Another race weekend down the drain

This weekend was one of those 'take one for the team' race weekends. Meaning I had no desire to do either race. Saturday was Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Sunday was Floyd Bennett Field in...queens? I'm not sure where it is. It's near JFK airport and it's original job was just that - to give a place for planes and other flying things to take off and land. I suppose NYC outgrew it so JFK took it's spot as the top dog of International air travel.

Anyways, it was rippin' hot here in the city this weekend with temps in the mid 90s both days with a scorching sun relentlessly beating down upon my now incredibly intense farmer's tan skin. When I take off a shirt it looks like I'm still wearing a shirt these days... Have you ever seen a finger tan line? Note just beneath the 2nd knuckle and the obvious wrist line. It's even worse on my legs and arms near my shoulders...



So, on Saturday I woke up at a lovely 4:45am so I'd have time to ride down to Prospect Park for a perky 6:30am start time. Champion System had about 10 riders at this race so we should win, right? ho ho. This is BROOKLYN. Nothing goes as planned. A sold out P-1-2-3 field of 95 riders eagerly awaited the start of what was hopefully going to be a safe race. My past experiences with Prospect Park have been sketchy, at best. Crashes galore with crazy sprint finishes for 30th place. Awesome. Today's race turned out to be on the safe side, for my category race at least, and there was only the occasional shady move, but no kissing of the concrete for any riders. Saturday's race was FAST. Really fast. We averaged over 28mph for the entire 44 mile race. A break had about zero chance of surviving at that speed. Superman I am, I tried to get away about 3/4's of the way through the race but just wasted some energy and fell back in with the front group. The plan before the race from Coach Igor was to have a lead out for our esteemed sprinter Rodney if a break did not happen. The break never materialized so it was time for some lead out madness. I shimmied my way to the front and only Igor was present so, um, do we still do the lead out? I decided to try anyway and dropped the hammer with a little more than a km to go. When I turned around no one was with me. What the hell?? So I decided to just keep on going. I was about 99% sure I would not stay away from the field, but whatever, go for it. I went at 130% and got to about 400m and started running out of gas. I had to downshift a cog and knew I was screwed. Not surprisingly, the sprinters went ripping by me and I fluttered in their draft and limped across the finish line for a top 20 finish but no glory. O well, better luck never time.

Sunday was destined to be even more painful. Today I faced a 25 mile commute to the race through less than stellar areas then a 50 mile race on a 2.x mile very flat wide open course on former runway tarmac. Add cracks and weeds and trees that have a tendency to rip riders from their bikes, and you got a great race course! Wind is famous for wreaking havoc at the mighty FBF. It proved to be an issue on one side of the course, but otherwise was pretty tame. Hot, Sunny, zero shade. Ugh. The category 3 group was a part of our race, but there was a catch. They got a three minute head start on the p-1-2 field. I wasn't worried about catching them. At the start, the race announcer, Charlie Issendorf (best race organizer in the city) seemed to think it would be tough to catch them and it would be with 4 or 5 laps to go. Little did he know they were going to crash and we were going to have 20 hotheads out there TT'ing away up front forcing a blistering, nearly unsustainable pace. This race, just like yesterday, was painfully fast. Perhaps the heat accentuates the intensity, but I did not feel like doing anything special in this race. Just hanging on was good enough for me. We had, again, just like yesterday a bunch of guys in the field, and we should since one of our sponsors was hosting the race. About halfway through the race, I took stock of the situation and realized there were only 3 Champion guys left and more than half of the field had either quit or been dropped enough where we could no longer see them. Eventually we had a break happen and one of our riders was in it along with the other strong teams present. Ahhh, my work was done. I could just sit back, rel...no, I could just keep pedaling and finish the race! Long story short: we let the break stick so the top five places were decided and with about 500m to go we cranked up the speed and I gave a lead out to my teammate Igor who sprinted for 8th place overall just getting nipped by two others at the line. But wait, the fun was not over! I got to ride 25 miles back home, after consuming 4 bottles of water, through the wonderful streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Now I sit, sipping a great beer, in the confines of my apartment with air conditioning reminiscing and relishing the remaining hours of another fine weekend. Next weekend is the Hillstown Race in MA - sure to be a doozy. 95 miles with nearly 9k of climbing! Maybe I'll get that last point I need to upgrade to Category 1.

Question and Answer Session

What bike are you riding?

When I was upgraded to category 2 the team gave me a Champion System carbon frameset which I believe is made by Pedal Force. It's a bb30 standard carbon frame and is a great riding race bike. The Cervelo I came from was slightly lighter, but other than that they feel about the same. The Champ-sys bike is 2cm smaller, has a 4cm shorter head tube, and 1.5cm less reach. I ended up getting a 2cm longer stem and also have a significantly greater drop. I was skeptical at first whether the bike would fit, but it's turned out to be better than the 58cm RS Cervelo.

They also gave me 7900 Dura-Ace components. I've used SRAM for the past few years, and really like the Dura-Ace. I like it just a tiny bit more than the SRAM. Mostly the rear shifting. It feels smoother and I never miss a shift. Occasionally with the SRAM, usually under very stressful conditions, I would accidentally shift the wrong way on the cassette.

For training or really poor conditions races, I use SRAM S30 sprint wheels or sometimes a powertap sl+ rear wheel. For most races though I use 2010 Zipp 404 Tubular wheels.

How often do you train?

Now that I'm racing every weekend and usually both days my weekdays consist mostly of recovery. I commute to work every day, and get a massage on Monday morning. On Tuesdays, I go to a local circuit race series which I consider training. That's about a four hour day with about one hour of that time actual racing. On Thursdays or Friday I usually have a training ride depending on what races are coming up. Either high cadence drills to get the legs ready, or max power intervals. Today I had the latter, and did repeats up a hill that takes about 5 minutes. I go as hard as possible from start to finish!

What has changed since joining a team?

Honestly, not much. I still end up racing by myself most the time, which is not exactly what I expected. And to keep it clean, for now, I'll leave it there:)

Does your wife accompany you?

My wife has accompanied me to many of the races. She's been extremely supportive, and for that I'm grateful. She's an amazing woman! She didn't even panic when I rolled across the finish line with half my bike going sideways, missing glasses, and destroyed clothing at Killington!

Housatonic Hills Race Report

Roughly three weeks ago I raced the Housatonic Hills road race in the Roxbury, CT region. My team, Champion System Racing, decided to send me to Housatonic instead of the bigger money Harlem Crit in NYC since it had lots of hills. The race was a little over 80 miles long on a hot, sunny Sunday morning. A rider from the ProTour on the Cervelo Test Team, Ted King, decided to grace us peons with his presence so things were certain to be interesting. He just came from the Giro in Italy which most people would probably consider a pretty good training race for something like the Housatonic Hills. Along with Ted King I had to pay attention to a mountain goat named Roger Aspholm.

I had high hopes of a top ten finish going in to this race, and before I had seen who signed up I thought I could even win it. With Mr King present that seemed far less likely, but ya never know!

The race consisted of three loops with quite a bit of climbing. Nothing too long, but enough climbing to make it a race of attrition. About 10 miles in to the first loop we hit one of the larger climbs and I decided to attack. Why? I really don't know. I'm pretty bad about what to do and when, still. I've always relied on my motor to carry me to victory with strategy and tactics coming in a distant 2nd and 3rd. I hit the gas and quickly pulled away from everyone. No one tried to keep up with me. Why? Because no one knew who I was. A newbie nobody in an orange jersey struts away and is going to burn his self out...have fun! I decided to carry on - big mistake - and eventually caught the 4 man break a few minutes ahead. At the end of the first lap I hit a big climb that was fairly steep. I kept hammering away and dropped the break. Why? I have no idea. At the time I had decided I could solo the race since it was so hilly. Drafting wouldn't work, right? Wrong. I rode away on my own and did the next lap by myself.

At the beginning of the third lap right before the aforementioned climb began, I turned around and saw Ted King leading a small group of riders in a chase. I knew I was caught so stopped working hard. I hopped in their train and traded pulls. Every climb we hit the pace went up and I knew at some point I was going to get dropped. I managed to hang on until about 10 miles to go when they really cranked it up one of the longer climbs. I gave up, threw in the towel, and just tried to limp to the finish and salvage whatever place I could. Top ten still seemed realistic. I got passed by three more riders and finished in a decent 9th place.

This race finally beat in to my thick skull:

DON'T TRY TO SOLO A PRO LEVEL RACE NO MATTER HOW HILLY OR STRONG YOU FEEL.

Return of the blog, a summary of what it's like to go from cat 5 to cat 2 in 3 months

I've been wanting to start posting on this page for quite some time. I've been racing on the road nearly every weekend since March 20th of this year, and my two readers have maybe wondered what the heck has been going on.

So, here it goes, from the top of my head, starting back in late March of this year.

I awoke at an hour no sane person should ever be subjected to on a regular basis. It was very dark outside still and would be still for at least another hour. My eyes popped open before the first alarm hit it's note around 4:25am. I was excited, amped, ready to race on this cold early Spring morning. My first category 5 race - the bottom of the barrel for those who don't know, the beginner category otherwise known as crash 5, the ten race requirement category to move in to the ranks of USA Cycling road racing.

It all started in Central Park at 6:30am with 49 other poor souls. From guys who looked like they'd been racing for years on $10,000 aero machines, to very newbie-looking novices on cheap bikes, I lined up in the front with instructions to sprint from the start and see what happens. I sprinted at the gun. I opened up a big gap, but I also was red-lined, going way too hard even for a 20 mile race, and about half way around the 6 mile loop I was caught by the pack. Huffing and puffing, I recovered. People started attacking and I jumped after every wheel. I rode myself in to the ground. I tried to break away near the end but got caught and passed and finished in the top 10. Not exactly how I thought things were going to go. I was told by a few people I was far stronger than other cat 5's and should dominate easily. It sure didn't go that way at the first race!

Fast fwd a bit, and most the races after that I did totally dominate easily winning solo by quite a bit. I learned a lot from that first race. It's not so easy to solo win from the gun. Draft some, conserve energy, wait for the right moment and things go as they should.

My eighth race was Battenkill. I was still stuck in category 5. Another cold start, we had a 1km neutral roll out before the racing began. 49 others again (50 max in cat 5 races) and we rolled slowly through the 1km. After 1km, I thought things would pick up a bit, but they didn't. So I joked around a bit with the few guys in the front, said I was freezing and needed to warm up so I accelerated. Stories after the race from others said I "sprinted" away from the field and disappeared. My story says I bumped the speed up from 16mph to 25mph and went in to endurance cruising mode hoping to warm my numb toes and hands. I was shocked nobody came with me. I immediately opened up a huge gap and that's all she wrote. I soloed the entire ~63 mile race and won by nearly 10 minutes. My time would've beat every cat 5 and cat 4 race and landed me in the top ten in cat 3.

I applied for my category 4 upgrade early, but meanwhile, the day after Battenkill, I raced my last cat 5 race in Bethel, CT. A criterium of some silly distance, say, 20 miles, around and around a 1 mile course with a small hill, I was again with 49 others and by now they recognized me and feared the, uh, orange jersey. On the first lap I sprinted up the hill and broke away. I rode by myself for the rest of the race and eventually lapped the entire field for another easy win.

Category 4 baby! I was psyched. I was nervous at my first race, another Bethel Crit. This time with nearly 100 guys and a dangerous distance of ~30 miles. I joked at the start I was in over my head and I had no idea what to do. People really liked that. I rode a few laps with the group and decided to break away. This time a guy went with me. He drafted off me nearly the entire time each lap and it really started to annoy me. So I sprinted up the hill and dropped him. I soloed the rest of the race for my first cat 4 victory. 7 points. I think I needed 15 or 20 to go to cat 3. I entered the cat 3/4 race the same afternoon and got 6th place I think. Another point or two towards my upgrade. I was pooped from the earlier solo effort - still hadn't learned how to take it easy and draft and wait for the right moment!

The next weekend I raced in PA at the Turkey Hill race. a 60+ mile road race with some climbing! I broke away with 4 or 5 others on the 2nd of x amount of laps, we'll say 6, and rode a lap with them. They were going too slow on the hills, I thought, and I was paranoid about getting caught so I dropped them and rode off by myself. Why, why??? Why do I ride myself in to the ground when I could easily draft with a few others! So, anyways, I soloed that race too for an easy win by a few minutes.

After that, I think the following weekend, I did the same thing at Prospect park, my last cat 4 race, and got first place by about a minute.

Cat 3! Getting up there with the big boys now... Before I was officially upgraded to cat 3 I decided to enter a pro 1 2 3 race at Floyd Bennett field, my Tuesday night local series with a lot of heavy hitters, and I got 2nd place. They found out I was still cat 4 though so they dq'd me and made me return my money:(

I entered a stage race in NJ called the Giro de Cielo. There were two other guys from NYC there that were strong riders and it was basically us against each other with 50 or so other guys fighting for 4th place. Mr Chabanov and Mr Ingraham gave me a run for my money, but I persevered and came out on top and got first place overall. I got 2nd in the crit, and top 10 in the road race. I also won the individual TT and set a new course record. yay.

Next up was the Wilmington Grand Prix in DE. This was a cat 2/3 criterium with all the big dogs out to whip my little cat 3 butt in to submission. A decent amount of prize money, and a huge pro race so there were lots of fans and sponsors around the course. I had no aspirations of winning this race, and just wanted to finish. It was all I could do just to stay in the front pack as we wound our way around the technical course. With two to go, I found myself in the front and decided, what the hell, go for it, so I sprinted as hard as I could towards the finish line and to my surprise opened a fairly nice gap on the field. Tuck the head, crank it out, hyperventilate, go go go! I'm still amazed I managed to stay away from the field for the final two laps and win the race.

I tried to upgrade to cat 2 after winning two races - one of them a fairly important race with most the strong cat 2s of the region, but was denied by my arch-nemesis Mr ragot. This really pissed me off. I was shy of a cat 2 upgrade by only a few points and it was pretty obvious, to me at least, that I could handle my own against cat 2 guys. So, I called up Colorado, home base for USA cycling, and spoke with the head official of the country. I explained my situation and he put me in touch with the head of the NE, a very level headed individual, and he told me deliver him the GC at Killington the following weekend and cat 2 is mine. GC = general classification, or overall stage winner. I had my first crash at the circuit race in Killington on day 1. A nasty 45mph crash where I managed to only lose a lot of skin and a few minor bruises. I still have some major scars from this one! I did decent in the TT the next day and moved up to around 8th place. the final day was the mountain stage road race. The race ended with a 5 mile steep climb and I thought I could probably win the overall with just that climb. I drilled it at the beginning and dropped the field almost immediately. I passed the few guys who had formed a break and climbed my way to victory and won the overall by about 2 minutes.

Cat 2! I'm still a cat 2...but not for long. I need a few points or maybe one point to get to category 1, but there's not really any rush since all the races I want to do up to September are pro 1 2 events. In September there's UNIVEST which is a Pro-1 only and that will probably be my last race of the year.

I've done really well since becoming a cat 2, but those stories will have to be told another day!

Disaster strikes again - Shenandoah 100 mtb race

I've learned this year there are so many things that can go wrong during a 100 mile mountain bike race on mostly backwoods trails when you are racing your hardest. To plan for them all is a nearly impossible challenge. This past Sunday I tried, but failed. Physically, I had taken it easy the three weeks leading to the race. One of the weeks I did not ride a bike once. Mentally, I was a bit worried about the physical aspect, but otherwise felt prepared. I had dialed in the bike, had made some changes I learned from the previous mtb races, and was ready to roll.

As posted previously, I switched to a suspension fork. The speed and stability gained with the squishy fork easily makes up for the one pound gain over the previous On One carbon fork. I also mounted my tube, lever, and tire boot with electrical tape on the seatpost instead of using a bag. Why? At the last race, my bag opened and I lost everything. Also, the bumpy conditions have been known to wear through tubes due to friction inside the bag. And finally, it's lighter and easier to access! I also bought a high volume mini pump by Lezyne that cleanly mounts under the downtube bottle cage. C02 is simply not trustworthy, for me, in the middle of nowhere with nothing but serious walking in either direction if something goes wrong. I tested the pump, and it works great and is hardly slower than using a C02 cartridge. The Lezyne pump weighs only a few grams more than the typical c02 package. I also changed to tougher tires - WTB nanoraptors. They are quite a bit smaller in volume, weigh about the same as the racing ralphs, and, imo, offer far better traction and durability while maintaining a similar, if not better, rolling resistance. They sealed tubeless very easily on my ztr355 29er rims. Minimal shaking was required and no leakage or loss of PSI over a few days. Finally, I slapped on a carbon riser bar to reduce the drop from the saddle. Yes, a stem would've done fine, too, but I wanted a stiffer and slightly wider bar. The Edge Composites fit the bill nicely. It's very stiff, a little wider, and raised my hand position 25mm. Couple that with the slightly taller fork and I'm exactly where I wanted to be!

On to the race:

6:30am start time. 100 miles. 14,000 ft of climbing. 36x21 gearing. Sold out race, 550 people on the start line.

An early time to start racing, but necessary due to the length, me and 549 riders assembled by the start line at dawn under a reasonably clear sky and perfect temps. The forecast was excellent for the day with minimal sun, no rain, and comfortable humidity. A record was sure to be broken!

My plan was to start near the front, hammer it out at the start at 100% with hopes of escaping the majority of the riders and having a clear way for the remainder of the race. I did just this. I had pre-ridden the first 10 miles of the course so knew exactly what to expect. A dusty start, a few miles of pavement then we hit the first fire road climb of the day which started gradually and finished steep before heading in to a very rocky, fast single track descent.

I spun out my legs to max on the pavement gradually moving up but unable to keep up with the fastest geared riders. Once we hit the climb that all changed. I kept the power high and quickly passed nearly everyone and was riding right behind the pro men geared riders. I kept this pace all the way to the single track climb. In we go to the rock garden! A little climbing then a very fast, fun descent. And this is where the story changes.

I was flying down the trail and someone slid out in front of me. I dodged to the right and my wheel caught on something, a rock I assume, and I went flying over the handle bars. I landed really hard on my back and the bike toppled down upon me. The wind was knocked out of me and I was bleeding quite a bit on my elbow. I could tell it was a very serious impact, and after assessing the body lying down I slowly stood up. My thigh was on fire from a severe contusion, and so was my back. The back really had me worried. I couldn't catch my breath and it felt very tight. I decided I was capable of riding still so I hopped back on the bike - miraculously not a scratch besides crooked handle bars - and off I went. The crash really took a lot out of me for a little bit. A few geared riders went flying by me and I struggled to catch up. I still couldn't breathe properly and felt like all the power had been taken out of my back. My right thigh felt like it was cramping, but I knew it was just sore.

Eventually everything settled down to a dull pain and I carried on. I was in third place now after the crash. We came to a climb and I caught up to the first two single speeders and rode with them for a bit. Ever so slowly the pain got worse and worse. The right leg I felt first since we were on a long flat section requiring high cadence. Every rotation I felt the huge lump developing on the top of my thigh. It kept trying to convince my mind it was cramping so I'd focus on the left leg instead and realize it felt fine so just kept on pushing. Eventually we dropped one of the 1 geared riders so it was me and Matt Ferrari leading the SS'ers. I rode with him for about 30 miles moaning and groaning up and down the hills until the pain just became ridiculous in my back and I decided to pull the plug. At this point, I could barely breathe, and every time I pulled with my back I felt numerous clicks, pops, and grinds. Did I mention it hurt? As I type this, I've never felt such a degree of pain. I can barely sit down, sleeping is horrible, and generally being alive is a painful experience!

The ER visit yesterday showed three broken ribs. And, thus, ends my race season of 2009. A big fat DNF.

I did win a case of Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA for being in first place after the first 60 minutes. 8 bottles for each rib. Not exactly equal, but better than nothing.

Selma goes Squishy - DT Swiss XMC RLTC 80mm 29er fork

This past weekend marks my foray in to the world of squishy 100 mile rides. Will it last? YES! The DT Swiss fork is amazing. I was skeptical about it since there are very few reviews out there. The $1300 price tag might have something to do with this.

The carbon legs and arch are beautiful, and the overall finish is top notch. Mine weighed in right at 3.5 pounds.

The fork has a bunch of settings, all externally, that allow the fork to be dialed in obsessively, or as some might see it, to make it extremely complicated. The lockout is integrated in to the rebound setting on the upper right leg and spins pretty easily. I was worried about changing the rebound all the time, but then realized it's so easy to move back it's no big deal. Also on the same leg as the rebound and lockout is something that allows you to customize the position of the fork when locked out. I decided to knock it down about 1.5" when locked out to get the front a little lower. When the fork is locked out there is absolutely no movement. On the lower right leg is the compression setting. I just put that at half way and it seems fine. I may mess with it some more when I have the time.

I used the DT Swiss recommended PSI setting and took it for a test ride the day before my race. I was pleasantly surprised. First, the PSI seemed perfect. Second, the fork does not bob at all, not even 1mm, when standing and climbing. This was a shock. I fully expected to use the lockout when climbing. I did not use it once during the race!

Since I've nothing to compare it to, I can't say it's any better than the competition. I do notice most other brand forks bobbing up and down when out of the saddle. The DT Swiss stays nice and stiff then activates when it hits a bump and locks back out again. I must say, yet again, this really surprised me!!! Perhaps some day I will ride some other forks and offer a thorough review.

Pic from the Darkhorse 40

I found this pic on another blog - thanks James, and since it's been requested a few times to become slightly less anonymous, here I am on the far right after winning the single speed category!