RACE REPORT #5
Last week by the numbers
# of regional cycling authorities who want to do an “up and coming” story on me…1
# of people having drunken karaoke contest in my house night before race………...9
# of flat tires in Saturday’s race……………………………………………………...2
# of shoes forgotten in teammates car after race……………………………………..2
So last week a teammate of mine emailed me asking if he could give my contact info to someone from Northwest Race Report who wanted to do an “Up and Coming Racer” story on me. I told him I didn’t know what it was, but sure, I’d do it. Me being me, I then inquired if this meant I would get any free stuff. Sufficed to say I have neither received free stuff nor done the interview yet, but it’s nice to know that people are noticing me.
Friday my roommate/landlord (Eric) had a bunch of friends over for a drunken karaoke contest. I tried my best to ignore it but I definitely recall being subjected to the butchering of good songs, worse than that, the butchering of bad songs, and worst of all attempts at singing Michael Jackson. In general I would say that I definitely prefer anything by Jackson to Eric’s rendition of Careless Whisper by George Michael, but given current events being forced to think about Mr. Jackson while I’m alone, in my bed, in the dark makes me want to curl into the fetal position and hide in the corner …allegedly.
Saturday morning I wake up a little less than freshy-fresh, but excited and ready to race none-the-less. My teammates picked me up and it was off to the races. During the warm up I was getting pretty excited, in no small part due to my new toy. I had purchased a special wheel called a “power tap” which records and displays your speed, cadence, power, and heart rate as you ride. I had commuted with it a couple of times, but this was to be my first race outing with power. The course was in the “spring classic” style which is a polite cycling term for a race that beats the living crap out of both you and your bike. These races traditionally take place this time of year in Europe with lots of cobblestones and muck. Here in the US we don’t really have cobblestones, at least not on the West Coast. What we do have is logging access roads. The course for this race was a six mile rolling net ascent to the four mile essentially flat loop which was ~2.1 miles unsurfaced dirt road and ~1.9 mile paved road that we navigated ten times before returning down the six miles we started to the start finish line.
At the beginning I was under the mistaken impression that it was a neutral rollout (speed controlled by the pace car). I quickly realized my error when attacks started flying off the front of the pack going up the hills. Four miles into the race the hills picked up a bit three of us got away from the pack quickly dropping down to two as we hit a rather steep set of small climbs. We reached the loop and started the first lap on the rough stuff. Earlier I referred to this road as a logging road, in retrospect that might be a tad generous. River bed bottom would be closer to the truth and not entirely dry river bed bottom would be just about spot on accurate. It consisted of two large ruts with a rocky rise in between them. Crossing from one rut to the other was possible though sketchy at best; a maneuver performed with great reluctance by most and absolute refusal by the rest. No logging road is complete without a plethora of pot holes and this logging road had it all. They were big and small, wet and dry. At one corner there was a puddle that spanned the entire road ~15 feet across and I’m not sure how deep because I went around it every time. Of course so did everyone else so after ten laps the area around either side of the pond…errrr…puddle was pretty torn up mucky and none to easy to navigate, but back to the race.
So we had just hit the logging road 150 meters ahead of the pack when the other rider with me started to drop off. I was feeling pretty good so I kept at it but less than a mile down the road I hit a big rock and flatted my rear tire. Due to the course this race had no wheel cars following but it did have two wheel pits located at different points on the dirt road portion. Unfortunately the officials had said that it was wheels in wheels out meaning that if you brought spare wheels with you to the race and you flatted then you could take the extra wheels that you brought with you. I hadn’t brought any so I walked to the wheel pit and watched the peloton roll by thinking that my race was over. Then while I was sitting there one of the wheel pit guys said “Hey you wanna get back in the race?” My response was an enthusiastic “Hell YES!” They slapped a wheel on my bike and I started chasing down the pack which had a half mile or more lead on me at this point. Three and a half laps later I finally caught them, it took long enough, but I was motoring and it was nice to be able to do what so many others who had fallen off of the back couldn’t do. I did a couple of laps with the pack which was down to less than twenty riders due to flats and other forms of attrition. Unfortunately for the rest of us one team, Broadmark cycling, had five of the remaining riders and they started launching attacks every couple of minutes, knowing that eventually the pack would tire of chasing them down and one would be able to get away. I chased a few of them but as soon as I caught them they would slow down and wait for the pack to catch us only to have one of their teammates attack. After chasing down the fourth or fifth attack I let the next one get away until it was 100 meters or so out front at which point I attacked and bridged up to him. Having worked to put a sufficiently large gap between himself and the pack the rider didn’t want to sit up and slow down when I caught him, so we started working together. Over a couple more laps we continued to open up the gap but I ended up dropping him on one of the rough sections.
On the hills it’s no good to carry around extra weight, but being a larger rider sure seems to help over the rocky stuff, until you hit the rocks dead on and get a flat tire—which is exactly what happened. I was a few hundred meters ahead of the Broadmark rider who was chasing me who was in turn a few hundred meters ahead of the pack when I got the flat. I jumped off my bike and started running it to the wheel pit, the Broadmark rider passing me while I was running, and yelling for a new Campy 10 speed wheel only to see the pit crew shrug their shoulders palms to the sky saying no more Campy 10 speeds…I said fine, Shimano 10 speed. Thankfully they still had some of those left. If you ask the companies these are supposed to be incompatible components, but I had no issues that I noticed. I hopped back on the bike with my third rear wheel of the race ahead of the pack but a good little ways behind the lead rider. I closed in on him over the next couple of minutes and he must have come to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to get away from be because he sat up and waited for me to catch him and we started working together again. At the same time two riders had broken away from the pack and were bridging up to the two of us. Two miles later it was one lap to go and the two bridging riders had caught us. We did one last trip over the rough section and came to the paved section that represented eight miles to home. The four of us in the front started a rotating paceline but it quickly became obvious that two of the riders were really gassed and I couldn’t quite gauge the strength of the third. I didn’t want to pull the two tired guys to the finish line but I was nervous about attacking because it was guaranteed that as soon as the pack got back onto the pavement with only eight miles to the finish they would be driving the pace up pretty quickly. Then again I had spent the majority of the race by myself so why stop? I attacked, dropped the two tired riders immediately and the third after about a quarter mile. Time trialing to the finish I passed the men’s 1/2 pack and one of the breakaways in front of them. I actually ended up finishing eighth in the higher category race that started five minutes before mine. That was nice, plus I won ninety bucks and a pound of Big Ring Blend coffee (?!?).
I didn't race Sunday because I left my shoes in my teammate's car when he dropped me off. I'm dum like that.
More next week
Last week by the numbers
# of regional cycling authorities who want to do an “up and coming” story on me…1
# of people having drunken karaoke contest in my house night before race………...9
# of flat tires in Saturday’s race……………………………………………………...2
# of shoes forgotten in teammates car after race……………………………………..2
So last week a teammate of mine emailed me asking if he could give my contact info to someone from Northwest Race Report who wanted to do an “Up and Coming Racer” story on me. I told him I didn’t know what it was, but sure, I’d do it. Me being me, I then inquired if this meant I would get any free stuff. Sufficed to say I have neither received free stuff nor done the interview yet, but it’s nice to know that people are noticing me.
Friday my roommate/landlord (Eric) had a bunch of friends over for a drunken karaoke contest. I tried my best to ignore it but I definitely recall being subjected to the butchering of good songs, worse than that, the butchering of bad songs, and worst of all attempts at singing Michael Jackson. In general I would say that I definitely prefer anything by Jackson to Eric’s rendition of Careless Whisper by George Michael, but given current events being forced to think about Mr. Jackson while I’m alone, in my bed, in the dark makes me want to curl into the fetal position and hide in the corner …allegedly.
Saturday morning I wake up a little less than freshy-fresh, but excited and ready to race none-the-less. My teammates picked me up and it was off to the races. During the warm up I was getting pretty excited, in no small part due to my new toy. I had purchased a special wheel called a “power tap” which records and displays your speed, cadence, power, and heart rate as you ride. I had commuted with it a couple of times, but this was to be my first race outing with power. The course was in the “spring classic” style which is a polite cycling term for a race that beats the living crap out of both you and your bike. These races traditionally take place this time of year in Europe with lots of cobblestones and muck. Here in the US we don’t really have cobblestones, at least not on the West Coast. What we do have is logging access roads. The course for this race was a six mile rolling net ascent to the four mile essentially flat loop which was ~2.1 miles unsurfaced dirt road and ~1.9 mile paved road that we navigated ten times before returning down the six miles we started to the start finish line.
At the beginning I was under the mistaken impression that it was a neutral rollout (speed controlled by the pace car). I quickly realized my error when attacks started flying off the front of the pack going up the hills. Four miles into the race the hills picked up a bit three of us got away from the pack quickly dropping down to two as we hit a rather steep set of small climbs. We reached the loop and started the first lap on the rough stuff. Earlier I referred to this road as a logging road, in retrospect that might be a tad generous. River bed bottom would be closer to the truth and not entirely dry river bed bottom would be just about spot on accurate. It consisted of two large ruts with a rocky rise in between them. Crossing from one rut to the other was possible though sketchy at best; a maneuver performed with great reluctance by most and absolute refusal by the rest. No logging road is complete without a plethora of pot holes and this logging road had it all. They were big and small, wet and dry. At one corner there was a puddle that spanned the entire road ~15 feet across and I’m not sure how deep because I went around it every time. Of course so did everyone else so after ten laps the area around either side of the pond…errrr…puddle was pretty torn up mucky and none to easy to navigate, but back to the race.
So we had just hit the logging road 150 meters ahead of the pack when the other rider with me started to drop off. I was feeling pretty good so I kept at it but less than a mile down the road I hit a big rock and flatted my rear tire. Due to the course this race had no wheel cars following but it did have two wheel pits located at different points on the dirt road portion. Unfortunately the officials had said that it was wheels in wheels out meaning that if you brought spare wheels with you to the race and you flatted then you could take the extra wheels that you brought with you. I hadn’t brought any so I walked to the wheel pit and watched the peloton roll by thinking that my race was over. Then while I was sitting there one of the wheel pit guys said “Hey you wanna get back in the race?” My response was an enthusiastic “Hell YES!” They slapped a wheel on my bike and I started chasing down the pack which had a half mile or more lead on me at this point. Three and a half laps later I finally caught them, it took long enough, but I was motoring and it was nice to be able to do what so many others who had fallen off of the back couldn’t do. I did a couple of laps with the pack which was down to less than twenty riders due to flats and other forms of attrition. Unfortunately for the rest of us one team, Broadmark cycling, had five of the remaining riders and they started launching attacks every couple of minutes, knowing that eventually the pack would tire of chasing them down and one would be able to get away. I chased a few of them but as soon as I caught them they would slow down and wait for the pack to catch us only to have one of their teammates attack. After chasing down the fourth or fifth attack I let the next one get away until it was 100 meters or so out front at which point I attacked and bridged up to him. Having worked to put a sufficiently large gap between himself and the pack the rider didn’t want to sit up and slow down when I caught him, so we started working together. Over a couple more laps we continued to open up the gap but I ended up dropping him on one of the rough sections.
On the hills it’s no good to carry around extra weight, but being a larger rider sure seems to help over the rocky stuff, until you hit the rocks dead on and get a flat tire—which is exactly what happened. I was a few hundred meters ahead of the Broadmark rider who was chasing me who was in turn a few hundred meters ahead of the pack when I got the flat. I jumped off my bike and started running it to the wheel pit, the Broadmark rider passing me while I was running, and yelling for a new Campy 10 speed wheel only to see the pit crew shrug their shoulders palms to the sky saying no more Campy 10 speeds…I said fine, Shimano 10 speed. Thankfully they still had some of those left. If you ask the companies these are supposed to be incompatible components, but I had no issues that I noticed. I hopped back on the bike with my third rear wheel of the race ahead of the pack but a good little ways behind the lead rider. I closed in on him over the next couple of minutes and he must have come to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to get away from be because he sat up and waited for me to catch him and we started working together again. At the same time two riders had broken away from the pack and were bridging up to the two of us. Two miles later it was one lap to go and the two bridging riders had caught us. We did one last trip over the rough section and came to the paved section that represented eight miles to home. The four of us in the front started a rotating paceline but it quickly became obvious that two of the riders were really gassed and I couldn’t quite gauge the strength of the third. I didn’t want to pull the two tired guys to the finish line but I was nervous about attacking because it was guaranteed that as soon as the pack got back onto the pavement with only eight miles to the finish they would be driving the pace up pretty quickly. Then again I had spent the majority of the race by myself so why stop? I attacked, dropped the two tired riders immediately and the third after about a quarter mile. Time trialing to the finish I passed the men’s 1/2 pack and one of the breakaways in front of them. I actually ended up finishing eighth in the higher category race that started five minutes before mine. That was nice, plus I won ninety bucks and a pound of Big Ring Blend coffee (?!?).
I didn't race Sunday because I left my shoes in my teammate's car when he dropped me off. I'm dum like that.
More next week
posted by Jamie Stangeland at Monday, April 11, 2005
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