Cyclosports Criterium

Wow, what a day Saturday was. Here’s a quick dump to start then on to the details. Woke up, ate breakfast, made pizza dough, went over to the Cyclosports Criterium to do day of registration, stopped off at work to take care of something, back home, off to Brentwood to pick cherries with the family (very fun by the way), back home, lunch, power nap, change clothes, warm up on the trainer, ride over to the crit, race, crash, go to hospital, get x-rayed, go home, make homemade pizza, eat, shower and scrub road rash, dress wounds, go to bed. Whew, I’m tired just writing all of it. Now onto the race and aftermath.

The Cyclosprots Criterium is the Junior District/State Championship and was run at the Brisa Avenue Crit course in Livermore, a course with 2 long strait aways, 2 short straits, 4 90 degree turns, and a wide open chicane over ~0.8 miles. I raced the Cat 4/5 race and from the gun things were a bit weird. First of all, I had only seen ~2 folks in the 30+ field before, pretty unusual these days for me. Second, as soon as we took off, a rider immediately in front of me held me up because he had BOTH feet unclipped and I had to chase just to catch on. I didn’t want to be at the back of the pack, so I worked myself up toward the front. This took a few laps because the speed was fairly high and the field was stringing out. Once I got to the front my plan was to sit in and keep an eye out for the one guy I really knew well. He has whooped me at the track in the past so I was planning on getting on his wheel and going with him when he attacked. Us Hellyerites tend to stick together, so I figured if he went early then I’d work with him and if he went late, I’d sit on and sprint around him :).

He didn’t go early and we all basically sat in with a couple onesy-twosy breaks and a few accelerations. I was working inside and outside positioning on the turns and was not happy with either. From the inside I felt like things got awful tight when we hit the apex, but on exit the outside was a bit nervous too. This was all due to not going wide enough on the entrance to the turns. In the middle, it just felt tight all around. I knew, however, that I wanted to be on the inside coming out of the last turn because I could carry a bunch of speed and there was a slight right to left crosswind, so I could use the draft of the riders I was overtaking.

With 2 laps to go, I was comfortably on my guy’s wheel in the inside going into turn 3 when he jumped. I was right on him, but he has a strong acceleration, so a bit of a gap, ~1/2 bike length, opened up going into 4. The crash occurred at the apex of turn 4 and I’m not quite sure of all of the details, but I do know that I had no time to hit my brakes, or yell, or avoid what was happening. At the time, I was sure that I had position on the rider and he just chopped me going into to the corner, but my memory is a bit foggy and as time went on the less certain I was about what happened. I figure one of 3 things could have happened. 1. What I said above, I had position and he wasn’t paying attention. 2. I didn’t have position and when he dove in for the apex, I was just there. 3. He was trying to jump on the attack when he saw the slight gap, he went for it, and I was there. No matter what the circumstance though, I was on the ground and I wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t put myself in the precarious position, so I won’t be doing that again.

While I was lying there, I could tell my helmet was broken, but I wasn’t having any neurological issues, thanks Bell Helmets. The EMTs cleared me to go home but since my helmet was so badly broken, they requested that I go to the hospital to get checked out anyway.

Now it’s time for the insult to injury part of this post. I was planning on riding home after the race since it was only ~1 mile, but obviously I needed a ride. Normally when I put the bike on top of the car, I drive and I take the garage door remote and put it in the center console so I don’t forget. Well, the wife was driving and I was not in the right mental state to “mind the bike.” We tore it off the roof with the house. Ooof.

Verdict: From the crash: Helmet, gloves, jersey, bibs, saddle-->destroyed. Hip-->Hamburger. Shoulder-->Flank Steak. Arms, legs, knees-->not too bad, considering. Broken Bones-->none. From the Garage: Fork-->destroyed. Head tube-->slightly bent at the bottom where the headset cup goes in (need to get checked out.), thank god for steel. The pizza was good, the shower, not so much. No racing on the 4^th for me, road rash on top of road rash doesn't sound very appealing, I’ll see you all soon.

Hellyer Friday Night Lights #1

So I've basically been training for the Friday Night Lights races for the last 8 months or so. I was coming off a confidence building week in which I finished 6th in the Modesto Road Race and I finished 6th with the A group on a Tuesday lunch ride, the first time I didn't get dropped on a Tuesday since I started riding. Well as my dad is fond of saying, sometimes you get the bull and sometimes you get the horn. I got the horn.

For once I got my full warm up in, even though I had to make a few adjustments to the bike to improve the fit. One thing I was noticing right away was the folks who were showing up to race in my group weren't the usual folks I race with. I also noticed the Metromint guys who have been kicking my butt all year. Three races were on tap for me. 20 lap scratch, 30 lap points (sprints every 5), and a miss 'n out. My plan was to hang on to the group as long as I could, hopefully to the end, and not be the first person eliminated from the miss 'n out.

The scratch race was typical, at the whistle, we accelerated and kept accelerating. I wasn't feeling too bad and was near the front in the pole lane. Maybe too near the front. Someone went over the top and when my lane reacted it was full gas. I couldn't hold the acceleration and started to pack slide. I popped off the back w/12 to go. That's right boys and girls, I lasted all of 8 laps. Spurred on by my family, who had recruited some additional kids to cheer for me, I time trialed it until I saw that I was about to interfere with the boys at the front who were about to lap me, then I pulled the pin.

The points race was much the same, except someone attacked at the gun and the whole field exploded in the first couple of laps. I was in the second group. We were all working to pull back the first group, by taking half lap pulls. I cycled through and took my pull and when I pulled off and started to drift back, totally gassed, I noticed a gap had opened up. I hesitated and the rider who opened the gap hesitated to and asked me to fill in. I obliged and was subsequently used so he and the others who were gapped could rest then sprint around me to catch back on. This is how enemies are made. I popped with 19 to go, but to punish myself for being a lap dog and to see if I could catch back on to the main group after I was lapped, I stayed out. Unfortunately, the group caught me on a sprint lap and just blew by me. Again, I stayed out until 5 to go then drifted into the warmup circle.

At this point, demoralized and pissed at myself, I decided that I would get as close to the front as possible in the pole lane for the miss 'n out and just stay there until I was eliminated. I lasted ~10 laps, and considering I didn't even contest my elimination, I felt pretty not too bad about it.

All in all, I got the horn pretty good, which seems to be my MO on the track this year, but I ain't quittin'. See you all on June 4th for another beatin'.

Modesto Road Race

Advice and Experience.

It’s what we all need from time to time; if it’s good or not depends; whether we follow or learn from it is up to us. The Modesto Road Race was my first road race so I didn’t really know what to expect. What I did know was that it was 7 laps on a 9 mile, dead flat course. I also knew that the last time I road that far, was 6 months ago, and it wasn’t anywhere near “race pace.”

The first bits of advice that I used was “have a plan.—Larry Nolan”, “Stay in the top 1/3 of the peloton—Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett”, ”Race your strength.—Ken Hernandez”, and “You must meter your effort…unless you’re Ron Callison.—Andy McIlroy.” So my plan was to hang towards the front of pack, none of this silly attacking stuff that I like to do in crits and track races, and wait for the sprint at the end.

“Don’t waste energy—Many”: I didn’t do a very good job of this. I expended a ton of nervous energy worrying about if I had enough bottles, food, sleep, and training, was I eating enough, was I drinking enough, was my heart rate too high for no reason, etc. It took me several laps to get rid of all of that. “Water follows salt.—Pat Dempsey” I did not have enough salt in my system. Twenty minutes into a 3 hour race, my bladder was full. I popped an electrolyte pill, ~ 2 hours in, same thing. I didn’t need to use the facilities until ~2 hours after the race. This made a huge difference.

The pace of the race was a peaceful ride in the country with a couple of intervals thrown in for 6 of the 7 laps. Business picked up on the last lap as someone soloed off the front with ~8 miles to go. With ~ 6 miles to go, there was an acceleration at the front of the field with ~5 riders which caused a small gap to open up, no big deal until I saw that one of the potential breakaway members had a teammate trying to bridge. 2 teammates in a 6 man break with 6 miles to go is too dangerous when you don’t know the competition, so I jumped and chased it down. It was a good thing that I did because it turned out there were some strong riders in the group. That chase put me in good position for the rest of the race, near the front. The only problem was, I was a bit too close to the front. I ended up 2^nd wheel with ~3 miles to go, but when the person on the front pulled off, I simply followed him, to his visual dismay. Unfortunately for VSRT, Gordon, who was on my wheel, didn’t follow me and was left on the front for ~2 miles. When he would speed up, so would the rest of the group, when he would slow down, so would the rest. Finally, with ~1 mile to go Gordon got off the front. Meanwhile, I was busily trying to get to the right hand side of the road and find a good wheel, which I did. I knew the TMT rider, because we attacked together during the Wente Crit.

I also knew he was a good wheel because I had seen that he was racing a lot from results posted at USA Cycling. With ~1 mile to go, I could see Gordon lined up on the left hand side of the road with ~5-7 riders in front of him. At this point, I thought I was screwed because the road in front of me was totally clogged with racers. Then with ~1 km to go, someone attacked, blew up, and pulled to the right side of the road. That caused just enough confusion ahead that a gap opened up and TMT guy and I went through to the front. As we came around the last turn TMT guy hesitated just a bit, which unfortunately caused me to have to brake check, costing some momentum. Just as I stood up for the sprint, someone pulled a spoke out of their rear wheel. It made an awful racket, but to his credit he kept sprinting and finished 5^th. I lost TMT guy’s draft due to the brake check. He went on to finish 2^nd. I couldn’t pass Mr. Broken Spoke and ended up 6^th, scoring myself a t-shirt. Gordon passed a bunch of guys to finish 8^th. If I wouldn't have had to brake check? Maybe I would have finished on the podium, or maybe I would have ended up in the ditch picking gravel and cow shit out of my body, who knows, but it sure was a fun day.

Wente Classic Criterium

From April 29, 2010

Cat 5 Race: Briefly, I had a nice warmup on a trainer (first time for that and I highly recommend it). I had a nice attack on the first lap w/a TMT guy. We stayed off the front for ~8 min (~3 laps) and worked well together. I went for another later on, but they were on me like flies on shit. The third time I went to the front; I was informed by Hernando that I had a teammate in a break. It
would have been nice for him to wear his kit. With 2 laps to go, I tried to organize a sprint train for Gordon, but it was clear to me that I wasn't going to be much help to them, so I told Gordon to go win it, which he did not, slacker! Andrew and I finished in the pack, Gordon finished 6th, and Frank just missed the podium at 4th. Great results for VSRT!

During the race, I saw several things that were a harbinger of things to come and made it very clear that all potential racers need to take some skills training before they toe the line. Frank and Gordon chime in, but even the minimal training that they received at my hands helped them to be more comfortable and safe during the crit. Needless to say, I spent a good bit of time in the pack yelling at people. First of all, riding in the hoods and even in the tops: What were they thinking? Second, lateral movement; racers were weaving to avoid bot dots, each other, and manhole covers. Third, riding the brakes in to the corners, and not crossing the center line upon entrance or exit; I was yelling to use the whole course, but I think that the braking was mostly due to attempts to avoid crossing bot dots. Fourth, looking before you move; this is a subset of lateral movement, but there were racers who were moving around without taking a peak before they did so. Fifth, dive bombing the inside of the corners; Unavoidable due to the way we were riding the course (explained above), but one racer felt my wrath when he dove inside of me just before an apex in one of the turns. He spent the rest of the race looking all over the place and being ultra conservative (mission accomplished). The crash was caused by a blown tire while going through the last corner, nothing anyone could do about that. How I stayed safe? I tailgunned when not going to the front and kept out of the middle of the pack, which seemed to work well since I still have all of my skin. My current attitude is that I need to get out of the Cat 5s ASAP, but that attitude along with racers not truly learning how to race while they are cat 5s is what causes dangerous cat 4s.

Get Ready For Summer 2010 #2

From April 19, 2010

Things have been pretty stressful the last couple of weeks, and this week will be worse, so it'll be a fairly short report. I went into the races at Hellyer last Saturday with a few goals in mind.

1. Make it to the Keirin repechage.
2. Don't get dropped in the Scratch race, go out on an attack, if possible.
3. Beat Beth Newell in the Miss `N Out.
4. Don't get dropped and try to score one lousy point in the points race.

Let's see how I did.

1. Last in my heat (which included Roy J.), no rep.
2. Dropped w/11 to go (20 lap race), got caught in no mans land trying to bridge to a break.
3. Newell was the next rider eliminated, after me, best race of the day.
4. Dropped on the 3rd sprint (16 to go), took a lap, then hung in the pack the rest of the way.

To sum it up: My mind was shot, my legs were shot, bluntly, I sucked! On the other hand, a bad day of racin' is better than a good day of work.

Altamont TTT

From Apr. 5, 2010

Wow, what a hectic weekend. Here's my report for the Altamont TTT. I'd like to first say thanks to Gordon, Frank, Don, and Janet for showing interest and actually participating in the event with me. As this was a team event, I'd like each TTT team member to add their thoughts to this report. We started off 3 weeks ago practicing the course on Tuesdays during the lunch ride. Each practice, we had different wind conditions and we learned something each time. We spent a lot of time working on our paceline strategy, cheating the wind, and learning the course. Funny how you can ride somewhere all the time and still miss a few nuances. Anywho, onto race day.

We met at Don's office at 6:30 AM to warm up for our 8:08 AM start, and we needed every bit of time. I didn't feel warmed up until we were riding over to the start. We showed up at the startline at 8:06 AM and were promptly admonished for being so late. As we lined up across the road, we were yelled at for not being 2x2 on the right side of the white line!?! So as we rearranged ourselves, Frank dropped his chain. We were given our instructions which were finished w/15s before our start time. I guess we weren't too late after all.

Uhh, not so fast. When we were released, I drilled it out of the saddle to try to get the pace up as fast as I could. I then heard Gordon say something like "where's our team?" I turned around to see Gordon and no one else. Turns out Frank fell ass over teacups at the start and Don was waiting for him. Gordon and I slowed our pace until Frank and Don joined us. We probably lost ~10s with that blunder, but at least Frank got his starting line foul up over with in his first
race.

The wind wasn't too strong, so we were pushing pretty hard on the way out and actually took ~7s out of our minute men by the turn. I took some monster pulls during the descent to keep the pace as high as I could since I was the only one with a 52t chainring. We made a fine turn and I was out of the saddle to bring us back up to pace ASAP. Once we settled back into our pace, I knew I was in a bit of trouble.

During all of our practices, I had been able to recover fairly well at the back, well not during this ride. My HR hovered within 2 bpm of my functional limit pretty much the whole ride. On the way back, I struggled mightily just to hang on to the group, calling out my heart rate when I was about to blow. I pulled when I could, but most of the time I would try, I would get to the lead rider and not be able to pass him, and then I would fade to the back of the group. In addition, I felt like I couldn't get a respite from the wind. I'd move a bit left, I'd move a bit right, and the wind would feel the same. Not a good feeling riding into a block headwind. My plan was to do what I could to recover, pull when I could and then just absolutely nail it when we hit Carrol road.

When we hit Carrol road, I did just that, I called the engine room and asked for warp factor 9. Scotty told me he was given her all she got, and I asked for more. I took a strong pull and then with the finish in sight, I sprinted to the front. We crossed the line with a time of 41:59, our best time of the month.

We finished DFL in the cat 4s but would have been 3rd in the cat 5s which Frank, Gordon, and I all are. How do I rate my contribution, I went as hard as I possibly could for 42 minutes and that I am happy with, though, I wish I could have done more, especially on the way back.

Get Ready for Summer 2010 #1

From March 31, 2010

Here's my race report for the 1st Get Ready for Summer race at Hellyer Velodrome.

Keirin: Running late, not warmed up, not a very good push, ended up 5th out of 8 on the start, got boxed in, nothing much I could do. I absolutely love this race, too bad I suck at it!

8k Scratch (24 laps): Felt good, stayed patient and in the pole lane as much as I could. There was an early break of 2 riders and we couldn't get organized for a chase. One rider at a time began to bridge and when the bridging group was 4 strong, I took off to join them. We were all pretty gassed from the unorganized chase, so there were no counter attacks. I hung out in the pole lane for a while, but ended up on the front w/2 to go and a rider on my hip. Then only thing I could do was drill it and give a nice lead out to someone behind me, which I did.

Miss `n Out: Told Mark Rodamaker in the warmup circle that I needed to learn to come to peace with this race because it was the one I like the least and had no confidence in it. He reiterated a plan of attack that he had told me last fall and one that I intended on using (especially since I had no other plan).While I was talking to Mark, they called us to the rail. It took me a bit longer to get up there, so I was toward the back. I knew that I had to get out of there or I was screwed, so as soon as we were told to roll out, I went straight to the front. On lap 2, the first being a parade lap, they started pulling riders. I settled into 4th or 5th wheel in the pole lane. After the first 8 riders were pulled, I took a peek over my shoulder and noticed that I was indeed last. I went over the top in turns 3 and 4 and avoided being eliminated. I then found myself on the front. I backed in 1 lane above the pole to find some draft and was in pretty good position until I moved out of the pole lane in turn 2 scaring the shit out of the rider next to me. That broke my concentration and by the time I got my head back in the race, I was pinned in the pole lane w/not enough track to slow down then swing over the top. I finished 7th out of 19, an excellent result for me, but reading the race, I should have finished 5th and scored my first B-group omnium point.

10k Points (30 laps, 3 sprints): I did my usual B-group points race thing, hang on until the first sprint, get dropped, bridge the gap, recover, hang on for dear life during the 2nd sprint. Then we caught 2 breakaway riders w/ 8 laps to go. I was above the stayers line 3rd wheel. I waited for the field to sit up, and then I drilled it. With 6.5 to go I heard there were 2 more with me. Could this work? Could it…Could it….No, I was pretty spent by that point. I could only pull for ~75m then I had to come off the front. A group of 3 B-racers w/10 chasing will not survive for 5 laps when all 3 are not sharing the work equally. We were caught w/4 to go and I just hung on until the end.

All in all, it was a very successful first track race of the season. I'm much stronger than last year, now if I can just get a bit faster, I can really start laying the wood to the field (funny how faster is always the answer). I learned a lot and I think that I may have figured out a good strategy for running the Miss `n Out. As far as the Scratch race is concerned, I probably should have just swung high and taken my chances rather than lead out the finish. Points, I think with my current strength, I may need to try to get into an early break, get some points, recover in the field and then try for a strong finish. In the Keirin, I probably should have taken the initiative to move up right away, goading someone into following me, then swinging off of the front to pick up their draft, assuming I couldn't find a spot to squeeze into in the pole lane. Here's a link to the A-group studs in a Keirin heat, Keirin final, and the last 7 laps of the scratch race. The last lap of the Keirins were at an average speed of 40 mph:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0urEGEaYCB4&feature=player_embedded