Hagerstown Criterium of Championships

So, you wanna just skip to the end? We can just cut this whole damn thing right here with three letters. DNS. Anyway, carrying on ...

Everything went wonderfully on the way up to the venue. I had everything laid out in a much more orderly manner than I typically do, and my morning went well. I even got to watch a very boring stage of the Tour.

I got to the race, signed in, got the number pinned, and started warming up. The warm-up went really well, I got the right amount of big efforts, the right amount of spinning, and the right amount of cruising. Everything was going great. 15 minutes before the start, I took a lap of the course and then stopped by the porta-john to make sure I was as light on liquids as possible.

As I got on my bike and went around the first turn, I stood up to get some speed, and crack! My bars went completely limp in my hands. Just like ...

You can figure it out. I thought that the bolts had been loose or come loose, but after I got off and looked closely, I realized that the faceplate of my stem had broke. I figured I was hosed, but I went to the car and got a 4mm allen wrench, and started asking people if they were going to stick around, and if I could borrow their faceplate.

I had no luck whatsoever, and became a spectator. My teammate came in top-10 which was good, but I'd bet that if there were 2 of us, at least one would have been top-5.

This is the part where I give you my opinion that's not related to racing.

The modern bike industry is really pushing its luck. I bought this stem a couple years ago before the Shimano PRO stuff had landed in the U.S. and I paid a pretty penny for it. It was the only 130mm stem I could find, though, and I kind of had to.

The reason the stem broke wasn't because I was using it in an improper manner, and it wasn't because of something ridiculous like over-tightening the bolts. The only way that would work would be if I had tightened them so much that I had flattened material outside of the milled/molded counter-bore. And I've never installed my bars while I was giant, green, and pissed off so I don't think that's possible.

The reason it broke was because Shimano was trying to make the lightest stem they possibly could. I've known the thing is flexy and bendy at all the wrong times, but I didn't expect that it was made with so little aluminum that it would just plain break. Something about that seems utterly wrong. Of course, it's not brand-new, but then neither are a lot of my other components that are on my bike. This, in my opinion, is a bit like the Madone Headtubes that keep breaking.

And what will Trek's fix for the problem be? They'll add more material to the carbon fiber layup. That's it. Just put material where it should have been in the first place. Instead of making the product as light as possible while still being strong and reliable, we're seeing the big bike manufacturers battle each other for lightness at the expense of making a worthwhile product.

Looks like I've got all the excuse I need to buy that 3T stem I've been eyeing. Unless someone wants to give me $300ish to buy another Shimano PRO stem. Have you seen the one Cav rides? Apparently they hook up their best riders with something worthwhile, and then put a 5000% markup on it.

Crystal Cup

There are some races that I don't really like. Then, there are some races that I absolutely love. I still haven't figured out what the exact formula is for the races I really like going to, but I am slowly starting to piece together the things that will make me really dislike a race.

I've come to the conclusion that when you're at work (the kind that pays the bills -- that you don't really work at, but where everyone thinks they're doing something) it's not the work you do, but the people you're around that make all the difference. Bike racing is the same way. I really like to look around at the start line and see familiar faces. Guys I know take a good line, keep their mouths shut, and do the work that needs to be done.

Now sure, some of these new faces are absolutely wonderful bike handlers, are strong in the pack, and take solid pulls. Then again, some aren't.

It seemed like there were a lot of the latter out there at Crystal Cup. And when you're working with people that you'd rather not be so close to in a corner and the work sucks ... Well ...

I guess it all comes down to safety pins. It bugs the hell out of me when a promoter buys the big box of "Variety" safety pins. If you're not one of the first to get there, you're stuck with either insanely small or cartoonishly large pins.

So the pins bent and because useless when I put my fat ass into my size Large jersey. Then I asked a guy for help that was parked fairly close to me. I say fairly close because we weren't all parked in a parking lot like normal. Instead, we were parked all over Crystal City. Some of us managed to find parking fairly close, but knew damn well we may have to pay an extra "entry fee" that would be stuck under out windshield wiper. I asked the guy that helped me pin my number back on how the course was. He pointed down to a now-tireless Zipp 404 with a crack straight across it. Sooo ... Great.

There was pretty much nowhere great to warm up, so a lot of us ended up battling with city traffic and trying to pretend we weren't warming up with sprint intervals. But we got to the line on time, and had enough time to watch like 6 laps of the Women's race before we could get going.

Most of us having no prior knowledge of the course, we just lined up. No sighting lap, no idle chit-chat, just straight to the line and punch that damn clock.

Once the clock was punched (in the form of an air horn) I'm pretty sure the guys on the front row attacked as soon as they had clipped in. Which is cool. That's racing, and sometimes it can be a lot of fun to go super hard right off the bat.

Did I mention many of us didn't know anything about the course?

Let me enlighten you about the course. There were 7 turns, a long straight, and a tiny bit of elevation change. But only just. Of the 7 corners, 4 were off-camber. A couple had manhole covers in a key point (like the apex), and one was a 180-degree fairly tight corner with a big divot right at the first quarter of the turn, gravel, poor quality in general, and off-camber. On the straight parts there were manhole covers, potholes, and manhole covers encircled by potholes.

The first crash was a simple bunching-up that turned into wheels touching down the straight toward the start/finish. I think only a couple guys went down, but they looked like they went down pretty hard. I know because I was really starting to feel like hell and with every hard acceleration I was loosing a place or two. So the crash kind of happened right next to me. And I had to catch on. Which I hate doing.

Then we rode around in circles some more, my teeth nearly cracked, and the pucker-factor was through the roof. On the last lap we came around the 2nd turn (Which was off-camber, had a pothole, and featured steel manhole covers) and a bunch of guys all decided they wanted to be in exactly the same spot. As the Japanese have known for years, the only way to get more out of a piece of real-estate is to pile things vertically. Which about 8-10 guys did very well. I thought I could get around on the left side, but so did 3 other guys. And they crashed into one another. So I did what any really tired racer does: I unclipped and pretended that I could be of some assistance so I didn't feel quite like I had outright quit. I mean, I could have just come around and finished DFL, or I could try my hand at geometry with a shift lever/spoke problem.

There are a lot of races that I walk away from really not feeling good about, and saying I'll never come back, but a bit of me knows I'll be back next year. This, my friends, was not one of those races. For the pro guys, I'm sure it was a pretty good event. I'd bet there was someone they could call and say "So how do we get the truck into the parking area?" and they could get an answer. For the amateur race, it was an event with barricades and a lot of police, and it seemed to be worse-run and with less info than we get at most of the races put on by a local team.

Then there's the racing. The course sucked. Through and through, it was absolute crap. Because the pro race had such a big draw, the amateur race seemed to have a big draw as well. A lot of guy from hours away, and some that only raced a few races a year showed up. That combination made me seriously consider dropping out of the race a few times so I could save my equipment (I don't have the kind of money to replace my Zipp rims) and my body. I got lucky and I wasn't taken down by the crash, but a lot of guys weren't nearly as lucky.

So in the end, I won't be doing the Crystal Cup again. And not one of those "Until next year" type of things. Unless someone wants to pay me heaps of money to go there, it's not happening. And given my fitness level today, no one will be paying me to ride a bike for a very, very long time.

Ride Sally Ride

First off, the race is titled "The Ride Sally Ride" which is actually quite catchy in context of the street name being "Ride Sally Dr." and then, of course, the song. Without "The" at the beginning, however, it's just a song lyric, and loses its catchiness. So can we all agree to put the three letters at the beginning? Or at least just abbreviate it to RSR.

Now that we've taken care of that business:

Typically, the most exciting thing I do in a week will come between the finish line and 200 meters before said piece of red duct tape. The sprint is one of the coolest things in bike racing, and to be quite frank, it's one of my favorite parts. There's a level of control that you have given your training and form, but there's a lot of unknown going on at the same time. For example, I have no idea if the guy next to me will become the guy on top of me in under a second. And that's happened before, so I feel like I might have a knack for spotting it in advance. Maybe.

That wasn't the case yesterday, however. Driving down the beltway at 7 in the morning on Sunday is probably the only time that the road is anywhere near lightly trafficked. After the notoriously bad "270 spur" the road straightens out, 4 lanes on each side, and keeps going in its infinite loop of the nation's capital.

It was this combination of many easy driving features that made it so amazing to round a bend and see the very final stages of a car flipping, spinning, and generally getting screwed over.

I have to admit that there was a split second where I thought Dude, I'm headed to a bike race. I promised to lead my teammate out ... That thought didn't last long, though, and I slammed on the brakes.

To make a long (and pretty scary) story short, I was the first one there, and ended up in shin-high brush and undergrowth doing everything I could to hold a passenger-side door all of 8 inches open so that a 10 year-old boy and his sister could get out of the overturned, backward, and in-a-ditch car that was now a complete write-off.

A few other people showed up and helped get the boy down off the hill and to the shoulder of the road. We got everyone to a safe location, and I treated the boy for shock (using the term loosely).

In the "Wow, it's a small world" category, one of the guys that stopped was actually headed to the same race I was. Interesting how that works out. We were both looking at our watches, and by the time it was all said and done, we decided to be spectators.

Until we got there with like 40 minutes before the start. Then we decided we'd do what we could. So once the kit was on, I was registered, air was in the tires, etc. I had a whopping 5 minutes of warm-up, 2 minutes of strategy discussion, and then a couple laps of the course before we lined up.

The general plan was to get Tim the W and myself and Eric would work our asses off at the front and then lead-out. The problem is that all three of us race with a nervous disposition. If one guy goes up the road and looks weak, we'll still hunt him down. Even if we're the protected rider. It was for that reason that Eric and I had to really police the front of the race. If Tim felt like we were letting something go, he was going to chase it down. Which doesn't help win the sprint at the end. I did a ton of work on the front, and it was good to know that the race averaged 25.9 mph. That made me feel at least a little better when in the last few laps I wasn't exactly charging along with the surges that kept coming.

Eventually I think Tim figured out that he was behind the wrong horse (me) and he came around to try and get some position. I was completely cooked, and once I saw my 2 teammates safely up the road and sprinting, I sat up.

I finished in the pack and shortly called it a day. Driving home I realized that I had done more before 11 on Sunday than most people had done all weekend. That's a cool feeling to have.

When it was all said and done, Eric came in 6th and Tim came in 9th. Both of them got boxed in on the last corner before the sprint (I'm not a big fan of corners that close to the finish.) Sarah and Daniel both made it into the ambulance safely, and the EMTs said they were fine, but they wanted to take precautionary measures to get them to the hospital. I came home and took a nap while I "Watched" the Philly race.

Here's to hoping next week's Air Force race is significantly less exciting.

Kelly Cup

Should I apologize for not updating this sooner? Yeah, I probably should. I've done a few races, but they really haven't been a ton of fun to write about. Namely, I raced Turkey Hill a few weeks ago where I tried to go with a guy at at about 1.2-1.5K to go, but he didn't have the legs to do it at all, and I didn't have the legs to do it alone. Knowing I was screwed, I decided to just go ahead and pull everyone to the line. It was like leading out absolutely no one and everyone all at once. What I can say is that from 1K to go until about 200M to go, no one came around me. That means I held tempo super high, and would be a killer lead-out man if only I had a teammate right behind me. I didn't, though, so I just ended up with a 12th.

Then at Poolesville I had what is scientifically called a clusterfuck. I lost a bottle on the first trip over the dirt road section. Knowing that I didn't want to lose the other bottle, I closed my cage in closer a bit so it would be more secure. Taking a drink, I went to replace my bottle. It hit the cage where I had closed it down, and then I fumbled it. So I had taken like 2 sips of water for a 50 mile race. Fortunately, my teammate's dad had told me he would give me a bottle at the feed zone. I took him up on that and basically figured that if I could finish the race it would leave me so dehydrated I would be best to find my way to a hospital for a bag of fluids. Oh, and I tried to bridge to a 2-man break. That left me in no-man's land for about 5 miles. Then I gave up and the peloton wanted me to stay at the front. Not cool, guys. Shortly before finishing the 3rd (30ish miles) we went up a slight incline. I had just told my teammate Tim that I was feeling like crap and was almost out of water. He offered me his. Then brakes squealed, the pack bunched up, and someone went right into my front wheel. It just took me off into the dirt, but my chain dropped when it happened. I looked down at it, and though well, I could put this back on and chase to the peloton. That would be a pretty manly move. Or .... nah, fuck it, I'm staying right here. So that was the end of that race.

Today was the Baltimore Bike Jam/Kelly Cup that runs through Patterson Park in downtown Baltimore.

The course is paved to exactly the level you would expect of downtown Baltimore. There were no bits where you could see brick, but you got the feeling it was there every now and then. That and man-hole covers (that had paint pointing them out) that were way too high, and had little round ramps surrounding them. That or the pavers tried to make it less brutal to hit. I'm pretty sure they did a stunt show on those things afterward.

So we started riding, I missed my pedal because I'm a dumb-ass, and about 20 seconds later the attacks started. And they didn't stop. Again, the Team BBC crew was pretty thin for this race, and I knew that there would be no one to pull in the breaks or set tempo at the front. Which left it pretty much up to me. I did a lot of work at the front today, and took a couple digs in an attempt to make a break myself. None of that came to fruition.

What did stick was a solid attack by Mike Cohen from the Kelly Benefits team. With somewhere between 5-7 laps to go, he rocketed off the front. He had been off the front a few times before and I figured he was probably pretty tired. Also, he used to ride for BBC, and I don't mean him any disrespect when I say that I was convinced he wouldn't be able to hold on alone to the finish. I was wrong. We got time gaps from the road of 17 seconds and other numbers around there. He was just barely out of sight.

As typically happens there were only about 3-4 of us that wanted to do anything in the way of bringing him back. There was also rather rampant disorganization which didn't help anything at all. Every time I would take a pull, I would slow a bit, cruise to the left or right, and flick the opposite elbow. Nothing happened. So I would waggle the damn thing in the wind in some attempt to get other people to pull through. Ya know, like a pace-line. Didn't work. The only time people came by me were for attacks. Almost all of those attacks lacked heart and were easy to mark.

So I cruised it up to the sprint knowing that the best I could get was 2nd.

With 250ish meters to go, I dropped a gear and got to work. I looked up for a moment to see Mike Cohen with his arms raised as he crossed the line. Then I looked back at my sick new yellow shoes and kept pushing.

In the end I rocketed past everyone else and got the 2nd spot on the podium. Which means Cohen took the 7 points I needed to get my requisite 20 points to upgrade. That leaves me 2 points shy. I'll get those sometime soon.

There, now you're all caught up. I'll try to update this more often, but life can get in the way sometimes.

And a note on cornering: You may remember a post or two ago I said that people need to practice their cornering. This course really showed that. there was a wicked chicane at the bottom of the course. Last year in the wet it was super duper incredibly sketchy. This year, though, it was awesome! The problem is that most of the time there was someone in front of me which means I couldn't go in or come out as fast as I wanted. Or, there was no one in front of me and when I came out of the corner I had to sit up and wait for people to catch up. So, once again, go find a corner you can rail, and do it. You'll make me happier and we can race together all happy-like. And isn't that what it's all about?

Thanks for reading and I'll see you at the races.

p.s. I'll update this post with photos tomorrow or Tuesday

Dolan!

First and foremost, I am hereby instilling the 2 1/4 rule. I know I said in my last post that you should check back expecting some awesome writing and photography from my trip down a bit and then back up Skyline Drive. Photos like this ....

And how could you not want to know more about the ride that brought about a picture like that?

The problem, however, is that I'm not made of gold. If I were, I could quit my job (I actually couldn't, but that's not the point) and I would spend my days doing nothing but writing this blog, riding my bike, and drinking fine beers from across the world. Not necessarily in that order.

Since that isn't possible, I'll have to limit my blog posts to race recaps for the moment.

Hopefully I'll find some time in the future, but training and racing have taken up a solid point, being a family man takes up the other point, and somehow I have to fit my full-time job into the quarter-point. Which is very awkward given that they insist on some sort of draconian 8-hour schedule almost 5 days of every week.

Onward to the matter at hand: The Carl Dolan Memorial Howard County Library Other Names Yada Yada race.

I would love to put a picture of the racecourse map right about here, but it would take me like 10 minutes to figure out how to make that happen. Instead, picture a Nascar course with a tight turn at turn 4. And we kept turning right.

This was as close to a Home Race as I am going to get, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't targeting it. About now, I'm really targeting everything I enter so I can get a ton of upgrade points, but this one I especially wanted to do well in.

Before I tell you how I did, though, I should tell you a bit about the race. First off, it was a field of 125 guys. That's a lot of testosterone, adrenaline, and every other hormone that makes guys do stupid, stupid things. That's why Dolan has the dubious honor of being the sketchiest race I've done in a long time. The last race I did that had me puckering that bad was the Bunny Hop Criterium last year. Apparently I wasn't the only one that forgot to take a few psi out of my tires before the start of a wet race because people were skidding and sliding everywhere. This race was in the dry, though. That means the speeds were much higher.

So let me just say a couple things about being sketchy, and let me acknowledge right now that I don't know everything, I'm not the best bike handler that's ever ridden, and I totally know what it's like to crash because i did something stupid. That's why my jersey has my name sewn on it.

Going up

One of the things that gets to me the most is the up-hill clusterfuck-crash. This often happens when one idiot forgets that the race is about to go up the same hill that it's gone up 10 times before. He forgets to shift into the right gear or stays in the drops too long. What happens next is chaos. I was toward the back when this happened, and fortunately everyone came out alright, but the guy next to me just about watched his carbon wheels become carbon bits at the expense of the curb.

Cornering

Stop sucking at this! Seriously, cornering should be something we're all pretty good at. Have you practiced your corning? I doubt it. Why? Because you want to be hella fast up the hills and across the flats. If you crash in a corner, though, not only will that stuff not matter but you'll be bleeding on the ground with a complete lack of sympathy from anyone. Every time you go around a (safe) corner, rail it with reckless ambition. It's better to crash on your own than to crash on the inside of a corner and take everyone out. Fortunately, again, this didn't come to fruition. I honestly don't know how some of those guys didn't crash, but to the best of my knowledge we all got through.

Except the sprint. If I'm honest, I had no idea there was a crash in the sprint until someone told me.

Before that, though, the circuit course provided ample opportunities for suicidal breakaways and subsequent suicidal drives to bring them back. I had the fortune of watching a couple teammates at varying times absolutely bury themselves to close those gaps down. Of all the things in the sporting world, I think that watching a teammate completely destroy his chances of finishing well in a bike race to save a protected rider is by far the coolest.

An American football player might defend against his QB getting sacked, but he

wouldn't give up his chance to wear a SuperBowl ring to keep some other guy out of trouble. That same analogy goes for basically every other sport i can think of. Watching a lead-out, or one guy bringing in a breakaway, is something you only see in cycling, and it's why this sport is so damn cool.

So with all that, I managed to come into the last lap at least a little fresh. granted, my heart was pounding out of my chest, but that's bike racing.

The sprint started somewhere around the 500m to go mark, and I knew I didn't have the power to sprint away or the endurance to keep pushing the pedals for that long. Everyone else was starting, and I figured it was way too early.

So I started sprinting. Because I'm a moron. I probably could have grabbed a wheel, held on, and kicked with 200m to go, but you know how adrenaline gets. As I watched the signs go by every 100 meters, I had varying thoughts. As I rolled over 200, I distinctly remember thinking "Oh shit, this is going to end badly."

I was totally spent. I kept kicking the pedals over, and somehow I came home somewhere around 6th or 7th.

Which marks my 3rd top-10 in 4 starts. 2 of those races were Cat3/Cat4 races . GamJams even classified me in their Cat3 Cup on accident. Also, this race counts the 3's and the 4's as being 2 different races run at the same time. Because of that, I actually won! So that's a win, a 5th, a 6th, and a pack finish. What's most important to me is that I've proven that I can be competitive with a Cat 3 field. In my book that's more important than winning a bunch of 4/5 races so you can get the points and move up.

That said, next week I'll be in Cancun getting my vacation on. The week after that, however, I'll be in the 4/5 race trying to collect some points out at Turkey Hill. I guess when it comes down to it, I'm ready to race with the 3's, and if I have to do some 4/5 races to make the points up quicker then I will. I think it's kind of bogus that that happens, but I definitely saw a Kelly Benefits rider in the 4/5 race at Dolan that was doing the same thing. Of course, after saying all that, I'll get totally shelled at T-Hill, and go home with my tail between my legs. But that's bike racing, and for some reason I love it.

Also, with the win comes an upgrade in beer selection. Remember to treat yourselves right out there.

Insanity at Tyson's Corner

"They" say that insanity is doing the same thing time and time again while expecting the result to be different. "They" may be right.

I say that because today was the Tyson's Corner Circuit Race, and much like the Vint Hill Crit, I came within the top-10, but found myself a bridesmaid yet again. But why? That's the question you are surely dying to know.

The race started out with a frantic search for an ATM. I hadn't paid my entry fee yet, and I remembered that just as we turned off of the freeway. Thanks to gamjams.net and the handy "List-Lurker" I found out that the Tyson's Corner race was open to registration a bit late. That's because it's still early in the season, and a bunch of guys still like riding their bikes right now. That means the races fill up in minutes, and if you miss the boat you're stuck in the waiting list. Which is alright if you aren't real dedicated to racing that weekend or you don't have the cash on hand given that you don't have to pay to be on the waiting list. You will, however, need to have some cash when you register. Which I didn't.

So we searched rather frantically for an ATM in a remarkably ATM-unfriendly area. Thanks to the Subaru turbo, we found a cash dispensing device, and promptly got lost trying to get somewhere near the course.

Thanks to the good people at Apple, we got even more lost. Seriously, fix your "maps" app. It seems to suck only when I need it most.

But then we got there, and the course was really well marked, well road-guarded, well staffed at registration, and really rather good. Thanks (not sarcastically) to the guys over at NCVC.

I got all the essentials taken care of, and then took off my heart rate monitor's strap. My Garmin was plugged into the computer at home. Sweet.

So I warmed up without any idea of where my heart rate was. Which was absolute tragedy. I mean, I could have used my finger, a watch, and my neck/wrist/thigh to figure it out, but I couldn't have possibly done that while knowing exactly how fast I was going. And when the race got underway, I knew I'd be hosed because I would watch people ride away from me trying desperately to make a break, and I wouldn't know how fast they were going. Or if I was going to die trying to catch them.

That or I just tossed the stupid strap in the car. It's uncomfortable anyway.

And then the smoke started.

Coming from an NCVC tent was the real-life smoke monster. It smelled strangely like grilling meat, but I guess on Lost, you never really find out what the smoke monster smells like. So right as I crossed the area of the start-finish line, I got to breathe in charring meat smoke, and

think about how sweet that would be for like 20 laps.

We staged up, ready for the race, and were ordered to "Take a lap!" because we had staged earlier than the USA Cycling Ref. would have preferred. It's worth noting that this might have been for our benefit given that we were sitting there right in the stream of smoke.

And then we started racing, and you know what? Not that remarkable. If I'm honest, it was a rather boring race. I didn't help with that at all, and most of the time that I was on the front, I quickly found my way back a few wheels. I mean, really though, I didn't have any other teammates there, and it was destined to be a sprint finish. So I stayed at the front, took a pull when it was necessary, and waited with breathless anticipation. Or I was gassed every time we went up that damn hill. Whatever.

The bit that matters was, of course, the sprint finish. This one went up a bit of a hill, and while it wasn't "A climb" it was definitely an incline. I came into 1 lap to go in absolutely dreadful position some 30 places back or so, and managed to make up about 25 of those spots on the downhill. I don't know how or why, but I seem to descend quicker than most other people.

I'm not really that much heavier anymore, I'm not riding some crazy bike or wheel combo, and I'm actually much taller than most. Whatever. I made up some spots, and sprinted up the hill.

I really mucked up the gear selection, though. about a hundred meters from the line I was spun out, and I was waffling between trying to spin it out all the way or drop a gear. I figured if I dropped a gear I'd lose a place, and if I didn't, it could go either way. So I stayed where I was, looked around to see that I was 5th, was content was that, and then saw someone pip my 5th right at the line.

So why is that insane? Why is 2 top-10s in 3 races bad? Because I'm not first, damnit. I just don't have the kick at the line that I did last year (as in 3 podiums, 1 win). So it's time to hit the gym and get these chicken legs back where they were. I thought it was a good thing that I had lost weight in the legs, but it seems that there have been some side-effects. So why don't I do that, and I'll let you know how it goes.

On a very positive note, I won real money today.

That's $15 to be exact.

And I promptly spent it the way I believe all prize money should be spent.

So if you'll excuse me, I need to attend to said winnings, and watch the rest of Paris-Roubaix.

See you at Dolan next week (Another up-hill finish) and stand by to learn about my ride along Skyline Drive. It was totally epic! OK, so it wasn't epic at all. It was just a really great ride along a road that was laid for no reason other than to showcase how awesome our planet can be in one of the best non-California parks around.

The Easy Race

On my way home from the Union Grove Road Race I was thinking of what to write about it. I had intended on basically writing a big bitch-fest. There was a lot for me to dislike today. Then I went to the bathroom and about 5 minutes later I felt much better, and had decided to do something other than that. Besides, that's not exciting to read.

But I still want to talk about the race because even though there were things to dislike, there were as many things to learn. After all, if I didn't call this a learning experience it would have been quite the waste of time and money.

The day started out early. Very early. Like 4:45 early. With an 8:30 roll time and a 2 hour drive, it couldn't be helped. By the time we got going, I hadn't warmed up, I was freezing (the temps were in the high-20's), and my head wasn't in the game.

Basically everyone had failed to get a proper warm-up, and because of that we had what could be called a neutralized start. Or just a really slow start. Which was cool with everyone. We had 7 laps for a total of 52k to ride. I figured that after the first couple laps we would start the racing in earnest.

It turns out that I was wrong. After 2.5 laps, myself and another guy went off the front and stormed up the short, steeeeeep climb. We had a little gap, but we had been going so slowly that I pegged the rev limiter and couldn't get my heart rate down fast enough to be of any use. So we were swallowed up. I knew once we went off the front the speed would get going, and guys would rip off the front left and right.

I was wrong again. We just went back to a leisurely pace. In fact, I believe that we went from being in a break to being the guys pulling the pack instead of them coming up and just swallowing us up. This race just didn't want to get going.

And it didn't get going at all. Ever. There was, and I'm serious here, not a single point at which I felt like the pace was race-like. Most of the time, the pace wasn't even as high as most of us go on a team training ride. I would get to the front to pull for a while, and when I was tired, no one would come through. I ended up leading the race for at least a lap and a half (of 7) and probably closer to 2 full laps. Most of it was at a pretty slow clip because no one wanted to go faster than the pace I was setting. Which was purposefully really really slow.

What I learned (And I know you're waiting for this part) is that my legs need to be told what they're doing. If I'm taking them out for a training ride then they know that they don't have to go full-out, but they need to learn how to go hard and be efficient. If I'm in a TT situation, they know that they need to find their limit and stay there. And in a race they know to go as hard as necessary for as long as necessary, while leaving just a little tiny bit in the reserves for the sprint.

Today, my legs never got the message that we were in a race. They thought we were cruising. Maybe somewhere between a group ride and a training ride. They just never got to the stage of really doing the work necessary to go fast. Because of that, they stayed cold, never really woke up, and didn't want to do much of anything when it came to the business-end of the race.

At the 1K mark, I was 2nd or 3rd wheel. At about 700m someone went off the front. I tried to follow his wheel but after a hundred meters or so I realized it was probably too early, and I didn't have the legs to do it. So I fell back to the group and figured I'd rip it up in the uphill sprint.

I was wrong again. After not really getting my heart, lungs, and legs into race mode, they all just didn't recover from the initial hard effort, and when it came time to sprint up the finishing climb, I just didn't have anything left.

I probably placed in the 20's or so, and maybe down into the 30's. Which is among my worst results.

I never really thought it was possible, but I realized later that the race was just too easy for me. My legs never woke up, I couldn't get into "race mode", and in the end I just didn't have what it took to get fired up for the finish.

A few factors conspired to make the field a bit weak other than their basic laziness. The promoter was a bit lacking. We all stood on line in the shade at 7:45 in the morning when it was 27 degrees for well over 20 minutes to register. Even though we had already pre-registered. The weather was bitterly cold, though it was dry, and most of us didn't get a chance to warm up prior to the race start. I think there were very few of us that really wanted to be there.

What I've realized is that I don't do well under certain conditions. My body doesn't react to the cold very well. I'm from California, so what do you expect? I'm not a morning person. I just never have been. And I don't "race train" at a low level which means that if the race doesn't get hot, I'm rubbish.

So I won't do races that are super cold, early in the morning, and full of lazy blokes. That seems easy enough ... Until I get a 'cross bike.