Giro di Jersey Rocky Hill RR

The Rocky Hill road race is one of my favorites.  Its a rolling course around the Millstone creek with one big climb.  Its hard enough to make things interesting, but not so hard that it makes you consider taking up a nice gentle sport like yoga.  

All the talk before the race was about whether or not the impending thunderstorms would hold off until after the race.  Sure enough, halfway through lap one sprinkles started coming down.  By lap three it was a full blow rainstorm.  The rain added another element to the race.  Everyone stayed upright, but people were hesitant to respond to attacks in the rain.  

Laps one and two were pretty boring.  I lost my bottle taking a bad line over the bridge after the downhill, but Tboughts got it back to me by lap three.  Halfway through lap three, I went back to take a quick nature back and by the time I chased back on the lead car was gone.  I asked around about what was going on, but no one knew if there is a break away.  It stayed this way for the rest of the race.  Westwood had numbers and the leaders jersey, but they didn't want to chase.  

On the back stretch of the last lap, everyone at the front was making attacks.  They weren't very good attacks (I was sitting on them in my little ring), but they served to bring the break back into sight by the final time up the hill.  The pace up the final climb was fast, but I was able to hold on with just a little cramping.  In fact, I came into the descent 3rd wheel.  Going downhill in the rain was tense.  Everyone was jockeying for position trying get in good position for the sprint.  I followed the best wheels I could, got boxed out a couple times but was able to set up about 20th.  I jumped a little early and made my way through the crowd, but I didn't have quite enough left and ended up tenth.  

Tboughts and I stuck around to watch the pros finish.  Troy Wells got in a late break and looked to be in good position for the win, but got his chain all wrapped up in his frame coming into the sprint and had to roll in fourth.  

Giro di Jersey TT

Today was the start of the Giro di Jersey, a 12 mile rolling time trial. I'm still not the best at time trials, I have no idea how to pace myself. I tried to start easy, since I usually peg it off the line and end up hurting in the second half. I guess I started too easy, because I was passed in the first 2 miles. After that, I used him as a rabbit and I almost immediately caught my 30 second man. I kept going, and got passed again but passed my minute man too. In the end I got 35th place.  Its not as good as I was hoping for, but there were a lot of fast cat 3s.  

Tomorrow is the Rocky Hill road race. Last year it was a ton of fun, the climb is a great place to let it rip and string the whole field out. My climbing hasn't been quite as good this year, but I'm still hoping for good things.

Friction and wear tests

The last two and a half weeks I've been doing ball on flat tribotesting. It may be the most boring material test in the world.

9:00 Prepare test, start test.
11:00 Check test
1:00 Check test
3:00 Check test
5:00 Check test
7:00 Check test
7:15 Test over, remove sample.

Now, I'm all for time intensive protocols, but the whole thing is completely anticlimactic. Usually during testing something breaks or changes, all this test does it put a tiny scratch in the surface of my polymers. Only one more week...

In the mail today...

I got an unmarked envelope in the mail today, delivered from Phoenix AZ.  Open in and I find this cryptic page:


With this cryptic note in the upper corner.

Uh oh, guess this means I need to start checking my credit card statements again.

Another weekend of racing

Two more races last weekend, but not without some bad luck.  

Saturday morning, bright and early, was the Tour of New York, aka nine laps around Prospect Park.  A big field showed up with lots of tough guys.  Larry, Rob and I represented East End.  Pretty standard stuff for most of the race, a few guys would get a gap and the team without a presence would chase chase chase.  I led Rob out for the prime halfway through and he took it pretty easily.  In the end, Larry tried to set me up for the sprint, but I forgot where I was and went to early.  When I eased up to look for a wheel, the Kissena train simultaneously ran out of gas and I found myself with nowhere to go, so I sat up and let the second surge go by.  

Next morning was AVD's nutty floyd crit.  I was the only Kreb guy, but the field was quite a bit smaller.  I felt pretty good and I think I was reading the race pretty well, but halfway through my tire went nice and flat.  I had good legs for both races, but it didn't work out the way I wanted.  Next week I'm going to do the Giro di Jersey, which was my favorite race this year.  A little rain is in the forecast, but I'm still excited.  

Sunday night I went to see The Hangover.  Its hilarious, just about 90 straight minutes of laughing, Animal House style.  

Highbridge Photos

Tboughts won the womens field, again.

At least I look fast

Stolen without remorse from Anthony Collins, FullFramePro, Frank G and others.

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.