Sunday Random Bike Pic

, originally uploaded by rusto.

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.

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):

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!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Secret Eye Was Upon Me

So, I'm reading Squat Lobster's account of the Cat 4 35/45+ race I was also in this past Sunday and when I got to his video, I enjoyed seeing some of my MRC team mates come and go through the frame of his camera:

MRC Cyclocross Cat 4 35/45+ Lap 1 from Bob T. on Vimeo.

At the end of the video, when his camera has fallen off his bike (jelly side up), I couldn't help but wonder if I was one of the guys zipping past. Enter some frame-by-frame analysis and BINGO, there I am!

rusto rides over squat lobster's camera from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

Race Report: Minuteman Cross, Cat 4 35/45+ - Lancaster, MA

With not much of a warmup (sigh) because I was running around the course photographing the open Cat 4 race, I lined up 6th row, which was closer to the front than I thought I'd be with only one other cycocross race under my belt. Did my best on the first lap to just maintain position, passing some people on that first big climb then being passed later on in the turny bits of the course.

Somewhere in lap 2, Mark Van Lier passed by me (from starting in row 8) and I gave chase. Tried keeping him in sight the rest of the race. Played cat-and-mouse with Sweeney for a while too.

Full gallery of the Cyclocrossracing.com/Minuteman Road Club CX Race

Lap 3, as I exited the last barn turn and approached the copse of trees by the bleachers, I snagged my left brake handle in the tape, stretching out 6 ft or so diagonally across the track - dang stuff broke so easy in the wind but wouldn't when I got caught in it. It slowed some BikeBarn guy down a half-second while I cursed a blue streak and finally freed myself.

Had to do a half dozen foot-plants on turns but was glad I had the instinct to do so, woulda definitely bit it in a few cases if I didn't.

I can hardly remember going up and over the flyover, I guess it wasn't an issue for me.

Last lap, I tried to stick with Scott but couldn't, Van Liere was out of sight but I had some guy on my tail so he would have to do for me to have any last acts of heroism. As we left the corner field before the finishing straight, he was actually breathing louder than I was, so I began to hit the gas. He matched my every move, likely tucked in behind me tight to stay out of the wind.

I kept shifting up and going faster and still I could hear his huffing and puffing behind me and as I hit the line, I practiced throwing my bars "just in case" but I don't think he was coming around.

Result: 34th of 76 overall and 17th of 40 in the 45+.

I'm very pleased with how I did. My ankle/foot did not pose a problem (but did need a bag of ice when I got home) and each lap was faster than the one before (9:19, 9:09, 9:08 and 9:06). My only self-criticism was that even though my remounts went without a hitch, I did flop my ass down on the seat really hard every time - I'm lucky that the barriers were in the forgiving wood chips.

Later, when the results were up, I did not find myself on the print-out so I pestered JD between races and he reviewed the tape, found me and even complemented me on the throw.

The rest of the day, I spent taking shots of the rest of the action. I took so many shots, it required quite a few man-hours of editing to create the gallery I posted online.

Norwell Circuit Race - August 1, 2010

Did the Norwell Circuit Race yesterday, the first race back after crashing at the Nutmeg Classic in June.

I had my ups and downs: I was among or near the top 10 for nearly the whole race until the last time on Forest street when all the "sleepers" behind me woke up and got moving. If, as one of my MRC teammates reports, our race was split into two groups, it seemed like the whole front group engulfed me on the final climb which means I probably placed around 25th I'll update when the results are posted on BikeReg. [UPDATE: I placed 22nd, just behind team mate Scott Sweeny.]

The good:

• stayed near the front for most of the race (the sounds of the two crashes reverberated in my mind for a couple of laps)
• kept my wits about me when some numbskull wouldn't hold his line ON A STRAIGHTAWAY and I had to put my hand on his hip to let him know he was drifting into me. I was directly behind another guy, so no room at the inn for him, but the drifter kept coming and nearly pushed me into the cyclist to my left.
• there were a couple of instances where I got gapped a little by the few people in front of me but I was able to steadily regain contact without panicking

The bad:

• not enough warmup: the first time up Circuit Street sucked big time, shoulda done some short jumps to get the Type II muscles fully awake
• spent too much time in the first three laps out in the wind - not in the lead, maybe 5 wheels back but to the side, pulling a bunch of lunkheads behind me - I should have worked harder to find a slot where I could rest up a bit
• my rear brake was rubbing (sigh) on the Circuit Street climb when I got out of the saddle, I couldn't tell if it was really slowing me much but I chose to spin my way up instead (the good thing was, except for the last time up, I didn't lose any places doing so)
• absolutely nothing left for that last climb up Circuit Street, I struggled up as bike after bike surged by me

I'd be kidding myself if I thought I was doing very much more than hanging on by the skin of my teeth the whole race, but I'm proud of the fact that I did most of it towards the front of the pack and not tagging along in the back.

Looking ahead on my calendar, I don't see any opportunities for further road racing for me this year. I am planning on photographing the upcoming Grand Prix of Beverly and the Salem Witches Cup so watch out for the galleries that will result.

[UPDATE 8/11/2010: I totally forgot about the Jamestown Classic, on Oct. 11th, so I still have something to aim for this season!]

Nutmeg Classic Criterium - June 12, 2010

Alternate title: "4 Hours of Driving, 16 Minutes of Racing"

Pre-race: Arrived at Walnut Hll Park in New Britain, CT for the Nutmeg Classic Criterium at about 8:15 a.m. rested but not quite ready after an extremely busy week of work, including a couple of all-nighters. As I wandered about looking for where to park, I saw fellow MRC'ers, Bill T and Rob F warming up and they told me where to go. Got parked, registered and on my bike by about 8:30 and started doing loops on the neighborhood roads adjacent to the course.

Newbie racer lesson learned: use 8 safety pins, not 4 to attach your number to your jersey: with 4 pins, the flapping of my number was sure to drive me batty during the race. My Minuteman Road Club teammate, Stefan, also showed me a better way to pin the number on as well.

After lowering my coefficient of drag, I resumed my warmup. Every lap around, I got a view of Stefan jamming to who-knows-what on his iPod as he warmed up on his trainer. Couldn't tell if he was singing out loud...

As we rolled up to the start of the 4/5 Masters 30+, the 4's race was just finishing and about 10 riders from the front, mid-pack, two guys crashed HARD 10 yards from the finish line. Hate to see that right before you start your own race.

Stefan got a good slot at the front and I was right behind him. I was feeling pretty confident despite the lack of training this week. We started off pretty briskly and I set to the task of looking for some good wheels to hang onto. I had this big truck of a guy in front of me for a while but then found myself inside and in the wind (which Stefan came up behind me to alert me to, thx!). Got in the draft of some heavily tattooed guy who looked pretty strong and hung with him for laps 2-3.

Lap 4, I'm finally feeling pretty settled in, maybe just ahead of mid-pack. There were already a couple of half-hearted "breaks" and I noticed this one African-American guy who I remembered from the Thompson Raceway bike race last year and thought, "HE's who I should stick with".

After we came around the long, sweeping left that leads to the start/finish straight, I was on the outside and accelerating when I heard that sickening sound of bicycles tangling/crashing. Looking ahead and a little to the left of me, I saw the blur of cyclists going down and thought I would be able to squeeze through between them and the curb, about 18" to my right.

Sadly, their momentum took one of the bikes directly in front of me and I hit it, went over the bars (letting out a stream of expletives as I "flew") then down pretty hard. In that instant, I prepared for the next guy behind me to run me over - luckily, this never happened. I grabbed the top tube of my bike and dragged it and myself off the course and sat down in the grass to triage myself.

A little road rash here and there but my left shoulder was hurting pretty bad. One of the other two guys who didn't resume racing was still on the course with little birdies flying around his head (it turns out, he did split his helmet nearly in half). The third guy was on the side holding his RIGHT shoulder. I think two others crashed but tried to rejoin the race.

The on-site doctor thought I might have a slight dislocation but recommended I get an x-ray at the conveniently located Central Connecticut New Britain General Hospital: 3/4 of mile away on the other side of the race course, visible from where I crashed.

I hung out with an ice bag on my shoulder as Stefan, Bill and Rob finished and then Stefan drove me over to the ER. Outcome of ER visit: AC Joint Sprain, Motrin and Vicodin (whee!). I'm definitely going to visit my primary doc asap to get his opinion as I think something is definitely going on worse than a mere "sprain".

Bike triage: as far as I can tell, my bike survived unscathed. I fully expected a twisted up front wheel but everything seems fine. No head contact and my kit has no tears. The surprise happened when I walked back to my car after the crash and went to take off my bike shoes: the little release lever on the ratchety strap on my right shoe had been completely torn off. No matter how I tried to get it to release by prying at it with a screwdriver, I could not get it to release - so I reluctantly cut it off with my pocket knife.

At a clinic I participated in this spring, the lead teacher told us, "There are two kinds of bicycle racers: those that have crashed and those that will." I am now a member of the former group.

4:47 PM UPDATE: A little online research and comparison to my x-ray makes me think I've got a Type II AC Separation, but hey, I'm no expert. I'm waiting for a call from a sports doctor my primary physician recommended.

Crash mars 37th Sunapee Road Race

Many fellow MRC Cat 5'ers were sitting in good position today when the crash occurred in the Cat 4 group ahead of them. Officials stopped the race to clear the injured, which took over an hour and ended things for the 5's. Our own Rob Follansbee evaded the carnage to take 9th in the 4's.

Wells Avenue training criterium 5/2/2010

Damn, I hate having to compose a blog post TWICE: after an hour of writing, Ecto (the app I use) only published the first line and lost everything else. This version is a bit briefer than the original, I may pad it with more detail later.

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Did the "C" race on Sunday. Short version: I did not podium but did not crash or get dropped.

Longer version:

I got a lot of really good advice, wisdom and lore from Alan H, Michael C, Rich M, Bruce and others beforehand. I didn't sleep well the night before but was surprisingly calm once I got out of bed.

When called to the start, I found myself in the 4th row next to teammate, John R - he was on the inside and I was one row outside of him. At the start, everyone clipped in without incident and the pack slowly came up to speed.

I felt like I did a great job of looking for steady riders to draft in the early laps and stayed in the middle or to the front of the pack the whole time. Only gripe was that I migrated to the outside and kept finding a particular manhole cover on the back stretch that is slightly below the road surface.

I felt like I was working pretty hard but also felt like I had power in reserve, if needed. We were averaging 24 mph as we sped around. I observed that John was in a much better position, ranging from just in front of me (but still on the inside) to the very front of the pack.

A car turning off the course compressed the pack at one point and John, in a moment of inattention, lapped wheels with someone in front of him and nearly went down right in front of me but made a great recovery without affecting anyone.

A few laps in, as we approached turn 1, a rider up ahead of me pulled the left side crank right off his BB! There he was, coasting straight ahead, holding his left leg up with the pedal and crank dangling from his cleat. Lucky for all of us, he was on the outside and caused no trauma to the pack.

Prime lap (lap 7 of 17): on the backstretch another car was on the road, so we went "neutral" and I mistakenly assumed the VERY NEXT lap would be the prime (as that was how the race official described it should happen). Coming round the final turn into the straight, I found myself 2nd wheel and figured, why waste the opportunity. I managed a sprint and got out front but just before the line, the guy I was sprinting against shouted that it was NOT the prime lap... and at that moment, they rang the bell announcing the prime.

I think it was on that lap that somebody went down hard (heard the yelling/crash/helmet-on-pavement). He lay there until the end of the race until an ambulance came and took him away.

Bleh. Matches burned. Spent the rest of the race hanging onto the back of the pack, getting gapped by a few bike lengths occasionally but able to sprint back up and latch on.

On the final sprint, another rider took a dive. It was rumored that he bounced along the granite curb as he went down... OUCH! He was treated and was able to get himself home.

Conclusion: I'm very happy with how I did, I learned much and will definitely it again!

(Hehe, when I went to post a link to this on Facebook, the Captcha system wanted me to type in these words: "involved imperil")

Leaf Peeping

Distance: 31.7 miles

Time: 1:53:45

Avg. speed: 16.73 mph

Weather: 33-57º

September mileage total: 452 miles

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Easy paced ride with Smudger and Ian from Stow, up into Harvard, through Littleton and Acton then back. We started at 7 a.m. and the weather was as cold as I've ever ridden in, but I was bundled up nicely, wearing full-fingered gloves, bib tights a nice eBay wool bike hat with the top layer being one of the new MRC Wool Jerseys. Ian, on the left, is wearing his with an MRC wind vest over the top.

We poked along, chatting and admiring the scenery–a nice change from having to mind the wheel in front of you or dodging cars/pot holes, etc. and made our way up Stow Road, right on Slough and then left back down Woodchuck into Harvard center. I expected to feel some windburn as we sped down the hill, but didn't.

Through Harvard center and up to the top of Prospect Hill, near the Fruitlands Museum where we were treated to this view, looking west:

This was about the point when I realized that I had my Canon G10's ISO set to 800. Oops. You'll notice the excessive noise on Ian's jersey (now fullly visible with his wind vest off).

We wound our way up Poor Farm Road which turns into Pinnacle and keeps going up. How nice it was to enjoy the climb as we went up instead of gasping for breath like I usually do on long climbs.

At the summit, Smudger was calling his dad to arrange a rendezvous for coffee in West Acton as Ian led me down a side street to a decommissioned observatory owned by Harvard University. I'd rode past this place dozens of times and had no idea it was there.

The Oak Ridge Observatory, in Harvard, Massachusetts, formerly operated the largest optical telescope east of Texas in the U.S. Owned by Harvard University, it was operated by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) until August 19, 2005.

There used to be a radio telescope there as well, used in Project Beta, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It's a shame it's not still in use, Ian said due to excessive light polluition. Cool location nonetheless.

We ambled down the north east side of Harvard into Littleton and then turned east towards Acton.

When we got to West Acton, John's dad had rode out to meet us at a nice little café called Little Sweet Bites, where he treated us to coffee and croissants. Such a nice man, courteous and kind, easy to get to know. I hope I am still able to get on a bike and pedal around when I am his age!

I made it back home before 10 a.m., just in time to pull two air conditioners out of their windows and mothball them for the winter.

View the whole set of photos from this morning here.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

Destinazione forno, originally uploaded by Hop-Frog.