in the back on this course. It’s much smoother and easier at the front. When we got to the half way point I was losing interest in moving up. It didn’t help that it was over 90F.

Luckily I did carry a water bottle for cooling and pouring that over my head and back made all the difference. It still wasn’t easy to move to the front. We were strung out for several laps around the mid point of the race. It wasn’t until 7 or 8 to go that we eased off enough that I could move up significantly without crushing myself.

Once in the top 20 my only job was to stay there. Keith was in there too. I started feeling stronger and stronger as riding at the front was noticeably easier.

With 4 to go our motorbike neutralized and stopped us completely. Not for too long, but for at least a minute I think. I was pretty frustrated by that because I was being swarmed after I had just made a good move to get to the front. Oh well though. I’m sure the officials had a good reason for stopping us and it was a safety first deal.

So we had a fresh start with 3 miles to go in the Longsjo Stage Race. Picture 80 rested dudes chomping at the bit with about 7 minutes to race.

Terrifying.

Just half a lap after the restart we were coming down the back downhill straightaway and everyone felt good and was trying to move up. I was forced into the far right lane which was not where I wanted to be. In fact, the only place I would have been OK with was on the front. Even being on the inside lane you’d likely end up getting dive bombed.

And then, just as I was worrying about how sketchy the upcoming turn would be, the guy 2 wheels in front of me went sideways. I haven’t a clue what happened. We were flying, and the guy in front of me ran into him and went over the handlebars. For a split second I thought about bunny hopping as going left or right or slow down didn’t seem to be an option. I didn’t have a prayer though and I added to the pile. Having just crashed on Friday I was well rehearsed and able to do a tuck and roll that would make Jet Li proud, landing on my left lat. After rolling to a stop I curled into a ball and hoped no one would hit me and luckily no one did.

Once again I got up, quickly inspected my bike, and finished the race. We were only 3 laps to go at that point and I couldn’t get a free lap. Huge bummer.

Keith stayed to the front and out of trouble and finished respectably in the top 20.

Summary

Another Longsjo in the books for me although it was certainly not what I had in mind. I guess some races are just not meant to be. I’m still a little in shock about crashing twice. The last time I’d crashed was April 2008. I’m lucky to just have general soreness with some scrapes and cuts. I’m also lucky that my bike had next to no damage. Apparently Specialized Tarmacs are really good at crashing.

Time to rest up and try again.

On the Eve of Longsjo

2010-07-01T10:48:00.006-04:00

What a great week this is in New England for bike racing. The only times I ride my bike is in a race or to get coffee. How great is that? If the races were longer you might call that building fitness, but these races are all short so it’s really more of a peak. On second thought, forget those terms, how about we just call it action-packed fun week?

Longsjo is tomorrow and I am excited. I didn’t really care for this race back in 2008 (GASP, I SAID IT) but then they did away with the TT that no one could possibly like, as well as the grind to the top of Wawa. Those were my 2 least favorite parts of the race. Now we have a true flat TT and sort of an Ardennes Classics style road race. Much better!

I promised more race reports this week with the whole 7 races in 9 days thing, but the problem with that is I’m always racing or working. Tuesday was Exeter Criterium and Wednesday was the CBTT, and for various reasons I don’t have a whole lot of details about them, making this easy, so let’s do it.

Exeter Criterium Pro/Am

Ever have one of those races where nothing goes right? That’s how this one will go down in the books for me, and here’s why:

1) 1) Sitting in heavy 128 traffic worrying about missing your start causes stress

2) 2) I forgot to bring water with me, but luckily internet celebrity Dave bailed me out

3) 3) I didn’t eat enough and got hungry, but luckily we parked next to a sweet bakery

4) 4) I forgot to bring sunglasses and gloves

5) 5) Landen pointed out that I had excessive stubble on my legs

6) 6) My metal chainstay protector fell off during warmup and got jammed in my chainring/chain

7) 7) Lining up at the back of a pro/am crit is bad for your confidence

8) 8) Getting caught behind a crash on lap 3 and having to chase back on is tiring

9) 9) Could more people have possibly flatted in front of me? (as least I didn’t flat)

10 10) I’m not strong enough to close gaps over and over and over

And that guy on the front wearing an iamtedking jersey was doing 30mph all day long I got dropped after about 20 minutes. I was mad because I felt like I should have been able to hang. This stupid stuff got me all flustered and I started riding like a triathlete in a cat5 crit. Sprinting out of turns way longer than I should be and then braking because I overdid it, over and over. So much wasted energy, so stupid. I deserved to be shelled. It was a good experience though.

Anyways, back to my comfort zone…

Charlie Baker Time Trial

It was certainly debatable whether or not it was smart to do the CBTT on Wednesday with Longsjo starting on Friday. From a training stress point of view it doesn’t seem bad to me. My total ride time was a whopping 35 minutes. Sure, 23 minutes of that is at threshold, but something about the TT bike never really feels very draining. It might just be a mental thing due to the fact that I can’t seem to TT at anything more than hard tempo power. During the effort it hurts, but it’s a weird hurt and I usually feel fine about an hour later. I don’t think doing the CBTT will cost me anything at Longsjo, and it was nice to have a final tune up, but I might have to reevaluate this statement next Tuesday.

In each of the 3 previous CBTTs I’ve done this year I’ve gotten slower and slower. I set my PR on a fast night but with record low watts. That night was the maiden voyage for my TT bike and my aerobars slipped forward. That slippage probably contributed to the low watts. However, I also think it contributed to the fast time by inadvertently increasing my aeroness.

Last week I moved my saddle setback much closer to my road position and found that to be much more comfortable. I didn’t have power data but I was slow that night. My handlebars were also higher.

This week I went the opposite direction. I kept my saddle in the near-road position (eyeballing it of course) but I lowered my handlebars to about 1 click below where I had them on the first night. I was worried this would pinch off my hip angle but it felt fine rolling around. Better than a stupid steep saddle position for sure.

I’m beginning to think your hip angle is something that only tri geeks and TT specialists should worry about. I’m not saying that they’re wrong, but there’s definitely this whole adaptation thing you need to consider. There seems to be very little info out there on how to approach your TT fit if you’re not riding the TT bike a lot. It might be one of those things that varies a lot from person to person but for me, I need my saddle position close to my road bike (~7.5cm setback). Otherwise I’m working all the wrong muscles, sort of like a less extreme version of running.

Once again I had no power data. I’ve barely been riding with my Powertap lately since I don’t have one on my race wheels and I forgot to fix it after last week’s problem. This week it was just 0 watts from the start, so I didn’t get fooled or even have to worry about it. I just paced myself by feel and speed. The downside is that I can’t evaluate my aeroness.

It was a windy night. Talking about wind on any previous night this year seemed totally insignificant compared to this week. But it was out of the west, so lots of crosswinds going to Carlisle and on Monument St and a fabulous tailwind on 225. My CBTT model suggests this would only be 5 seconds slower relative to a perfectly calm night. If the same wind was out of the east (instead of the west), it would be a whopping 36 seconds slower. Don’t expect fast times on nights where the wind is out of the east.

I got to the Carisle Rotary in 10:07, which is the third time this year that’s been my split. Coming down 225 was incredible. I was barely pedaling down that hill and doing over 35mph. Hooray tailwind.

No matter what, I always always always blow up on Monument Road. Tonight I tried something a bit different. Instead of trying to power over the rollers, especially the little hill by the town line, I kept a much more steady power output. I did slow down noticeably more, like 16.6mph by the town line, but I think it was better. It wasn’t any slower (speed-wise, not power-wise) and I felt much less pain. Win win! I felt at least 10x better going over the top of the last hill.

My official finish time was 22:48. My computer had me at 22:35 and I have no idea why that’s so far off. Either way, I figure 22:48 is 16 seconds faster than my 22:48 on May 26 if you normalize the weather conditions. I’m pretty happy with this because it was actually a somewhat enjoyable TT. No funny pains or anything like that. Heck, I even forgot to use chamois cream! Hopefully I can find one more gear for a special effort at Longsjo.

Keith Berger Criterium, cat 3

2010-06-29T10:13:00.001-04:00

Seven races in nine days began Sunday at the Keith Berger Criterium in East Hartford, CT. This is the heart of the New England racing season. Also this week we have Exeter Criterium, the last CBTT to tune up for Longsjo, and of course the Longsjo itself.

Keith Berger offered a straight cat3 field in a 30-lap race around a 4-corner loop that is supposedly 1-mile per lap. Given that we finished in an hour and 2 minutes, I’m skeptical that we really did 30 miles with a 29mph average. Maybe it's only 0.9 miles per lap, something like that.

51 starters in this race. I took a warmup lap after the 4’s finished and nearly missed the start. They were really running the races quickly. Lining up at the back is no big deal here thanks to the nice wide corners. I made my way to the front with minimal effort by the end of lap 2.

The first few laps were sketchy as everyone was feeling out the turns. So much unnecessary braking. This probably made it easier to move up.

Green Line Velo (GLV) took charge of the early primes and set up nice leadout trains for Moran. I was more interested in a result today than prime hunting and my gameplan was to conserve in the first half of this relatively long cat3 crit. However, when the prime bell rang for the second time on lap 7 I found myself right behind GLV. They organized quickly and set the pace at the front of the field.

What made GLV’s leadout successful wasn’t so much overwhelming power on the straights, but a complete lack of fear on the corners. We didn’t slow down a bit and used every inch of the road. As a result, there was no swarming going into the corners.

I was glued to Moran’s wheel from turn 1 and wasn’t being challenged at all for the position. His final leadout man started fading as we approached turn 4, but it didn’t matter because there is little space between turns 3 and 4. I was waiting for Moran to jump and thought he might go before we made turn 4. I was ready for a move, but he didn’t go. Coming out of turn 4 it’s a ~250m dash for the line and still nothing. I was confused and hesitated, and I think he was just executing the same strategy as me: don’t be the first to jump.

With less than 200m to go I pulled up alongside Moran and he finally started to kick. We were neck and neck, but he was just holding me off by half a bike length. It felt like I was stuck just that little distance behind and couldn’t do anything about it. My cadence felt high, maybe it was too high, I’m not sure. It seemed like I was missing that good sprinting snap and I was frustrated to lose the sprint.

I looked back after the prime and we had a pretty sizeable gap. Maybe the leadout caused separation in the field. Instead of easing of entirely I settled in to a tempo pace, maintaining my gap and hoping a counter attack might go off.

Sure enough, a two man break came up and joined me around turn 3. It was Eric Brassel (545) and someone that I didn’t recognize. This move was short lived as a strung out field reeled us in shortly after.

I was a bit tired after that little dig and had a nice rest in the field. Before long I was pretty near the back where I came across Greg Vigneaux (Gearworks). He seemed to be having tea time or something and was more than happy to have a conversation and share a few laughs. Not really a crit racer, at all, but he was obviously planning some sort of breakaway so I made note of it and got back to racing. Is it rude to walk away from conversation at the back of the peloton?

Wow were there lots of primes. Seemed like there was a prime every 3 laps or so. I was a bit discouraged after losing the one prime I went for so I kept focused on the finish.

The primes did make the race faster and harder, and at some point a significant break of 6 got free. Gearworks got two in the move, including Greg, and so was a larger team in red kits that I am unfamiliar with (fusionthink maybe?).

It looked like a good break to me and I wanted in. The field was making a bit of an effort to bring it back but we really weren’t making much ground on it. A small group of 3 attacked up the far side of the road to try and bridge, and I hopped on that attack. We had a gap on the field and made it about half way to the lead group but we were dieing. A strong rider pulled off and we immediately slowed down so I attacked hard and pulled someone else with me. I made up about half the remaining distance but my legs said no more.

The break was not meant to be and fell apart on the next prime. I think 3 guys went for it while the others kept working for the breakaway.

With 7 to go we were gruppo compacto and there seemed to be no fight left in the bunch. We slowed way down. I considered countering but I liked my odds in a bunch sprint more. I suppose everyone thought they were Mark Cavendish. I wasn’t under a bit of pressure and my legs felt like new when we hit the bell lap.

On the final lap I took turn 1 tight and moved way up into 4^th or 5^th wheel, slotting in behind a few Bethel jerseys. It seemed like a great position at the time.

Before the race internet cycling celebrity Dave Chiu advised me to secure a good position in turn 3. I was 4^th wheel at the start of the backstraight and I thought I had nailed it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There might as well have been a finish line drawn on the pavement half way through turn 3. I was sitting there, 4^th wheel, right in the middle of the road, when cyclists starting flying around me on both sides. It was like I was on the loser Garmin leadout train on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées with 2 HTC Columbia trains overtaking me on either side. We flew into turn 4 at maximum speed, five riders wide. This was the most terrifying moment of the season for me.

What happened between turn 3 and the finish was a blur. I wanted to be on the inside for safety’s sake, but that wasn’t an option because fourteen million racers dive bombed it. I really made out OK all things considered, and I was able to sprint up the outside after turn 4 into a nice clear lane.

Once again my legs refused to go on the sprint. I made up a few positions because somehow I finished 13^th, but I didn’t have anywhere near the explosiveness that I wanted. To rub salt in the wound, Luke Fortini showed me how it’s done and absolutely smoked me, sprinting from behind me in turn 4 all the way to 7^th. That’s the second time this season he’s made me feel slow (see Turtle Pond). Very impressive anyways.

Tonight I’m off to Exeter for the downtown Pro/Am crit. I feel strong but hopefully these crits will put some snap back in my legs before Longsjo. Otherwise it’s going to be a pretty uneventful race. Stay tuned.

Charlie Baker Time Trial, 6/24

2010-06-24T12:24:00.003-04:00

Another hot night at the CBTT. 85°F come race time. Wind was calm, and if I could keep the power good, I expected it would be a fast night. As long as I could stand the heat of course.

That was a big if though. I’ve felt lousy the past couple of weeks. My most recent cycle of antibiotics really hit me hard, but at least it finally took out whatever kind of infection I had. Oddly, it left my leg and foot swollen, and my doctor says I should just wear compression tights. Beats me. Hopefully I’ll start having a bit more energy sooner than later.

Fitness has really gone down since KSR. I’m kind of at the point where I download my power files but don’t log them. It’s too painful seeing your weekly volume numbers at 75% of where you’d like them. Once I start feeling like I’m crushing it again I’ll have to log it all. This is far from the ideal leadup to Longsjo.

On a much more positive note, I think I mostly fixed a major shifting issue on my De Rosa TT bike. For KSR I had sort of a makeshift solution with an external cable running all the way from the shifter to the rear derailleur. The internal routing had some weird sort of slop in it. As the cable tension increases, something internally compresses which means the derailleur doesn’t move and no shifty shifty. Argh!

It’s been a while since I’ve read setup directions for a rear derailleur so I don’t know if this is “right”, but normally I just shift into the 11T, pull the cable tight, and lock it down. Takes 2 seconds.

Ended up doing the entirely opposite approach with the TT bike. I forced the rear derailleur into the easy gear (big cog) position, then took a pair of pliers and tightened the living heck out of the cable before locking it down. The idea was to compress whatever is moving around internally. It took a few tries, I had to ask Erica for help because I didn’t have enough hands, and I still had to back the fine adjustment dial way out after locking it down, but I think I created enough cable tension to compress whatever slop there is inside the frame.

And it KIND OF works! Sure, there are plenty of times where I shift up or down and nothing happens, but if that happens I just shift again and it’s all good. I had this problem with the externally routed housing solution so I think I’m just going to go with it. Maybe it’ll get broken in over time. If nothing else I’m happy that it looks like a normal bike now. TT bikes look FAST.

So yeah, this is a race report, because I did a race. Well the bike setup and lead up to the race is about the most interesting part because my Powertap went way out of calibration for some reason and I got bad data. I averaged 84 watts! At least I hope that’s incorrect… Kind of annoying because I just shelled out $300 to Saris to get this thing overhauled.

I probably went out too hard. I glimpsed down a time or two after accelerating up to speed to make sure I wasn’t doing 400W or something (which seem to happen all the time). It read two hundred and something so I thought I was all good. That might have been a legit reading but I don’t know. Who cares. What I do know was that I hurt pretty early on. It’s a TT though so it’s supposed to hurt. I looked down again around 5 minutes in and I was doing 120W. Sweet. Time to go by feel.

Gary Jas-ican’tspellit started a minute behind me and passed me just after the Carlisle rotary. He ended up going sub-21 so that makes sense but it was still frustrating at the time. My split at the rotary was low 10’s, which is right on target, and I generally thought my speed was decent so who cares what the watts were.

I always seem to blow up around that stair step hill on Monument Road at the town line about 15 minutes in. That’s where it starts to hurt really really badly anyways. Keeping my speed over that hill always sends me into the red enough that I’m backing way off on the gradual downhills that follow. One of these days I might want it badly enough that I keep pedaling hard here. Today was not that day and I was slowwwwwwwww.

It was probably a good thing I didn’t have a power meter because I’m sure I was barely pedaling. It was like I was TRYING to go slow by the time I crested that final hill. You really need to power over the top to get your speed up again but I pretty much sat up instead. No fight in me. I gotta get this feeling lousy thing out of my head so I want to go fast again.

I finished in 23:22, 25.0 mph. Slowest time of the year but that’s still 16 seconds than my best time in 2009. Hooray aero gear! At least I have that going for me. There’s no way my average was above 260W today (3.56w/kg).

One other thing I totally forgot about until now. I forgot to bring a water bottle with me today! Keep in mind it was 85 out and I wore a long sleeve skin suit. Boy was I thirsty Good thing there’s a water fountain at the restrooms. I wonder if anyone thought it was weird that I kept pulling off to go to the bathrooms before the race?

Wild Goose Chase Canoe Race

2010-06-23T16:07:00.001-04:00

Sunday was Father’s Day and I was back to Pittsfield. Not that my bike racing readers care much, but there was canoe race only 5 minutes away! We’re talking a real deal, legit USCA race… the Wild Goose Chase Canoe Race! Catchy huh? Canoe racing is awesome.

A couple of notes about canoe racing from the perspective of someone that does 50 bike races a year:

Canoe racers are built upside down
My entry fee was $15 for a 90 minute race
I got a T-shirt and post-race meal for no additional charge
There were 5 specators
My 18 foot canoe cost less than the front wheel of my bike
I couldn’t measure my watts

I raced in a C-1 canoe. That means I was by myself. A lot of people race in ‘C-2’ 2-man boats or a K-1 kayak. When I last did the Run of the Charles I was told that C-1’s were a class that was fading away. That might make me old school, which sounds kinda cool, but I think you can only be old school if you’re fast. I’m not fast. My arms were tired just taking the boat off the car. Roadie.

Dad and Shawn registered as a C-2 open team. The nice lady at registration asked me what kind of boat I had, and I told her a C-1. Then she asked me how old I was and I said 28. She told me that I would be in the C-1 under 50 category. Interesting!

Canoe races start in waves. Today, the cheaters I MEAN ICF kayaks go first, because they are ridiculously fast and are like motor doping. Then 2 waves of C-2’s go off then it’s time for the C-1’s. Because we are slow and everyone else needs a head start to avoid a demolition derby. How boring.

So we’re sitting around waiting to start and there are 7 of us C-1’s. Two of us (including myself) have any color at all left in our hair and between the two of us, I was the only one with male genital. Guess what that means? C-1 male 50&under champion by default baby!

But there was still racing to be done. It was a nine mile race on the twisty Housatonic river in an out and back format. Lots of turns, which means lots crashing and lots of fun. Secretly I was hoping that my brother and Dad would swamp there but which would allow me to make up the 4 minute deficit on them so we could duke it out.

The whistle goes off and our wave of boats charged ahead for the holeshot. I did not get it. Of the 7 boats in our wave, I was 7^th. We stayed a pack for about 1 minute, then I was like OGM I CAN’T GO ZONE 6 FOR 90 MINUTES and I stopped “sprinting.” Then I got dropped by all the greybeards. I was not even close to staying with them. Boy those guys can move.

I kinda sorta kept the female in our wave in sight, but I think that mostly due to taking risks on the corners. I was taking a tight inside line as much as possible. The risk is that you’ll hit shallow water and come screeching to a halt in suck water. Or even worse you’ll hit rocks. She was being all conservative in her line picking while I was being mostly aggressive. You know, because I’m a competitive canoe racer. So I was actually close to not being dead last. Then we hit a straightaway and she was like CYA SUCKER. Then I was dead last and couldn’t see anybody and didn’t feel like I was racing anymore. Dad and Shawn are about as good as I am, which is not good at all, and I only caught a glimpse of them at the turnaround point. Otherwise it was like a canoe racing time trial.

My hands got torn apart before I could do too much damage to my upper body so I wasn’t even really that sore after the race. It’s just my hands that hurt with lots of blisters and even those aren’t all bad. Oh well, at least I’m the 2010 Goose Chase C-1 Under 50 Champion! (even though I finished 20 minutes back!)

Purgatory Road Race, cat3

2010-06-23T15:26:00.002-04:00

Purgatory was a new race on the calendar for 2010 and the course was in an area I’d never ridden around before, south of Worcester in Sutton, MA. Mapmyride showed the maximum gradient to be 4% but I’ve been fooled by those jokers before and knew better this time. I focused on this finishing climb thing and I eventually decided it was about a 2.5 minute climb. Not too bad, even if it’s steep. I knew I wouldn’t be winning any sprint to the top of it but I figured maybe I could launch some glorious solo move in the style of classics great Philippe Gilbert. Yeah, in my dreams…

The ruler of the internet should delete MapMyRide. Even though I wasn’t fooled by the finishing climb, I totally underestimated the rest of the course. With the exception of maybe 1 mile, the entire 10 mile loop is either up or down. I think you should be able to tell this by looking at an elevation profile, but the mapmyride profile looks gentle and loving.

Not knowing the course is no excuse, and I don’t really blame mapmyride, I was just totally not in the right mindset for what was coming. There were 50 of us or so in the 3 field and all heck broke loose the second the neutral start ended. I knew there was some sort of tiny riser right at the start of the lap but I didn’t think anything of it. Well WAKE UP LEGS, tiny little risers hurt when you sprint up them! Especially on mile 1 of 50.

After that riser we immediately go into a fast and twisty descent through thick woods with shade making for extreme level of contrast. I went from wondering why I was pedaling so hard to thinking I was going to run into a tree. Yikes, but that is OK because we are bike racers and this is what we do. Need to focus.

I start getting in the zone and moving up a bit. We go around a 90 degree turn sprint out of it and then hammer up some riser.

On the other side of that hill is some rough pavement, another 90 degree turn, and again we’re sprinting. Maybe I misread the flyer and the race is really 5 miles and not 50.

I could go on but I’ll just let you reread those previous 3 paragraphs a few times instead. Up, down, turn sprint, yadda yadda yadda. Why am I breathing so hard? My legs feel funny. We’re not even at the first hill yet. What’s going on here?!

That’s not all true, because at some point there WAS about a mile of flat road and we went slow there. Except when the field eased off I rolled up to the front . And when I say rolled I mean 0 rpm cadence, 0 watts, no one wanted to be on front. I figured 0 watts is 0 watts so whatever dude I’ll take the reigns here. I did pedal a few times on the flats though. It felt easy, recovery like, but who knows. If I had a Jesus meter it probably would have said I was cranking it and I’d feel badly now. But then again I couldn’t have been pedaling too hard because a lot of juniors got impatient and attacked. First one, then two, then a third, and all of the sudden we were all chasing it down. Strung out, single file, working hard.

All of the sudden there’s a lake to my left, and shortly after we’re turning right. Lackey Road! The finishing climb! I said heck with mapmyride and your 4% grade and grabbed my little ring. That was the best decision I made all day. Boy that was steep. The thick trees, the gradient, the turns, it all reminded me of Prospect Hill repeats in Waltham. The gradient backs off ever so slightly after each turn but the length of the climb is hidden.

I made it to the top of the climb intact with the group but mostly because I started at the front and sag climbed. There’s a short little downhill after the top before a long false flat across the finish. I was breathing hard and thought I was good for a moment, but then some clown decided to pedal hard and we were strung out again.

This is where doing vo2 intervals and over/unders all becomes worthwhile. Your heart rate is pegged, lactic acid is poisoning your veins, and you have to keep pedaling. Not super hard but hard enough to stay intact. Hopefully it’s somewhere right around threshold or preferably slightly easier so you can recover. I’ve been good at this in 2010 and I haven’t been getting dropped as a result.

It hurts like heck to keep going like this and I just didn’t have it in me today. I was totally blown and got shelled right at the finish line. I haven’t blown up like this all season and I’d forgotten how awful it feels. At Battenkill and Killington I was able to back off just before this point knowing that I could chase back on if I didn’t go too deep into the red.

So I took my lap of shame and that was pretty much all she wrote. I made a wrong turn because I was too anaerobic on the first lap and couldn’t remember where the course went. I also got my picture taken a lot. I started to take a third lap because the course is downhill and easy when you have to make that decision, but then I turned off the course after some awful riser. Then I got lost until I found some sign for a demolished old restaurant called Blue Jay’s or something that we passed on our neutral start. But somehow I was totally OK with all this because it was nice out and I wasn’t racing in the rain again and that was kinda sorta fun somehow. And because I had convinced myself that everyone in the cat3’s is motor doping except me.

Oh yeah, people usually come here looking for info about courses, and I'm sure this race will be no different. I think this race is a lot like the Bow Road Race (which is no more). Or maybe like an Ardennes Classic, or at least how they look on TV. Not really a pure climbers course, not for the sprinter, but a master of attrition with a kick. A strongman escapee specialist would probably like this course too.

The end.

Northampton 5k

2010-06-09T13:35:00.002-04:00

My brother was in town this week and I’m battling some stupid antibiotics, so it seemed like a good time to celebrate my annual “Remind Me Why I Don’t Run” day. Both brothers were doing the Northampton 5k series, a race I used to frequent back before bicycles, so I talked Andrew into making the trip with me. It took little convincing because the post-race agenda was to hit up Wings Over Amherst. If you’ve been there you understand.

Anyways, yeah, there was a running race, and I had to do that before our feast. This race is great. A $4 entry includes mid-race water support and all the cookies, bananas, popsicles, etc that you can consume post-race. Not to mention the people that run it are some of the nicest folk I’ve ever met and they’ve been at it since I first discovered the race 11 years ago. I’ve done lots of races of various types and this one is in a class of its own.

The only problem is that IT IS A RUNNING RACE. Meaning no bicycles, no wheels, no gliding. I felt so confused. During signups you have to predict your time. At the end of the day the person that is closest to predicting their time wins some free entries. I thought I was hot stuff, so I said 21:30, thinking that 7 minute miles didn’t sound too bad. After that I “warmed up” by running approximately 300 meters. My calves were super tight after that little jaunt. 7 minute miles suddenly seemed like a heck of a goal. Also checked out my racer history (which they keep on index cards in shoe boxes, awesome) and I’ve run 24 minutes like 20 times there. Somehow I remembered myself being a faster runner than that. Might explain why I can’t climb on a bike.

Obviously I needed to line up near the front so I could get a good start. You know, because I’m a serious runner and all and I need to get a good time. I thought I was being modest by putting myself in the third row. Brother Todd went on the front row but he’s actually a real runner.

I assume the position like I’m about to run a 800m or something and wait for the starter to shout GO. He says go, and I react as quickly as possible.

2 seconds later I’m in second place, and the only person in front of me is my brother. What the heck! It’s like no one else was even trying to go fast. Come on people! Don’t you want the holeshot?!

Todd got a gap of 10m before we made the turn 100m in. I was so confused. It didn’t FEEL like we were running fast and I felt like I was holding back tremendously. We go down a little hill and I try to settle in around 5^th place or so. Doesn’t feel so bad. Then we do some flats. OK, that’s a little fast, so I back off just a hair and fall back to 10^th place. No big deal.

Then we go up a steep hill. Of course I crush it because I’m a roadie and all. Recovering is what I do! At the top of the hill I think OGM WHERE ARE MY WHEELS HOW DO I COAST.

People start passing me. Lots of them. My legs hurt but that’s the least of my worries. I get that lactic acid feeling all through my body. Even in my arms and back. I cross the first mile marker in 6:30 which is roughly a 20 minute 5k pace.

I start doing highly complex mental math. It feels like rocket science stuff but that’s just because my brain has 2% oxygen. I figure that I’ve run exactly 1 mile so far in 2010, and I just did that 1 mile about 10 seconds ago. Miles 2 and 3 for 2010 are coming right up! Oh boy!

By the half way point I feel like death. My stomach is cramped, I can’t expand my lunges, my arms are heavy, and I’m pretty sure my stride is half the length of what it was in the first mile. My legs felt like they were shriveling up like raisins.

Brother Shawn passes me soon after. I figured he would run 22:30 so that means I’m already a minute off pace. How did I go from being 30 seconds ahead of pace to 1 minute behind pace in half a mile?!

Shawn is not your classic tiny runner type, so I catch his wheel to do some sweet DRAFTING. Oh wait, right, running, no wheels. But I did read in a book once that runners draft each other. Obviously this is the solution to all my problems and my day will soon be salvaged.

Yeah right.

I dig a little deep trying to stay with him and get right back into the red zone. All of the sudden I’m reminded of this WALL just after the 2 mile mark. The wall is OK but it nearly kills me to keep going. Couldn’t breathe to save my life.

The last mile felt like I was dropped on App Gap and overtaken by the juniors field and then the women’s field. It was like I wasn’t moving and everyone else was all fresh and happy and going by me like Contador. What the heck! I hate running!

So because my brothers finished in front of me that gave them the right to heckle me on the last 200m run into the finish. A well deserved benefit of finishing in front of someone. Shawn yells SPRINT SPRINT HE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU. Silly Shawn, obviously I checked behind me six hundred times before the finish stretch so I could make sure that I could jog in as slowly as possible.

I finish in just about 24 minutes even. +2:30 from my prediction. Ouch. This is where I say running is so stupid. I could blame it on my legs and back hurting, my legs felt torn apart too. Like, I could barely walk around after. My muscles had that horrible ripped apart feeling that you only get when you’re super out of shape. Apparently cycling doesn’t help running muscles at all.

Today I’m so sore that I still can’t walk normally. What the heck?! 24 minutes is only like 36 TSS, that should be no sweat! Somehow riding my bike in this morning felt sort of OK, so maybe I will try and ride still tonight.

That was a real shock to find out just how specific my training has gotten. I still can’t run any faster than before. I’ll have to think twice before I do anything stupid involving running again. I'd have to say annual “Remind Me Why I Don’t Run” day was a huge success.

Post-race at Wings was awesome because the wings are awesome and so are these:

Charlie Baker Time Trial, 6/3

2010-06-03T10:11:00.005-04:00

I’m on a rest week here after Killington and the only intensity I have planned was the CBTT. Only 4 more weeks until Fitchburg, so might as well work on the TT position. Hopefully 2 TT workouts per week until then will have me dialed in.

Based on my recent results and power, I think my position has some sort of magical aeroness to it. I would not expect 3.5 W/kg LT efforts to yield very good results for a cat3, but somehow they’re not bad. This has me almost a little afraid to make any big adjustments, even though I haven’t even had this bike on a trainer even once to do a proper fitting.

That being said I did lower my saddle by ~0.75cm for last night. At KSR the saddle height was set based on the assumption that I’d be doing most of my pedaling on the nose of the saddle. If I pushed back on the seat the saddle height was obviously too high. It irritated me feeling locked into that one position. I think this is just a sign that I need to spend more time on the bike.

This week I once again targeted 285W for average power. I checked the PT computer several times in the first few minutes to make sure I wasn’t going too hard, but went by feel after the 5 minute mark. How is it that 300W feels so easy early on and so hard at the end?

Not one mile into the course I see Dave Chiu doing a 180 up the road. He said he was doing tempo intervals tonight and not racing. Sure enough, I pass him and suddenly I have someone sucking my wheel for the next 20 minutes… sweet! At first I thought, is he on my wheel? I can’t tell… That soon changed to: must… keep… pedaling… hard…. And as the pain built and built it progressed to: must drop this joker on the next hill! Dave, next time you need to bring a flip camera or something so my readers can have a youtube clip of my backside to watch for 20 minutes.

I finished in 23:08 officially, with 270W AP and 279W NP. My estimated time at standard weather conditions is 22:55, which is actually faster than last week’s 22:58. If you could deal with the heat last week, the low air density and favorable wind conditions sure made it fast.

Obviously the higher NP (and AP) should result in a faster time, but 3 seconds faster doesn’t seem like much. My estimated CdA last week was 0.228 (236W to go 40 kph) which is pretty darn slippery for someone 6’1” 74kg on a relatively low budget. This week it seemed to have slipped slightly to 0.235 (243W to go 40 kph). This could be due to my handlebars not slipping during the race, which lowered my forearms but also my elbows and shoulders. It could also be due to my slightly lower saddle position, which opened up my chest slightly. There really wasn’t anything about this week’s position that would have been faster, other than maybe a conscious effort to keep my head in the right position, so this isn’t totally unexpected.

By not looking at the power meter I was a lot more variable in my output. As you can see in Figure 1, even early on I was resting on downhills at 200W while punching the uphills at closer to 350W. The slope of the trend line in Figure 3 is 1472 which is a lot higher than the typical 1000-1200 values I usually see. Was it faster? I’m not sure. It did make my VI (NP ÷ AP) a lot higher than I usually see in a TT. VI is also affected by poor pacing, but this week appeared to be pretty typical in that respect. Maybe I need to start making a number to quantify this.

I thought that the lower saddle position felt a lot more comfortable, so I was disappointed when I finished and saw the AP only at 270W. I thought it would be closer to 280W, especially with Nacho drafting and heckling me (with his MIND, he didn't actually say anything) the entire time. The one other factor I haven’t mentioned, because it’s borderline inappropriate, is the lack of skin on my saddle area. I also ran out of chamois cream tonight, so that was an area of extreme discomfort. Maybe I’ll get some magical watts when that heals.

Killington Stage Race

2010-06-01T14:55:00.001-04:00

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone which means the New England stage races are upon us. Killington Stage Race is back on the calendar for the first time in years and in 2010 was the first of several high quality stage races.

This year’s cat3 edition was made up of 3 stages in 3 days, including what I would consider to be a moderately hilly 72 mile circuit race, a slightly uphill point-to-point 17 km time trial, and a 61 mile queen stage with 2 major climbs. Absent from the race was a criterium.

In addition to the general classification competition were sprint and KOM competitions. 30 sprint points were up for grabs on Stage 1 and only 6 on Stage 3. For the KOM, 20 points were available on Stage 1 and 32 on Stage 3. No points were available in the time trial.

There were not a lot of big teams in the cat3’s. Onion River Racing had 4 and was the only team with more than 3 racers. NEBC was lucky to field 2, with Keith having to deal with all sorts of moving issues the week of the race. Exhausted and off his game, he showed up ready to race. I was pumped to have a teammate.

Stage 1 – Circuit Race

Four laps, 18 miles per lap, and one KOM and one Sprint on each lap. I wasn’t at all familiar with the course and was a little worried about how serious the KOM hill would be. The GMSR circuit race climbs have historically given me trouble, but I’m also climbing a lot better these days. I didn’t need to be strong up the hill and at the front over the KOM, just strong enough to be able to stay attached after thrashing my legs in the sprint every lap.

For some reason I thought there was no chance of rain this weekend and brought no rain gear and very little cold weather gear. It was pouring at the start. Sort of like Quabbin the course was downhill for the first several minutes and with no warmers or rain gear I was freezing until the first time up the KOM hill.

On the first lap I stayed near the front so I could sag climb the KOM hill if necessary. It wasn’t necessary. The climb was pretty long but I don’t there was anything above 4% or 5% on the way up. There were also several flat or even short downhill sections for recovery. Only a huge effort on the front or a complete betrayal of the legs would have put me into difficulty. In fact, on the first lap I think I even had the legs to go after the KOM points. That was a first.

A 4-man break went clear at the KOM. I descended the steep hill and made the 90 degree turn on the front of the field, so I thought I would attempt a bridge effort. We were just going after sprinter’s points and it was very early in the stage race, so I thought maybe the field would let us go. They didn’t, and we were brought back quickly.

The 4-man break wasn’t too far up, certainly within sight, but we weren’t bringing them back. There was a section after the KOM hill that was surprisingly tiring. Every lap I would start feeling tired and couldn’t understand why. It didn’t seem like we were going up anything steep. I think this may have discouraged a serious chase.

The run in to the finish line/ sprinter’s line was a long downhill followed by a 400 meter perfectly straight section of road. We were descending at around 45 mph so a big gear was necessary for the sprint. My 53 x 11 was fine, but if we were going any faster or if I had one less gear it would have been a lot harder. The tech manual recommended a 55x11 “if you are a sprinter going for the win.” I’m beginning to think gearing recommendations are more for the fastest fields than for the slower fields.

So we approach the sprinter’s line on lap one and I’m watching the signs carefully. The 5 km sign passes and soon after the 3 km sign passes. I’m crunching numbers in my head as we go, thinking 60 kph is 1 km per minute, we’re going faster than that, so 500m to go is less than 30 seconds out.

We come around the corner just after the 500m to go sign, and I get my first glimpse of the finishing straight. 400 meters sure looks like a long way to go on a dead straight road. I was sitting second wheel and wasn’t under any difficulty, so I rode off to the side of the person in front of me to give myself a clear line. With 4 people up the road there was only 1 spot left for points, and I didn’t want to make a super long sprint if I didn’t have to.

Danny Habig (Luzzo’s) jumped hard from about 300m and really caught me off guard. I hesitated too long and got gapped. I did catch him right at the line but there wasn’t enough road to come around. The finish line seemed to be several meters in front of the officials stand, so that threw off my perspective a bit. Second in the bunch sprint meant 6^th across the line, so no points on lap 1. At the time I wasn’t sure if the break was 3 or 4, so I thought we might have been sprinting for 4^th and 5^th.

Lap 2 was much more of the same as lap 1, except this time I didn’t fight as much to stay at the front over the KOM. I sat in, ate some food, and waited for the KOM to pass. As I started moving to the front I realized that the break was hovering out there still and we weren’t doing much to bring them back. A few people took some pulls, and some others attacked, but we were making very little progress. One guy did drop out of the break and verified that there were only 3 left in it.

Somewhere before the final descent I lost my good position and was 20 wheels back. I was a bit panicked and didn’t think I’d be able to find the front before the sprint. Luckily a gigantic space opened on a right hand turn in the breakdown lane as racers drifted towards the outside of the turn. I moved right on up to second wheel by the time we hit 500m to go.

Again, I was sitting to the side of the wheel in front of me ready to jump as the finish came in to view. My teammate Keith jumped with ~350m to go. I was ready for someone to jump on the early side, similar to the first lap, and I was able to get on his wheel. Knowing that I had his wheel, he led me out all the way to the finish and we went 1-2 out of the bunch, so 4-5 for the sprint.

On lap 3 we went a bit harder and caught the break before the KOM. I think I must’ve been getting a little tired because I found myself floating towards the back. I also lost a lot of positions going slowly through feed zone looking for Erica, then nearly crashing with Aaron who was trying to take his feed. I got forced behind the feeders and was lucky not to hit anyone. I got my feed from Erica but was gapped by 100 or 200 meters by the end of the feed zone. Aaron and I made a short hard chase and caught back on by the steep descent.

Needless to say I was way out of position for the sprint. I moved up like crazy from about 5k out, and once again was able to move up huge amounts of positions on the downhill right hand turn about 1k out. I was about 10 people back coming around the final turn with 500 meters to go. Once again the inside of the turn was clear and I pushed through IN THE BREAKDOWN LANE until I was second wheel, right on Gary Aspnes’ (Horst) wheel.

We were sprinting for max points this time, and with 200m I took what I saw to be a lane on the yellow line. I had great acceleration, and I thought I had the points, but as I came around I think a gust of wind or something forced us all just a little to the left. For me, this meant I crossed the yellow line by about 2 feet, and right in front of the official’s stand. Not wanting a penalty, I sat up and hit the brakes so that I could move back behind Gary, within the yellow line, and back into 3^rd place.

Ever sit up and brake mid-sprint when you’re overtaking first place? It sucks and it takes a lot of discipline. You do it because you’re aware of what’s going on, aware of the rules, and because you want to race within the rules. Given the situation, I thought I did the right thing and I still think so. Despite my multiple protests, the officials did not agree and decided to give me not only the 30 second GC penalty but remove me from the sprinter’s competition altogether as well.

Ultimately these penalties would make little difference on my result. However, this was my first time ever protesting anything with US Cycling, and I am really disappointed about how that process works. After a conversation that lasted over 20 minutes, the conclusion was that the penalty would stand because I advanced 10 positions and deliberately crossed the line, even if I did sit up and concede the sprint. This isn’t at all true, and I just can’t believe that I wasn’t even allowed to speak to an official with decision-making capability when I was being hit with a penalty that would hurt me in both the GC and sprinter’s competition.

Anyways, that’s a bit of a side story and there was still a race on hand. We were gruppo compacto on the fourth and final lap and it was lining up to be a bunch sprint. The pace up the KOM hill was stiff on the last lap and if you were tired or cramping it would be easy to fall behind. I was feeling small signs of cramping in my right ankle of all places, so I was trying to stretch that out. Otherwise I felt good and snappy and was loving my odds in the sprint.

Coming around the 90 degree turn after the fast descent we stretched out single file and the pace was nuts. I was probably under more pressure here than at any other place during the race. To move up during this chaos would surely have been a maximal effort for me. In hindsight, not doing so cost me my chances at a good finish.

When we reached the downhill we bunched up as tight as I’ve ever seen. Nobody was under pressure and everybody wanted to be at the front. Without any large team presence to set up a fast leadout train we remained bunched up for the entire descent. I eventually worked up to about 25^th wheel on the inside when a cross of the wheels brought about 4 riders down including Matt D’Alessio (Threshold) and Gary Aspnes (Horst). I was just to the inside of this and eased up a bit as racers demonstrated their maneuvering skills to avoid the crash.

A bunch of 15 or so went clear in front of the crash. I sprinted to catch up with them but there was no fighting for position beyond that. The road was still packed from side to side and there was nowhere to go. It sure is frustrating ending a 72 mile race with a sub maximal effort. In hindsight my mistake was not moving up more when we stretched out single file, or maybe during the KOM climb.

Guido Wollmann (the happy German) took the win in a very uncharacteristic sprint victory. Either he is just really good at being aero or he has more sprint power than he gives himself credit for. Big congrats to him.

I finished 19/73 in 2:53:03.

Stage 2 – Time Trial

The stage 1 road race was a very important race to me since very few road races having flat finishes. Since I was no longer in the sprinter’s competition I just wanted to see how well I could do on the GC. I had no teammate to work for, so the plan was just to sit and see where I’d end up.

I didn’t feel very well prepared for the time trial. In previous seasons I’ve spent hours and hours trying to dial in my position and test what feels good. I didn’t do any of that this year, although I think I did benefit from the previous years’ experience. Prior to Sunday’s stage 2 time trial I’d spent just about exactly 1 hour total in 2010 on my time trial bike.

Fortunately for me, that 1 hour of TT bike time was surprisingly successful. I started off at a place beyond where I’d left off in 2009. At the CBTT, just 3 days before KSR, I PR’d by 50 seconds with a 22:48 (25.7 mph) time. That PR effort included mechanical issues and all sorts of bike comfort issues that resulted in terrible average power. The good news was that I am way more aero on my new bike than I’ve ever been before.

The KSR TT is 17 km of very gradual uphill grade and includes a few moderate kickers. This year we were also treated to a headwind of 18 mph according to weather.com. I figured that between the wind and gentle gradient aeroness would trump power output. I could have raised my handlebars to increase my power output, but I didn’t want to risk losing my sweet aeroness from Wednesday’s CBTT.

My plan was simple. Put the cruise control on modest TT target of 285W (3.85 W/kg) and keep it steady all the way. There were just a handful of places that I would go slightly harder or easier on, and I wanted to really go hard on the kicker just before turning off of Rt 4. I was expecting it to be a 27-28 minute effort, and I really didn’t want to blow up after 15 minutes.

I could have fallen asleep in the first bit of this race. Almost nothing happened, at all. I did pass my teammate, but I knew he didn’t have much aero gear or ambition for the TT. Other than that I just stared at that white line that brought me towards the finish.

Sean Smith (Champion System Racing) passed me on the rollers just before the gondola station going into the stiff headwind. He had no aero gear. None. I think he even had box rims. I was maintaining good power output at this point too. For a minute or two I tried to catch him, but I got incredibly frustrated when I realized that I could not.

The long, straight grind after the gondola station was brutal. I was so uncomfortable that I came out of the aero bars for a brief period. Realizing how much slower I was going, that didn’t last long. My power output dropped below 250W for a 5 minute period along this point. I was also getting blown all over the road. Luckily no one was trying to pass me. I passed another rider without aero gear just before the kicker.

Ken and Erica were at the kicker to cheer me on and they couldn’t have picked a better place. Ken sprinted alongside me like it was le tour and when I got to the turn I realized I was doing over 500W. Granted the effort nearly killed me and I needed to completely stop pedaling for a few seconds on the following downhill, but that was absolutely awesome!

The twisty final section running into the finish wasn’t nearly as cool as I expected. I’d envisioned myself flying around the turns at over 30 mph with laser-like precision, but instead I struggled to hold 25 mph as I weaved all over the road. Falling apart, I was doing short little bursts of 400W over the rollers while suffering at 200W in between. I crossed the line a broken man and expected a terrible result.

My finishing time was 28:27.86, 2:36 down, which was good enough for 32/69. My average for the effort was a measly 270W (3.65 W/kg) with decent pacing. That sounds terrible to me and I can hardly believe it put me in the top half on my field. Once again, whatever setup I’m on right now seems to be very aerodynamic. I’m going to have to start testing more upright/powerful positions.

TT bike efforts hurt in a bad way when you’re not used to the position. You can’t go any harder and it feels like you’re only using a fraction of your legs muscles. I get done and my legs feel fine. Other people are talking about their muscles feeling torn or something. I just don’t get that on the TT bike despite feeling like absolute death while I’m racing.

Stage 3 – Road Race

This stage is the reason we drive to Vermont to race bikes. 61 miles isn’t anything unusual for a cat3 race, but when you throw in two ~1,000 vertical feet climbs that are ~15 minute efforts you’ve got something special for New England. The climbers were licking their chops.

I’ve done way more climbing this year than ever before and I wanted to see how I’d stack up against the best 3’s in New England. My expectations were still low as I’ve been training climbs to survive the hills, not to excel at them. Also, these climbs are way longer than the punchy 5 minute climbs I do around Boston. I didn’t know how I’d hold up.

The first 25 miles were rolling gradual downhill and I did nothing but conserve. I think Leo (Threshold) was up front for an awfully long time keeping the pace high likely to discourage attacks. They were defending the KOM jersey for Devin.

Actually, I did more than just conserve in those first 25 miles. I avoided potholes. That road was like trying to cross a minefield. I really didn’t want to flat and I really didn’t want to wreck my good carbon wheels. I think I only cracked one pothole hard the entire time. Luckily there was no damage. It was also tough to eat in the meantime and I dropped a Cliff bar.

A small break went up the road shortly before the sprinter’s line. The guy wearing the sprinter’s jersey was too far back and missed it. I think Guido ended up third in the sprint and taking the jersey, but somehow he crashed right on the line. Not sure what happened there but he finished out the race.

I wanted to be in good position for the first climb so I could stay with the group and ride a steady pace. Somehow I ended up being the first guy to hit the climb and set the pace. Not sure how that happened. I think I was a little flustered/excited at the time and despite starting off at what felt like an easy pace, I’m sure it was way too hard for me.

It took a while for anyone to come around me and I tried to stay in the middle of the road to slow down the pace as much as I could. Slowly and surely more and more riders came around me, and they continued to get bigger and bigger. The road was just started to get a little less steep when I got dropped, but I was deep into the red at that point. I was in a small group of 3 initially, and I could see another group of 3 not far up, just behind the peloton.

The majority of the climb really isn’t too bad, it’s just that initial wall that’s the killer. Once we got gapped, the lead group of ~25 or so put all sorts of time into us. There was probably a good drafting benefit to be had along here.

Our chase group caught the chase group in front of us just after the KOM. We started pacelining, but a fast descent and sharp left turn broke that up. A large chase group of 10 or 12 caught us on the climb up the feed zone and we were now a chase group of 20. I got a good feed from Erica as always in the feed zone.

This 20-man chase group was amazingly cooperative. All things considered, we rotated smoothly for miles and miles. We even kept a decent pace through the uneventful dirt section and reorganized when we hit the pavement. We were rewarded by catching the peloton at about mile 45.

Once we rejoined our group was probably 50 people or so. I heard someone say there were 2 people about 1.5 minutes up when we rejoined the main field. I’m not sure, but I don’t think we caught them before the base of the final climb and it’s possible no one ever did. I was just happy to be back in the main field as it was a huge break for the legs. Not that a 20 man paceline is overly taxing.

We hit the base of the final climb in what felt like no time. Suffering over the long first climb and chasing made time fly.

Our group exploded on the lowest parts of the climb. I was dropped quickly from the middle of the pack along with several others as I was unwilling to go above threshold.

Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the raw skin on my thighs, or maybe I just need to train on longer climbs, but I never got into a very good groove. I just couldn’t find the right spot to start cranking away in. I ended up losing 7.5 minutes to the eventual winner, but he also had 2 minutes over 3^rd place so I think he might have been in that breakaway. Still, I lost a solid 5 minutes on this climb and I thought I’d be able to do just a bit better than that. Oh well.

I finished the day 45/67 which isn’t too good considering how many people had flats or had other goals. At least I made it though, this really isn’t a strength of mine. I finished the race 40^th on the GC, so pretty much mid field.

Summary

Despite my little dispute with the officials, this race was awesome and I had a ton of fun. I would have liked to have a little more to show for it as I felt like I was on really good form, but that’s OK. There are a lot of good races on the horizon. I’ll leave you with some of the behind the scene highlights from the weekend:

· A jam-packed car ride there http://tweetphoto.com/24410918

· Threshold Cycling’s hot tub time machine http://yfrog.com/2pt85ej

· Race/wash repeat http://twitgoo.com/xq5tv

· Tim wins another TT http://twitgoo.com/xu73r

· 545 AM wakeup call for stage 3

· Post-race @ Long Trail http://twitgoo.com/xwqxe

· Dave’s phenomenal packing efficiency http://twitgoo.com/xwnyo

Charlie Baker Time Trial, 5/26

2010-05-27T12:45:00.006-04:00

Stage race season is just around the corner. KSR, CTSR, Longsjo, and WMSR are all in the next 6 weeks and feature flat enough TT’s that good aerodynamics will be vital to GC placing. For some, time trials are an exciting change of pace and for others it’s a painful necessity for success.

By this point it would be ideal to be totally dialed in, but I’ve been scrambling. Even though I bought my new TT “De Rosa” frame in March I’ve waited until this week to make the finishing touches. Internal cable routing has been a nightmare for me and until this week I’ve had no rear shifting and a good excuse to not ride that bike. Yesterday, in an act of pre-KSR desperation, I had the cable/housing routed externally via zip ties. It looks like a disaster but at least it’s rideable.

So last night was my first time on the new TT bike. When I say first time, I mean absolutely first time ever wearing a chamois with my feet clipped in. You might be thinking, well what about your bike fit? You know, that process of adjusting all your nuts and bolts so that everything is positioned just right? I opted for the 15 minute parking lot style “looks good” approach rather than the $300, 4 hour, WE USE LASERS, ATA Cycles mad scientist approach. After all, how bad could it be?

Did I mention it was hot out last night? My thermometer said 100°F when I turned on my car at 5pm. I think it may have been “only” 95 or something, and by 630 it was a frosty 85 and the sun was mostly covered by clouds. Wind was calm, so it was really pretty close to ideal conditions. Assuming you can stand the heat that is. I only have a long sleeve skinsuit so that made for an extra fun challenge.

Unfortunately my chamois cream could NOT stand the heat, at least not after I cooked it in the back of my car all day. When I opened it up for application, built up pressure sprayed it out and made a mess. The chamois “cream” was boiling hot and had the viscosity of water. This did not go over well with the delicate skin on my inner thighs. Ouch.

Warmup was short, 14 minutes of rolling time. Who needs to warm up much more than that when it’s that hot out anyways? Besides, I nearly crashed myself about 47 times during warmup. I’d forgotten how awful these TT bikes are. Your butt is so high and far forward that you lose a lot of control. I could never spend as much time training on this as I do my road bike. It’s miserable. I don’t know how the Iron Man people do it.

I got to the start and clipped in with both feet while being held upright. Geez, I could barely hold on the bullhorns. My hands were all lubed up from my chamois water and of course I didn’t wrap any tape around the short carbon bullhorns. The only thing that kept my hands from sliding off was pressing them into the brake levers. Need to fix that.

Finally I get rolling and within 3 minutes I was looking down at the computer trying to figure out how far in I was. I was dreaming of averaging 300W for this TT, which really shouldn’t be too much to ask if on my road bike, but TT bikes are a whole different beast (until you’re dialed in at least). Shoot, 300W was not happening today, not even close. Like Solobreak says, it shouldn’t hurt in the first 5 minutes.

7 minutes into the effort I wanted to shoot myself. I even thought about turning around, but only losers DNF. It’s a weird feeling trying to push yourself on a TT bike when you’re not used to it. My legs hurt, but not in a good way. It’s more of a weak untrained feeling than it is a I AM KILLING IT feeling. Not to mention I feel like I’m suffocating. A better bike fit and a little more TT training perhaps…

I had passed my unaero 30 second man pretty early on which was cool, but then my ego was completely shot down when a tri geek with one of those belly shirt tank tops passed me. That style just isn’t for me, and it’s really deflating to get completely owned by it.

As I was getting close to the Carlisle Rotary I looked down at my time and saw 9:30 or so. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at CBTT data, but I was pretty sure it usually took me at least 10 minutes on a fast day to get this far. My average power at this point was a measly 250W, which is absolutely pitiful on the road bike, but I kept plugging away.

Somewhere along the way my handlebars slipped forward and I think my saddle did too. I was constantly pushing myself back on the saddle and was pretty sure that I was going to fall forward over my handlebars if I wasn’t careful. The only thing keeping me on my bike was my grip, which had such a death lock on the aerobars that my forearms were fatiguing about as much as my legs were.

On Monument Street I was barely pedaling and my power was dropping below 200W for as long as 90 seconds at one point (on a downhill of course).

Somehow my speed was surprisingly high. Coming up the final hill it dawned on me that I was going to be under 23 minutes. My previous best on this course was 23:38 and I figured that couldn’t be right. Sure enough I crossed the finish in 22:48 (25.7 mph), a PR by a whopping 50 seconds.

Considering how disastrous everything had been, I was pretty darn psyched about that result. It was all in the aerodynamics, which is something that eluded me last year despite making a good effort. Running my CBTT model, my aero numbers are better than I thought I’d ever be able to achieve, especially with my ghetto TT setup. It was still a fast night though, with 3 new records being set including the fastest time ever by TPM.

My average power was 263W (3.55 W/kg). This is an average I see on 1-2 hour tempo rides on my road bike and my normalized power would be even higher on those rides. In a February indoor TT my AP was 302W after a 4 hour endurance ride. I haven’t been training these LT efforts at all lately, but I’m pretty sure I’d be in the 310-320 range on my road bike. 263W is just, pitiful. Some of this gap will be closed up through bike fit, and hopefully the remainder through training.

For all those roadies that say something like “if I only had a TT bike, I would be fast too”, I disagree. You can’t just hop on a TT bike and go super fast. Not like upper 20’s fast anyways (unless you’re a freakishly fast cat 1). It takes time and training to produce your road bike power on a TT bike fit. And unless you have silly amounts of time to spend training, I bet your road racing ability will take a hit. I’d like to figure out some sort of balance. I wonder what works for other people?

The KSR TT is this Sunday. My understanding is that it’s a relatively steady 1% gradient for 11 miles. I’m expecting (hoping/targeting) and average speed in the range of 23-24mph, slower than a level TT anyways. I’m debating whether I should slacken up my position for this one (I’m using an adjustable stem). Would a few more watts offset a less aerodynamic position? Who knows. I wish I had been more on top of this a month ago, but at least I should be more dialed in come July.

That’s a lot of text for a TT, must be the first one of the season! Thanks for reading.

Wells Ave A Race, 5/16 (plus a little more)

2010-05-17T12:18:00.003-04:00

Wow what a weekend. It seems like I’ve been having to force it these past few weeks, doing a lot of racing and training either in miserable conditions or on the trainer. When the forecast called for sunny skies and 70 degree temperatures, I didn’t even know what that meant. Riding without warmers just feels weird right now. We even got a little cherry on top when Friday evening’s storm missed us to the south.

The racing was at Bear Mt and Ninigret this weekend. The 3 field filled up quickly at Bear Mt and I missed out. Ninigret was tempting, especially because they had a straight 3 field, but a Sunday afternoon criterium start meant I’d want to take it easy riding all weekend. With the nice forecast? No thanks. Yes, I actually skipped a race because the forecast was good.

Friday night turned into a 2 hour recovery/coffee shop ride with Erica. It was probably too long to truly recover but who cares when it’s that nice out. Need to keep the brain thinking that riding bikes isn’t always painful.

On Saturday morning I met up with Ken in Ipswich for a 3-hour ride. Nothing like riding with a criterium lover to check the snap in your legs. It was full gas right from the start with nothing less than 600W sprints up each of the punchy climbs in the area. With all the hill training I’ve been doing this year I think my legs are forgetting what that feels like. Anyways, we did a nice coastal loop through Gloucester and Rockport. Check it out here:

http://tinyurl.com/35medb4

Guess what? It was nice on Saturday night so when I got home Erica wanted to ride again. Geez, we get her a Scott CR1 last week and now she’s chomping at the bit to ride all the time. 2 hours later I was feeling pretty darn beat.

For some reason I decided to go do Wells Ave the next morning. I guess I was afraid I wouldn’t get a good ride in if I didn’t.

I was feeling especially unmotivated and unwilling to hurt and would have used the excuse that I was waiting until the second half of the race if questioned why I was sitting in so much. About 10 miles or so in, my teammate Justin got tangled up in some monkey business and down he went. Luckily we avoided a pileup but he still got a little chopped up. A few of us stopped to see how we could help before hopping back in with about 10 to go.

There was a lot of traffic and I think that pretty much neutralized any breaks. Not that I was even trying to get into one. I sat in until the final laps and got a semi-decent position for the sprint although a wheel or two further back than I would have liked. When we hit the final straight I had a red carpet that should have easily led me into the top 5, but my legs were junk. I pretty much just sprinted the same speed as everyone else even though I was out of the wind. Max power barely cracked 1,000. I hope I’m not losing my ability to kick it up.

Post-race I was going to just go for 2 hours or so, but Roy and Peter were riding out to Harvard. Stupid Rapha Race training (just kidding). So of course, being nice out, I had to tag along. What a thrashing. I cringed every time Peter would start pulling. There’s nothing like being in over your head to whip your butt into shape.

Of course when I get close to home it’s time to meet up with Erica for another little jaunt. I’m bonking hard for the first time in ages and 200W feels like a heroic effort. Thank goodness she didn’t want to go hard. It would have crushed me. Finally rolled home after just shy of 7 hours of moving time. Then off to Minado for unlimited sushis and we ate till it hurt. So awesome.

What a weekend!

Wells Ave B Race, 5/9

2010-05-12T14:16:00.003-04:00

So far this season I’ve been sticking to the A races at Wells, but this week my teammate Ian asked if I wanted to rock the B race with him. He said that he thought we’d be able to do some damage if he were paired with a sprinter. The man had a plan, and I couldn’t say no.

That morning was a hurricane. Steady hard wind and the occasional knock you off your bike sort of gusts. My Powertap is currently away for service so I decided to bust out my good race wheels for a change. While I was at it I figured I might as well rock the onesie aka skinsuit and take the super aero approach.

Enough people signed up to run a separate B race which was a big “if” being mother’s day. It was only a 30 man field but that was probably for the better with all the wind. Before the race started the kind BRC gentleman (I should really start learning names) reminded us to race smart and that we were racing for $5 primes and stale bread. Good point but I was semi regretting using my race wheels. Oh well.

Our plan was simple. Take turns chasing moves and find Ian’s wheel for sweet leadouts when primes came up.

Attacks started pretty much from the start. I had planned on waiting until the field softened up some, but by the second lap I found myself countering the first lap move. It was a good effort but too early as it was chased down handily. I got brought back in as the first prime bell rang. Ian was in a move and I was too tired to go for it anyways. A few laps and attacks later, we missed the second prime for the same reason. It’s tough to sprint for primes while you’re also trying get in a break.

We continued to take turns going with moves, but when the third prime came up things worked out for us. Ian had just come back from a move and I was rested. I’m sure he was gassed, but he still found the manpower to set the pace on the front. My plan was to go from the American Flag on the final straightaway (there was a headwind) but a Quad Cycles sprinter (John?) jumped just before that. I moved from Ian’s wheel to his, followed suit for a few pedal strokes before popping around at the line. It was super close and I got it by a bike throw. He may have eased up just a few feet early. A shame for him really because he had a very long and solid sprint.

After the prime, I eased up to an easy tempo until the back straightaway. I checked my review mirror to see where the field was and they were nowhere in sight. For a moment I had visions of being able to solo away but the headwind on the front straight brought me back to my senses. I got caught by a 4-man move at the start of the next lap. This move would be the move of the day.

Obviously in hindsight I should have gone with it. Having just sprinted, then going for a lap, I just wasn’t feeling it. Seems to be this is when the moves tend to go, thinking back to my Rick Newhouse and Turtle Pond races this year. I keep getting in the move that sets up with winning move.

Ian attacked along with another dude right as soon as I came back. They were a good match and were able to successfully bridge up to the 4-man break, making it 6 total. It wasn’t long before they dumped 2 riders and were 4 once again. They had about 20 laps to go at this point which makes for a darn good threshold workout.

Back in the field I did my best to go with any attacks. This is the best seat in the house in my mind, frequent sprinting to sit on moves but not having to pull through. Some of the boys in the field put a lot of heart into the chase, it just wasn’t quite hard enough for long enough. The gap did come down to 10 or 15 seconds at times, but that was it.

As I sat on a few bridge attempts, I started weighing our (NEBC) odds as my chase group charged ahead. I didn’t want to help take 3 other guys up to the break, but maybe 1 other person would be OK. I told a strong CB rider that I would start helping if he could get it close, but that never did happen. I was also hoping that the larger bridge groups would get close enough that I could attack and bridge solo. Didn’t get that opportunity either.

The gap was over 30 seconds with 3 to go and it became apparent that we wouldn’t be seeing the break again today. The Quad Cycles guy that I had sprinted against earlier (John?) starting drilling it in super TT mode on the front. I was sitting 4^th wheel, and we didn’t so much as swap positions once until the last lap. Everyone was content with his strong man pace.

I was all fired up to sprint at the finish, thinking I had a perfect position. On the last lap it looked like we might get swarmed on the back straight, but that fizzled out quickly. I was still in that same 4^th wheel position as we rounded turn 4.

The guys in front of me turned in on as soon as we hit the straightaway, basically giving me the perfect leadout. Unfortunately there was a Prius in the way and our finish was cancelled. Only lap all race that we even saw a car. Oh well. Ian stuck with the break until the finish, but unfortunately was bested in the sprint and finished fourth. Great work in the break though. I had a blast at this race.

Sterling Classic Road Race, cat3

2010-05-10T11:22:00.000-04:00

Ah Sterling, the last of the New England Spring Classics for me this season. I’m headed out west and will be missing Sunapee. Spring road races have been scarce this year. Battenkill technically isn’t in New England but it’s about 30 minutes across the border so I count it. We had Turtle Pond and Quabbin which fell on the same weekend. But that’s about it. Five big road races, only four of which I can race.

That leads me to this week’s dilemma. As described in my previous post, it’s likely that an ingrown hair resulted in a skin and tissue infection and my first major setback of 2010. I was off the bike for 7 full days waiting for the swelling to go down, and it might as well been a year. It felt like it anyways. I was also pumped up on lots of antibiotics. In the past I’ve felt pretty crappy doing intensity while on the antibiotics and on Thursday afternoon I had pretty much written off any chance of racing at Sterling.

Thursday’s weather went from a bad forecast to a really nice evening. The swelling on my foot was way down, so I decided to go out for a little spin. My Powertap is out being serviced right now, so average speed was my only real feedback. Of course that turned my “little spin” into more of a tempo ride. Despite feeling like death my average speed was decent and I pulled the trigger on Sterling.

Three paragraphs in and we’re only to the point where I decided to register for this race. Pretty incredible considering I didn’t even mention the weather forecast (which was miserable). I guess in this case I found the challenge of managing setbacks to be the more interesting part of my weekend.

Like everyone else has said, the weather was brutal on Saturday. Lucky for the afternoon waves, the rain eased up to nothing more than a light mist. No thunder, no hail, although the roads were still soaked.

My motivation was pretty rock bottom so I showed up just 45 minutes before start time, pinned up and went. The course is flat and neutral for 5 or 10 minutes and I think it’s neutral the first time up the finishing hill too. It seemed make a pretty natural warmup so whatever, no worries. NEBC didn’t have a team showing today with only Oscar and myself being present. It was also Oscar’s first race of the season, so he was just looking to build his racing form.

For some reason the first lap really hurt. I had started near the back planning to just sit on for the first few laps and see how I felt. The rain and wet roads seemed to have everyone really nervous. Lots of space was allowed between riders and the pace around turns was often slow and wildly unpredictable. This caused a lot of chasing. The turn onto Rt. 12 was the worst. Huge gaps were opening and I was definitely behind it. Same exact thing happened to me last year so no surprise really. Luckily this time my buddy Aaron came around and told me to hop on as he bridged the void. Super nice move from him. I think we dumped close to half the field here.

The first time up the hill didn’t hurt too badly. I find the first major hill is usually the hardest for me, but not today. Maybe it was because we went so fast prior to that. Somewhere around here the break of the day got away too. At first it was three but they shed a rider and were down to two. That’s a long way to go for so few people.

I was just sitting in doing as little as possible for the first 5 laps or something. The hill was really working me every lap, but I was hanging in there. It seemed like every time I would back off just a fraction the entire field would too. Sweet. If they had charged ahead I might have been in trouble. With each additional lap the long gradual grind after the wall got more and more painful. Then it took longer and longer to recover on the downhill. Boy did I feel lousy.

Coming up the wall was really hard on the lap where we were shown 3 to go. A lot of gaps opened up and I was able to cross them, but boy was that taxing. It seemed like there were only 20 guys or so on the front end of this. I was really hoping that a few guys would keep drilling it on the front and cause more selections, but it was not meant to be. We eased off big time after the long grind and I think it all (~40 of us) came back together.

That lap was a real match burner for me and I didn’t think I could survive another effort like that. We only had one more time up the wall before the finishing climb, and I really just wanted to finish with the group. When we got to Rt. 12 I moved up to the front so I could try and control the pace and sag climb if I had to.

I was first wheel turning onto the wall and I set a most non-ferocious and tame pace. For some reason only 3 dudes came around me. I pretty much sat up and spun my legs after crossing the finish line, trying to take it as easy as possible for the next gradual grind. The three guys in front of me rolled away and eventually people started coming around me. I was really pretty surprised by this and started realizing that maybe I wasn’t the only one that was hurting.

This gave me the idea that I might be able to contend the finish. After all we were only 8 miles to go with no more climbs (other than the finish). It was easy to sit in the front couple of wheels on the downhill. I was barely pedaling and a couple guys tried making desperate attempts to get away. Each time someone attacked we would all chase it down. Most everyone was interested in the uphill sprint.

On Rt. 12 we really ramped it up. I’m sure everyone just wanted to be first wheel turning onto the wall. I did my best to stay in the first couple of wheels without expanding too much energy, but it was taking a lot out of me. Lots of sudden accelerations were wearing me down quickly. By the time we got to town center I knew I was toast, and instead of thinking about how I was going to win I was thinking about how I was going to avoid getting run over. I was only about 10 or 15 wheels back. As we turned onto the wall I immediately pulled over hard to the right. I only lasted about 5 pedal strokes at that finishing pace before I was blown. Wow did I feel bad. Despite finishing near the back of the group I was 32 of 69 starters for the day. That’s a lot of dropped riders.

this is a stupid problem to be having

2010-05-04T15:46:00.006-04:00

I resisted shaving my legs for as long as possible. Having thick curly hair it seemed like an unnecessary hassle, just one more thing to worry about on top of training, mechanic work, and coaching myself. Surely I wasn’t getting much respect from the style police and that didn’t really bother me for quite a while.

As I moved up through the ranks the pressure increased. Finally this winter I caved in and shaved ‘em clean. Initially I had no regrets, and I’m positive that I was getting more respect in the peloton. Fewer people fight to stay ahead of me with shaved legs and it’s easier to maintain a good position. Shaved legs equal better racing performance!

I thought I had it well planned out. My initial shave was in February as I was expecting serious razor burn the first couple of times. This would give me a month or two for my skin to get used to it as I ramped up the shaving rate. Come April I would be good to go, right?

Wrong. Despite doing everything by the book, the razor burn never got much better, and about a week or two ago a few of the spots turned a little red. I didn’t think much of it and my only plan was to take a break from shaving and allow it to heal.

This past weekend my ankle swelled up into a super-sized cankle. The next morning my skin changed color from red to purple. It was so stiff I could barely walk on it. Felt like a sprained ankle.

Being a Sunday I ended up in the ER. The diagnosis? Cellulitis.

My doctor was a large Navy vet. He asked me why I shaved my legs. I looked at him sheepishly and said that, without going into all sorts of explanation, it’s what you do in bike racing. He gave me the most obvious reply and said that he didn’t recommend doing that anymore.

Given my position laying there in the hospital bed, barely able to walk, I had to agree.

He went on to tell a story about his days in the Navy. Apparently there were sailors, most often African American for whatever reason, that had a combination of skin and hair types that prevented them from being able to shave clean and meet the Navy’s requirements. If they did try to do a clean shave they would come down with a similar Cellulitis condition. These people were given doctor’s permission to trim to a stubble.

My orders were to take two types of antibiotics, stay off my foot for a few days, keep it elevated, and stop shaving my legs. If I absolutely had to shave them, try just trimming them and going with stubble.

As a result, I’m missing a week of training because I shaved my legs. What a stupid problem to be having.

From here on out, I’ll be rocking the stubble.

Quabbin Reservoir Road Race, cat3

2010-04-28T14:22:00.005-04:00

Quabbin Reservoir road race was day 2 of my double header for the weekend. Turtle Pond was my bigger focus since we had a team presence and it included a finish that favored me. The finish at Quabbin is a stair step 400’ ascent with 7-8% gradient in the last 200m or so. Not so good for me. Also, I didn’t have any teammates to work for. I really sort of neglected this one and didn’t know much about the course going into it. I knew that there were several ~400-500’ climbs at moderate grade, but I didn’t really know which were the steep ones, how long they were, or when they were coming. I felt like I was racing it blind. My only plan was to push the pace at the front and jump on any opportunities that might arise.

The forecast was threatening with rain in the upper 40’s, but it looked like it would probably stay dry for our race. I went with warmers and no jacket. A lot of people did the same. It ended up raining as soon as we started and continued to rain for the first 45 minutes or so.

The neutral start is all downhill for 10 or 15 minutes or with next to no pedaling. I nearly froze to death and wasn’t the only one. People were shivering so badly that their handlebars and bikes were shaking on the descent. I’ve never been so happy to get to a hill.

I hadn’t lined up very aggressively and started somewhere mid pack. Right next to long lost cousin Steve Robbins actually. I was a little worried that I would have trouble making it forwards in the group, but it ended up being easy enough. Someone must’ve attacked on the gradual climb coming into Belchertown because we strung out thin. Instead of settling in I maintained my momentum and moved pretty much straight to the front.

Things are a little more hazy than usual for me at this one. I was trying to stay as far forward as I could, hoping to end up in a split or a break or something. The course is nearly all uphill or downhill, and I didn’t feel strong enough to attack going up, and attacking while going downhill was useless.

Going into Pelham was long, but not too hard. Again I froze to death on the long descent. After that there were a pair of back to back hills, through Shutesbury I think. Those hurt the worst of any in the race. We were super strung out, people we being gapped all over the place, and had we been going just a tad faster I probably would have been popped.

Despite feeling like my legs were going to be ripped off on these climbs, somehow I managed to stay intact near the front. On both climbs it looked like we were in a front group of 20 or 30 or so, with big gaps opening up and everyone behind left to chase. I don’t often find myself in this position climbing, and hoped that someone with more gas left than me would drive us away. Unfortunately the nature of the course allowed for people to chase back on pretty successfully with the long descents.

I had been somewhat familiar with the first half of the course having at least driven over those roads in the past. The second half was a totally different story. I had never seen most of these roads in my life. Over and over again we’d climb at a pace close to my maximum effort, and just as I thought I was going to blow we’d crest the top. This was exhausting mentally and I felt like I was in some sort of torture machine. Somewhere along here I ran into Guido (The Happy German!) who appears to be back and have abandoned his old crazy tactics of seeing how long he can solo for.

Small attacks got up the road here and there, but they all blended together to me and I wasn’t really sure where they were getting away despite being at the front with all the action. Nothing got up the road too far though.

Norton had warned us before the race about a rough section of road that was 4 miles long. Indeed it was rough, especially compared to the silky smooth other parts of the course. Somehow I ended up further back in the field here than at any other point in the race. It was like a game of dodgeball trying to avoid cracks while navigating the twisty road at high descent speeds. Fortunately we didn’t go too crazy through here and I was aerobic enough to make decent decisions. Only one time did I nail a crack. The sound of my carbon wheel hitting it was irritating to say the least, but it looks like no damage was done.

After that I knew we were getting towards the end of the race, but I had no idea what was coming. There were two guys up the road and I was pretty much glued to the front waiting for the right opportunity. It didn’t seem like they were going anywhere and being a lone rider I shouldn’t have cared. There was a teammate at the front announcing that he was blocking and not going to chase. For some reason this irked me and I decided I should try and bring it back. So stupid.

After a decent pull the break had just barely come back, and Leo attacked hard bringing someone else with him. This must’ve looked serious because all of the sudden everyone cared and we surged ahead at a ferocious pace.

We quickly came to a steep and short descent on a rough narrow road and went into some residential neighborhood. It was like having a half mile of a criterium course come up out of nowhere. We flew through this section, sprinted out of the turns, and ended up back on route 9.

I knew once we got back on Rt 9 that we weren’t far from the finish. What I didn’t know was that we would immediately be going into a climb. I was hurting more than I should have been after stupidly pulling back the break.

I made it up the first straight section, we turned, and there was more climbing. I moved to the far right so I wouldn’t ruin anyone else’s day by letting a gap open. I backed off my pace ever so slightly thinking that was it, but then so did the rest of the field. Still attached. There was a brief moment of downhill and I thought that was it. Around another turn and I can see we’re headed up again. Oh boy. Again I settled in to a pace that seemed manageable to me, but this time the field wanted to go faster.

A gap opened and before long I was about 100m back. I think it was Gary Birkamshaw that came around me that I latched on to. Soon Steve Robbins joined too. We grew to a chase group of four and were making just a little progress catching back up at the top of the climb and the descent after.

The course turns back into the park immediately after the descent and there’s a sign saying 5k to go. No one seemed to want to work on the descent, and I drilled myself at the very bottom and couldn’t grab a wheel when the others pulled through. It didn’t matter though, I wasn’t going to do anything special on this finish anyways. I rode a comfortable tempo to the finish and ended up 54^th on the day out of ~80 starters.

Looking at the profile after the race there was no way I should have gotten shelled on that climb. It wasn’t steep, and it was half the elevation of most climbs. Sure my legs were tired but they certainly weren’t cramping or anything so attrition wasn’t the cause. I have to blame this one on poorly managed efforts. Next time I will go down having failed at a glorious attack or maybe I'll just give it a go and see how I fair at an uphill sprint. See you at Sterling.

Turtle Pond Circuit Race, cat 3

2010-04-26T12:04:00.002-04:00

Turtle Pond was the first of a double header weekend of road races with Quabbin Reservoir following on Sunday. Turtle Pond is one of the few New England road races featuring a fast flat finish that suits the sprinters. The course includes a moderate hill on Oak Hill Road but the Hot Hole Road climb was taken out this year. It seemed to bother some of the climbers that this was left out, but the climb isn’t really long enough to bother the most sprinters anyways. From a selection point of view I would have liked to see it in the race to hit the anaerobic muscles a bit.However, last year a fisherman was back his boat into the pond and nearly took out our field. It felt a lot safer having it removed. Cat 3’s did 5 laps totaling 57 miles.

Most of the New England teams were well represented and none were significantly overpowering.Svelte had the most racers with 6.Cambridge, Threshold, Quad, CLNoonan, CCB, NEBC all had 3 or 4 guys. Half of the 51 starters were riding for a team. For NEBC it was Keith, Joe, and myself.

It was a nice day weather-wise, 50-60F and sunny, and I think most people were highly motivated to race. As soon as we crested Oak Hill and went live the attacks begun. The first few were highly unlikely to succeed being on the rolling downhill. As the course started to flatten out the moves started getting more distance.

Keith got in a move that went through the successive 90 degree turns. We were already really strung out and you could feel the tension in the bunch. Keith’s group got caught shortly after the second 90 degree turn and the field seemed especially gassed from sprinting out of the turns. Being a criterium guy I like the turns so this was obviously my time to counter. I went hard for about a minute before flicking my elbow for help. I had dragged 3 guys with me, two of which were Sunapee and I’m not sure about the third, maybe CLNoonan. After rotating through just once I was pretty gassed. I think I attacked too hard and the hills weren’t letting me recover. I skipped a pull to recover.

After just a few minutes of being up the road I noticed riders coming up behind me. We were approaching Hot Hill Road which I didn’t realize had been taken out of the race. I thought these riders were part of the peloton, so I soft pedaled to get some shelter before the climb. It turned out that this was only a small group of three or so, and that the peloton was a little way back yet. Oops. By the time I realized this I couldn’t grab a wheel.

Luckily Keith was in perfect position as I came back, and I think he countered along with Leo and another rider or two. We had Joe sitting up there as well to encourage some splits. The perfect mix of riders was up the road and we immediately went into shutdown mode. Svelte, Cambridge, Quad, CLNoonan, Threshold, NEBC were all represented.

It was pretty much game over after that and we started crawling around the loop. By the time we finished lap 1 the break was 2 minutes up.Initially there were probably 14 in the break, but I think it was whittled down to 12 by the end. A CLNoonan rider came back after a lap or so, which led me to believe that they needed to chase. And they did chase, however afterwards I realized that they had a second rider in the move so they probably didn’t need to.

Laps 2 and 3 were easy going and the lead stretched out to 4 minutes.By the 4^th lap the riders without teams were really groaning. There were some good efforts made to bring back the break, but they were too sporadic to make much of a dent. Bridge attempts were useless with so many teammates left in the pack. Conversation in the peloton turned to whether it was worth sprinting for the finish or not. It seemed that with a few riders having come back from the break we could potentially be sprinting for 10^th place, so why not. We were here to race after all.

The pace up Oak Hill had been very gentlemanly on lap 4, but on the last lap a lot of racers seemed to let out their frustration there and the pace was hot. I had taken the fourth lap to rest for the final lap, so I was mid pack when we began accelerating up the hill. On the steeper upper half a lot guys were going backwards and it was important to avoid ending up behind a split. This didn’t mean accelerating around the sag climbers, instead just keeping a nice steady pace and paying attention. Coming over the top of the climb ~4 guys had gone clear and I was in a second group of 10 or so. The front 4 sat up pretty quickly and so did our group when we caught them. I wanted to push the pace for a few minutes to cause some separation, but by the time I got to the front I think we were mostly groupo compacto. I still took a long pull just for the heck of it.

Coming through the two 90 degree turns I was third wheel behind a pair of Svelte guys. The guy on the front had a quick chat with his teammate on second wheel, and shortly after the guy on front slowly pulled away. Very sneaky move.Being third wheel it was my responsibility to get on it, and I brought up most of the field in doing so.

We were bunching up thick in the last few miles and maintaining position was key. Svelte and Cambridge had a large presence and seemed to be trying to set up for the sprint. A few solo flyers went off but nothing was strong enough to stick.

Coming over the last little kicker on School Street there were some attacks and we got really strung out. Between Cambridge and Svelte there was a pro-style leadout train of 5 or 6, and they were keeping a really good pace coming down the hill. It took a lot of energy to move up if you were out in the wind. McKittrick was at the tail of the train and it looked like the sprint was being set up for him. I wasn’t sure if there was a Svelte sprinter in there or not. For the rest of us, it was a battle for McKittrick’s wheel. We shuffled around a bit, but by the time we hit the last flat section I was fortunate enough to have his wheel.

The course kicks right at the 200m to go sign. Nothing steep, maybe 2 or 3% grade. My plan was to kick hard and early as we went into that little hill and hope that my momentum would carry me to the line. Unfortunately there was a moment of hesitation as we realized that there were cars stopped in the right lane right at the finish. We had the entire road from ~400m out and Fortini was quick to capitalize on that, sprinting hard on the far left.He carried his speed up the hill perfectly and took the sprint. I followed his move in second.McKittrick hesitated just a moment longer than me but still crossed in third. I hate it when 2.5 hours of racing ends like that. It’s like Wells Ave disappointment times ten.

Keith rode in the break strong and ended up finishing 7^th. After 50 miles of being in the break his legs found a whole new meaning of pain and he didn’t have much of anything for the final sprint. With 12 people up the road I was 14^thfor the day. I was happy that Keith got into the break and that I was able to sprint well at the end of a road race. Getting in the break of the day continues to elude me this season and once again I almost found myself in it. Hopefully that day is coming soon.

Rick Newhouse Criterium, cat 3/4

2010-04-19T16:50:00.001-04:00

This weekend the race schedule has us back to Ninigret for the Rick Newhouse. This one offered a ¾ field, and I was pretty pumped to not race against the p12’s for a change. The only race I’d done this season without the 1’s and 2’s was Battenkill, and the top20 there are practically 2’s anyways.

Unfortunately the weather was not so exciting. Temperatures in the 40’s with rain were being forecasted all week. Attendance was low as a result. Our field had only 28 pre-reg and 30 or 35 tops on the start line. On race day the weather ended up being not so bad. It was chilly, maybe 45F, and the rain never got harder than a mist. I’ll take that over 80’s and sun this time of year.

With the chilly racing conditions and the combined field, I got more warmup in than usual. I didn’t want to get caught behind an early split or miss an early break. There didn’t seem to be many 3’s in the field so I figured the right mix could get away pretty easily. I planned to watch out for the Horst and Cambridge Bicycles teams. Svelte ended up showing doing a day-of reg. No one else from NEBC was racing and I was on my own.

The race was on pretty much from the start. I think it was the Horst guys taking turns attacking that made it fast. I had lined up at the back, but once I saw Horst being so aggressive I moved to the front. No problems in a 30 man field. I didn’t hop in any of the earliest moves, but I wanted to stay close enough that I could pick and chose the right one.

It seemed unlikely to me that a break would stick in the first 5 or 10 minutes, but by the third lap Glowa (Svelte) and one other were in a move. Eric Marro from BOB attacked in a bridge attempt, and I followed along with the bodybuilder turned cyclist Ken Thoman (YEAH KENNY). It took us a lap or so to reach the Glowa group, and within a half lap or doing so the field was reeling us in.

Just as we were caught Gary Aspnes (Horst) countered and Glowa went again. I was on Glowa’s wheel at the time (he was first wheel in our break and I was second wheel) and I let him go. I’ll replay this decision in my head over and over all week. Certainly I was under pressure at that point and responding would have been difficult, but I do think I had the reserves to go again just like he did. I just thought the field was too responsive at the time and that it would have been for nothing, even though a marked man was in the move. This was a mistake.

Aspnes and Glowa were joined shortly by an Arc En Ceil racer that made a very impressive bridge. I was not in position to follow this bridge move. The three of them opened up a 30 second margin very quickly, but the Arc En Ceil racer dropped out after the first prime.

Cambridge was absent from the break. With 4 guys pre-reg’d I figured they’d be sure to control the race, so I wasn’t too worried about the two-man break. After taking a few laps to recover CB was nowhere to be seen. Looking around the field I could only spot 2 or 3 of them. Looking at the results, there were only 2. They wouldn’t be able to control the race like I had expected, but I didn’t realize that at the time.

After letting the break dangle for 5 or 10 minutes I started to make my contributions to bring it back. I didn’t have any teammates in the field, and didn’t want to drag the entire field back, but the only people that appeared to be concerned were other individual racers. There were no strong teams willing to do anything about it. I made several pulls but we were barely putting a dent into the break. They remained ~30 seconds out (the length of the front straight) no matter what we did.

Many laps went by that we tried to bring the break back. CB came to the front to work together and I hoped for the best, but it was too late by then. After what seemed like no time at all I heard someone yell “9 laps to go!” At that point the break had been away for about 20 minutes. I knew that we wouldn’t be able to bring them back unless disaster struck, so I went back to rest up.

I wasn’t the only one that let up. In just the next few laps the gap stretched out to over a minute. The bell rang for a field prime and some fresh legs that hadn’t been helping manage the break showed themselves. There was zero cooperation in the field.

With 5 to go we were a half lap behind the 2 leaders. They looked comfortable and rock solid while we were bunched up every lap riding into the head wind. Knowing that we wouldn’t catch them I wanted to do nothing but sit in and rest for the final laps, but when I saw Spaits (CB) take a flyer I got back to the front. I did not want to miss another move, especially this late in the race.

Several attacks went off in the final laps but nothing stuck. We would go from easy to hard but the hard attacks never lasted long. It might have been the wind and cold rain. I was wet and my shoes water logged. I doubt anyone was comfortable

A few attacks looked like they were creating splits in the field, and I sat in jumping from split to split. I didn’t want to create any moves, just make sure I didn’t miss a successful move. In hindsight I recognize this as being a pretty gutless approach. I just didn’t have the confidence in my ability to go hard for 5 minutes. Battenkill will do that to you. A lot of people seemed to feel the same way and that this may have been why nothing stuck.

As we came up the front straight with two to go, I told myself to sneak in behind a good wheel as rest as much as humanly possible. Boy did I screw that one up. The pace eased way off because of the headwind. I felt a swarming coming on and didn’t want to give up my 4^th wheel position. I felt like I was soft pedaling, but it wasn’t long before I was towing around the field. No one would come around me. Usually at that point in the race you feel like you’re going easy but you’re actually putting out threshold power. Unless you’re freakishly strong relative to your field it’s the wrong position to be in.

For the next lap and a half I sat first wheel out in the wind. I hugged one side or the other of the track so I could watch for attacks. I was surprised that nothing came until a half lap to go when Mashburn (Svelte) went hard on the back straight. We had been going slow enough that everyone in the field could respond. I’m not sure if Mashburn got a gap or not, but our pace was finally fast.

We were strung out through the final two turns of the race and I was third wheel behind Tommy Goguen. I knew from earlier in the race that he was super strong, the trouble was that he’s a tiny junior and I’m 6-1. Minimal drafting benefit at this critical point in the race. Obviously this wasn’t the ideal wheel to be on but it’s where I ended up in the chaos of the attack. (by the way, he has a sweet Maietta frame)

On the final turn a train of riders came around on the outside, we were sprinting for 3^rd place. Tommy made a move to the left side where Mashburn was heading backwards quickly. I saw a lane between the two and attacked it with full gas, quickly spinning out my gear with at least 200m to go into the headwind. This would have been a nice move with 50m to go, but not from that far out. Just after overtaking Tommy I had to ease off and shift into a harder gear.

I surged again and my legs started to fail, no doubt due to all the wasted energy on the last 2 laps. I could feel Tommy overtaking me but there was nothing I could do to hold him off. There were several racers to my right also fighting for position. I tried to keep as much power on the pedals as I could in what felt like the longest sprint of my life. I threw my bike at the line and sat up to see 5 or 10 racers immediately to my right. At the time I couldn’t even guess what place I had finished in.

Final results were posted and I was 8^th, 6^th in the bunch sprint. Andrew Tucker of Quad Cycles won the bunch sprint which is impressive given the amount of effort he put into bringing the break back. It looks like Glowa beat out Aspnes for the win.

Time gaps are included in the results and I was 0.3s behind Tucker. That’s less than 15 feet at 35mph. Tommy finished 5^th (3rd in the bunch sprint), 0.1s behind Tucker. 13^th place was only 0.4s behind me. What a tight race. I’m now kicking myself in the butt for a) missing the winning move sort of 2008 Flanders–Hincapie style and b) wasting energy at the end of the race and losing by 15 feet. It seems like I always blow the first bunch sprint of the season that I have a real shot at. ’08 Cyclonauts Criterium, ’09 Great Falls Criterium. At least I got this one out of my system in mid-April.