RACE REPORT #4
So this weeks race report is a little late, been busy at work and all that. This report should be a little bit shorter (insert collective sigh of relief here) because I only raced on Saturday. Sunday was the first day I haven’t ridden my bike in well over a month. It was fantastic, the morning was brunch with the roommates, the evening was dinner with the family, and chocolate eggs were consumed throughout the day.
LAST WEEK BY THE NUMBERS
Number of crashes in Saturday Race……………………1
Percentage of those that I was in………………………100
Quarts of water dumped out of my frame after race…..~1.5
# of former NBA players who I beat in my race………..1
So the race on Saturday was quite the wet one. It was dumping rain start to finish, the teammate that gave me a ride was desperately hoping that I wouldn’t show up at his house that morning, unfortunately for him I did and he was nice enough to still give me a ride to the course even though he had no intention of racing. The course was an eleven mile loop in Snohomish Washington that we went around 6 times. This was the first race of the season that had any substantial hills to it. They were more power climbing hills (short and steep) rather than a true climber’s course (long and grueling). Nonetheless it was a bit of a shock to the system after all the flat stuff that I’ve been doing.
We did a 3 mile neutral roll that was just enough to pre-soak the gloves and booties and confirm that your braking was 50% of normal. The race started at the bottom of the climb and was mellow the first time up. A couple of guys dangled in front of the pack the rest of the lap and a couple of more swapped positions. After the second time up the climb a break formed off the front. Several miles later I bridged up along with a two guys from other teams. It took us about 5 minutes but we made it up to the break. Lap and a half down and 4.5 to go.We had about eight guys and everybody was working hard and pulling through for most of the next lap. A few of the eight were looking pretty gassed from the effort when we tempoed up the hill the third time up and a few guys started to redline but made it over. We were working hard but half the guys were really strong and the other weak. This made the pace really uneven at times but it was always pretty fast. We never got any time checks early on but we were up on the group 5 minutes plus. The fourth time up the hill we had shed three riders and were down to five when I found myself in the unhappy position of getting caught in my big gear with my shifters not responding. I’m not sure if it was a ‘the third time’s the charm’ kind of situation or if it was a result of the expletives that I started hurling at my derailer but the thing did eventually shift gears. By this point three of the group had built up a little gap and I had lost a lot of momentum. I was feeling a good deal less than energetic—no doubt a direct result of lots of dancing and alcohol the night before combined with not-so-much sleep (a pre-race routine that I have since decided to eliminate). I had no real hope of trying to catch the three off the front which left me and one remaining rider trying to get to the finish before the peloton.
Shortly down the road we caught one of those three riders because he had flatted and we started working together to get to the finish, but we were all exhausted and I found myself taking the lion’s share of the pulling efforts. Going around one of the corners with about eight miles to go (52 down) I hit a patch of wet gravel that hadn’t been completely swept off the road and was sent sliding across the pavement with no delay. The guy behind me had no chance to react and ended up crashing onto my rear wheel and myself. The chase car driver jumped out and helped us get back up and we started off but as soon as I tried shifting gears my bike totally locked up and I couldn’t move. The driver once again jumped out to help asking what was wrong, but all I could manage to get out was a rather pathetic “mechanical…” as in mechanical malfunction. He of course gave me a “Well no shit moron” kind of look and then proceeded to straighten my brake levers/shifters (both bent inwards by about 30 degrees), gave my rear derailer a tug, switched out my rear wheel for one that he was carrying and told me that I still had about a minute on the field while sending me on my way. The two riders that I had been with were of course well out of sight by now and for the remaining eight miles I was just trying to get to the finish before I got caught. Coming around the last corner I could see the (uphill) finish ahead of me but I could also see the pack about the same distance behind me. Completely cooked I limped my way to the finish line about twenty seconds ahead of the field sprint which was good enough for 5th place.
To wrap up, the crash caused very little damage to myself or, more importantly, to the bike. I have a couple scratches on my elbow and knee to accompany the lovely raspberry that I got on my hip, and my bike wasn’t too much the worse for wear. I trued up the rear wheel when I got home, which is also when I heard the sloshing of water in my frame and dumped it out. I took the seat post out of the seat tube and there was water in there all of the way to the top of my 61cm frame. That’s a lot of extra water to be carrying up those hills.
Speaking of hips and crashing, my teammate that broke his hip last week is back at home after his surgery and starting his recovery. He looks well and even made an appearance at a teammate’s birthday party. Once the surgeon got in there he decided that he could get away with just pinning the joint back together rather than putting in a prosthetic which is excellent news.
A couple of last side notes. After the "James Strangelove" incident with the race results the week before last my entire team has taken to referring to me as 'The Doctor' and the NBA player referred to at the beginning of the report is former Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf (sp?). Apparently he is a local cat 3 racer, and one of my teammates said he was at the race...pretty cool.
I promised this race report would be shorter and it’s starting to look like I lied.
Next week: My first criterium and spring classic style races (plus I’ll tell you what those are).
So this weeks race report is a little late, been busy at work and all that. This report should be a little bit shorter (insert collective sigh of relief here) because I only raced on Saturday. Sunday was the first day I haven’t ridden my bike in well over a month. It was fantastic, the morning was brunch with the roommates, the evening was dinner with the family, and chocolate eggs were consumed throughout the day.
LAST WEEK BY THE NUMBERS
Number of crashes in Saturday Race……………………1
Percentage of those that I was in………………………100
Quarts of water dumped out of my frame after race…..~1.5
# of former NBA players who I beat in my race………..1
So the race on Saturday was quite the wet one. It was dumping rain start to finish, the teammate that gave me a ride was desperately hoping that I wouldn’t show up at his house that morning, unfortunately for him I did and he was nice enough to still give me a ride to the course even though he had no intention of racing. The course was an eleven mile loop in Snohomish Washington that we went around 6 times. This was the first race of the season that had any substantial hills to it. They were more power climbing hills (short and steep) rather than a true climber’s course (long and grueling). Nonetheless it was a bit of a shock to the system after all the flat stuff that I’ve been doing.
We did a 3 mile neutral roll that was just enough to pre-soak the gloves and booties and confirm that your braking was 50% of normal. The race started at the bottom of the climb and was mellow the first time up. A couple of guys dangled in front of the pack the rest of the lap and a couple of more swapped positions. After the second time up the climb a break formed off the front. Several miles later I bridged up along with a two guys from other teams. It took us about 5 minutes but we made it up to the break. Lap and a half down and 4.5 to go.We had about eight guys and everybody was working hard and pulling through for most of the next lap. A few of the eight were looking pretty gassed from the effort when we tempoed up the hill the third time up and a few guys started to redline but made it over. We were working hard but half the guys were really strong and the other weak. This made the pace really uneven at times but it was always pretty fast. We never got any time checks early on but we were up on the group 5 minutes plus. The fourth time up the hill we had shed three riders and were down to five when I found myself in the unhappy position of getting caught in my big gear with my shifters not responding. I’m not sure if it was a ‘the third time’s the charm’ kind of situation or if it was a result of the expletives that I started hurling at my derailer but the thing did eventually shift gears. By this point three of the group had built up a little gap and I had lost a lot of momentum. I was feeling a good deal less than energetic—no doubt a direct result of lots of dancing and alcohol the night before combined with not-so-much sleep (a pre-race routine that I have since decided to eliminate). I had no real hope of trying to catch the three off the front which left me and one remaining rider trying to get to the finish before the peloton.
Shortly down the road we caught one of those three riders because he had flatted and we started working together to get to the finish, but we were all exhausted and I found myself taking the lion’s share of the pulling efforts. Going around one of the corners with about eight miles to go (52 down) I hit a patch of wet gravel that hadn’t been completely swept off the road and was sent sliding across the pavement with no delay. The guy behind me had no chance to react and ended up crashing onto my rear wheel and myself. The chase car driver jumped out and helped us get back up and we started off but as soon as I tried shifting gears my bike totally locked up and I couldn’t move. The driver once again jumped out to help asking what was wrong, but all I could manage to get out was a rather pathetic “mechanical…” as in mechanical malfunction. He of course gave me a “Well no shit moron” kind of look and then proceeded to straighten my brake levers/shifters (both bent inwards by about 30 degrees), gave my rear derailer a tug, switched out my rear wheel for one that he was carrying and told me that I still had about a minute on the field while sending me on my way. The two riders that I had been with were of course well out of sight by now and for the remaining eight miles I was just trying to get to the finish before I got caught. Coming around the last corner I could see the (uphill) finish ahead of me but I could also see the pack about the same distance behind me. Completely cooked I limped my way to the finish line about twenty seconds ahead of the field sprint which was good enough for 5th place.
To wrap up, the crash caused very little damage to myself or, more importantly, to the bike. I have a couple scratches on my elbow and knee to accompany the lovely raspberry that I got on my hip, and my bike wasn’t too much the worse for wear. I trued up the rear wheel when I got home, which is also when I heard the sloshing of water in my frame and dumped it out. I took the seat post out of the seat tube and there was water in there all of the way to the top of my 61cm frame. That’s a lot of extra water to be carrying up those hills.
Speaking of hips and crashing, my teammate that broke his hip last week is back at home after his surgery and starting his recovery. He looks well and even made an appearance at a teammate’s birthday party. Once the surgeon got in there he decided that he could get away with just pinning the joint back together rather than putting in a prosthetic which is excellent news.
A couple of last side notes. After the "James Strangelove" incident with the race results the week before last my entire team has taken to referring to me as 'The Doctor' and the NBA player referred to at the beginning of the report is former Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf (sp?). Apparently he is a local cat 3 racer, and one of my teammates said he was at the race...pretty cool.
I promised this race report would be shorter and it’s starting to look like I lied.
Next week: My first criterium and spring classic style races (plus I’ll tell you what those are).
posted by Jamie Stangeland at Monday, April 04, 2005
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