Another race of attrition is under the belt, this time with a dropout rate of greater than 50%. Why? The race was only 83 miles with about 5k of climbing. It wasn't very hot, around 85F peak, and humidity was tolerable. The wind...I hate the...yeah, well it was there and very noticeable for half the race course. The hills were steep and packed tightly together during the first 7 miles of the course. A twenty mile loop took us on a tour of the northern Catskills near an industrial looking town named Ravena in New York. We were north of the big mountains but there were hills aplenty, and we managed to hit a few of the good ones. One climb was a 15% switchback for about a half mile that we had to go over 4 times during the course of the race. The other notable climb was not as steep but still no cakewalk, and was twice as long as, if not even more than, the steep one. They came one after another leaving no time for recovery. The second half of the course was wide open and rolling with a stiff headwind blowing straight in our faces. What could've been a very fast and somewhat easy second half turned out, for me at least, to be even more difficult than the hills.
I toed the line with a few of the usual suspects, a smaller group than normal with about 40 starters, but the ones there were all solid racers. Roger Aspholm was the obvious choice for who to watch and follow. An incredible cyclist at the age of 42, he is consistently cleaning up at any race where endurance reigns supreme. I chatted with him for the first few miles about cyclocross racing and his future race plans, and after the 3 mile neutral start we were off. The group stayed together for the first lap but it was clear when and where everything would fall apart, at least to me. Roger said we should attack on the two big hills on the 2nd lap to ween the pack some and I agreed. Coming in to the longer climb, the first of the two tougher ones, I stood up and cranked up the power for about one minute then eased back to a still high pace but sustainable for a longer period of time. About 10 others came with me including Roger while the rest of the pack dropped away. We quickly built a gap, and going in to the 2nd climb we upped the pace again. This shed about 5 more riders leaving 5 in total.
We worked together for the remainder of lap two with the exception of one guy who tried to get a free ride in the rear. Going in to lap three Roger attacked on the hills. He went away with one other guy but didn't get far away from the rest of us. I was thinking maybe he should get away and he'll get tired and since we had the numbers we would catch him later on. Going in to the second climb, the other guy with him fell off and back to us so Roger was on his own. I really didn't think he'd be able to stay away for over a lap by himself. We worked together well for most the 3rd lap then it all started to fall apart. We still had the guy not wanting to help, and now everyone else, including me, was starting to feel the wear and tear of hard climbing and windy rollers. The chase fell apart with Roger off the front by over a minute. Going in to the 4th lap's 2nd, steeper, hill I turned around and saw another chase group of about 6 riders. They looked fresh compared to us, and quickly caught up. We rode together as a nice group of 10 riders and now I thought Roger would be caught. Going in to the rollers 3 broke away while I was at the very rear of the group. My legs were pretty beat at this point, dehydration was taking it's tool, and it didn't seem like I'd catch them so I decided to just stay where I was. A few miles later 3 more went off leaving four of us. We limped our way to the finish and gave a half hearted sprint at the line and crossed at roughly the same time about two minutes behind Roger who managed to solo and take the win. Very impressive!
This race was tough. From registering to racing to results the event was handled perfectly. The power meter software says the effort required was even greater than the previous weeks Tokeneke race.
Stats copied from Golden Cheetah software:
Totals
Duration: 3:37:48
Time Riding: 3:36:24
Distance (miles): 81.9 (forget to start it until a bit in to the neutral beginning)
Work (kJ): 3548
Elevation Gain (feet): 4724
Averages
Speed (mph): 22.7
Power (watts): 272
Cadence (rpm): 93
Metrics
xPower (watts): 311 (similar or same as normalized power)
Relative Intensity: 0.840
BikeScore™: 256
Daniels Points: 181
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Tokeneke Road Race Report 2010
Starting with this past weekend, and for the next few weeks, I'm in experimental territory, or perhaps it's normal (this is all new to me!) and I'm just fine tuning for the Green Mountain Stage Race coming up over labor day weekend. This weekend started out with a a 2.5 ride on Saturday with 2x10 at what we think is my threshold (since learned it's a bit higher) and then 1 hour at 320-330 watts with a few breaks mixed in to make the hour a bit more enjoyable. On Sunday, I headed up to East Hartland, CT for a race where I was supposed to break away early and hammer away until I couldn't hammer any longer - hopefully that's at the end of the race!
The distance was 66 miles with about 6,000ft of climbing on roads ranging from smooth to very bumpy. Fortunately the bumpy roads were mostly climbs. It seemed to me like the race would be very similar to the Pawling Mtn Road Race I did about a month ago, but with a deeper, stronger field. The course was basically down a hill then up a smaller hill then back down then up a bigger hill then back down then up a big hill then back down. Repeat 3 times.
My lovely wife, looking dapper in her new hat, was there to feed me bottles so I was able to have a nice, cool, fresh bottle each lap! Very much appreciated and it’s noticeably more refreshing to have a cold liquid entering the system. The race started with the sun at its hottest, around 12:55 with temps in the low 80s. I was near the front from the beginning, and had plans to up the pace at the first big climb and see who decided to come along with me. When we hit the first long climb I cranked it up to about 450 watts, in retrospect probably too high, and quickly separated the field. A four man break was formed with me, Emerson Oronte from Team Ora, Justin Lindine from BikeReg, and Jeremy Powers from Jelly Belly. I’ve raced against all these guys a few times now and Emerson I knew to be as strong or stronger than me over a long, hilly endurance based course. Jeremy I knew would eventually drop off – something I should’ve dwelled upon a bit during the start of the break – and Justin was the wild card although I knew he was a strong rider in the hills.
We worked well together, non-stop cranking out the power, and Jeremy was the first to pop leaving us after the first lap. That left the three of us so almost no time for recovery and the course was such that it required nearly constantly pedaling even on the descents. The pace was incredibly high. My average watts for the first 44 miles, about two hours, was 373! I was pretty sure I could not maintain that pace for much longer, and was also wondering how the hell the two of them were managing it, too. Emerson seemed strong and Justin I could not tell. I was beginning to struggle to maintain the pace and was wondering how long I could hold on. Sure enough about eight miles in to the last lap we hit the steep, short hill and my legs said no mas. I was still able to hold about 300+ watts ascending, but I needed 400+ to stick with the two of them. They quickly pulled away and I was on my own. After about 5 minutes I was caught by the chase group of roughly 10 guys. I hopped on the back and was looking for a free ride to the finish. I felt like crap. I managed to stick with them and had enough time to recover so when they quickened the pace I could still hold on. We hit the last climb and there appeared to be no one in site behind us so I just plugged along at a comfortable pace not contesting for 7th place. I’m not sure I could’ve had I wanted to, but I didn’t try. I was shelled. A few guys dropped off but the majority were relatively fresh and pulled away a bit. I finished. That’s about all I can say about that! I was glad it was over.
In retrospect, I see a few things I should’ve considered during the race, and think I could’ve done better had things gone differently. One, when I saw Jeremy was one of the guys in the break I should’ve thought ahead and known he would not be able to hang with us in the hills, so did I want to ride with just two others for 50+ miles at a very high pace? I think it may have been better to ride with them a bit to set them up enough where they would not want to drop back then just fall off the pace and return to the chase group. There I could’ve drafted most the race and really cranked it up in the last 10 miles. We almost caught the two of them near the end so I think I may have been able to do more damage and even pass them for the win. But, it didn’t happen and of course this is only speculation so who knows how it would’ve turned out. Two, I have this fancy power meter so I should pay more attention to it. I know what I’m capable of for an hour at full speed, although perhaps that needs a minor adjustment after yesterdays performance, but, anyways, when I’m running at 100%+ going on two hours I should sit back and think, hey, wait a second, you can’t do this for another 45 minutes!! After the first lap average of 380w, and still only a less than two minute gap on the chase group, I think, again, it would’ve been smart to just fall back to the chase group. With just the two of them out front they would’ve had to work even harder to stay away. And, finally, a major factor to my petering out, perhaps even the factor, was my nutrition. I did not consume enough calories the day before the race for a few reasons, and then I did not consume enough for the first hour of the race. I must focus on calorie consumption in the future!
So that’s it. I’m glad I went, I learned more, and got a great workout that should only make me stronger. Normalized power of 330 watts for 3 hours. 50 watt drop due to the last 45 minutes of poking around the roads of East Hartland, drafting, struggling to maintain even that connection to the guy in front!
An addendum to this, a few hours after writing the bulk of this report, after speaking with my coach, it's been pretty much confirmed nutrition was my downfall and not my legs or the high, constant power output.
The distance was 66 miles with about 6,000ft of climbing on roads ranging from smooth to very bumpy. Fortunately the bumpy roads were mostly climbs. It seemed to me like the race would be very similar to the Pawling Mtn Road Race I did about a month ago, but with a deeper, stronger field. The course was basically down a hill then up a smaller hill then back down then up a bigger hill then back down then up a big hill then back down. Repeat 3 times.
My lovely wife, looking dapper in her new hat, was there to feed me bottles so I was able to have a nice, cool, fresh bottle each lap! Very much appreciated and it’s noticeably more refreshing to have a cold liquid entering the system. The race started with the sun at its hottest, around 12:55 with temps in the low 80s. I was near the front from the beginning, and had plans to up the pace at the first big climb and see who decided to come along with me. When we hit the first long climb I cranked it up to about 450 watts, in retrospect probably too high, and quickly separated the field. A four man break was formed with me, Emerson Oronte from Team Ora, Justin Lindine from BikeReg, and Jeremy Powers from Jelly Belly. I’ve raced against all these guys a few times now and Emerson I knew to be as strong or stronger than me over a long, hilly endurance based course. Jeremy I knew would eventually drop off – something I should’ve dwelled upon a bit during the start of the break – and Justin was the wild card although I knew he was a strong rider in the hills.
We worked well together, non-stop cranking out the power, and Jeremy was the first to pop leaving us after the first lap. That left the three of us so almost no time for recovery and the course was such that it required nearly constantly pedaling even on the descents. The pace was incredibly high. My average watts for the first 44 miles, about two hours, was 373! I was pretty sure I could not maintain that pace for much longer, and was also wondering how the hell the two of them were managing it, too. Emerson seemed strong and Justin I could not tell. I was beginning to struggle to maintain the pace and was wondering how long I could hold on. Sure enough about eight miles in to the last lap we hit the steep, short hill and my legs said no mas. I was still able to hold about 300+ watts ascending, but I needed 400+ to stick with the two of them. They quickly pulled away and I was on my own. After about 5 minutes I was caught by the chase group of roughly 10 guys. I hopped on the back and was looking for a free ride to the finish. I felt like crap. I managed to stick with them and had enough time to recover so when they quickened the pace I could still hold on. We hit the last climb and there appeared to be no one in site behind us so I just plugged along at a comfortable pace not contesting for 7th place. I’m not sure I could’ve had I wanted to, but I didn’t try. I was shelled. A few guys dropped off but the majority were relatively fresh and pulled away a bit. I finished. That’s about all I can say about that! I was glad it was over.
In retrospect, I see a few things I should’ve considered during the race, and think I could’ve done better had things gone differently. One, when I saw Jeremy was one of the guys in the break I should’ve thought ahead and known he would not be able to hang with us in the hills, so did I want to ride with just two others for 50+ miles at a very high pace? I think it may have been better to ride with them a bit to set them up enough where they would not want to drop back then just fall off the pace and return to the chase group. There I could’ve drafted most the race and really cranked it up in the last 10 miles. We almost caught the two of them near the end so I think I may have been able to do more damage and even pass them for the win. But, it didn’t happen and of course this is only speculation so who knows how it would’ve turned out. Two, I have this fancy power meter so I should pay more attention to it. I know what I’m capable of for an hour at full speed, although perhaps that needs a minor adjustment after yesterdays performance, but, anyways, when I’m running at 100%+ going on two hours I should sit back and think, hey, wait a second, you can’t do this for another 45 minutes!! After the first lap average of 380w, and still only a less than two minute gap on the chase group, I think, again, it would’ve been smart to just fall back to the chase group. With just the two of them out front they would’ve had to work even harder to stay away. And, finally, a major factor to my petering out, perhaps even the factor, was my nutrition. I did not consume enough calories the day before the race for a few reasons, and then I did not consume enough for the first hour of the race. I must focus on calorie consumption in the future!
So that’s it. I’m glad I went, I learned more, and got a great workout that should only make me stronger. Normalized power of 330 watts for 3 hours. 50 watt drop due to the last 45 minutes of poking around the roads of East Hartland, drafting, struggling to maintain even that connection to the guy in front!
An addendum to this, a few hours after writing the bulk of this report, after speaking with my coach, it's been pretty much confirmed nutrition was my downfall and not my legs or the high, constant power output.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tour of the Catskills report
My first stage race with the big boys in the pro 1 2 field took place this past weekend. My wife and I headed to Hunter, NY Friday AM for the Tour of the Catskills. The Tour consisted of an individual time trial on Friday followed by two ~80 mile road races over the weekend. I was facing my biggest challenge yet with some stiff competition from various parts of the country along with some foreigners from Canada and Europe. Floyd Landis was also rumored to be attending, and attend he did. My biggest concern was the Canadian team Garneau. They’ve been cleaning up at most of the big events in the NE, and their leader is a former Tour de France racer.
I didn’t ride at all two days prior to the prologue time trial. I felt pretty good when warming up, and had an average watts goal to shoot for during the TT. The TT was short, only 2.3 miles, with a steep, short 10% grade at the beginning followed by a false flat uphill. It took me 7 minutes to complete. I did not hit my average watts and really felt spent, like my lungs were lacerated, after finishing. I didn’t really understand what was wrong, but since then I think I’ve figured it out with the help of my coach, and hopefully will not under perform again for such an important event. My time still landed me in 12th position of 102 riders going in to the first road race, and I was 26 seconds behind the leader Passeron from the Garneau team and aforementioned TdF rider. He cleaned up, beating the 2nd place rider by 16 seconds. I was pretty satisfied with the overall results, know I could’ve done better, but that’s how things go sometimes and since there was a wicked climb at the end of the last day I was confident I could make up some time.
Going in to day two’s road race I just wanted to finish with the lead group. I didn’t expect any breaks to stick, but knew the field would be whittled away with all the climbing so just focused on staying near the yellow jersey. The route Saturday went around the Windham, NY area and had a little less than 7,000ft of climbing over 82 miles. I found Saturday to be the hardest day. Lots of climbing, and with every climb came attacks from various teams and individuals. So, basically it went from difficult to very difficult over and over again for a little over three hours. The finish was especially fast with everyone battling it out hoping to squeeze a few seconds off their time deficit to the leader. No such luck. After the 2nd big climb of the day roughly 60 miles in to the race the lead group had been reduced to about 30 riders including me. All the heavy hitters were still present, and the overall leader had great support from his team. It looked like it would be a pack finish in downtown Windham and we didn’t disappoint. Our average speed was probably 30mph or greater for the last 10 miles over slightly rolling terrain. I felt strong throughout but was definitely approaching my limits for how long I could tolerate such a high speed coupled with even greater accelerations every minute by people trying to escape. So, we finished together after an intense battle and all went in to stage three with the same times. All the guys who were above me after the TT were in the group so I stayed in 12th position. Passeron won again so added a 10 second time bonus to us mere mortals.
Day Three. The feared climb 66 miles in to the race had everyone nervous and questioning their gear selection and/or sanity before the start of the stage. The climb has a name, Devil’s Kitchen - a three mile battle straight up the side of a mountain with 15-22% grades all the way up. The race leading up to the climb was relatively easy, a walk in the park some might say, and I found it to be the perfect 2.5 hour warmup for a really hard effort. Leading up to the climb, we were on a narrow country chip and sealed road with unfinished gritty edges. I was roughly mid-pack, perhaps a bit towards the front, and knew that was not the place to be at the start of the climb, but didn’t really see how I’d weasel my way up without a serious fight. Luckily I did not have to deal with the situation, and my teammate Tom Bencivengo took control, had me hop on his wheel, and did one hell of a job depositing me right at the front of the race just when the climb began. When the grade went to 15% Tom rolled off the front and said something like good luck or don’t fall off your bike, or something like that, and off I went. Peter Hurst from Axa set a stiff pace at the beginning, and I followed at his heels along with a few others. The field was shattered in a matter of seconds. Peter eventually petered out along with the yellow jersey, and fell off the front and was replaced by me. I was then passed by Cameron Cogburn who maintained a five or ten second gap over me for the remainder of the climb. So Mr Cogburn cleared the infamous climb first and turned it over to TT mode – something he’s extremely good at – and was probably pipe dreaming a solo win right about then. I gave chase riding at and slightly below my 1 hour threshold throwing an occasional glance over my shoulder to see who might be nipping at my wheel. Sure enough after a few minutes the yellow jersey train, about 5 guys in total, was slowing approaching and it looked inevitable I was going to be caught. I throttled down a bit and let them catch up quicker so I could take advantage of the drafting. After I was swallowed we set our sights on Cameron. We caught him just as easily as they caught me and we were a nice wholesome happy pack of 7 riders heading towards the finish. Pretty much all the guys I expected to be there were with one notable exception being Floyd Landis. The last 10 miles were a bit anti-climactic after such a tough climb – too bad it couldn’t have ended there – we’d have seen some gut-wrenching battles! Passeron won again. Surprise! I finished with the lead group and moved up to 6th position overall in the GC.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the results especially considering the competition, and can’t wait for the next big event in a month – the green mountain stage race in VT.
My coach, Chad Butts, took the time to create some cool info using my power data from the races. Check it out here.
I didn’t ride at all two days prior to the prologue time trial. I felt pretty good when warming up, and had an average watts goal to shoot for during the TT. The TT was short, only 2.3 miles, with a steep, short 10% grade at the beginning followed by a false flat uphill. It took me 7 minutes to complete. I did not hit my average watts and really felt spent, like my lungs were lacerated, after finishing. I didn’t really understand what was wrong, but since then I think I’ve figured it out with the help of my coach, and hopefully will not under perform again for such an important event. My time still landed me in 12th position of 102 riders going in to the first road race, and I was 26 seconds behind the leader Passeron from the Garneau team and aforementioned TdF rider. He cleaned up, beating the 2nd place rider by 16 seconds. I was pretty satisfied with the overall results, know I could’ve done better, but that’s how things go sometimes and since there was a wicked climb at the end of the last day I was confident I could make up some time.
Going in to day two’s road race I just wanted to finish with the lead group. I didn’t expect any breaks to stick, but knew the field would be whittled away with all the climbing so just focused on staying near the yellow jersey. The route Saturday went around the Windham, NY area and had a little less than 7,000ft of climbing over 82 miles. I found Saturday to be the hardest day. Lots of climbing, and with every climb came attacks from various teams and individuals. So, basically it went from difficult to very difficult over and over again for a little over three hours. The finish was especially fast with everyone battling it out hoping to squeeze a few seconds off their time deficit to the leader. No such luck. After the 2nd big climb of the day roughly 60 miles in to the race the lead group had been reduced to about 30 riders including me. All the heavy hitters were still present, and the overall leader had great support from his team. It looked like it would be a pack finish in downtown Windham and we didn’t disappoint. Our average speed was probably 30mph or greater for the last 10 miles over slightly rolling terrain. I felt strong throughout but was definitely approaching my limits for how long I could tolerate such a high speed coupled with even greater accelerations every minute by people trying to escape. So, we finished together after an intense battle and all went in to stage three with the same times. All the guys who were above me after the TT were in the group so I stayed in 12th position. Passeron won again so added a 10 second time bonus to us mere mortals.
Day Three. The feared climb 66 miles in to the race had everyone nervous and questioning their gear selection and/or sanity before the start of the stage. The climb has a name, Devil’s Kitchen - a three mile battle straight up the side of a mountain with 15-22% grades all the way up. The race leading up to the climb was relatively easy, a walk in the park some might say, and I found it to be the perfect 2.5 hour warmup for a really hard effort. Leading up to the climb, we were on a narrow country chip and sealed road with unfinished gritty edges. I was roughly mid-pack, perhaps a bit towards the front, and knew that was not the place to be at the start of the climb, but didn’t really see how I’d weasel my way up without a serious fight. Luckily I did not have to deal with the situation, and my teammate Tom Bencivengo took control, had me hop on his wheel, and did one hell of a job depositing me right at the front of the race just when the climb began. When the grade went to 15% Tom rolled off the front and said something like good luck or don’t fall off your bike, or something like that, and off I went. Peter Hurst from Axa set a stiff pace at the beginning, and I followed at his heels along with a few others. The field was shattered in a matter of seconds. Peter eventually petered out along with the yellow jersey, and fell off the front and was replaced by me. I was then passed by Cameron Cogburn who maintained a five or ten second gap over me for the remainder of the climb. So Mr Cogburn cleared the infamous climb first and turned it over to TT mode – something he’s extremely good at – and was probably pipe dreaming a solo win right about then. I gave chase riding at and slightly below my 1 hour threshold throwing an occasional glance over my shoulder to see who might be nipping at my wheel. Sure enough after a few minutes the yellow jersey train, about 5 guys in total, was slowing approaching and it looked inevitable I was going to be caught. I throttled down a bit and let them catch up quicker so I could take advantage of the drafting. After I was swallowed we set our sights on Cameron. We caught him just as easily as they caught me and we were a nice wholesome happy pack of 7 riders heading towards the finish. Pretty much all the guys I expected to be there were with one notable exception being Floyd Landis. The last 10 miles were a bit anti-climactic after such a tough climb – too bad it couldn’t have ended there – we’d have seen some gut-wrenching battles! Passeron won again. Surprise! I finished with the lead group and moved up to 6th position overall in the GC.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the results especially considering the competition, and can’t wait for the next big event in a month – the green mountain stage race in VT.
My coach, Chad Butts, took the time to create some cool info using my power data from the races. Check it out here.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Hilltowns Road Race Report
Yesterday I was one of the lucky 60+ participants in the p-1-2 field at the Hilltowns Road Race. Specs for the race were one smaller 40 mile loop for us lucky pros then the 57 mile loop that all the other categories were doing. The name of the race gave a hint to what the course was like - very hilly - with a claimed elevation gain of 8500+ ft. I love these kinds of races! It makes them far easier to win or place well.
Going in to this race, I was concerned about placing high with all the strong legs signed up. My arch-nemesis Roger Aspholm was signed up as well as a few regional level cat1/pros that have been very successful recently.
Weather was soup-like air - new england clam chowder style, cloudy with a slight chance of rain, and temps relatively comfortable in the low 70s. When the sun crept out behind a cloud it felt significantly warmer, but the clouds were in abundance guarding my fair skin.
At 10am, we were off, and for the first 40 mile loop it seemed we were on more of a "tour of hilltowns" rather than a race. The speed was fast but quite easy to maintain and there were hardly any attacks. A small break went off the front early on but no one seemed to care. I didn't. Everyone was waiting for the steep, long climb up Hawley Rd where every year the breaks happen and whoever gets to the top first is probably going to win even though it's still 25 or 30 miles to the finish.
When we got to the aforementioned climb I was a closer to the front, but not in the front, and rain drops were beginning to fall. A few guys I expected to go at the start went and I went around everyone and tagged along. There were five us - Peter Hurst and his teammate Jake Hollenbach, Roger Aspholm, Robbie King and one of his teammates who I don't know. We went up fast but comfortable. I'm finally learning to not burn all my candles. I went at a high but sustainable pace. A few months ago I would have accelerated even more and dropped them but wasted a ton of energy and eventually been caught and riding with them anyways! Near the top of the climb my rear wheel felt a little funny so I looked down and noticed it looked low. Damn! I kept on riding but it was quickly losing air and it was tough to stay on the wheels of the lead group I was in. I eventually fell off and was riding on a mostly flat tire for about a mile hoping the SRAM support vehicle, my savior with wheels, would show up. I lost 2 or 3 minutes waiting for the car. Eventually they showed along with a group of 9 or so guys. I got the wheel change fast and scrambled to catch up to the chase group. I caught them easily and realized they were going a bit slow, slower than I preferred anyways, so I went up front and went flying by them. That seemed to jump start the group and they decided to go my pace. We worked well together for quite some time, but I didn't think the pace would be gaining much time on the lead group I was in. Turns out I was wrong. With perhaps 10 miles to go I broke away from the group with one other guy and we drilled it. I'm not sure if he had a time gap, but the way he was riding it seemed like he was chasing something! We were going over 30mph most the time and it was a tough pace to sustain! My legs were beginning to complain and I told him so. He said something like we were almost finished, which we were, but we still had a big hill to climb! And then we saw the SRAM vehicle and the lead group! I couldn't believe it and thought it was maybe the pro women's field. They appeared to be going slow. In retrospect, they were going slow compared to our speed. We were going nearly 6mph faster than them most likely!
A few minutes after seeing the lead group my partner started dragging, to my surprise, and couldn't make the pass up front to take his turn pulling so I started doing all the work. Eventually he fell off my wheel and I was on my own. But before that the lead group had noticed us and picked up the pace. It was enough to pop Jake Hollenbach off the back. I quickly caught up to him and he jumped on my wheel. I dragged him all the way up the hill. At this point I had given up catching them as the remaining three had really picked up the pace and I was shelled from the effort spent to catch them. Mr Hollenbach decided to attack and I had nothing left so off he went. He got 4th and I finished a few seconds back in 5th place.
I was surprised to check my clock and see we did the 97 miles in 4 hours flat.
A tough race, overall not as painful as Pawling was two weeks ago, but it was way hotter there and I was in a break for nearly the entire race. I'm pleased with the result considering the flat tire and have the points now to move on to category one.
Going in to this race, I was concerned about placing high with all the strong legs signed up. My arch-nemesis Roger Aspholm was signed up as well as a few regional level cat1/pros that have been very successful recently.
Weather was soup-like air - new england clam chowder style, cloudy with a slight chance of rain, and temps relatively comfortable in the low 70s. When the sun crept out behind a cloud it felt significantly warmer, but the clouds were in abundance guarding my fair skin.
At 10am, we were off, and for the first 40 mile loop it seemed we were on more of a "tour of hilltowns" rather than a race. The speed was fast but quite easy to maintain and there were hardly any attacks. A small break went off the front early on but no one seemed to care. I didn't. Everyone was waiting for the steep, long climb up Hawley Rd where every year the breaks happen and whoever gets to the top first is probably going to win even though it's still 25 or 30 miles to the finish.
When we got to the aforementioned climb I was a closer to the front, but not in the front, and rain drops were beginning to fall. A few guys I expected to go at the start went and I went around everyone and tagged along. There were five us - Peter Hurst and his teammate Jake Hollenbach, Roger Aspholm, Robbie King and one of his teammates who I don't know. We went up fast but comfortable. I'm finally learning to not burn all my candles. I went at a high but sustainable pace. A few months ago I would have accelerated even more and dropped them but wasted a ton of energy and eventually been caught and riding with them anyways! Near the top of the climb my rear wheel felt a little funny so I looked down and noticed it looked low. Damn! I kept on riding but it was quickly losing air and it was tough to stay on the wheels of the lead group I was in. I eventually fell off and was riding on a mostly flat tire for about a mile hoping the SRAM support vehicle, my savior with wheels, would show up. I lost 2 or 3 minutes waiting for the car. Eventually they showed along with a group of 9 or so guys. I got the wheel change fast and scrambled to catch up to the chase group. I caught them easily and realized they were going a bit slow, slower than I preferred anyways, so I went up front and went flying by them. That seemed to jump start the group and they decided to go my pace. We worked well together for quite some time, but I didn't think the pace would be gaining much time on the lead group I was in. Turns out I was wrong. With perhaps 10 miles to go I broke away from the group with one other guy and we drilled it. I'm not sure if he had a time gap, but the way he was riding it seemed like he was chasing something! We were going over 30mph most the time and it was a tough pace to sustain! My legs were beginning to complain and I told him so. He said something like we were almost finished, which we were, but we still had a big hill to climb! And then we saw the SRAM vehicle and the lead group! I couldn't believe it and thought it was maybe the pro women's field. They appeared to be going slow. In retrospect, they were going slow compared to our speed. We were going nearly 6mph faster than them most likely!
A few minutes after seeing the lead group my partner started dragging, to my surprise, and couldn't make the pass up front to take his turn pulling so I started doing all the work. Eventually he fell off my wheel and I was on my own. But before that the lead group had noticed us and picked up the pace. It was enough to pop Jake Hollenbach off the back. I quickly caught up to him and he jumped on my wheel. I dragged him all the way up the hill. At this point I had given up catching them as the remaining three had really picked up the pace and I was shelled from the effort spent to catch them. Mr Hollenbach decided to attack and I had nothing left so off he went. He got 4th and I finished a few seconds back in 5th place.
I was surprised to check my clock and see we did the 97 miles in 4 hours flat.
A tough race, overall not as painful as Pawling was two weeks ago, but it was way hotter there and I was in a break for nearly the entire race. I'm pleased with the result considering the flat tire and have the points now to move on to category one.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
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!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
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.
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.
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