I love my cyclocross bike. I don't so much love cyclocross, as a sport, but I love the flexibility the bike gives me, both in terms of where and when I can ride. The frame is maybe a bit more rigid than optimal for a true gravel bike, but it suits my riding, and I've never really wanted for wider tires than my 700x33 Clement BOS tubeless setup I put on the bike in early 2017.
I've taken the bike on business trips to places that have lots of gravel. I've taken it on family vacations with a spare set of true road wheels (with boat-anchor tires). I've done single-track, snow, all sorts of inconvenient crap, and I've raced it hard. It's a great all-round platform for getting into, and back out of, trouble.
And to be honest the gravel craze has intrigued me. I don't mind gravel so much, but it's generally not my first choice. So when an opportunity came up to take an overnight business trip to DC, I figured I'd grab the ol' adventure machine and do it up right: hit all the trails I could find through Rock Creek Park, then jump over on some light single-track to the C&O Canal Trail, and then just grind gravel downhill back to the city. ~65 miles. No big deal.
But luck has not really been on my side lately, so I took a few extra precautions packing for this ride. I went for the Camelbak, which I exhausted the last time I did a metric on this bike. A Gatorade, plenty of snacks. Lights and spare battery packs, just in case. Arm warmers and gilet because the weather ALWAYS turns when I ride in DC. Tools, spare (spare) CO2 (cartridges AND inflators). First aid kit, though I nearly abandoned it in the hotel. External battery pack for the phone, in the event my route sucked and I needed to re-route.
My goal was to be at the hotel at 3, and on the bike by 3:30p. I missed that mark by just over an hour, throwing a leg over at 4:38p, and starting off to discover that my Garmin wouldn't pull the route from Strava. Reboot, start over.
My route sucked. First off, Strava AND Komoot both happily routed my bike trek through a national park trail that is bike-prohibited. So I portaged. For a whole mile. Eventually I abandoned the route and worked my way down to the bottom of the C&O Canal Trail, and out onto pavement. No worries: I'd be on softer surfaces soon enough!
Soft surfaces never came, and Beach Dr (Rd?) had been freshly repaved, so while I was making great time, I was not doing my tires any favors.
Then my stomach started to cramp badly. REALLY badly. Like can't stop or I might not start again badly. 5 miles of feeling like I was being torn apart from the inside, and then magically it just stopped. No clue, whatever: rolling on.
At 20 miles into my journey, the light on the trails got pretty dim, and the deer started coming out. They're grayer in DC than they are at home, and that makes them a bit tougher to spot. After a couple of close encounters, I saw one that really needed to move out of the way. My CX bike has exceptionally noisy brakes, so I figured a quick jab of the brakes would get his attention. Only the pavement was also a teensy bit wet, and my tires, while still full of tread, have 3 years of use. The brake instantly seized the front wheel, which washed out and put me hard on my left knee and elbow.
The deer never moved.
I rode another half a mile (after straightening my left brake hood) to a trail exit so I could see the damage, and neither was pretty. Both hits were hard enough that neither was actively bleeding, but the elbow looked like hamburger, and knee had a nice deep gash. Yay first aid kit!
Now I was determined to get this stupid ride done. I figured I'd survived the worst of it, and if my knee would hold up to the abuse, I'd just roll on. Bandaged and covered, I rolled. Slowly, though, because the light was really inconveniently dim.
So after rolling out an hour late and losing 20 minutes to portaging and another 15 minutes to cleaning and dressing my wounds, I ran out of daylight before I even got halfway finished, and before I got to the north end of the Rock Creek trail.
I knew that meant my planned foray into the connector trails would have to be abandoned for major roads, and that meant more abuse for my tires. But it got better: I ended up in hard-scrabble single-track anyway, with no discernible trail markings except blazes on the trees, which I couldn't see because my eyes were focused on not crashing over roots & loose rocks. I fought that battle for a good 15 - 20 minutes and then found myself on a huge over-grown fire-break (kinda missing the point of a fire-break, folks!). That led me squarely into people's back yards, which was also super fantastic.
So I bailed, go to the road, and my Garmin then immediately notified me that its battery was low. Cue the phone battery pack! Oh but the Garmin mount on that bike doesn't allow it to charge, so into the backpack it went, and I had to use the phone to memorize the next several miles of turns.
After 45 minutes on the roads of North Potomac and Travilah, I found the entrance to the C&O Canal Trail. I made the turn and started down the hill, and suddenly realized I was moving REALLY FAST, with only nominal effectiveness of the headlight. Just as it occurred to me that there could be a pot-hole anywhere, I hit one squarely. The bike stayed up, but she was a handful to get under control. I got the speed down and started hearing ffft-ffft-ffft-ffft with every tire rotation. Oh. Yay.
Within sight of the trail, 38.8 miles into my journey, I stopped and realized there was an awful lot of sealant on the outside of the tire, but it still had air. I rolled it to where the hole was pointed straight down, sat for a moment, and then gingerly started out onto the canal trail.
She held, so I picked up the pace gradually. The headlight was almost completely worthless. I'd mounted it under the handlebar so it wouldn't look unsightly, and the rear shift cable kept rolling it downward, pointing it pretty much right at the front tire. Because I'm an idiot, it took me 10 more miles to realize that I could remount the light on TOP of the bar, so I rode with one thumb pressed into the backside of the light housing.
Then I missed a turn and came within about 10' of riding straight into the canal.
By this point I was fully aware of how my journey was going. I was tired, I had used most of my resources, and I was very, very far from civilization. Nobody was on the trail. I was about as isolated as I've ever been on a ride.
But the front tire continued to hold *just* enough air to not repair it. Harder bumps would go straight to the rim, but there was just enough wet sandy gravel that the super low volume made the bike controllable. I just adjusted my weight as rearward as possible and got moving. I was feeling better from the crash, and the bandages were keeping most of the mud out.
18 miles later I got to my trail exit, and I pulled up to a street light just in time to see the last air leave the front tire. CO2 to the rescue, and it was on to some of the steepest climbing I'd seen all day/night.
Then the battery warning LED lit up on the headlight, and the race was on. I did have a spare, but I wanted to see if I could make it to the hotel without changing it. And I did! Literally as I was pulling in to the hotel lot, the light died. Perfect timing!
I put the bike away at 9:48p, a full 5+ hours after rolling out for a 59.6 mile journey, and stepped back out of the deck to discover that it had also just started raining, so I guess I timed that pretty well, too.
There were so many ways this ride failed, and yet there were so many ways it could have been MUCH worse. I completed it, save a few reroutes. The bike is principally intact, though it seems the Wahoo S/C sensor took a hit in the crash. My first aid kit had exactly the right supplies, and my nutrition game was on point.
And because I managed to get myself out of each predicament, I have to classify it as a pretty great ride. I'm a bike nerd, for sure, but I'm a much bigger problem-solving nerd, and I'm gonna be geeking out about that ride for a long time. I just might not be looking for any more adventures for a while.
Wednesday, October 02, 2019
Thursday, August 01, 2019
Infernal machine
Last year I picked up a used 2016 Swift Neurogen frameset. This thing is mean as hell and dead sexy, and it flat f*ing flies down the road. I got it used from a guy who raced pro triathlons, and who ran with endorsement from a producer of sugary energy drinks. There were problems from the get-go:
But I put that thing together and got out on the road pretty quickly, and for a lot less money than I'd expected. I solved most of the problems without too much fuss, although it took MONTHS to finally get the new headset to stop getting wobbly. I ended up drilling out both stem bolts and replacing them with electric-box bolts (you know: the kind that aren't technically "load-bearing" at all), and TBH the skis aren't that far off for me.
But I've never fully solved for the cable guides. One major design flaw in that bike is that all the guides enter the top tube via a shared access panel a couple inches behind the stem. That happens to be just about the exact spot where sweat drops from my chin, and I'm guessing that's also true of the former owner.
He was courteous enough to provide me with a spare access panel cover, but it's really just 4 vertical entry holes in a custom-shaped rubber plug: anything that hits it will pool in the stops and wick down into the guides. And boy howdy has it wicked.
After the first couple of rides, I completely lost the rear brake. I squeeze, it engages, and that's it. No release at all. Then I lost the front shifter to the opposite issue: no moving to the big ring.
At first I figured I'd just go 1x up front, but after a couple of dropped chains I decided to get this crap under control.
I pulled all the cables and, well, there's not much that you can fit into internal cable guides. So I used the cables themselves as floss, which freed up a bunch of gunk--enough to get the bike back on the road...for another month or so.
Round 2 involved pipe cleaners! My kids have lots of pipe cleaners for arts & crafts, so I jammed a few up and removed a whole lot more gunk from both ends of the brake cable housing, but still nothing was long enough to go all the way through.
Round 3 saw the introduction of "safe" cleaners like SimpleGreen, but we're at a point now where I'm having to replace the rear brake cable every 3 rides, and the front shifter almost as frequently. Then in my last TT I started to lose the rear shifter, having to shift down-twice-up-once to climb. These cables have less than 300 miles on them, pulling year-old 22-speed SRAM Force derailleurs.
So I'm at a bit of a loss on how to proceed. I punted and just bought a box of internal brake & shifter cables, but I really have no interest in recabling the bike every other ride (especially not that infernal TRP TTV rear brake). Last night I installed a power meter crankset, and when replacing the bottom bracket shell noticed that there are 2 access ports inside the frame to the internal guides. I cannot possibly imagine that they could be used to actually replace the guides, since they'd have to be fed up the downtube and then bent beyond their limits to fish under the bottom bracket, but I *can* access them.
Do I drill out the stops under the access panel and run full-length outers through the frame? That will work for the brake, but the shifters might be a bit more problematic--the front doesn't have a visible stop at all: only the exposed cable exits from a *very* small hole. But do the shifters matter? I could go eTap for that, but at incredible cost, which wouldn't make a huge amount of sense for a bike that only gets ~900 miles/year.
Will running outers through the frame cause rattling to the point where I'll end up throwing the bike off a bridge?
It does me a frustrate.
- both stem bolts were so rusted they broke off inside the stem
- the headset bearing was so fouled I could never get the bottom piece off the fork
- the skis are still perma-glued into their original position and will never come off or move
- the internal cable guides were fouled with sugary drinks & sweat
- and of course the usual visual blemishes from wear & tear
But I put that thing together and got out on the road pretty quickly, and for a lot less money than I'd expected. I solved most of the problems without too much fuss, although it took MONTHS to finally get the new headset to stop getting wobbly. I ended up drilling out both stem bolts and replacing them with electric-box bolts (you know: the kind that aren't technically "load-bearing" at all), and TBH the skis aren't that far off for me.
But I've never fully solved for the cable guides. One major design flaw in that bike is that all the guides enter the top tube via a shared access panel a couple inches behind the stem. That happens to be just about the exact spot where sweat drops from my chin, and I'm guessing that's also true of the former owner.
He was courteous enough to provide me with a spare access panel cover, but it's really just 4 vertical entry holes in a custom-shaped rubber plug: anything that hits it will pool in the stops and wick down into the guides. And boy howdy has it wicked.
After the first couple of rides, I completely lost the rear brake. I squeeze, it engages, and that's it. No release at all. Then I lost the front shifter to the opposite issue: no moving to the big ring.
At first I figured I'd just go 1x up front, but after a couple of dropped chains I decided to get this crap under control.
I pulled all the cables and, well, there's not much that you can fit into internal cable guides. So I used the cables themselves as floss, which freed up a bunch of gunk--enough to get the bike back on the road...for another month or so.
Round 2 involved pipe cleaners! My kids have lots of pipe cleaners for arts & crafts, so I jammed a few up and removed a whole lot more gunk from both ends of the brake cable housing, but still nothing was long enough to go all the way through.
Round 3 saw the introduction of "safe" cleaners like SimpleGreen, but we're at a point now where I'm having to replace the rear brake cable every 3 rides, and the front shifter almost as frequently. Then in my last TT I started to lose the rear shifter, having to shift down-twice-up-once to climb. These cables have less than 300 miles on them, pulling year-old 22-speed SRAM Force derailleurs.
So I'm at a bit of a loss on how to proceed. I punted and just bought a box of internal brake & shifter cables, but I really have no interest in recabling the bike every other ride (especially not that infernal TRP TTV rear brake). Last night I installed a power meter crankset, and when replacing the bottom bracket shell noticed that there are 2 access ports inside the frame to the internal guides. I cannot possibly imagine that they could be used to actually replace the guides, since they'd have to be fed up the downtube and then bent beyond their limits to fish under the bottom bracket, but I *can* access them.
Do I drill out the stops under the access panel and run full-length outers through the frame? That will work for the brake, but the shifters might be a bit more problematic--the front doesn't have a visible stop at all: only the exposed cable exits from a *very* small hole. But do the shifters matter? I could go eTap for that, but at incredible cost, which wouldn't make a huge amount of sense for a bike that only gets ~900 miles/year.
Will running outers through the frame cause rattling to the point where I'll end up throwing the bike off a bridge?
It does me a frustrate.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Blood, Sweat, and Bacon TT
This weekend I learned the hard limits of racing to heart-rate. Delightfully, though, I still got to enjoy some bacon.
Sunday was supposed to be the start of a mini TT season within the VA Cycling road season: 3 races over the course of 4 weeks, mixed with a couple of crits to bring the whole season to a close. Alas, an entire weekend got canceled, and that left us with just 3 points-scoring opportunities.
From the BAR perspective, the cancellation meant that I'm the only contender who can possibly unseat the guy in 1st, but it also meant I'd have to average roughly 4th or higher over the remaining 3 events. Sunday's race suddenly had more on the line than just "show up & score points".
I'd trained only a little on the TT bike: my road racing season from April thru June included no good compelling reason to ever touch the thing, so when I pulled it off the rack and commuted on it on July 9, it had been untouched for quite a while...and it showed. Braking was terrible, and the front derailleur had to be moved by hand.
I worked out the cabling issues and did a couple of bigger rides on the thing in our worst heat wave of the year, and was pretty satisfied with my speed. I even took a 21-mile segment by 2+ minutes near the end of a 56-mile ride, so I knew I could maintain power and focus on it.
Except I also had no idea what "power" meant on the thing, because it lacks a power meter. No worries, said I: I know roughly how my power equates to heart rate because of countless hours of measuring both on the race bike and in Zwift!
Would that that were true...
I started Sunday's TT strong, with a clear focus to work up to max power, not go too hard in the first 5 - 6 miles, and aim for a negative split. There was very little elevation on the 24-mile course, but it was hot hot hot. My goal was to go under an hour, and of my competitors, I was genuinely worried about 3.
But within 3 miles, my heart was already over the limits of what I wanted. And then at the first turn a corner worker didn't see me coming and released a truck straight at me. I let off the gas and probably blew about 3 or 4 seconds, and after that I stopped trying to stay out of Z5 heart rate.
At mile 5, there's a fast descent followed by a loose-surface sharp left turn across a low bridge. The run up to the turn is blind, but everyone had been cautioned to get on the brakes. Someone didn't, and when I came around to view the turn, it was 100% blocked by emergency vehicles. I slowed almost to a full stop and picked my way around the 7(!) different trucks, losing huge time (though it turns out everyone else in my class did, too). That was the first time I've ever had to unclip and drag a foot in a TT. I hope the other rider(s) is(/are) ok.
There were no further interruptions, and while I caught 3 of my competitors in the next 2 miles, the other two (who started just before me) were just GONE. My Garmin was telling me that I was racing my brains out at 180+BPM, but after a while I started to feel that maybe that wasn't quite true: there was no lactic build-up, and honestly I felt like I was just turning in a middling Z4 ride. Without power, though, there was just no real way to know.
Except that the two guys ahead remained invisibly far ahead.
I started to pick up the tempo a bit in the last few miles, but I knew I was beaten. I even gave it a middling sprint effort at the end, pushing my heart over 185, but while I felt tired, I didn't come anywhere close to how I should have felt after an hour at max effort.
I ended up finishing in 3rd. Enough for a podium, bacon, and enough points to keep the BAR dream alive, but really frustrated to have given up more than a minute to both 1st and 2nd place.
So I did what any reasonable competitive cyclist would do: I ordered a power meter for a bike that I only need for one more event this season.
[For giggles, last night (day after the event) I got on the trainer, and instead of doing a recovery ride decided to do sprint efforts in Zwift. I was able to dump some of the biggest power numbers of the year, which frankly shouldn't have been anywhere close to possible.]
Sunday was supposed to be the start of a mini TT season within the VA Cycling road season: 3 races over the course of 4 weeks, mixed with a couple of crits to bring the whole season to a close. Alas, an entire weekend got canceled, and that left us with just 3 points-scoring opportunities.
From the BAR perspective, the cancellation meant that I'm the only contender who can possibly unseat the guy in 1st, but it also meant I'd have to average roughly 4th or higher over the remaining 3 events. Sunday's race suddenly had more on the line than just "show up & score points".
I'd trained only a little on the TT bike: my road racing season from April thru June included no good compelling reason to ever touch the thing, so when I pulled it off the rack and commuted on it on July 9, it had been untouched for quite a while...and it showed. Braking was terrible, and the front derailleur had to be moved by hand.
I worked out the cabling issues and did a couple of bigger rides on the thing in our worst heat wave of the year, and was pretty satisfied with my speed. I even took a 21-mile segment by 2+ minutes near the end of a 56-mile ride, so I knew I could maintain power and focus on it.
Except I also had no idea what "power" meant on the thing, because it lacks a power meter. No worries, said I: I know roughly how my power equates to heart rate because of countless hours of measuring both on the race bike and in Zwift!
Would that that were true...
I started Sunday's TT strong, with a clear focus to work up to max power, not go too hard in the first 5 - 6 miles, and aim for a negative split. There was very little elevation on the 24-mile course, but it was hot hot hot. My goal was to go under an hour, and of my competitors, I was genuinely worried about 3.
But within 3 miles, my heart was already over the limits of what I wanted. And then at the first turn a corner worker didn't see me coming and released a truck straight at me. I let off the gas and probably blew about 3 or 4 seconds, and after that I stopped trying to stay out of Z5 heart rate.
At mile 5, there's a fast descent followed by a loose-surface sharp left turn across a low bridge. The run up to the turn is blind, but everyone had been cautioned to get on the brakes. Someone didn't, and when I came around to view the turn, it was 100% blocked by emergency vehicles. I slowed almost to a full stop and picked my way around the 7(!) different trucks, losing huge time (though it turns out everyone else in my class did, too). That was the first time I've ever had to unclip and drag a foot in a TT. I hope the other rider(s) is(/are) ok.
There were no further interruptions, and while I caught 3 of my competitors in the next 2 miles, the other two (who started just before me) were just GONE. My Garmin was telling me that I was racing my brains out at 180+BPM, but after a while I started to feel that maybe that wasn't quite true: there was no lactic build-up, and honestly I felt like I was just turning in a middling Z4 ride. Without power, though, there was just no real way to know.
Except that the two guys ahead remained invisibly far ahead.
I started to pick up the tempo a bit in the last few miles, but I knew I was beaten. I even gave it a middling sprint effort at the end, pushing my heart over 185, but while I felt tired, I didn't come anywhere close to how I should have felt after an hour at max effort.
I ended up finishing in 3rd. Enough for a podium, bacon, and enough points to keep the BAR dream alive, but really frustrated to have given up more than a minute to both 1st and 2nd place.
So I did what any reasonable competitive cyclist would do: I ordered a power meter for a bike that I only need for one more event this season.
[For giggles, last night (day after the event) I got on the trainer, and instead of doing a recovery ride decided to do sprint efforts in Zwift. I was able to dump some of the biggest power numbers of the year, which frankly shouldn't have been anywhere close to possible.]
Monday, May 20, 2019
Wintergreen - 3rd time up the mountain
Glad that one's out of the way...
Time trials are a special form of hell. They're 100% mental, and exploit the depths of your willingness to suffer. Time trials uphill are also mental, but give you less choice: you either stay on the bike when it gets miserable, or you get off. Depending on the gradient, you may not have any other choice to make.
Wintergreen has a couple of places where that limited set of choices comes into sharp relief. The course traditionally starts on a false flat, rises steadily for about 2 miles, then hits some punchy ramps up to the entrance of the resort. Once you hit the resort, at about 4 miles and ~950' of climbing, the real work begins: the remaining 2.x miles contain 2/3 of the total elevation of the course.
I say 2.x miles because the finish usually includes three back-to-back brutally steep ramps. But this year the course ended beside the first ramp, on a relatively mild pitch about 200' lower.
I took that reduction in elevation to mean MORE POWER!! And I'd switched over to a compact crankset for the first time, so I had functionally another whole gear under me.
But it was also 30 degrees warmer than in previous years, and the sun she was a-shinin'. No wind to speak of, and 80-degrees F all the way up. Those two places where the choices get slim? They claimed a bunch of folks.
I've never seen so many people off their bikes, and attendance was down.
I made it through the bottom section with no real problem, though I ran out of gears sooner than I'd expected to. But I'm trying a new thing where I don't stupidly stay off the bottom gear just because, and the choice was paying off: I was able to keep my cadence in a tolerable range, and my heart took longer to climb into zone 5. I was slower than years prior, but my overall power is down and my weight is up, so that wasn't a surprise.
The top part, though, takes riders through a miserable section that sees one of the steepest turns on the course lead onto a withering ramp, followed by another steep turn that opens into direct sunlight. If you make it to the sunlight, you know you're near the top. It was in that first turn where I began to regret all of my life choices, and coming out of it I realized I was not alone: at least 5 riders walking or standing next to their bikes.
There was no way I was getting off the bike that close to the top, even if I was moving slowly enough that the Garmin kept auto-pausing, and my heart was pushing deep into the 180's.
I made it to the sunshine and was surprised to realize I could still add a little kick. The course leveled out a bit, and I managed to goose it one last time coming through the finish, though there was no way I was going to try to sprint it in.
My goal was not to win. I'd seen the finish times for all the other riders in Cat 3, and my best hope was to be just off last place. But I guess the heat got people more than I'd expected, and I LOVE the heat. I ended up 4th of 8, still several minutes out of first, but less than a minute off the podium.
I think the revised finish played to my favor, as did the weather and compact crankset. But Wintergreen is still hard AF. If I'm not vying for a BAR jersey next year, I doubt I'll have a compelling reason to do it again.
For now, though, I'm rewarded for my efforts by being officially 2nd in the BAR race, and I've earned a 2 month respite--there are no BAR events for Cat 3 until late July! 3 of the remaining 5 scheduled events are TT's, so my curious aversion to bunch sprints (new for 2019!) may not play as big a role as I was fearing.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Tour of Page County Stage Race: A Lonely Way to Fail
We've just barely reached the midway point of the racing season, and I'm struggling. After failing, for the first time this season, to score even a single point at Jeff Cup last week, I had a terrible showing at the first of 3 events this weekend, and put myself out of contention before the action even got heated.
The Tour of Page County is a 3-part stage race comprising a road race on Saturday, followed by a TT and a crit on Sunday. The 3/4 group drew the short straw this year and got the earliest start time of 8:30a for the road race. Just like Jeff Cup, the race is ~60 miles, but unlike Jeff Cup, the signature climb on this course strikes fear into the hearts of mortals.
I'd done this course twice in the past. Once as a 5, and then the following year as a 4. Both times I'd come in 3rd in relatively small fields of ~30 or less. The 2nd time I did it on crit gearing and sat on the front for about half the race.
I felt much more confident going into this than I did Jeff Cup. And I'd been a good boy and not over-cooked it in the week before. No crushing group rides or anything crazy: just persistent low-level training. And a cough I'd been struggling with for the past month finally fully abated.
I even started the race smarter, rolling in the back 1/3 and moving up as gaps opened.
The first time over the climb wasn't too bad. My position allowed me to easily keep contact while sag climbers moved backward through the group, and there was no real surging. The heart rate crept up near the top, but the pace was very manageable. The descent on the other side, just like Jeff Cup, saw me sitting bolt upright to avoid running over the group. And then the finish climb, while horrible, still was no worse than the winery climb's pace the previous weekend. Good.
The 2nd climb was almost exactly the same, and I felt like I was in a good position to sit back and let the juniors do the work in the wind. I'd sink a bit on the finish climb and then roll back up to the front of the group in the valley.
Then, on the 3rd climb, all hell broke loose. The juniors attacked from the base of the climb to the top. I held on to the top, lost a few meters over the top, regained it on the descent, and completely blew up on the finish climb. Coming over the top, I saw the group riding away, easily 20 to 30 seconds ahead.
I caught another straggler, and we agreed OUR race was done. At only ~30 miles. I've never lost contact so early in a race.
Then a small group of riders caught us, and then another, and suddenly we were 10 riders. Someone took up the mantle of road captain, and we quickly established a reverse left-over-right rotation. 3 miles later, we could see the peloton. Another mile or so and we were back in the group. Big round of cheers all around.
Except we were close to the base of that climb again, and when we hit it, we hit it hard. The group pressed a pace every bit as tough as the previous lap's, and there was nothing I could do. I was 15 seconds adrift by the top of the main climb, and completely out of sight through the finish climb.
The 5th lap was sad, solitary, and slow. Amazingly, Strava shows that I actually gained back some time for a while, but was never within a minute. I caught and passed a few riders from different race groups, and since you can't draft off other races, rolled steadily on. By the time I'd reached the middle of the big climb, I was out of gears: 39x28 and struggling to turn 70rpm. By the finish climb I was weaving and just about to get off and walk the damn thing.
I crossed the line and asked the judges if I could stop. Initially they said no, but after a few seconds they relented and shouted that I could be done.
And that was it: I was pulled. I requested it, and to be honest I'm not sure I physically could have completed another lap, but that meant my stage race was already lost.
When results were posted, they confirmed that all of us who were pulled (which was almost half the field!) were penalized 10 minutes. Pulled does not equal DNF, fortunately, so I was able to continue to compete, but I'd be racing for peanuts.
I managed to pull up a couple of positions in Sunday morning's TT, catching my 30-second and 1-minute riders, but nothing spectacular. My heart just wasn't in it.
And the final event, the 45-minute speedway crit, was just about finishing. Since placement is on overall time, just finishing in the field would mean posting roughly the same time as the field, so I was pretty confident I would not lose any places in the overall if I just finished the damn race. And I did. The pace was just a tick under 28mph, there were no wrecks (though just barely), and I stayed in the back the whole time. I didn't get dropped. Yay.
When all was said and done, I'd finished 33rd for the weekend. I pulled up 6 positions from my road race finish, but it was not at all the weekend I'd hoped for.
But hey, now I can say I've done a stage race! And that's not bad.
The Tour of Page County is a 3-part stage race comprising a road race on Saturday, followed by a TT and a crit on Sunday. The 3/4 group drew the short straw this year and got the earliest start time of 8:30a for the road race. Just like Jeff Cup, the race is ~60 miles, but unlike Jeff Cup, the signature climb on this course strikes fear into the hearts of mortals.
I'd done this course twice in the past. Once as a 5, and then the following year as a 4. Both times I'd come in 3rd in relatively small fields of ~30 or less. The 2nd time I did it on crit gearing and sat on the front for about half the race.
I felt much more confident going into this than I did Jeff Cup. And I'd been a good boy and not over-cooked it in the week before. No crushing group rides or anything crazy: just persistent low-level training. And a cough I'd been struggling with for the past month finally fully abated.
I even started the race smarter, rolling in the back 1/3 and moving up as gaps opened.
The first time over the climb wasn't too bad. My position allowed me to easily keep contact while sag climbers moved backward through the group, and there was no real surging. The heart rate crept up near the top, but the pace was very manageable. The descent on the other side, just like Jeff Cup, saw me sitting bolt upright to avoid running over the group. And then the finish climb, while horrible, still was no worse than the winery climb's pace the previous weekend. Good.
The 2nd climb was almost exactly the same, and I felt like I was in a good position to sit back and let the juniors do the work in the wind. I'd sink a bit on the finish climb and then roll back up to the front of the group in the valley.
Then, on the 3rd climb, all hell broke loose. The juniors attacked from the base of the climb to the top. I held on to the top, lost a few meters over the top, regained it on the descent, and completely blew up on the finish climb. Coming over the top, I saw the group riding away, easily 20 to 30 seconds ahead.
I caught another straggler, and we agreed OUR race was done. At only ~30 miles. I've never lost contact so early in a race.
Then a small group of riders caught us, and then another, and suddenly we were 10 riders. Someone took up the mantle of road captain, and we quickly established a reverse left-over-right rotation. 3 miles later, we could see the peloton. Another mile or so and we were back in the group. Big round of cheers all around.
Except we were close to the base of that climb again, and when we hit it, we hit it hard. The group pressed a pace every bit as tough as the previous lap's, and there was nothing I could do. I was 15 seconds adrift by the top of the main climb, and completely out of sight through the finish climb.
The 5th lap was sad, solitary, and slow. Amazingly, Strava shows that I actually gained back some time for a while, but was never within a minute. I caught and passed a few riders from different race groups, and since you can't draft off other races, rolled steadily on. By the time I'd reached the middle of the big climb, I was out of gears: 39x28 and struggling to turn 70rpm. By the finish climb I was weaving and just about to get off and walk the damn thing.
I crossed the line and asked the judges if I could stop. Initially they said no, but after a few seconds they relented and shouted that I could be done.
And that was it: I was pulled. I requested it, and to be honest I'm not sure I physically could have completed another lap, but that meant my stage race was already lost.
When results were posted, they confirmed that all of us who were pulled (which was almost half the field!) were penalized 10 minutes. Pulled does not equal DNF, fortunately, so I was able to continue to compete, but I'd be racing for peanuts.
I managed to pull up a couple of positions in Sunday morning's TT, catching my 30-second and 1-minute riders, but nothing spectacular. My heart just wasn't in it.
And the final event, the 45-minute speedway crit, was just about finishing. Since placement is on overall time, just finishing in the field would mean posting roughly the same time as the field, so I was pretty confident I would not lose any places in the overall if I just finished the damn race. And I did. The pace was just a tick under 28mph, there were no wrecks (though just barely), and I stayed in the back the whole time. I didn't get dropped. Yay.
When all was said and done, I'd finished 33rd for the weekend. I pulled up 6 positions from my road race finish, but it was not at all the weekend I'd hoped for.
But hey, now I can say I've done a stage race! And that's not bad.
Jeff Cup
I've had a big lump in my throat about Jeff Cup since 2016. It was only my 2nd ever road race, at the time, and my first in FSR team colors. I felt I had an obligation to do well, and I failed. The race was shortened to 20 miles before it even started, due to a power outage on the course, and the MABRA teams just turned it into a 20-mile sprint. The climb broke me, and it got in my head.
In 2017 I missed the race after breaking a rib the prior weekend at RIR, and in 2018 I skipped it because of weather...that never really happened.
So it's had 3 years to grow in my head and turn into a big ugly monster of a race. Yay.
We went up as a team a few weeks ago to get in some practice laps, including a hard full-lap effort after doing 40-ish miles through the mountains. The climb seemed more manageable, and folks seemed to be on-board for taking it on as a team effort.
Then came the forecast: strong winds from the South, which meant a big push up the hill, and a nasty headwind once over the top. So anybody foolish enough to attack over the top would likely get pushed right back to the group. Good. Really good.
Feeling better.
---
2 days before the race I commuted to work on the race bike, just to make sure everything was solid. And I figured I'd ride over to the local Thursday night fast group ride and just sit on for a bit to regain some confidence in a fast-moving group. It was a lovely plan, but I am an idiot. We were rolling fast toward a Strava segment that I worked myself half-to-death to win, and I was concerned that it might fall, so I took a flyer. Ok, one effort: no big deal. But then I got stuck near the front, and when we came to the first set of climbs (that I should not have even been present for), I decided to sag climb to save for the weekend.
And somebody in the group pissed me off. An offhand comment passing me uphill, but clearly derisive and meant to show that on that day, he was stronger. So...I chased. Hard. Too hard, for about 2 miles. Heart DEEP in zone 5, legs burning. I passed cars. And I caught back up to the group, but for no good reason other than damaged pride. My legs were TORCHED. They hurt all day Friday, and Saturday they felt like they should the day before a major race. Except Saturday was the race.
---
We started out with 3 guys in green, and a plan to keep contact with the group, and a backup plan to spice things up at the end. I still felt my weakness would be losing contact over the top of the climb later in the race, and the soreness in my thighs wasn't helping my hopefulness.
When the whistle blew, somehow I rolled off faster and harder than anybody else, and I spent the first 2 miles off the front. Not really working too hard, but just hard enough for a solid Z4 effort. Again, dumb: but it did help shake some of the nerves. After half a lap, I settled into the front 1/3 of the group and just let the race unfold.
The climbs weren't particularly aggressive, though the wall after the first turn always managed to get the heart above 180bpm.
And because of that, on the 3rd climb, we got neutralized near the top. The masters rolled through, we all took a "natural break" (peeing en masse in public!), and got back on. And then it LIT UP. The juniors apparently did not take kindly to being neutralized, so they literally chased the masters back down in half a lap.
The attack over the winery hill was so strong I was gapped off the back, and had to rely on my teammate Erik to get back to the group. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, I couldn't breathe. Riders were rolling by me in droves, and I was panicking: my heart was at 180, I couldn't draw air, and it all looked done. And then the last rider passed me, and I clawed with everything I had to hold that wheel. The pace stayed super aggressive, and then we got neutralized again for catching the masters. Holy crap. Yay?
Fortunately the group settled down after that. No more crushing pace up the climb, no more attacks over the top. The only challenge was managing space: when the juniors want space, they just take it. They'll move over on you to force you physically off the road. They race to kill, and it is not pleasant.
Only in the last lap did a small group of 3 actually get away, and they were kept at under 30 seconds. One or two riders tried to sneak across, but I'm not sure anybody actually made it.
When we came through the final turn, I felt pretty decent. I was still in the main group, there was just over a mile to go, and the pace, while fast, wasn't so hard that I wouldn't be able to sprint.
At just under 1K to go, we hit a major problem: we'd re-caught that masters field. They were set up on the right, and our group paused, unsure of what exactly to do. The front guys were gone, but there was tremendous confusion: do we pass them? CAN we pass them? Will it ruin their race? Will it ruin ours??
After almost half a km of sitting on their wheel, the group got testy: shouts of "GO!!" came from the back. I was sitting right on the wheel of my main competitor, and one of the strongest sprinters in the region was on my wheel. We'd moved right of our group, in the center of the road. The group surged, and as we moved alongside the masters field, the juniors in the group pushed to the right. The masters looked around, moving slightly left, and all of a sudden, at 200m to go, we were in a kill-box. The guy ahead of me snaked through it, but just as I cranked up the power to 800W, I ran out of road and had to slam on brakes to avoid hitting a masters rider.
I crossed the line in 29th place, my teammate in 30th.
How we didn't crash is a bit of a mystery. It sucked to have come so far, have stayed with the group, and to have had the legs for a sprint, only to have it taken away, but I did bring the bike home in one piece, and I didn't lose any points to any other riders for the season: only one VA Cycling CAT 3 BAR contender finished ahead of me.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Hampton Roads Shootout - totally not at all a stage race
This weekend was a bit of a mixed bag for this racer. A TT in the wet on Saturday morning, organized by one group, followed by another organization's crit under mixed conditions on Sunday, but with a combined podium and separate prizes/payouts. The format wasn't just confusing for the reader, as scoring officials were trying desperately to figure out how, exactly, the combined podium results should break down. Mixed category racing over both days didn't help.
Saturday was our first time racing the Conquer the Canal Time Trial, and my first time racing a TT with a true full complement of TT essentials. The weather was warm, but with rain rolling in from the South and winds forecasted at 8 mph. And it was a slow soaking rain.
The course was a 12-mile out & back due South, so the out-leg was into the headwind. I'd done a bunch of research on which way to push hard, and everything indicated it would be wise to go harder into the headwind, even if it meant blowing up on the return. But the research also indicated to roll onto power in the first 30 seconds, rather than exploding off the block, a piece of advice that I think made a huge impact overall in the event.
I followed every hunch I had in gearing up for it, too: no gloves, no watch or Road ID, aero helmet & visor (even fogged up and vision blocking it would be faster to go with it and just try not to die), speed suit & fancy TT shoe covers, freshly shaved face & legs. The bike was 95% perfect with aero everything--the only things missing being a deep-section front wheel that I didn't own and a single chain-ring setup with no derailleur. I'd even thrown on a cassette with a physically smaller 11-25 profile because of the flat flat flat terrain. Next time I might even go 11-23.
But I'd also spent the entire week before on the sofa, sick with the flu. My chest had been so congested I couldn't roll over without unleashing a hell of coughing that rattled through my whole body. I'd been unable to turn a pedal until an exploratory trainer session on Thursday night--one that had ended with a deep and troubling hacking fit. I choked down cough medicine and rested as hard as I could, confident that I'd roll off the starting block and collapse in a fit of deep chesty coughing.
My only solace was that there were just 6 starters in Cat 3, so all I'd have to do was turn pedals in wet misery for 12 miles, and there would be points for my season. Points pay 15 places deep. It wasn't a great plan, but it was a plan.
But when I got down on the skis, the lungs didn't complain. In fact they seemed to open up willingly. So when the timer got to zero, I rolled hard. I took my minute to come up to speed, constantly ready for the lungs to rebel. Ready to cough so hard I'd crash. But I just didn't. And I got through heart rate zones 3 & 4 with no problem. My real honest goal had been to push a little into zone 5, which starts at 175 bpm, so I probed that, getting up to 179 and holding it...and feeling like there was more. So I pushed on to 181 bpm, which is deep in the red for me, but I've held it there for a while in Zwift races.
And it just stuck. And the lungs stayed clear. And the legs didn't complain. So I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. And then I was at the turn-around, and grateful I'd spent some time tweaking the front brake after the wreck a couple weeks ago. I dove onto the brakes, unclipped and grazed a toe (hope I didn't trash the expensive shoe-cover) around the cone, re-clipped, took a sip, and pushed again.
I ended up holding a heart rate of 181 bpm for most of the return trip, which was supposed to be the slightly downwind run. I was running almost completely blind with the fog in my visor, and the Garmin wasn't turning in accurate results with all the wetness, but I was going for broke.
I crossed the line at 27:33, good enough for 4th place in the mixed 1/2/3 results, but a win for Cat 3! A win by 30 seconds, in fact.
A win that would cost me on Sunday.
TT's were going to be the great unknown for me in my efforts to secure a season trophy. I'd avoided doing them in Cat 3 last year because I expected I'd finish dead last and didn't want the embarrassment. I put all my eggs in the crits & road races basket, where I'd done really well as a Cat 4 racer, but through all of 2018 I struggled to have any sort of meaningful results as a 3.
I'd vowed to improve those results and "crack the code" of Cat 3 racing, and my season so far had shown a bit of improvement, with 4th, 6th, and 8th place finishes, and a 15th place that resulted from being impatient and chasing a late-race prime. I was optimistic going into Sunday, and hopeful that the full week of rest would allow me to go hard twice.
Yeah...not so much.
The weather Sunday was predicted to be wet and windy again, but windier and only wet sometimes. I don't like to crit in the rain, and I know I cannot race my fastest race bike in the wet--it eats bearings to the tune of $200 per wet ride. The backup bike is ok, but the geometry makes it weird to sprint on, and it's not an aero bike by any stretch of the imagination. Internal cable-routing is about it, and the alloy wheels are barely 25mm deep. I'd be doing all the work to make it fast.
And I woke up Sunday with absolutely no desire to race. My last race on a speedway had resulted in a broken bike and a broken rib, and so far this season has seen a 1:1 relationship between races and crashes.
Speedway + crosswind + rain + crashy-season. No desire. None.
But it didn't rain all morning. It was windy, but not too bad. And I was watching a rhythm develop to every other race, and starting to feel like maybe all I needed to do was just turn laps and feel it out.
And then, 15 minutes before we were set to start, it started raining. And it rained through the entire Cat 3/4 race, and for about 5 minutes after. And of course it then stopped and didn't rain another drop all day. Grrr.
And I'm not ashamed to say I raced fearfully. I was ready for tires to fail. For someone to touch paint on the ground and take us all out. For me to be the one to do it. Fear raises the heart rate, and this was a FAST race. Basically flat with light banking made it possible for the race to just surge and surge and keep right on surging until there was no surge left to surge. We were going every bit as fast, in a group, as I'd gone in the TT the day before. And my heart was deep into zone 5 for most of it.
Little gaps kept opening, and constantly nervous that I'd miss the winning move, I kept jumping into them. Over and over again, for 40 minutes. I found my way to the front easily enough, marked the guys I wanted to mark, but I just kept becoming aware of rising fatigue.
3 laps from the end, I probed a line that took me through the wind on the high-side going into the final sprint, found that it was principally clear, and decided to roll that line until the end. I moved up toward the front, and entering that turn with 2 laps to go it was clear that would work for me. On the penultimate run though that section, though, mysteriously the whole group moved up into my line, and I spooked. I didn't fight for the position, and suddenly I was freight-trained to the back of about 15 guys. In 1 turn I'd gone from the front to the back, and on totally the wrong lap to do it.
My teammate rolled up and told me to jump on his wheel, but I just didn't have it, and I ended up losing contact and rolling in for another 15th place finish. It was good enough for 1 point for the season, but it really sucked. I think it helped my fears of speedway and rain racing, so that's one positive. My heart spent 77.8% of the race above 174 bpm, which is usually ok, but not after a blistering TT the day before. Hopefully increased confidence in wet conditions will help soothe the nerves for next time, since it seems that rain racing is here to stay.
Somehow, though, my combined results for the weekend were good enough for a 2nd place in the shootout. I'll take it!
Saturday was our first time racing the Conquer the Canal Time Trial, and my first time racing a TT with a true full complement of TT essentials. The weather was warm, but with rain rolling in from the South and winds forecasted at 8 mph. And it was a slow soaking rain.
The course was a 12-mile out & back due South, so the out-leg was into the headwind. I'd done a bunch of research on which way to push hard, and everything indicated it would be wise to go harder into the headwind, even if it meant blowing up on the return. But the research also indicated to roll onto power in the first 30 seconds, rather than exploding off the block, a piece of advice that I think made a huge impact overall in the event.
I followed every hunch I had in gearing up for it, too: no gloves, no watch or Road ID, aero helmet & visor (even fogged up and vision blocking it would be faster to go with it and just try not to die), speed suit & fancy TT shoe covers, freshly shaved face & legs. The bike was 95% perfect with aero everything--the only things missing being a deep-section front wheel that I didn't own and a single chain-ring setup with no derailleur. I'd even thrown on a cassette with a physically smaller 11-25 profile because of the flat flat flat terrain. Next time I might even go 11-23.
But I'd also spent the entire week before on the sofa, sick with the flu. My chest had been so congested I couldn't roll over without unleashing a hell of coughing that rattled through my whole body. I'd been unable to turn a pedal until an exploratory trainer session on Thursday night--one that had ended with a deep and troubling hacking fit. I choked down cough medicine and rested as hard as I could, confident that I'd roll off the starting block and collapse in a fit of deep chesty coughing.
My only solace was that there were just 6 starters in Cat 3, so all I'd have to do was turn pedals in wet misery for 12 miles, and there would be points for my season. Points pay 15 places deep. It wasn't a great plan, but it was a plan.
But when I got down on the skis, the lungs didn't complain. In fact they seemed to open up willingly. So when the timer got to zero, I rolled hard. I took my minute to come up to speed, constantly ready for the lungs to rebel. Ready to cough so hard I'd crash. But I just didn't. And I got through heart rate zones 3 & 4 with no problem. My real honest goal had been to push a little into zone 5, which starts at 175 bpm, so I probed that, getting up to 179 and holding it...and feeling like there was more. So I pushed on to 181 bpm, which is deep in the red for me, but I've held it there for a while in Zwift races.
And it just stuck. And the lungs stayed clear. And the legs didn't complain. So I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. And then I was at the turn-around, and grateful I'd spent some time tweaking the front brake after the wreck a couple weeks ago. I dove onto the brakes, unclipped and grazed a toe (hope I didn't trash the expensive shoe-cover) around the cone, re-clipped, took a sip, and pushed again.
I ended up holding a heart rate of 181 bpm for most of the return trip, which was supposed to be the slightly downwind run. I was running almost completely blind with the fog in my visor, and the Garmin wasn't turning in accurate results with all the wetness, but I was going for broke.
I crossed the line at 27:33, good enough for 4th place in the mixed 1/2/3 results, but a win for Cat 3! A win by 30 seconds, in fact.
A win that would cost me on Sunday.
TT's were going to be the great unknown for me in my efforts to secure a season trophy. I'd avoided doing them in Cat 3 last year because I expected I'd finish dead last and didn't want the embarrassment. I put all my eggs in the crits & road races basket, where I'd done really well as a Cat 4 racer, but through all of 2018 I struggled to have any sort of meaningful results as a 3.
I'd vowed to improve those results and "crack the code" of Cat 3 racing, and my season so far had shown a bit of improvement, with 4th, 6th, and 8th place finishes, and a 15th place that resulted from being impatient and chasing a late-race prime. I was optimistic going into Sunday, and hopeful that the full week of rest would allow me to go hard twice.
Yeah...not so much.
The weather Sunday was predicted to be wet and windy again, but windier and only wet sometimes. I don't like to crit in the rain, and I know I cannot race my fastest race bike in the wet--it eats bearings to the tune of $200 per wet ride. The backup bike is ok, but the geometry makes it weird to sprint on, and it's not an aero bike by any stretch of the imagination. Internal cable-routing is about it, and the alloy wheels are barely 25mm deep. I'd be doing all the work to make it fast.
And I woke up Sunday with absolutely no desire to race. My last race on a speedway had resulted in a broken bike and a broken rib, and so far this season has seen a 1:1 relationship between races and crashes.
Speedway + crosswind + rain + crashy-season. No desire. None.
But it didn't rain all morning. It was windy, but not too bad. And I was watching a rhythm develop to every other race, and starting to feel like maybe all I needed to do was just turn laps and feel it out.
And then, 15 minutes before we were set to start, it started raining. And it rained through the entire Cat 3/4 race, and for about 5 minutes after. And of course it then stopped and didn't rain another drop all day. Grrr.
And I'm not ashamed to say I raced fearfully. I was ready for tires to fail. For someone to touch paint on the ground and take us all out. For me to be the one to do it. Fear raises the heart rate, and this was a FAST race. Basically flat with light banking made it possible for the race to just surge and surge and keep right on surging until there was no surge left to surge. We were going every bit as fast, in a group, as I'd gone in the TT the day before. And my heart was deep into zone 5 for most of it.
Little gaps kept opening, and constantly nervous that I'd miss the winning move, I kept jumping into them. Over and over again, for 40 minutes. I found my way to the front easily enough, marked the guys I wanted to mark, but I just kept becoming aware of rising fatigue.
3 laps from the end, I probed a line that took me through the wind on the high-side going into the final sprint, found that it was principally clear, and decided to roll that line until the end. I moved up toward the front, and entering that turn with 2 laps to go it was clear that would work for me. On the penultimate run though that section, though, mysteriously the whole group moved up into my line, and I spooked. I didn't fight for the position, and suddenly I was freight-trained to the back of about 15 guys. In 1 turn I'd gone from the front to the back, and on totally the wrong lap to do it.
My teammate rolled up and told me to jump on his wheel, but I just didn't have it, and I ended up losing contact and rolling in for another 15th place finish. It was good enough for 1 point for the season, but it really sucked. I think it helped my fears of speedway and rain racing, so that's one positive. My heart spent 77.8% of the race above 174 bpm, which is usually ok, but not after a blistering TT the day before. Hopefully increased confidence in wet conditions will help soothe the nerves for next time, since it seems that rain racing is here to stay.
 |
| CCTT |
 |
| Langley--a lower percentage of Z5 was still more time than I spent on the entire TT |
Somehow, though, my combined results for the weekend were good enough for a 2nd place in the shootout. I'll take it!
Sunday, March 31, 2019
A three-fer two-fer
Two weeks, two states, three races, and one constant: wind.
Last weekend, VA Cycling ventured across the border into North Carolina for the "Battle of the Border" at NCCAR (NC Center for Automotive Research). NCCAR is a sort-of race track just over the border off I-95, featuring very little elevation change over a 1.9-mile meandering circuit. As an automotive race track, it's not very interesting. As a track for bikes, it should be a blisteringly fast course with turns wide enough to NEVER touch the brakes.
The day was billed as a double-header, with morning races going counter-clockwise, and afternoon races reversing the direction. It was frosty cold in the morning, and warm enough for summer kits in the afternoon.
But the wind. Bwuh. While it was rough at 8am, it just built throughout the day, peaking at about 15mph cross-winds blowing nearly straight across the longest straight.
In the first race, my whole mantra was "burn no unnecessary matches". I had no teammates, and plenty of other teams had shown up with numbers. But somehow I lined up behind Johnny Holeshot, and before even the first turn I was already into the wind at 2nd wheel. I stayed near the front, leery of the cross-winds and ready to jump across to anything that looked like it might stay away.
But nothing did, and suddenly it was a prime lap and I was out front. On the peg. With only one other rider and a gap to the group. It started to look like the prime was within reach, and I started to get greedy. When the group rounded the final turn, I still had the lead...and about 400m to the finish line. A rider jumped up-wind to my left, and I jumped to respond, but realized I had nothing after pulling for 2 miles. The effort turned into a feint, and while the group to the right over-took me, they also cooked themselves early.
The race settled in, and I took a lap to settle into the group to recover.
But I'd forgotten that the race was going to be shortened, and what should have been 2 laps to recover was suddenly the bell lap, and I was WAY out of position, clawing away deep in the field, and barely in view of the leaders. And a dude from the local sponsoring team had just run off the front. Crap.
I buried myself into the wind and saw my marks just up the road, with the only option to close the gap being a short sprint into the middle lane of the peloton--my most loathed position to lead into a finish sprint.
The gap stayed open long enough for me to get over the fear, and I closed it just as we made the turn for the final run. Others reported that the lead rider had set up to the right, in the wind, as a feint, while his teammates gathered forces for a sprint on the left. I didn't see that. What I saw was a gap open to my left, and then my world was horrible noise. The sound of carbon hitting the deck. The sound of scraping. A smack of flesh and water bottles.
I *saw* a wheel come at me sideways and hit my front tire at 34mph, and I had a choice: surrender to the crash or knuckle down. Having crashed before at high speeds, I chose the latter. I hit the wheel square on, and it bounced away. Then I saw a water bottle go under my tires, but just barely missed going over it. Then I saw motion out of the corner of my eye as another wheel came over my shoulder to hit the end of my handlebar.
And then it was done. I was alive, and the race wasn't over. So I stood on it and brought the bike home in 6th place, matching my previous best finish since upgrading to Cat 3 in 2018.
---
The afternoon race was less eventful. With at least 4 riders taken out from the wreck, the field was somewhat diminished. The winds, however, were not, and to counter the effect of the wind in turn 2, we were laying the bikes over farther than I have ever done before. Like reach-down-and-touch-the-pavement-low.
After a few laps of steady grinding into the wind, one rider lost focus for an instant and was literally blown off the bike. The group settled down and rolled.
Then a string of attacks threatened to split things up, but nobody was interested in being shelled off the back, so it always came to naught.
There was one set of attacks and counter-attacks, though, that did literally split the field in half. I started in the front group and ended the cycle watching them roll away, and at one point they had at least a 10 second gap, but for whatever reason they all sat up! With just over one lap to go, the front group of ~10 riders GAVE UP THEIR BREAKAWAY VOLUNTARILY to let us rejoin. Bananagrams.
I didn't think it would matter, but when the last set of turns came up, some guys decided to bow out of the sprint, and suddenly I found myself vying for a position I frankly hadn't earned, and I ended up crossing the line in 8th.
---
Fast forward to today: the Sleepy Hole Cat 3 crit. In the wind and rain.
6 riders pre-registered. One bowed out due to last week's wrecks. One dropped after an earlier race got too dicey. 3 registered at the event. 7 starters across 5 teams, and we had 2 in green.
7 riders in any race might make for a pretty boring day, but Sleepy Hole features the worst racing surface I've ever ridden. The warm-up was so rough that after 3 laps I quit. Alastair's 20-minute race-of-one was bad enough that his hands were numb half-way through.
The first turn features a string of patched pot-holes running about 30' along the entry to the corner, and had seen a horrible wreck in the race just before ours (get well soon, Brad!). The 2nd turn had taken out one member of a 2-man TT effort in that same race, and was really good at washing out rear tires. That turn had lead to a cross-wind section of the course earlier in the day, but had switched to a full-on head-wind for our race, and T3 lead onto a short but terrifying straight with 20+ mph cross-winds. The final turn featured orange construction fencing with steel poles and a porta-potty on the outside, with chopped up pavement on the inside, and a turn across the wind that was pants-fillingly terrifying.
It was not a great place to race in the rain, and I'd never raced a wet crit--everybody has cautioned STRONGLY against it since I started in this sport. I had no desire to tempt fate, so I flatly told people I was happy turning parade laps and just finishing. No sense tearing up hardware with only 7 starters and no real shot at glory.
The plan was to make it an aggressive group ride, and if someone wanted to run off the front: they could HAVE it. Somehow that someone became me, at least for a while.
The race started like a damn Zwift race, with 3 guys rolling like they'd been shot out of a gun for half a lap. It settled quickly, and after a couple laps came the first attack. I was 2nd wheel and had no desire to chase a solo effort, so watched him burn up in the wind.
The 2nd attack looked much the same until my teammate chased it. As they were being reeled in, I just stayed on power and suddenly had a gap. And then the gap grew. And grew. And then, within 3 laps, it was 20 seconds! I've never put 20 seconds on a race group alone, and I started to believe in it...just as it started to shrink.
My break lasted 6 whole laps, but they may have been some of the 6 best laps of my short racing career. I never actually attacked, but once I was away just locked my heart rate at 181 bpm and waited for the chase to organize. It took them 3.5 minutes to figure out who should chase, and then the group split in half trying to shut me down. And once caught I managed to stay with them, a group now of only 4.
After a lap or so I verbally volunteered to lead the group if they would save the tomfoolery for the end. I knew I didn't have a sprint left, and having been assured a 4th place finish when we lapped the remaining riders, I was guaranteed a decent amount of points for the season championship. They obliged, and I pulled for about 5 laps.
With just over 5 laps to go, one rider jumped. The others followed, and I had nothing to respond. I was gapped, and sure the race was over. All I had to do was cruise in to the finish. For almost 2 solid laps the gap grew to what it had been when I was off the front, and then they just neutralized themselves. Just like at the afternoon race at NCCAR, the front 3 just kinda...stopped racing for a minute. I railed the first 2 turns, put down an effort into the wind, and was right back into the mix with 3 laps to go!
Except I was dead-legged and not *really* in the mix. The next 2.5 laps were so neutral I recovered to zone 3 heart-rate. The last run through turns 1 & 2 were under 18mph.
One rider jumped on the short cross-wind straight, and it was game-on. The other two were bashing elbows all the way to the final turn, and I just sat back and waited to see if they'd all make it through up-right.
They did, and rounding the final turn I probed a sprint, found it unsettling in the wind, and sat back down to cruise home to a comfortable 4th place.
Last weekend, VA Cycling ventured across the border into North Carolina for the "Battle of the Border" at NCCAR (NC Center for Automotive Research). NCCAR is a sort-of race track just over the border off I-95, featuring very little elevation change over a 1.9-mile meandering circuit. As an automotive race track, it's not very interesting. As a track for bikes, it should be a blisteringly fast course with turns wide enough to NEVER touch the brakes.
The day was billed as a double-header, with morning races going counter-clockwise, and afternoon races reversing the direction. It was frosty cold in the morning, and warm enough for summer kits in the afternoon.
But the wind. Bwuh. While it was rough at 8am, it just built throughout the day, peaking at about 15mph cross-winds blowing nearly straight across the longest straight.
In the first race, my whole mantra was "burn no unnecessary matches". I had no teammates, and plenty of other teams had shown up with numbers. But somehow I lined up behind Johnny Holeshot, and before even the first turn I was already into the wind at 2nd wheel. I stayed near the front, leery of the cross-winds and ready to jump across to anything that looked like it might stay away.
But nothing did, and suddenly it was a prime lap and I was out front. On the peg. With only one other rider and a gap to the group. It started to look like the prime was within reach, and I started to get greedy. When the group rounded the final turn, I still had the lead...and about 400m to the finish line. A rider jumped up-wind to my left, and I jumped to respond, but realized I had nothing after pulling for 2 miles. The effort turned into a feint, and while the group to the right over-took me, they also cooked themselves early.
The race settled in, and I took a lap to settle into the group to recover.
But I'd forgotten that the race was going to be shortened, and what should have been 2 laps to recover was suddenly the bell lap, and I was WAY out of position, clawing away deep in the field, and barely in view of the leaders. And a dude from the local sponsoring team had just run off the front. Crap.
I buried myself into the wind and saw my marks just up the road, with the only option to close the gap being a short sprint into the middle lane of the peloton--my most loathed position to lead into a finish sprint.
The gap stayed open long enough for me to get over the fear, and I closed it just as we made the turn for the final run. Others reported that the lead rider had set up to the right, in the wind, as a feint, while his teammates gathered forces for a sprint on the left. I didn't see that. What I saw was a gap open to my left, and then my world was horrible noise. The sound of carbon hitting the deck. The sound of scraping. A smack of flesh and water bottles.
I *saw* a wheel come at me sideways and hit my front tire at 34mph, and I had a choice: surrender to the crash or knuckle down. Having crashed before at high speeds, I chose the latter. I hit the wheel square on, and it bounced away. Then I saw a water bottle go under my tires, but just barely missed going over it. Then I saw motion out of the corner of my eye as another wheel came over my shoulder to hit the end of my handlebar.
And then it was done. I was alive, and the race wasn't over. So I stood on it and brought the bike home in 6th place, matching my previous best finish since upgrading to Cat 3 in 2018.
---
The afternoon race was less eventful. With at least 4 riders taken out from the wreck, the field was somewhat diminished. The winds, however, were not, and to counter the effect of the wind in turn 2, we were laying the bikes over farther than I have ever done before. Like reach-down-and-touch-the-pavement-low.
After a few laps of steady grinding into the wind, one rider lost focus for an instant and was literally blown off the bike. The group settled down and rolled.
Then a string of attacks threatened to split things up, but nobody was interested in being shelled off the back, so it always came to naught.
There was one set of attacks and counter-attacks, though, that did literally split the field in half. I started in the front group and ended the cycle watching them roll away, and at one point they had at least a 10 second gap, but for whatever reason they all sat up! With just over one lap to go, the front group of ~10 riders GAVE UP THEIR BREAKAWAY VOLUNTARILY to let us rejoin. Bananagrams.
I didn't think it would matter, but when the last set of turns came up, some guys decided to bow out of the sprint, and suddenly I found myself vying for a position I frankly hadn't earned, and I ended up crossing the line in 8th.
---
Fast forward to today: the Sleepy Hole Cat 3 crit. In the wind and rain.
6 riders pre-registered. One bowed out due to last week's wrecks. One dropped after an earlier race got too dicey. 3 registered at the event. 7 starters across 5 teams, and we had 2 in green.
7 riders in any race might make for a pretty boring day, but Sleepy Hole features the worst racing surface I've ever ridden. The warm-up was so rough that after 3 laps I quit. Alastair's 20-minute race-of-one was bad enough that his hands were numb half-way through.
The first turn features a string of patched pot-holes running about 30' along the entry to the corner, and had seen a horrible wreck in the race just before ours (get well soon, Brad!). The 2nd turn had taken out one member of a 2-man TT effort in that same race, and was really good at washing out rear tires. That turn had lead to a cross-wind section of the course earlier in the day, but had switched to a full-on head-wind for our race, and T3 lead onto a short but terrifying straight with 20+ mph cross-winds. The final turn featured orange construction fencing with steel poles and a porta-potty on the outside, with chopped up pavement on the inside, and a turn across the wind that was pants-fillingly terrifying.
It was not a great place to race in the rain, and I'd never raced a wet crit--everybody has cautioned STRONGLY against it since I started in this sport. I had no desire to tempt fate, so I flatly told people I was happy turning parade laps and just finishing. No sense tearing up hardware with only 7 starters and no real shot at glory.
The plan was to make it an aggressive group ride, and if someone wanted to run off the front: they could HAVE it. Somehow that someone became me, at least for a while.
The race started like a damn Zwift race, with 3 guys rolling like they'd been shot out of a gun for half a lap. It settled quickly, and after a couple laps came the first attack. I was 2nd wheel and had no desire to chase a solo effort, so watched him burn up in the wind.
The 2nd attack looked much the same until my teammate chased it. As they were being reeled in, I just stayed on power and suddenly had a gap. And then the gap grew. And grew. And then, within 3 laps, it was 20 seconds! I've never put 20 seconds on a race group alone, and I started to believe in it...just as it started to shrink.
My break lasted 6 whole laps, but they may have been some of the 6 best laps of my short racing career. I never actually attacked, but once I was away just locked my heart rate at 181 bpm and waited for the chase to organize. It took them 3.5 minutes to figure out who should chase, and then the group split in half trying to shut me down. And once caught I managed to stay with them, a group now of only 4.
After a lap or so I verbally volunteered to lead the group if they would save the tomfoolery for the end. I knew I didn't have a sprint left, and having been assured a 4th place finish when we lapped the remaining riders, I was guaranteed a decent amount of points for the season championship. They obliged, and I pulled for about 5 laps.
With just over 5 laps to go, one rider jumped. The others followed, and I had nothing to respond. I was gapped, and sure the race was over. All I had to do was cruise in to the finish. For almost 2 solid laps the gap grew to what it had been when I was off the front, and then they just neutralized themselves. Just like at the afternoon race at NCCAR, the front 3 just kinda...stopped racing for a minute. I railed the first 2 turns, put down an effort into the wind, and was right back into the mix with 3 laps to go!
Except I was dead-legged and not *really* in the mix. The next 2.5 laps were so neutral I recovered to zone 3 heart-rate. The last run through turns 1 & 2 were under 18mph.
One rider jumped on the short cross-wind straight, and it was game-on. The other two were bashing elbows all the way to the final turn, and I just sat back and waited to see if they'd all make it through up-right.
They did, and rounding the final turn I probed a sprint, found it unsettling in the wind, and sat back down to cruise home to a comfortable 4th place.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
2019 Shamrock - 1st race of the season for me
I skipped William & Mary this year. Kinda felt bad about it, but I generally do not race in the rain, and certainly not when it's COLD and rainy. Reports from that race ranged from "unfavorable" to "screw that". And it's not a BAR race, so there was no real sense taking that kind of risk that early in the season.
But without doing W&M, the pre-season jitters don't go away until the first BAR crit: Shamrock. If I could make just one polite suggestion to any future racer(s) who may stumble upon this blog, try not to start your road season with a crit. Everybody's excited, but we've all been on trainers all winter, so nobody has any bike-handling skills. I'd only even ridden in a pace line three times this calendar year before toeing the start line.
But Shamrock is the beginning of the BAR season, the races that count toward the season championship, and I was determined to get some points.
As with both previous years, the weather was much colder than the forecast had predicted, and the winds were typically strong, though this time blowing straight into your face on the finish. The Garmin recorded an average temp of 37-F, with about a 10 mph wind from ENE.
The race was mostly uneventful. No successful breaks, and though there were a few flyers, the pack never let anything get more than 5 seconds away. I tried a couple of times with other guys, but it was clear the group was not going to let go. We even had a couple of perfectly-timed counter-attacks from a new team member, but the group was super motivated.
I had even managed to hold on to some matches as the race wore on, surfing 2nd & 3rd wheel for a significant portion of the final 3rd of the race, but then with 5 laps to go, the prime bell rang.
I had just moved out front, into the wind, with the intention of pulling for no more than 10 seconds, and I was sure I'd get swamped as folks lined up to go after the prime. But nobody came around through turn 1, and nobody even moved on me in the huge lane between there and turn 2. I ran at the front down-wind to turn 3, ready to cede the front to anyone who'd take it, but as we came through turn 3, it was clear nobody wanted it. I even stepped way off the gas coming through turn 4, but again: nobody jumped. So I jumped, because dammit I wasn't going to tow everyone around for a whole lap and then NOT win the prime. In the closing feet, I saw someone jump out to my left and run me down, and I was about spent and waaaay into the red on heart-rate, but I just barely eked it out and won the prime, whereupon I sank like a rock.
It was all I could do to get moving again without getting spit out the back, and coming out of turn 2 I felt someone's bars bounce off my backside. I totally expected to hear a crash behind me, but thankfully the rider kept it upright. No idea why he tried to pass outside me when I was only a couple inches off the dirt.
My race ruined, I settled into the middle of the pack and tried to re-gather any strength I could, though in that field I knew it was over for me.
When the final bell rang, I was probably in 30th position. But I saw a friendly wheel in front of me and figured I'd follow whatever he did. We picked up 5 - 10 spots between turns 1 & 2. Entering turn 2, the same rider who'd hit me 3 laps before hit someone else, went down hard, and took out several others. And though it happened right beside me, it made everyone check up just the tiniest bit. The leaders had gotten through unscathed and were already gone, but suddenly "mid-pack" was back in the mix for points, which pay 15 deep.
I willed my dead legs to do something--anything--and get to the line. My friendly wheel was now up the road, but I had one rider to draft and another chasing. I picked up one position coming into the finish straight, but again had a chaser try to jump out and get me right at the line.
Ultimately I ended up 15th, good enough for exactly 1 point for the season championship (the winner got 30). And I got the prime, which was pretty nice, but not the result I wanted. I've still yet to learn how to make a plan and stick to it during the race. With an average heart rate just barely in zone 5, there was literally no way I could chase the prime and a decent result--I let pride interfere with my plans.
Gotta get smarter if I want to have a chance at glory.
But without doing W&M, the pre-season jitters don't go away until the first BAR crit: Shamrock. If I could make just one polite suggestion to any future racer(s) who may stumble upon this blog, try not to start your road season with a crit. Everybody's excited, but we've all been on trainers all winter, so nobody has any bike-handling skills. I'd only even ridden in a pace line three times this calendar year before toeing the start line.
But Shamrock is the beginning of the BAR season, the races that count toward the season championship, and I was determined to get some points.
As with both previous years, the weather was much colder than the forecast had predicted, and the winds were typically strong, though this time blowing straight into your face on the finish. The Garmin recorded an average temp of 37-F, with about a 10 mph wind from ENE.
The race was mostly uneventful. No successful breaks, and though there were a few flyers, the pack never let anything get more than 5 seconds away. I tried a couple of times with other guys, but it was clear the group was not going to let go. We even had a couple of perfectly-timed counter-attacks from a new team member, but the group was super motivated.
I had even managed to hold on to some matches as the race wore on, surfing 2nd & 3rd wheel for a significant portion of the final 3rd of the race, but then with 5 laps to go, the prime bell rang.
I had just moved out front, into the wind, with the intention of pulling for no more than 10 seconds, and I was sure I'd get swamped as folks lined up to go after the prime. But nobody came around through turn 1, and nobody even moved on me in the huge lane between there and turn 2. I ran at the front down-wind to turn 3, ready to cede the front to anyone who'd take it, but as we came through turn 3, it was clear nobody wanted it. I even stepped way off the gas coming through turn 4, but again: nobody jumped. So I jumped, because dammit I wasn't going to tow everyone around for a whole lap and then NOT win the prime. In the closing feet, I saw someone jump out to my left and run me down, and I was about spent and waaaay into the red on heart-rate, but I just barely eked it out and won the prime, whereupon I sank like a rock.
It was all I could do to get moving again without getting spit out the back, and coming out of turn 2 I felt someone's bars bounce off my backside. I totally expected to hear a crash behind me, but thankfully the rider kept it upright. No idea why he tried to pass outside me when I was only a couple inches off the dirt.
My race ruined, I settled into the middle of the pack and tried to re-gather any strength I could, though in that field I knew it was over for me.
When the final bell rang, I was probably in 30th position. But I saw a friendly wheel in front of me and figured I'd follow whatever he did. We picked up 5 - 10 spots between turns 1 & 2. Entering turn 2, the same rider who'd hit me 3 laps before hit someone else, went down hard, and took out several others. And though it happened right beside me, it made everyone check up just the tiniest bit. The leaders had gotten through unscathed and were already gone, but suddenly "mid-pack" was back in the mix for points, which pay 15 deep.
I willed my dead legs to do something--anything--and get to the line. My friendly wheel was now up the road, but I had one rider to draft and another chasing. I picked up one position coming into the finish straight, but again had a chaser try to jump out and get me right at the line.
Ultimately I ended up 15th, good enough for exactly 1 point for the season championship (the winner got 30). And I got the prime, which was pretty nice, but not the result I wanted. I've still yet to learn how to make a plan and stick to it during the race. With an average heart rate just barely in zone 5, there was literally no way I could chase the prime and a decent result--I let pride interfere with my plans.
Gotta get smarter if I want to have a chance at glory.
Monday, February 25, 2019
Bodged repair at 4 months and holding!
1387 miles, 2 Zwift Fondo's, a century, the entire Tours of London and Zwift, and a few scattered races, and the NDS bearing carrier is holding strong.
I'm not looking forward to the next time I have to service this bottom bracket, but I never expected it to hold up this well post-damage.
In fact, in the time since I did my hack-job repair, I've gone through a rear tire and completely worn through my bar tape, and will likely have to replace cable-sets before the next tear-down.
I guess I dodged a pretty big bullet!
I'm not looking forward to the next time I have to service this bottom bracket, but I never expected it to hold up this well post-damage.
In fact, in the time since I did my hack-job repair, I've gone through a rear tire and completely worn through my bar tape, and will likely have to replace cable-sets before the next tear-down.
I guess I dodged a pretty big bullet!
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