Madera Followup

Final results were: Crit, 30th (same time as winner). TT, 26th (27:33). Road Race, 20th. Overall: 20th of 45. Not bad, not good, not horrible, not excellent. Just there. But that's fine. Check out them hairy gams!

Madera Stage Race, March 14 and 15, 2009

<--- Going through turn 1 third wheel. Just like old times!

The Madera Stage race is cool to me because A)I love stage races, B)It was the first race I did when I moved to California, C)It was the last race I did in 1998 and D)It's mostly flat and I don't have high intensity climbing legs... yet.

Criterium: The crit went pretty well. I have to admit I was pretty nervous as I warmed up on the trainer and tried to remember all the basic crit strategies. Move up, move up move up. Stay near the front. Don't allow a gap to form when it's strung out. Figure out the wind. If a guy is getting gapped ahead of you, get around him and don't get behind him again. Finally, the watch told me it was time to get off the trainer and get to the start. I lined up with 49 other guys. I sucked up my fears and chose a start place that would put me on the inside in turn one. We were off and there wasn't a mad dash for the hole shot so it was pretty easy to cruise the first five laps or so in the top three to ten riders. The wind was tricky but I soon figured the best places to hide and that made it easy to see where I could give a little and where I could move up. Unfortunately, the pace jacked up pretty high after the first prime and that was about the last time I saw the front of the pack. There was one really bad crash going down the front straight that I managed to avoid. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. I have to say the work I've been doing with cornering and bike handling at speed is really paying off. I had no problem moving up through turns and it wasn't such a bad deal to get swarmed and have to go through corners with guys on both sides. That's always been a panic moment for me. I guess I just don't trust other people to ride smoothly and not take me out. I experienced a combination of not having the legs and lungs and not having the desire enough to move up in the final laps and was content to roll in with the pack and ended up 30th of 50 with no one escaping off the front (meaning no real impact on the general class).

TT: In 1998 I did very well on this stage. Unfortunately it was a points race back then so I didn't get any team support for my effort and didn't build on it for the overall classification. This year, however, it was just 27 minutes of pain. About three miles in my 60 second guy caught me. That was okay but I was a little discouraged. Then at about 7 miles my 90 second guy caught me. Again, not a show stopper but not super for the morale. Then at 9 miles my 30 second guy finally reeled me in. At this point I was going slightly cross-eyed and searching for the 1KM sign. Finally, it showed up and after riding the last 200M for what seemed like an hour, it was over. I heard another number called out as I crossed the line and that was my 120 second tail guy. Needless to say I was not too optimistic about my placing given all that. If I'd at least been able to reel in my 30 second guy I would have been happy but. He didn't get away from me but I never caught him either.

After the TT I spent about 30 minutes farting around with a stupidly simple tire change (my training wheel tire blew while sitting in the sun) and then went out for a 15 mile cool down ride to find my happy place and remind myself that it's just cool to even be racing right now, nevermind results. When I got back, I checked my result and found I was 26th of 50. Not bad, not good, not horrible, not excellent. Just middle of the pack.

Road Race: The road race was 51 miles of wind, bumpy roads and only one or two steep little rollers around the finish line. During the first lap, guys were being really ridiculous about fighting for position at the front of the pack given the length of the race. The pace was actually pretty high and at one point we had closed the five minute starting gap behind the Cat 3's to a coupld of minutes. On the first time through the rollers I was really feeling the previous day's efforts but I managed to stay in the pack. After that first lap, things really calmed down. I could tell everyone suddenly realized it was a much longer day and that they had to ride those hills two more times. On the second time over the rollers, I was zoning out and got stuck in a second group. I put my head down and closed the gap down and got back into the front group but then they slowed way down through the feed zone and the pack all came back together anyway. But that gave me confidence since I could tell I would be able to better at least half of the pack for the finish. The attrition was high on the last lap. A few guys never got back on after the rollers, several guys flatted out and I saw one guy's chain fly right off his bike (never seen that before!). The pace went up for the last three miles and I managed to hang onto the pack by a thread as a few more guys filtered off the back. First roller, about twenty guys stuck together while the rest of us sort of dropped off one by one. I just rode in as hard as I could and was only a couple of seconds off the back of the final sprinting pack. After the sprint, I did the usual "count how many guys you see" thing and only saw 17. So I possibly came in 18th but history has shown that counting method pretty innaccurate so I was probably 20-somethingthingth.

So overall it was a middle-of-the-pack experience. The road race was actually quite fun and I was happy to be that close in the finish. I'd really like to be doing better than this in a Cat. 5 race, however. The real dissappoinment was the time trial. I really thought I'd be faster. But I did ride it as well as I possibly could. It wasn't one of those tt's where you find yourself wondering where you could have squeezed out a few seconds better here or there.

MTB Challenge #2

This race was two weeks ago but I'm only feeling like any kind of recap now. The race was a disappointment. I went in not caring that it was raining and very wet and muddy because I had managed to convince myself it was an easy win. NOT. Instead it was a race marred by way too much clumsiness on my part that lead to two crashes and a third get-off. Ended race with both shins bloodied and dented. Oh well. It was still kind of fun. Nothing compares to bombing around the singletrack racing in the mud and rain. Ended up 5th of about 15 and the race series is over for me now. I'm not going to do the third race.

Hello Sanity. Meet Insanity.

With 90% chance of rain for Sunday you'd think I'd think, "Oh well, no race for me this weekend." But NOOOOOO. That would be the normal and sane way of thinking. Welcome to the mind of a bike racer. All I can think is that this is a series, I need to collect points and that I stand a damn good chance of scoring a victory for my little ego (now that I know how to find the f!@@@#ing finish line). And the rain just means less competition! And never mind that I'm sitting here checking the weather for the fifth time and registering for the race at nigh-midnight instead of snuggled in next to my wife in a cozy warm bed.

Side note. Searching for a clever cartoon about bike racing addiction netted me about ten thousand pictures from something called nude bike riding protest or something or other. Hmmm... Not nearly as titillating as it sounds......

BIG time DAMMIT!!! MTB Challenge Race #1

I woke up nice and early yesterday morning. Got my coffee and took off in my wife's car for the first of a three race series up at Folsom Lake, North of Sacramento. As I drove I remembered that one of my favorite things of bike racing is early morning road trips and the opportunity to watch the sun rise over parts of California that I normally don't get to see. Wonderful.

Got to the race, picked up my number, got changed and did a warmup on the course. I didn't think I had the right stuff today since the warmup wasn't so great. I felt a little sluggish and thought maybe the lingering bits of my cold were still in effect.

The course was wide open for at least a mile before the first single track so there were no worries about position for the hole shot. We went off and my first thought was, "I really need to move up or one of these guys is going to take me out." There was some serious lack of riding in a straight line going on back there. I moved up easily and pretty soon was weaving in and out of the draft of the front runners. When we hit the first singletrack there were three of us alone up front and I was second into the woods.

The first lap went well and I passed a ton of folks since all the groups started since close together. I got passed too with a guy with a helmet cam coming by me when I screwed up a big rock on a climb.

Having looked at previous race lap times, I knew I was doing pretty good when I started the second lap with about a 30 minute first lap (good for novice category anyway). I was passed again and stayed with another guy as long a I could on the second lap but couldn't stick with him. Coming into the last half of the last lap, I passed a guy who turned out to be in my category that I somehow hadn't kept track of. He stuck on my wheel and then passed me again. I sucked his wheel for a few minutes and then decided I wasn't going to suck wheel and then sprint so I gassed it up to full throttle on a wide part of the track and went into time trial mode. A few quick looks back revealed I was well clear. In fact I also reeled in the guy with the helmet cam and ripped right by him.

As I came to the end I was passing two people from the Sport category who had another lap to go. Being unfamiliar with the course, I was saying "FINISHING, FINISHING!" as I went through the most crowded area. All I heard was "...Right.....RIGHT" so that's the way I went. A few minutes on I knew something was wrong. A few minutes more and there was a sort of feed zone. I yelled, "Where's the finish????" and the guys just looked at me. I kept going but knew something was wrong. I rode backwards to the feed zone guys and they finally figured out how to communicate (with attitude "It's your responsibility to count your laps" -no shit, I can count to two!) that the finish was way back behind me. At least they accurately pointed me back to the course where I very angrily got back to the junction point and went LEFT to the finish.

An angry -but completely pointless and frustrating- exchange with the promoter followed where he used a healthy dose of condescention and stubborness to get rid of me.

I didn't stick around for any of the awards ceremony or anything and drove home in a VERY dark mood.

Imagine my added DAMMIT reaction this morning when I looked at the first page of the preliminary results below. They show me finishing 13th overall (out of ~60). But I know the numbers of the two guys I passed right at the "end" and I would have finished THIRD OVERALL AND NOTCHED A WIN for my age category without the wrong way disaster.

Oh man I'm frustrated this morning.....

Perfect Bookends

Well I bookended January perfectly with another ride up Mt. Hamilton from my side again today (that would be from about the 45 mile mark on the below profile, to the summit and then back). Unlike January 1st, I did the ride from my front door and that added 5 miles of dirt road to the epic-ness of it all. Rock and roll!



Anyway. I can now enjoy a nice endorphin enhanced evening AND check off my metric-century goal. That seems a silly goal now that I'm in full-blown, racer mode but there simply aren't that many opportunities these days to knock out a ride that long. It will be easier in the Summer but being a family-man will still be the biggest challenge.

And that's okay with me!



January was a pretty good month full of base miles and a race. I haven't tallied up the time/miles yet but the real result is in my legs and my weight and both are about where they should be right now.

It really struck me today what a valuable asset maturity and wisdom are. Despite always being a good listener and learner, I am SO much more capable of soaking up wisdom now. For example: I might possibly be handling my bike on the road better now than I did when I was racing my ass off in my 20's simply because I took it for granted and could never seem to stop training my physical racing side and fix my mental racing side. Example 2: When I was young, I was the bonk-master. Any ride over three hours and -poof- where'd Roy go? DUH!!! I NEVER ate anything on the bike when I trained. For races I would eat and stay nourished but I had some sort of crazy idea that eating when training would negate the calorie burning. NEVER MIND THAT I WAS ALREADY deat-camp skinny. Nowadays, I make sure to bring at least 100 to 200 calories per hour on a ride when I'm going to go over two hours. And -SURPRISE!- I'm less hungry after the ride, have better endurance, and -maybe most important- I don't come back from a ride so damn hungry that I gorge on whatever I can find.

Now if I could only have my body back from 15 years ago...

Early Bird Road Race in Patterson

I'm feeling very good this afternoon in that post-race haze of sore legs and endorphin calmness.

After a week of self doubt, doubt about the weather, and general doubt about my sanity, I got up at 5AM this morning, made coffee and oatmeal, got my cycling kit together and then headed down to Patterson for the early bird road race.

I was super nervous as I got there and paid registration. "Bike racers are much skinnier than I remember" I thought to myself as I tried to push the self doubt deeper and remind myself how many hundreds of races I have under my belt and that this is early season and I am good enough and people like me.

Anyway. I hate to admit it but I pinned my number to my jersey with slightly shaking hands and then slowly got my bike and myself put together with about 20 minutes to kill. I did the usual parking lot laps until I heard "Master's 35+ 4's and 5's to the line!" This was followed by the usual warnings etc. For some strange reason, nerves immediately turned into standing there looking around at myself about to start another bike race ten years after the last race (those cyclocross races last month don't count!) and I just sort of found it humorous. From that point on I was fine.

The race itself was okay. I was surprised how high my heart rate monitor was going despite not necessarily feeling like I was working THAT hard. But when the crucial two mile climb at 7% grade came, my heart rate maxed out and I soon found myself sliding off the back of the remainder of the pack (down to maybe 20 to 25 riders at this point). I was fine with that and just crushed the gears and kept a couple of guys in my sights.

At the turnaround I was slightly blurry eyed and had that over-taxed fuzzy brain thing going but that cleared up pretty quickly. I was VERY surprised to find that I pretty easily caught a couple of guys on the descent. I have always been a pretty timid bike-handler and I've actually been working quite abit on it lately and it's paying off! Anyway. We weren't working all that well together. Two of us were pretty savvy on pacelining but our companion didn't have a clue and was messing up our rhythm pretty badly. But we were moving along nicely and keeping the following riders and races off our backs with no problem.

Then I got a flat ten miles from the finish and my day of hoping for a placing not too far back from the middle of the field went out the window.

But that's racing. I, of course, didn't have anything with me and I ended up standing on the side of the road for 15 or 20 minutes before a guy stopped and gave me a tube and pump. We finished the race together and had a nice chat. Thanks Renzo! Much appreciated!

And that was that. I was very happy to survive. I was pretty happy to hang in easily on the flats and easy climbs. I was quite happy to competently and confidently corner in a group and on a fast descent. I was a little surprised to find myself slightly squirrelly in a pack (but then 90% of the guys were this being a mixed race of beginners and January and everything). All in all I'm very happy I pushed the doubts aside and raced today.

When's the next one!