NYCMTB Highbridge '09

Attempt #2 at the only race I've done that emphasizes technical skill over fitness.

It was a pretty uneventful race except for a full on, head first, dazed and confused rookie crash on the first lap. After that I spent most of my time chasing back. Its a tough race course, but a fun day and its amazing the difference in Highbridge Park that NYCMTB has made in just the last year.

schmalz When you're in the pack, and it's a slow day and the break's away, who do you usually chat up? Is it just your teammates, or is it someone you never think to talk to, but there he is and I might as well see if we can have a conversation?

VDV A lot of times it's teammates, actually, which is kinda weird 'cause you think you wouldn't want to talk to your teammates after you've spent every waking moment with them. A lot of times you do end up speaking with your teammates a lot. I speak with Dave Millar quite often, last year I spoke with Levi quite a bit, Bradley Wiggins, Jens Voigt I had a long conversation with. He's the social butterfly. He wins the prize.

schmalz He chats with everybody, huh?

VDV Everybody, in every language. He's the most nervous, too, so he'd be in mid sentence and all of a sudden he'd just jump away and back into a breakaway or something. "I have to go! Have to make money!"

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/vdv-post-giro

Everybody's favorite racer is Jens Voigt. The more about him I learn the more I like him.

Two crits and a W

After last weeks death march (aka Bear Mountain) I was happy to get back to what I'm good at: Going in circles really fast!

Saturday morning was AVD's New York Crit, aka a bunch of cones on an old runway at Floyd Bennett Field. It was foggy and raining at FBF, which makes for a sort of other worldly experience. The race itself was pretty boring. Round and round we went. I tried to grab onto a couple breaks, but nothing stuck. About halfway through, three guys went off the front and dangled there. I thought there was no way it was gonna stick, so I just sat there waiting for them to come back. Sure enough, they eventually rolled away and made it count. Then another rider did the same on a prime lap. I must be the worst person in the world on picking breaks. Never have I instigated or bridged to a winning break or even one that stayed away for any decent amount of time.

My sprint felt pretty good and I was able to accelerate away whenever I wanted. In the end I sprinted for second in the field. I jumped a little late and wasn't quite able to catch another rider. Turns outI was relegated two positions for going outside the cones to avoid crashing. It wasn't like I was moving up or anything, but I wasn't going to argue it at a training crit when the results will probably never be posted.

Foggy at FBF

The next morning was Tour de Parc. Last year it was my first crit back after crashing out in '07, so I was really nervous and couldn't move up enough to finish well in the end.

I got to the race a little early and accidentally ended up ruining my warm up by standing in the rain and watching the masters race. I felt a lot better once the race started and I warmed up again. Larry was preaching a group finish and, given my little experience, I believed it. I messed around at the beginning a little and got myself in a break for a couple laps, but we got reeled in and I sat up. Larry got away too, but he didn't go anywhere.

Going into the final lap, Skip(?) from Babylon was still away from a long break, but it was obvious we were gonna catch him before the finish. On the back stretch, his teammate Mark countered when he was caught. Immediately, two guys chased after Mark. Just as they were about to catch him, on the backside of the little hill, someone hesitated and I jumped around everyone. It was about 300 meters from the line and I wasn't sure if I could make it from that far out. I just put my head down and pedaled like mad and I was able to hold the field off for the win!

It was a strange sprint for me, usually I'm out of the saddle, accelerating my whole sprint. This one started downhill, then into a headwind, so it was all sitting down and downshifting. No pictures, I'd like to see the look on my face at the end ("Oh damn that sprint started way too early").

It was great racing with everyone from East End. We had Larry, Chris, Rob, Nick, and George out there. It was nice to have some friendly faces around you in a race.

Bear Mountain

Bear Mountain is my first real, hard race of the year. I've done three Prospect races and a TT, but Bear is the first show all your cards, leave it all on the road type of race. I think its good training for the Giro di Jersey. The 4 race is four loops in Harriman Park with quite a bit of climbing; mostly short stair steps, but it adds up quick.

I drove up with Craig, who was also doing the cat 4 race (but a different cat 4 race only for people older than 37, wtf?). We got ready and did a little recon of the course. The initial descent was fast and the following climb was tough. The finish looked good, though, and if I could last that long it fit me well.

Well, the race was... hard. I played by strategy well. I was near the front for the first two laps, avoiding getting gapped on the climbs and any of the cat 4 carnage in the turns. The climb was hard for me, but the flats and downhill went well and I could recover again. The third time up the climb, I looked back and saw the field that was previously 100 strong was reduced to 30 riders. Just after that, my legs cramped pretty bad as we crested the hill and the lake came into view. Not get off the bike in agony bad, but every muscle in my legs staged a tiny rebellion. From there I just rolled along and caught a draft from whoever I could stay with. We almost caught back on the cat 4 group at the end of lap 3, but my legs didn't have it on the last little rise to the finish line. I was pretty wrecked by the end of four laps. No matter how much I ate or drank I just couldn't recover. I guess I need a race like that to start out each year.

Props to Craig and Robin. Craig got third place in the older cat 4s and Robin got a top ten in the 3/4 women. I definitely felt the extra weight I carry in that race. I'm not sure if someone who weighs 180 pounds will ever be competitive with that much climbing.

Maybe I need some lighter wheels....

Here I am trying to hide behind the next biggest guy in the race. Amazingly the yellow and black guy from BVF finished at the front.

I think I'm getting dropped here.

Where was I?!??!

Apparently riding, not blogging.

Lets see, whats happened since I last left you? (And by you, I mean the 5 people who forgot to delete me from their RSS reader) Wrote 3 papers, took two finals, flights to Minneapolis and Los Angelos for Xmas and my own little spring break. Started my last semester of school EVER. Lifted a bunch of weights. Rode some in February and had second thoughts about this bicycle riding/racing thing. Rode a lot in March and decided biking is pretty awesome when it isn't 30 degrees out. Looked for jobs in the worst job market in 25 years (or so I'm told). Built up an ugly, ugly TT bike (which is still tons of fun to ride). Entered a few of races and didn't do to great in them, but had lots of fun and didn't do to bad either.

So in the spirit of the first post of the new year (albeit 5 months in) here's my big goal for 2009: Upgrade to a 3. Its sort of a funny goal, because it could eliminate me from participating in a few races. The real goal is go take part in harder, longer cat 3 (and 123) races and get in better shape. Anyway, in order to upgrade, I need to podium a few times. In order to podium, I need to do shorter, faster races that favor me, which means lots of Prospect Park races.

Olympic dream?

Every cyclist, at one point or another, dreams unfounded dreams of winning the Tour, out-sprinting Boonen or winning olympic gold. I know I have. At Mines, I knew a guy who fell so in love with the idea of cycling glory that he dropped out of school, started riding his bike every day and got a job at a bike shop. I'm not sure if he made it, but you must admire his resolve. The hope of going pro drives hundreds of otherwise well intentioned people to give up on a career and follow the NRC races around the country, hoping that they'll get the chance to make 25 grand next year and share living space with a half-dozen other sweaty athletes.

Well, two years ago ESPN granted such a wish to Kathryn Bertine. They charged her with finding a way to get into the olympics and writing about it. You can read about her exploits here. Things get interesting around parts 7, 8, and 9, where she enters her first qualifying race.

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It snowed for the first time last night, so no riding for me today.

Top Secret Weapon

I didn't go riding this morning; I was terrified of the cold rain rolling in. Too bad I didn't get to try out my new toy.




A lanky guy like me needs long cranks (or at least thats the idea)

Slowtwitch sez:

While triathletes are three-sporters, we resemble what the baseball world calls a one-tool athlete: Triathletes can hit with power. Triathletes are the DHers of the cycling milieu. No finesse, all swat. We can't corner, ride a cadence, sprint, or descend. Tactically, we belong in special ed.

But if you put us on a flat, straight road and you don't endanger anyone else's life by situating us proximate to—within 30 feet or so—the innocent, we can go like heck.

Winterpokal

Craig, Percy and I are on a 'Winterpokal' team, so take a look and track how I'm doing. So far, we're doing OK.

Kinda sorta blog hiatus

In case you haven't noticed, its the off season and I don't have much to write about. I was running for a while, but my ankle started acting up. I've been seeing a physical therapist the last couple weeks and he's giving me some good stuff to loosen it up. Hopefully next time I try out running, I'll have a little less pain to deal with.

This week I went on the first Trevor ride. I haven't been in my best shape lately, so I started 15 minutes early with the B group. A couple of bad luck flats later and we were caught by the A group fairly early in the route. I latched on as best I could, but I definitely didn't have the legs to mix it up with them. We turned southeast South River Road and Jeff and Dennis amped it up to a ridiculous pace. That combined with a slight tailwind was enough for me and I was ejected out the back. Percy was kind enough to drag my sorry ass home, otherwise I may still be out in Manorville. Tboughts had some wicked awesome french toast waiting for me when I got back.

It looks like the blog won't see many updates for the next couple months. I promise I'll start updating more in 2009 when another season of races come around.