Race Report: QuadCross 2011 - Maynard Rod & Gun Club

Yesterday morning could not have been more perfect for bike racing: sunny, temp in the high 50's, rain-soaked ground dried to merely slightly damp and only 1.4 miles to drive to the race.

This field would soon be wall-to-wall cars, bikes and cyclists.

Yes, I drove: wanted to have my full armory of tools/parts/comfort items available just in case.

At registration, my waiver sheet had no number stapled to it so as the guy handing my case started to look for advice about what to do, I jokingly asked for a low number. He returned and with a shrug, tore off the number attached to the sheet below mine. I assumed he knew what he was doing.

I got #109, a front row start! Sure beats row 4 where I would have been based on the race predictor (25th).

I ambled back to my car to prep the bike and myself and as I did, I could hear the distant sound of the paint ball battlefield way on the other side of the gun club property: shouting and constant "automatic gunfire". I suppose it was no worse than racing bikes on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

After Ted Packard of QuadCycles led us in a moment of silence to recognize the anniversary, we were lined up, and ready to go.

Got a good start and held my position all the way up to the fire road and that's where the attrition began. Lucky for me the field was already strung out pretty far so it took the whole 6 laps for me to drift back to finish at 26th. Always looking for silver lining, I found it when I checked last year's QuadCross results: I came in 41st then.

Turns out they swapped my number for the guy who's sheet was below mine - results showed me as 11th and him as 26th. There was no denying the fact that many more than one person passed me during the race.

Not wanting to screw the other guy out of a good start position down the line, I told everyone I could (officials, scorer, QuadCross folks) about the problem. As of today, no resolution. I've done enough squawking about it, its up to the other guy to follow up now if it's an issue to him.

Before "the line" was established.

Highlights:

• Terrific course laid out very well to use the best features the land had to offer. I liked in particular the tight turns and off-camber sections right after the Newbury Comics double-barriers
• Good bike handling skills due to much MTB action this summer and the Meyerson clinic
• At two separate times, two different guys dumped in front of me in the twisty section after the double barriers. I was very nimble in dodging them. BTW, that was the best laid out part of the course
• Ran a Michelin Mud2 up front pumped to the low 30's and a Jet (chevron) 40psi (due to roots/rocks) in the back for the first time. Worked great.
• The smiles I got as I cheered/photographed the Pro and single speed race. Pretty much lost my voice though.
• Met at least 3 online-only acquaintances in person for the first time. NECX is such a friendly community!

Best of all, my wife came out to see me race for the FIRST time, it was great hearing her voice cheering "Go Rusto!" - thanks to everyone else who urged me along as well!

Lowlights:

• Fitness: I need to get more training in at the level of intensity of a race.
• Should be registering for Cat 4 45+ masters races when available from now on, damn kids are killing me!
• At the top of the last 180 after the barriers (by the corner of the clubhouse), I needed to do a tiny dab, could not get out of my pedal and flopped over like a fish.
• Whacked my rear wheel on the small barrier below the run-up hard enough to knock it out of line. Had to reposition it at the top, losing a couple places in the process.
• Sore lower back this morning

I hustled home after my race because I thought I was on duty with my daughter but it turned out a playdate was arranged in my absence. After dropping her off, I returned and took a bunch of photos of the Cat 3 Masters, Pro and SS races...

Gotta love smiling through the pain.

Right after the start of the Pro race, I walked up to the pit area to start going "upstream" on the course for a different vantage point for photos when a huge pickup truck loaded with paintballers in the back comes DRIVING UP THE RACE COURSE from the woods.

A moment of panic and some yelling ensues but then me and another guy pull up some stakes to let the truck through because, you know, THE PROS ARE COMING ANY MOMENT NOW!

Just as we get the stakes and tape back in place ANOTHER CAR COMES! Crap, there's no arguing with the people inside, we have to clear the course before the cyclists come by. And they do come barreling by, just a minute later.

I made my way down to where the two vehicles got onto the course, helped repair the tape and stayed there, turning back three more vehicles until the end of the Pro race when finally some "official" officials came and relieved me.

Why IS there a trash can here?

The Zanconado Single Speed field was populated with a significant number of racers who were in their second race of the day, I don't know how they do it - one race totally wiped me out.

Jeremy Katz of QuadCycles rails a turn in the SS race.

The smaller field allowed me time to actually get into the woods along the race course without having to bushwack or dodge racers coming my way. But the easy access came too late: I got poison ivy on arms from the earlier trek. By the end of the day, I got some great shots of the SS action and was able to to witness MRC teammate, Doug Kennedy, take 3rd.

Doug Kennedy on his way to 3rd in the Single Speed race.

I'm grateful for all the hard work put in by QuadCycles, Newbury Comics and others to make this a terrific day of racing. Fingers are crossed that they can use this location for years to come!

Blunt Park - August 21, 2011

Flying in the face of the "don't race cross in August crowd", I headed to Springfield today to do the Cat 4's at Blunt Park.

 @bicykel: Gross, don't get any diapers stuck in your wheel during the race.

Despite a very late night out, I got there nice and early (and dodged the godawful mess from some major festival or other they had there last night) to get some pre-ride laps in. I should actually count them as "training laps" considering I only put in 2.5 hours on the bike last week. Even so, I now wonder if 4 laps, even at an easy pace, was too many.

Got a nice front row position at the start and the marshall did the usual countdown announcements of "10 minutes to go", "5 minutes to go" then finally when he said "about a minute to go" - he IMMEDIATELY followed that with "GO" and totally caught me snoozing.

Despite that flub, I made it through the acorn covered hole-shot in about 10th place or so. The course was in good shape as far as I could tell: a couple of rooty spots, a couple of deep potholes on the single track, but overall I thought it was a good course though with not very much up and down.

The first half of each lap featured a number of logs across the course. After the first lap, I followed the example of those in front of me and merely rode over them instead of dismounting/remounting (thankful for all that MTB action this summer!). The last log was just a bit higher than the rest and situated right after a turn in the midst of a lot of loose pine needles, so that one I did carry the bike over.

Special pat on my own back for noticing during the pre-ride that the ground immediately after was very bumpy and would have made a quick remount dicey, so I went an extra bike length before getting back on: very helpful.

Next was one of the long straights followed by a buncha turns, short straight, more turns then the barriers, there were FOUR, which were set at exactly the right distance apart for me to take TWO steps in between. This meant I pretty much felt like, and probably looked like, I was galloping through them.

The barriers were followed by the "climby" portion of the course which was really not very, but there were turns, loose dirt and roots that made you pay attention then finally back onto the start/finish straight.

The race itself pretty much settled out to me and about 4-5 others dicing back and forth for the duration. This group shrank to 3 and re-combined to 5 again later in the race. I passed a coupla guys and 2-3 passed me. I remember Dylan McKeon, a young (18?), tall Cyclonauts guy who was able to get ahead of me on the straights but every time the turns came along, he'd falter, slow or, once, fall and I'd go by him. I really felt like I was handling the bike very well today.

At some point, I realized that I forgot to turn on my 'puter and gave myself a little kick for squandering a good data collection opportunity. Once you get the stats bug, it hurts to have holes in your data. I started it up and figured I could get a decent estimate of mileage, laptime and distance later.

Another guy who was ahead of me for at least 2-3 laps went down pretty hard on a 180 right hander that had some exposed roots on the inside line - he must have slid his front wheel on them and boom, down he went. I dodged him and got a good 10 yards ahead of him and yet another guy passed him too. It took him a full lap but, kudos to him, he battled back and got ahead of our whole group.

Last lap, I had 3 of our group ahead plus one additional guy who was further ahead earlier but fading. I waited until the last series of turns to pour it on, thinking I could get ahead of at least a couple of them but it was too late: I should have made that move at least a 1/2 lap before the end. Lesson learned.

Finished 12th, 4 places ahead of the race predictor, happy with the result.

I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear both Doug and Coley cheering me on at separate sections of the course, looking forward to reading their reports.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

wherewillyouspendeternity.tumblr.com/

Norwell Circuit Race - Cat 5 - July 31, 2011

Woah, two months since my last post. Hehe, oops! Synopsis: been riding A LOT, training has been much more structured than ever, mixed in some really fun MTB rides including a 3 hour "epic (pics to follow in another post), got majorly shelled by the CRW Thursday fast group and started doing some CX training. Phew. On to yesterday's race...

PRE-RACE

For some reason, I listened to my wife who thought leaving at 11 for a 1:45 race was crazy. I regretted waiting until nearly noon to leave when I found myself sitting at a dead stop in Rte 3 South traffic at 12:45 with 8 miles to go. Arrived at Norwell Town Hall at 1:00 got my numbers and geared up. Was on my bike at about 25 past and rode up and down Bowker Street a few times as it has a hill similar to the one the leads to the start/finish on the course.

Made my way back to Town Hall and found shelter from the 90º+ heat in the shade of a tree with some other Cat 5's waiting to race. I was looking around for the guys the road-results race predictor might be in the top 5 but didn't I.D. any of them. Soon enough we were staging up and rolling along behind the pace car.

As we poked along down Forest Street, I re-ran my game plan in my head. This plan mostly consisted of avoiding the mistakes I made last year: being on the front too much, being out in the wind too much, burning all my matches before the finish... And of course, there I was, out in front. Again.

Ready to roll.

RACE

8 TO GO: As soon as we made the first turn onto Circuit Street and headed up the hill, one guy immediately stomped on it and when the two of us got to the top, he asked, "Wanna go?"

"I got yer wheel," I replied, figuring if he was the real deal and too much for me, I could fade back easily enough an recover for the next 7 laps. But just as I was going for his wheel another guy got on it first so there were 3 of us on a break on the first lap. But it didn't last. Just as guy #1 called out to us to keep our pulls very short, the pack gathered us back up again. I'd say we were out there maybe 1/3 of a lap.

7 TO GO: My plan on the start/finish hill was to stay light in the pedals, keep my cadence on the high side as I climbed to the top to save energy for the end. Others who could at first seemed stronger passed me but I was passing them over the top as they were gassed and soft pedaling. I made my way towards the front again on the descending portions of the back "straight" on Circuit.

6 & 5 TO GO: only thing to report here is one guy who kept calling out, "Coming up the middle!" and "Hey, hold your line" all the while scaring the crap out of me because he wiggled around so much. It's one thing to have the occasional bump with another rider in the pack but this guy seemed to use the guys around him as a physical navigation aid. And why ALWAYS come up the middle?

Meanwhile, I was maintaining a position on the inside that seemed to work well compared to when I am on the outside: on the outside, it is so much easier to get squeezed further out and be in the wind and lose position. If this happens on the inside, you can grab a new wheel as everyone squeezes inside to carve the turn. Risky as you can get run right off the road, but it was working for me. Except for that telephone pole planted on the right edge of the pavement where the road narrows to one lane - there's a slight dogleg right there and every time I went by, I said a little prayer that nobody would bump me over into it.

The 5 TO GO lap was our fastest at over 24 mph, but it didn't seem so fast to me. I seem to remember the whole race was faster last year. There was another abortive break of 4 that petered out on the slight incline on Forest.

4 & 3 TO GO: At the top of the start/finish going into 4 TO GO, there was a good separation between the first 10 or so and the rest, I was at the back of that group and swung to the outside as this big dude came by. I need the rest I would find in his draft. He was a bit wobbly but good shelter for the next half a lap compared to the skinny guy I was just behind. I stayed in the top 10, looking for stable wheels to follow and stayed alert if they started to fade and new blood came to the front.

The two mini-packs melded back together soon after that.

2 TO GO: The start/finish climb was definitely harder this time but it seemed to be for everyone around me too, a lot of huffing and puffing. I was able to hold position at about 10th wheel. As we rounded onto Forest for this second-to-last time, the pace slowed WAY down, a harbinger of things to come... And we were beginning to lap some stragglers too.

BELL LAP: The pack EXPLODED up the start/finish hill this time, leaving me behind as I was climbing the same pace I had on the earlier laps. Over the top, the main field must have had 30-40 yards on me. CRAP! I hoped if I didn't panic, I could reel them back in on the backside of the course where it is mostly downhill.

Just when I needed him, the same big guy from mid-race comes around me and had enough energy in him to give me (with a the help of a few burnt matches) a decent slingshot. Soon I was on the back of the pack and weaving my way to the front again.

This last time down Forest is where I squandered a number of places: I was probably about 15-17th wheel and still picking my way through a bunch of guys who had hit their limit. I should have been on the outside (no yellow line rule on this part of the course) and really drilling it. Once I could see the turn to the start/finish up ahead, people were already on it and going up. Damn.

I made the turn in the drops, got out of the saddle and gave it everything I had as I went up just right of the middle of the road. I could see the leaders up ahead and felt like I could at least reel in a few of those trailing behind. I passed three who were fading fast then noticed somebody all the way on the left who was powered up and just ahead of me. This was my little "race within the race", right there in the last 30 yards.

We both hit the line, throwing our bikes forward - he might have nipped me but I definitely let out the better "Howard Dean scream" as we crossed.

I finished in 12th 13th place, one spot higher than the Road-Results predictor had me. 10 places higher than I finished in this race last year.

Lake Desolation

Such a misnomer. I wonder if it was named "Lake Desolation" to keep the curious away. Didn't stop me. I left Saratoga Springs this morning after delaying my ride a half hour to allow a thunder storm to pass by and made my way along rolling countryside until I got to the bottom of the climb in Middle Grove.

On the way up, along with the clicking sound I've been chasing for weeks in my drive train, I started hearing an ominous "thunk" as I climbed. Hrm, I wonder how tight that front skewer is. Dismount, tighten skewer, sound gone. Phew.

27 minutes later I arrived at Lake Desolation. I was 4.5 miles further and 993 feet higher in elevation than when I started.

Initially, it looked pretty desolate:

But pedaling a bit further, I discovered the lake was actually quite nice:

Well that was so good, I figured I'd try it again. I turned around and headed down, looking forward to the possibility of a 50+mph descent, but the sudden fingernail-on-blackboard screeching sound coming from the rear end of my bike had me braking to a stop to see if I had something stuck between my chainstays and the rear tire.

Nothing. So, I continued down but the sound reappeared when I got up to 45 mph again. Stop. Think.

Could my REAR skewer be too tight? It certainly was: I could barely get it open. My flat-induced frustration must have given me some Hulk-strength yesterday as I remounted the wheel. Loosen skewer, and continue - no more screech.

Passed a couple of cyclists making their way up and thought: there's something to chase for the second climb. At the post office, I turned around and went hunting for them. More familiar with the turns and rises along the way, it certainly felt like I was going faster, but about 1/3 of the way from the top, one of the two was already on his way back down.

At the summit the second time, there was no sign of the other rider, who evidently continued on (there's a nice loop that goes this way). So I turned around and started to think about coffee.

On the way down this time, I did manage to break the 50mph barrier (according to Strava) and got back to Saratoga Springs in time to enjoy another tasty latté at Uncommon Grounds followed up by some delicious pie served by my hosts:

A little touch of Battenkill

Well, sort of.

Rode out to Cambridge from Saratoga Springs this morning. But first, I flatted 3/4 of mile from the start. I pressed on even though I now had no spare tube and one Co2 cartridge left.

Route was a nice change from what I am used to: instead of short, steep climbs every mile or so, I had two very long, steady ones and a few shorter but shallower ones. Saw quite a menagerie of road kill, including a very freshly killed doe (I cropped out the icky part):

Route had me do about 2 miles of Battenkill-style hardpack but rest of it was very well paved rural highway and secondary roads. Legs felt great the whole time but my back, just as it did during the Battenkill race last month, started hurting at about 45 miles and kept it up all the way to the end.

Afterwards, I rewarded myself with the following at Uncommon Grounds on Broadway:

TIP: Little Things Mean A Lot

Noob bike racers (like me) have SO much to learn. If they're lucky, they'll be friendly with one or more racing veterans who'll take pity on them and teach them not only what it takes to be fast and safe on the racecourse but also take the time to clue them into the little things that, taken together, can make a huge difference.

Sure, these are things you could Google or read about in Friel or simply ask about, but who has the presence of mind on race day to think of them?

Sometimes they keep you from looking just like the doofus you might imagine you are.

So, I take this opportunity to give thanks to anyone who has ever taken me aside and said, "Uh, um, not like that, like THIS." Just some of the help I've received in the past year:

• What gear I should be in at the start of a crit.
• How to warmup before a race.
• How to carry my cross bike on long portages.
• How to manage watts on long climbs.
• The list goes on and on...

Last year, as I was prepping for my second road race, a teammate came up to me and told me I did not have enough pins holding my number to my jersey.

I was ready to snap back with, "What? Four isn't enough?" when I remembered the annoying flapping sound of my number oscillating in the wind during the PREVIOUS race.

Thanks, dude.

Spotted: 1979 Columbia Trans Am

I was trawling through a folder where I put images I intend to blog about when I rediscovered this series I took last December of a 1979 Columbia Trans Am that was locked to a railing somewhere along Newbury Street in Boston.

What initially caught my eye was the shopping bag seat cover and "Deluxe decorated chainwheel cover":

Casting my eyes forward, I beheld the awesome fork rake...

... and funky handlebars but then I noticed the truly unique feature of this bike...

... Shimano Positron shifting! According to the late, great Sheldon Brown, Positron was Shimano's first attempt at indexed shifting. Back then, they thought that expert cyclists already knew how to shift and so they targeted Positron shifting at entry level riders.

The plan backfired for two reasons: 1) since it was aimed at inexpensive bikes, the system had to be so cheaply made that it was not very reliable 2) this also meant that indexed shifting got tainted with the "beginner" label, slowing adoption of better made systems by experienced cyclists.

The bike looked completely stock as far as I can tell, who knows if those are the original tires. Here's a page from the 1982 Shimano catalog (click here to browse the whole thing):

(click to see 1982 Shimano Catalog at Sheldon Brown's website)

Dig the features listed in this print ad for the bike (from Mr. Columbia):

(click to see the Columbia timeline at Mr. Columbia's website)

Sunday Random Bike Pic

17th Annual Sterling Classic Road Race - May 7, 2011

The Sterling Classic has been hosted by my club, The Minuteman Road Club for 17 years and this year marked the second time I competed in the Cat 5 35+ field. Since Battenkill, I made a few trips out to the race course to remind my legs what they would be getting into going up the start/finish along Meeetinghouse Hill Road.

I also engaged in various religious, non-religious and black arts rituals in an effort to prevent a repeat of last year's horrendous weather. As in the case with Battenkill, the week leading up to Saturday had me so busy with work and personal commitments that my "taper" was dangerously close to a "full stop", training-wise. I found myself still packing up the car and cooler well past 11 pm Friday night.

Head hits pillow, eyes close, alarm goes off.  :: sigh ::

The forecast was looking very good with temps to be in the 50's and 60's with a fairly low chance of rain.

Coffee and oatmeal made and eaten, I headed out to Sterling. After a drive around the course, I head to the staging area at the school, check in with Ian R who gave the volunteers their last minute instructions. I'd be marshaling later after my race.

Pin on my number, set up the bike and start warming up along the roads near the school. Easy pedaling with a few jumps here and there to wake up the type II muscles... knowing that they would get a much more intense stirring when the race began.

Silly bike: even though I gave it a very complete tune up a few days earlier, my drive train was making an annoying clicking sound that I could not pin down. I decided that it would either be lost in the noise of the pack or could work to my advantage, letting others think I was more of a noob/fred/doofus than I really am.

Before I knew it, 8:35 rolled around and it was time for my field to assemble. Jorge H, our former club president call myself and fellow club members John R and Doran A to the front of the field and took our picture.

Yeah, we're all smiles NOW.

The pace car rolled and we started heading into town.

The driver of the pace car kept us honest by going less than 20 mph and I maintained my position at the front all the way in. My race-induced tunnel vision was fully engaged as I was completely unaware of anyone to either side of me. Looking down at my computer showed my HR already starting to climb, surely due to some anxiety about what was soon to happen.

My plan: stay with the main group and not do any ill-advised breaks for the lead like I did last year. If I found myself near the front at the end, unleash myself upon Meetinghouse Hill like no tomorrow and deal with the consequences later.

On the way up to the start, I made one more incantation to "race my race" and not freak out at the beginning if anyone took off on the hill. Up we went, the dozen or so people along the way cheered and I remained in front as the race began.

No wincing, cramping or heavy breathing. Yet.

I let a few people slip by me on MHH and as expected, regained position as we continued under the 190 overpass. Nothing much to report on lap one except that at one point on Route 12, an unattached rider got a few yards ahead of the rest of us and wove his bike back and forth across the road.

Taunting? Showing off? Just feeling good? Beats me. My thought was either he was a ringer or a douche, maybe both.

For the rest of the first lap, I was variously pulling or in the top 10 wheels. Coming back around to MHH, again I lost a few places on the way up but gained them back on the next climb and after. I felt calm and reasonably strong.

When we turned from Rowley to Heywood on lap 2, I did a little seated acceleration just to keep the others on their toes, the pace was THAT leisurely at that point. The course takes a little descent right after the turn so I didn't sacrifice any matches. I got pretty far ahead and somebody who caught my wheel asked if I was serious. I barely had time to shake my head "no" when the pack swallowed us back up on the next incline.

When we got onto the newly paved North Row Road, I was maybe 3 rows back when I heard the dreaded crunch and "UGH!" and "Watch out!" that's concurrent with somebody going down. Hyper alert for the possibility of the tangle being in my path, I saw John R going by to the left of the yellow line, on his ass with his bike laid out before him. And then I heard another crunch as somehow, somebody else was across the yellow line and hit his bike.

At that instant, said to myself, "Now, it's up to YOU!" and felt as if John crashing out of the race passed on some additional "mana" and responsibility to me. I became more resolute in concentrating on my game plan.

This time, along Rte. 12, a different unattached rider had the lead position with me as second wheel. After a minute pulling or so, he began drifting to one side then then other, looking for me (or someone else) to take over. I let him know the futility in this and advised him to instead, hold a straight line and just slow down until somebody got sick of going so slow.

That somebody was me.

But I didn't pick up the pace that much and as we passed Dunkin Donuts and began the gradual climb back into town, others grew impatient with MY pace and I let them by. Somewhere along this section, I realized that John R had miraculously rejoined the race. Woot!

Once again, I drifted back through the pack up MHH but this time,  just as I was regaining contact with the group as we turned onto Heywood, two guys were 30-40 yards up the road with no one seeming to care.

Following the example set by my Cat 4 team mates in races earlier this season, I saw a chance to help John. As I passed him, I said something like, "latch on" or "let's go get 'em" and I turned on the gas. Later, somebody else confessed that he grabbed my wheel before John did but I assumed John (and a bunch of others) followed suit. I hammered hard for a good long minute until we swallowed up the break.

Could they have sustained the break? A more prudent mind would likely have said "no" but as I found out watching the 4's later on, you ignore a break at your peril: a solo break early in their race maintained a 1 minute lead for many laps all the way to victory. And you never know if you got a ringer in your field when you are racing the 5's.

Soon after that, John had a near miss at a SECOND crash on North Row. Meanwhile, even though I fired off a bunch of bullets catching the break, the peloton graciously resumed it's pokey pace, allowing me to recover once again.

We hit Rte. 12 at a reasonably fast clip, me taking a fairly wide line just in case a squirrely noob-bot lost his nerve on the turn. The pace continued to slowly increase and when we got to the DD's this time, the race was finally ON. Of course, this was the moment my quads decided to hint that they'd had enough, but I was able to continue to feather on the power without upsetting them into total crampage.

Unfortunately, others in the field were feeling a bit better than I was and soon enough, dribs and drabs of them began passing me as we rounded the turn past the fire station at the bottom of MHH. I had to stop this erosion of my postion in the race, but I knew if I got out of the saddle on the hill, I'd be a knotted mess of cramped muscle on the ground.

Meanwhile, John was ahead, in a pitched battle up the hill to the finish and was beat there by Mr. Swervy Pants from early in the race, who later confessed that he was a former Cat 2 racer returning to the sport after many years. That's two 2nd place finishes for John in a row, the last one being at Blue Hills.

For my part, I progressively shifted to easier and easier gears while ramping up my cadence. This seemed to the way to go as I reeled in three of the guys that had just passed me and, breathing as hard as I ever have in my life, wheeled across in 16th.

It's a wonder I didn't grind my teeth down to little stumps.

Turns out, I matched the climb time I recorded on the way up the first time, when my legs were "fresh". Go figure.

Afterwards, I got some constructive criticism from John R regarding the amount of time I spent on the front. I don't know, I wasn't working that hard when I was up there and yes, even if I wasn't working very hard, everyone else behind me had it easier. Could less time up front have left me with more joules for the finish?

Interesting footnote - while rooting around on Colin Reuter's road-results.com, I stumbled upon this happenstance: I finished one place ahead of the SAME GUY I beat by one place in this race last year:

(click for easier viewing)

This year, the ride back to the staging area at the school was much more pleasurable and after a quick change and repacking my bike in the car, I was headed back up to Meetinghouse Hill Road. Of course I brought my camera along and got photos of the mens 4's before I went on duty as marshal above the start/finish and later, the mens 3's, and both the pro 1/2 men's and pro 1/2/3 women's races (many more photos here):

Battenkill Picture-palooza

Well, maybe not THAT many photos. I was certainly kind of busy ruining myself that day. But Kevin Jones got a couple of great shots of me (many more shots by Kevin here in his SmugMug gallery):

Slogging my way up Meetinghouse Road. Somehow after the cramping episode, I was able to get out of the saddle long enough for Kevin to grab a couple of frames.

The whole story is written there in my face.

Air in, fire out.

After my race, I grabbed my G10 and got some shots in the tent-area near the podium:

Todd Prekaski (always thinking NECX) and Gary Sclar, amazingly able to smile again the moment he got off his bike.

Carl Shimer displaying a nice encrustation of salt.

Todd Prekaski on his 5th? 6th? cider donut.

Here's our friend, Tom Keane (right) on the podium after getting 3rd in his Cat 5 45+ field. Joining him are team mate Dana Brown (2nd place, on the left) and winner Rejean Rochette (center). At least the guy on the far right isn't scratching his nuts.

In other news, I took the MTB out two days later for a "recovery ride" and managed to fall off it about half dozen times. The last time I went down, I broke the saddle. Of course, this happened when I was about as far from home as I could possibly be.

The nose of the saddle had some plastic bit that held the rails to the seat top, when it broke, the front lifted off and would slide completely off the back of the rails, leaving my tender bits in mortal danger. I did not relish the prospect of having to ride home like this:

So, I start pawing about my jersey pockets looking for some way to secure the saddle for the ride home. This is what I came up with:

Where the rubber meets the load. It actually wasn't all that uncomfortable.

Earned my Boy Scout knot merit badge with this one.

MacGyver himself would be proud but would have given me points off for leaving my Swiss Army knife home. I replaced the broken saddle with a vintage 3ttt unit off my ancient Bianchi Nuovo Racing road bike.

The rest of the week found me settling back into a regular training routine capped off this morning by a nice 3.5 hour ride that included a visit to the Ride Studio Cafe for a choicified latté.

I felt so good about it that when I got home, I treated myself to the summer haircut:

Coefficient of drag reduced by .02

2011 Tour of the Battenkill

Well, yesterday was the culmination of a winter’s worth of hard work for me. I’m just as proud of the preparation I completed as I am about the result I was able to achieve in the race.

After doing 20 or so minutes of spinning/tempo/jumps up and down Rte. 22, I was at the point where I was thinking, “let’s do this thing already”. Scott Sweeney mentioned he had an upset stomach and Todd P, Jeremy and Matt seemed to me to be pretty antsy too.

Jeremy had announced his intention to be at or near the front at the top of Juniper Swamp. Sure, I thought, I’ll go for some of that.

Lined up on the center line maybe five riders back with Jeremy just in front of me and Scott and Todd to my side and behind. After a couple of minutes we were on our way.

The first couple of miles, I had some pretty good butterflies in my stomach as I was a) unsure about some of the wobbly guys around me (not my team mates) b) being hyper attentive to staying near Scott, Jeremy and Todd and c) riding on the centerline. Soon enough, the pack thinned out just enough so that the front was only 2-3 wide which left plenty of room to maneuver. After some jockeying around, I think I was around 8th wheel.

We wound our way along Rte. 313 at a fair clip when suddenly, it seemed to me, everybody slowed down a few mph. Well, most of you know me well enough to not be surprised to find out that I swung to the left and kept the pace up at the mid-20 mph place that it had been. I could almost hear Jeremy say, “There he goes again.”

Just before the turn off 313, I settled back into a slot near the front of the pack as we wound our way to Perry Mill Road. It’s only 1/2 mile or so longer than Oak Hill but oh, that extra 1/2 mile at 8% avg gradient (w/some 12% thrown in) is a killer. I stayed in the front 10 or so and hoped the descent towards Juniper Swamp would allow my HR to return from the stratosphere.

No such luck: we turned onto J.S. and were headed up with me still huffing and puffing, but my legs felt pretty good and I was able to keep up. The road surface was well packed (by previous fields?) and you could actually climb out of the saddle if you carefully kept your rear wheel to the ground. At the top, nobody seemed to spank it hard and so we settled into it once again.

The next 24 miles, from 13 to 37 are kind of a blur for me but I remember these few things:
I can’t recall exactly when it happened, but it was in this stretch that I had my last glimpse of Jeremy and the lead group as they gapped the rest of us (6?) over the top of some hill or other.
When we weren’t headed into the wind, my super-thin (and black) base layer had me feeling pretty hot, so I put it into my head to be careful about water consumption (I carried three bottles and was on vapors at the end).
As we went on, I began to get gapped on the hills, a little bit, maybe 4 or 5 bike lengths but then hammered onto the last wheel ahead on the descents. I knew this was going to cost me in the long run.
There were a couple of husky guys who were in the same get-dropped/hammer-back-on cycle and I let them pull me back on a few times, glad they were around. They were good wind blocks too.
One guy got his chain royally tangled up as he shifted on a climb, thought that was the last I’d see of him but he heroically made it back to our group.
Scott appeared steady as a rock the whole time.

Nearly two hours into the race and I realized that I didn’t take any Endurolytes since before the start. I reached into my jersey to pull them out when suddenly we were descending Carney-Cassidy Road and I thought better of one-handing it just then. Sure enough, on the next rise, I got out of the saddle to narrow a gap and BOOM: right quad cramped. My Garmin data clearly shows the moment when my cadence went from the mid 80’s to 25 rpm when it happened. I shifted to an easier gear to get my cadence back up but it was too late: they gapped me real good.

I kept them in sight  for few minutes but every turn seemed to put me into more wind and I knew I would not finish at all if I kept trying to close that gap on my own. I was prepared for the likelyhood that I would finish this race on my own so I settled into finding a groove that I could carry for the next 27 miles.

These next, long, miles consisted of getting low to the wind, doing what I could on the ascents and pushing as hard as I could on the flats and descents. One part of me was half expecting a huge pack from our field to come and overtake me, the nagging thought  of this helped keep me from converting the race into a sight-seeing ride.

Soon, however, I also had to deal with some serious lower back pain. Not like any I’ve had before, it was really low and overlapped the top of my hips. Strangely, it would come and go with no correlation to the effort I was putting out.

Meanwhile, I passed a couple of guys that either Jeremy’s and/or Scott’s group had dropped. I thought they’d cling to my increasingly feeble wheel, but they didn’t even try. A couple of those dirt road descents in this last third of the race were pretty hairy, with loose dirt and crushed rock dust about 2 inches thick on top. I could see some pretty wavy tracks laid down by earlier passers-by but kept an even keel as I went along. I passed one guy getting medical attention in that stretch.

MRC Team mate Matt Pierson climbing Meeting House Road. Photo Courtesy Beth Trickett

The ups and downs of Meeting House Road were torture, the pain enhanced for a moment when 5 guys went blasting by me on one of the rises: “Here comes the rest of the pack!”, I thought. It took me a moment to notice they had different colored numbers on and were the leaders of a field that started after ours. Phew.

Onto Stage Road and, like on most of the last climbs, there was no spark left in my legs so I shifted all the way to 39/27 and ground my way up. I was keenly aware of all the people set up on their front yards or end of the driveways, cheering, ringing bells and enjoying the passing parade of pain. It definitely gave me a lift when I really needed it.

I was in heaven when one lone lady leaning on her mailbox shouted to me: “One more climb and then five miles to go!”

The last miles had me, forearms my bar tops, in tri-mode, pedaling towards the end. Somehow, after all previous agony, I managed a 20 mph avg for the final 4 miles. That last turn into the finish straight was a real treat with people hanging over the barriers, cheering as I crossed the line with no one else in sight. My assumption was that I finished barely in the top 20 and was going to confirm that later on BikeReg, I felt good all right about it but was not exactly jazzed.

Afterwards, I greedily grabbed a bottle of water that was handed to me and downed right away. I wandered with my bike along the vendor area until I came upon Len near the start-finish line and gave him the short version of my race. Then he gave me directions back to the high school which left me dreading getting back on my bike for the  short ride back.

I bounced back a bit after I changed/ate/drank and returned to the podium area with Jeremy, Scott, Todd, Matt and connected with Carl “Old Salt” Shimer and Gary “Wasabe Chin” Sclar.

Finally, I wandered over to the posted results, looked up my field and found to my surprise that I had finished 12th.

Cool!

What, You Think I've Been Doing NOTHING?

If you go by the amount of activity here, you could come to a number of conclusions. You could assume I gave up on cycling. You might think I got so busy with work and had no time to devote to it.

Granted, there was a long gap between outdoor rides that ran from Jan 4th through March 2nd - all that snow!

As it turns out, I've been on a roll training-wise like never before. Gliding right into indoor training from cross season and dodging the nasty cold I usually get during the early winter has me approaching the spring in better shape than I have ever been for this, the 3rd incarnation of my cycling life. I've been eating well all winter and combined with the workouts, have got my weight down to where it was in July of last year.

Good looking numbers:

The entries in my log for January through March look more like what you'd expect during mid-summer from me.

I programmed workouts into my Garmin Edge 500 from both Joe Friel's "The Cyclist's Training Bible" and Sally Edwards' "Heart Zones Cycling". I also participated in a structured weekly CompuTrainer workout with seven others and even did two simulations on the CT of the Tour of the Battenkill race course (one in January and one last week).

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Phooey, wanted to finish this post a week ago but got really busy with work. Here's the quick catchup: tomorrow is the Tour of the Battenkill. The MRC has it's largest ever squad of cyclists entered. We've got a strong 4 man team in the Cat 5 35+ (yes, I'm racing DOWN one age group) consisting of myself, Jeremy Cratty, Scott Sweeney and Todd Prekaski.

They are all up there as I write this, pre-riding part of the course, plotting strategy and probably having a couple of beers. I've got to usher at a concert at our church tonight but then straight home for a small snack and to bed.

Dialed in the bike earlier today, packed the cooler, loaded the car and laid out the bike duds. In the morning: coffee, cereal and a good poop. Then it's off to Cambridge, NY with me.

Stay tuned.

Bandit Cross - Wrentham, MA

A handful of the New England cyclocross community, including Adam Meyerson, Jerome Townsend, Colin Reuter PLUS two Rutgers team riders who drove up from New Jersey took the snowy challenge at the Wrentham Development Center yesterday.

After carving a course into the snow and ice, a practice lap or two, Geoff Williams of cyclocrossracing.com, after a week of online exhortations, functioned as "race official" and started the assembled riders in two 20 minute heats. Surprisingly, I don't think there were any crashes during either heat, though there is one great endo recovery at 1:47 in the video.

The terrific song, "Winter" is by Dumptruck, lengendary Boston area band from the late 80's. Here's a link to  the album "Positively Dumptruck".

Bandit Cross - Wrentham, MA 01.08.2011 from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

First, A Little Catching Up

This week between Christmas and New Years is a traditional time for taking time off and taking stock so I thought I'd play a little catch up on recent goings on. Shortly I'll take stock of the year just concluded and look ahead to what I might expect in 2011.
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The Ice Weasels Cometh - December 11, 2010

I think I took this race way more seriously than nearly every other person there that day, which was my great loss.

My race report was typical for Cat 4 cannon-fodder: Racing a bit above myself in the 3/4 heat, I started great, passed a few people for the first two laps or so, got passed by a few. Then the next few laps saw me transform from strong and in control to sloppay as all get out and wishing the damn race was over already.

Meanwhile, I was blind to every generous beer/donut/cabbage/money hand-up offered to me.

© John Franzen / Atomic Star Designs photo

At some point, they must have realized I was a zombie. They stopped shouting at me to take what they were waving in front of me and instead proffered their gifts to those who actually had peripheral vision. The course was very dry and in some places a lot of dust got kicked up as you can see below. I spent the last two laps feeling like I was pushing a car, finishing (gulp!) 61st of 65.

© Itai Halevi

I did rally and got some good photos of the shenanigans that followed. Many more photos from Ice Weasels viewable here.

Ryan White prepares to quench his thirst. © Russ Campbell

A couple of days after the race I discovered that during a pre-race drivetrain teardown and buildup, I reinstalled my Rotor Q-ring rotated 90º out of whack, effectively making it HARDER to pedal instead of easier. Not that it mattered much.

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New England Regional Cyclocross Championships - December 18, 2010

With a couple of trainer sessions and one hour of outdoor training (ha!) after Ice Weasels I felt confident that I would do well in this race. I really did FEEL good that morning as we lined up.

After a slightly too-short warmup, I lined up 4th row and had a very good start, crunching my way past a few people who couldn't clip in and then, as we made our way to the "death spiral", I picked up a few more spots on the way into the center. Right at the middle, however, there was a major traffic jam, I was on the inside and was forced completely out of both pedals and had to "Fred Flinstone" for a few feet until I could clip in again.

As we exited the DS that first time, a rather large front group had formed and I was just off the back of it. I worked hard to reel in the guy in front of me but even as I did, that front group strung out very quickly as it wound it's way to the far side of the course past the mostly frozen sand pit (was that a volleyball court?). I was very nearly at max effort and fully warmed up, finally.

I bolted past a coupla more guys at the barriers which were between the two long straights along the roadway and one more at the fly over then passed more pedaling up the run up (which had a diabolically placed chunk of ice/snow right at the middle at the top).

The first 1 & 1/2 laps done, I spent the next part of the race in a no man's land that felt like somewhere just behind mid-pack. A coupla guys visible ahead of me and when I was on certain parts of the course, I could see a coupla guys behind me. I knew this would not be good - without someone to chase or be chased by, the mental task of keeping the pressure on would be tough.

I bore down and over the next two laps caught up to the two guys ahead of me. My best moments in the race: I made an artfully timed and executed inside pass on a turn on the far side of the course to get by one of them (SKILL!) and a short time later, passed the other guy on a straight (POWER!) and got maybe 10 seconds in front of them both.

Along the roadside straights, I could even see Stefan not too far ahead and made him my next goal but that lasted about as long as it took to process the thought: I crossed the start/finish with 2 laps to go, my dilithium crystals failed and I dropped out of warp.

  BRAIN: "Scotty, give me more power!"

  LEGS: "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!"

There just didn't seem to be anywhere on the course to get a little rest and at this point, I needed one bad.

Two turns before the fly over, the guys I passed earlier came up behind me fast and I let them by rather than foul them up with my now rather non-existent bike handling skills. The rest of the race was just survival.

Finished five minutes behind infamous sandbagger M. Brier, placing 21st of 42 over all and 14th of 22 in the 45+ class. Drove home, unloaded all the bike stuff and loaded up all the photo stuff for a location shoot later in the day.

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Random stuff

I finally replaced my 25+ year old Blackburn wind load trainer with a spiffy new Kurt Kinetic fluid trainer. Much. Quieter. Easier to plunk bike into as well. Hello, BSG season two.

I'm riding a MTB again after, oh 20 years by way of a used 2004 or '05 Specialized Stumpjumper on loan from a fellow MRC member. Needs some tuning up FD-wise (won't shift to largest chainring) but functions well otherwise. Have done 3 rides on it, all in various amounts of snow, notably a couple of days after Christmas at the Delaney Project in Stow when Gary D and I tried riding in the post-blizzard drifts:







Post Blizzard MTB ride @ Delaney Project from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

Well, we DID get pretty tired, pushing our bikes through the snow, so it definitely counts as a workout and not just "play".

The following day, I did a solo MTB ride in the Stow Town Forest which went "much" better. That morning a phalanx of XC skiers laid down a nice 12" wide lane of densely packed snow around a few of the trails which made it possible to ride as long as I did not stray too far to teh side. This is not to say I was going very fast, it was hard work: 4 miles in an hour, with many abrupt stops when I got into the deeper stuff.

On New Year's Day, I got in a nice 90 minute "gentleman's ride" with some of my MRC brethren. Easy pace, mostly, with a 1/2 hour coffee break in Concord Center about 3/4 of the way through. It was fun shouting "Happy New Year" to other cyclists we passed.

Next up: year end assessment and planning/prognostication for 2011!