Headwind, Tailwind, Headwind, Tailwind, Rain.. TopSport SR Stage 1 Pro/1/2

The forecast called for rain and boy did it rain. But before the rain started we had 50 miles of some of the strongest winds I've ever rode in. The course was an out and back loop on one narrow road with a heavily enforced centerline. It was just about wide enough for 5 riders which didn't matter too much when it was strung out in the gutter.

As an out and back loop we had to contend with mostly head winds in one direction and mostly tail winds in the other, but it was the few cross wind sections that did the most damage. This was going to be a race of attrition as the big guys tried to crush the smaller guys in the wind.

The race started about half way along the loop and into the headwind. It was fairly mellow for the first few miles with just a few attacks that were easily brought back. I was sitting near the front for most of the time with only about 15 riders ahead of me. As we came to the first turnaround people were trying to move up. The road was so narrow at the turn around that the cone forced everyone to an almost complete stop. This meant that it was a mad sprint to get back into the group. I wasted a lot of energy on this first turn and made a mental note to be nearer the front on the next one.

We were now in the tail wind direction with a couple of cross wind sections that caused a lot of trouble. The center line rule was being enforced and that meant that everyone was strung out trying not to cross the yellow line. The cross winds were so strong that all the riders ahead of me we leant over at 60 degrees forcing against the wind.

People were opening gaps and coming back through the groups as they blew up fighting to keep a wheel. I was holding the wheel in front and able to go around people when the gaps opened up. I looked at the GPS at one point and it said 35mph. I was in the 53x11 and completely spun out. I needed a 10 cog!!

I was managing to stay in the lead group even though it was shrinking behind me. We came to the northern turnaround and I came flying up the left side overtaking about 10 guys coming into the cone, again my CX racing over the winter helped. I was always able to cut inside on the tight and twisty sections of the CX courses. I was out of the saddle and sprinting to stay on the back of the lead group as gaps were opening up. This time I used a lot less energy as the gaps were much smaller this close to the front.

The next 10 miles were into a block headwind so the group really slowed. This didn't stop the two biggest teams of MarkPro-Strava and Fremont Bank from attacking the hell out of each other. MarkPro-Strava had a man off the front with about a minute gap and were covering everything that anyone did. They had the strongest riders and the largest number of teammates. The continual attacks were taking their toll on the field. Gaps were opening up and smaller and smaller groups were being formed with each attack. Instinct drove me to the front and I went with a couple of attacks and also bridged up to a group that got away. I could sense that a group was going to get away. Another attack of 3 guys went and I jumped on the back. It took almost everything I had to stay on the wheel and we were away! Another 4 or 5 guys bridged up and we had a good gap. This was it, this was going to stick. The big teams were represented and their teammates were shutting things down behind. Unfortunately I'd used up too much energy getting into the move and didn't have enough power to stay with it when we hit one of the cross wind sections. I fell off the back of the break and started to drift back to the group. I was going backwards through the group as riders were trying to bridge up and nearly lost contact before managing to catch a wheel and hang on the back.

Thankfully things were shut down again by the bigger teams and the group started to slow, but it was much smaller now than it had been a few minutes earlier. The attacks and chasing had popped a bunch of people off.
That was the winning move, the group of 8 broke up a little but the leaders were never caught. We could see them at the next turnaround, they had 30 seconds. This inspired another chase which really put me in the hole. I was struggling to hang on at one point and only just managed to grab a wheel before the group slowed again.

We had a good tailwind and again I was spun out in the biggest gear I had. We came through the northern turnaround again and the gap to the lead group had grown and this took the urgency out of the group. We had slowed down a lot. We started the headwind section again and about half way through we all felt a few spots of rain. By the time we reached the southern turn the wind was howling even stronger and the rain was chucking it down. The bikes were making foamy streaks through the puddles and all the back wheels were throwing up rooster tails. I had a good pair of glasses on and had also treated them with rainX but I couldn't see a bloody thing.

We had about 3/4 of a lap to go, probably around 15 miles but the rain was making this tough. It also started to get much colder at this point.
There were still attacks but the power had really been taken out of them. I was riding near the front and trying to stay out of the potholes. Before the turn around we could see that the lead group had broken up into groups of 2s and 4s. We came around the turn and I sprinted to keep my place in the lead group, I was in the lead 10 of the group and holding my wheel. The finish was uphill, into a head wind so I wanted to leave it late before I sprinted but that would be dependent on what everyone else was doing.

I put my head down and jumped for the line but wasn't making ground on anyone and a couple of guys came around me. I was done. The race was so hard and the weather was so miserable that I just started laughing out loud. I pulled my rain jacket out and just started the ride back to the car. It was about 7 miles and the rain was still coming down. After about a mile just started shivering, I was getting really cold. By the time I got back to the car I was shaking all over and hardly able to open the car door. The first thing that I did was start the engine and then climb into the back of the truck to get out of the wet clothes. It took me about 20 minutes as I was moving so slowly and my handshake stopped working. I couldn't even button my trousers so just did the belt up and figured I'd fix it later. Once I was dressed I started loading my bike and other gear into the truck. Once everything was in I started looking for the truck key and couldn't find it. I started to unload a bunch of stuff and was going through my bags when realized that the truck was running. I was so delirious that I'd forgotten I'd started the engine and the keys were in the ignition.

I jumped into the truck and grabbed some food and a Muscle Milk to start the recovery. It took about 45 minutes of driving with the heater on full before I could really function again. That was the closest I've ever come to hypothermia. Let's not do that again.

This had been one of the hardest races I'd ever done and actually finished. I'm interested in seeing the results but apparently they're not available this evening due to the bad weather.

On to stage 2 and 3 tomorrow. My TT starts at 8:14:30 AM and the Circuit Race at 10:55.

Breakfast: Toast and an Egg McMuffin.
Race Food: 3 Crank Gels 1 Honey Stinger and 2 bottles of Cytomax.
See Strava for race details.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Oakdale, CA

Prizes but no points

I decided after I missed San Dimas that I wanted to race this weekend, unfortunately the weather looked like it want going to cooperate and it was going to be tough day whatever I did. I missed Ward's Ferry on Saturday and found the Regalado Memorial Road Race was being run about an hour closer on Sunday. The forecast called for 100% chance of rain so I packed all the rain gear that I had available and a large tub of A&D for waterproofing the arms and legs.

I was woken up around 3 AM with the rain pounding on the roof and windows, if this kept up it was going to be messy. There were only 9 riders pre registered for the Pro/1/2 race so the field was going to be small with the bad weather not helping.

The alarm went off at 4:50 AM and I dragged myself out of bed to find the rain had stopped, this was hopeful.

I got to the race venue and registered before heading to the start line to find there was only 8 of us in the Pro/1/2 field. The Cat 3 field that was starting a few minutes behind us had 35 guys so there was a possibility that we'd get caught if we didn't ride hard enough.

The rollout on the first lap was fairly mellow with everyone taking a turn at the front for short pulls. There was one guy from MarcPro Strava and 2 guys from McGuire so things were obviously going to be tough. My money was on one of these 3.

Things stayed mellow until we got to the 2 mile dirt road section. We were told at the start that there were a few potholes but it was way worse than I imagined, these were deep potholes that took up half the road. One rider tried to ride straight through one of the bigger puddles and his wheel was swallowed up to the axel. He managed to stay up but slowed significantly as he dragged himself out of the water.

I was thanking myself for doing so many CX races this past winter, I had no trouble avoiding most of the hazards and was able to go with the 2 leaders as the first big attack started. We got a gap of about 25 meters over the other 5 guys and started to drill it on the second section of the dirt. This was even rougher than the first section with about 20 yards of unavoidable stutter bumps. I lost both bottles on this section so would have to grab new ones at the feed.

I was feeling comfortable and my bike handling skills were giving me a much easier time of things than some of the others in the group. By the time we came off the dirt onto the road there we 4 of us with 2 more chasing about 20 meters back. One of the McGuire guys and the Davis Bike club guy were nowhere to be seen.

After about half a mile there was a solid group of six riders and it was obvious the other 2 were not coming back.

We rode a nice rotation for the next lap with only a couple of minor attacks before we came back around to the dirt. As we hit the dirt there was an early attack that was easy to stay with as everyone spread out to find their own way through the mine field of potholes. On the second half of the dirt I went to one side and tried to find a smooth section at the side of the road. The McGuire guy that was left also had the same idea. I was close enough behind him that I didn't see a couple of deep potholes and hit one hard with my back wheel, which started to make a funny noise. The tire was still inflated so I kept going.

At this point there was another big attack from the Marc Pro Strava guy and as I came up on the wheel of the guy in front of me he slid out on the sharp edge of a large water filled pothole. This forced me straight through the middle of the water and almost took me to a dead stop in a big gear. I pulled myself out of the puddle but a gap had opened up and I was struggling to close it down. A young guy from SJBC caught up to me and was yelling at me to stay with the move and trying to encourage me to dig deeper to get back on, but I didn't have it. I watched as the gap grew slowly at first and then when the other riders reached the pavement the gap grew more quickly. I was now the 6th guy on the road and desperately trying to bridge back on by myself.

I was in full TT mode now, catching and passing small groups of riders from other categories and hoping that the lead 5 would start sitting up, but it didn't happen.

I rode by myself for a full lap and the next time through the dirt section I noticed the junior from SJBC at the side of the road with a flat. I yelled at him to fix it fast and catch back to me so as I'd have some company but I think his race was over.

As I came through the finish with one lap to go the Cat 3 field was coming up behind me. I slowed to let them pass and noticed that the first McGuire rider to get dropped, Sergei Badeka, was sitting comfortably on the back of the 3 field. The race Ref told the pair of us that it was ok for us to sit at the back as long as we didn't interfere with their race, he said he'd rather us do that as it was safer for us to be in a group than by ourselves for some reason. I said I'd sit in as long as we didn't get relegated for drafting off another category. He told me it would be fine, he wouldn't relegate us. We relaxed and rolled the next lap on the back of the 3 field at an easy 19 mph, a big difference to the 22+ we'd been doing a lap or two earlier.

Things were really messy when we hit the dirt section at the end of the 4th lap, the 3's were attacking each other and trying to create a split before the climb to the finish. Sergei and I stayed at the back and had a birds eye view as the sprint started at 1K out, with the uphill finish it was obvious that they were going to fade long before the line. Sergei and I rolled in together with me taking 5th place and him taking 6th. There was no sprint for us. The race was over after 75 miles and all we had left was the roll back to the car. We were both amazed that we'd managed to stay dry, the weather gods were with us today for sure.

It was a great compliment that on our way back to the car Sergei was telling me about the McGuire team anyhow they had a couple of spots open. He invited me to join the team if I was interested. McGuire has been a powerhouse team in the past and this could be an interesting opportunity.

When I got home I was cleaning the bike noticed that the funny noise I heard from the back wheel after I hit the pothole was the brake rubbing on the rim. The wheel was quite badly out of true. I'd opened the brake up while I was TTing but this was too late. I wonder how big an impact this had on my not getting back onto the group during the second time through the dirt? Hailey is telling me that it time to retire my 16 year old pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels but I'm not ready for that yet.

The bike was covered in mud from the dirt section.




It turns out that they were giving prizes through 6th place and 5th place got me $15 and a really nice Velo Promo t-shirt.









- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Oakdale, CA

Wind, hail, snow Montebello

It seems like every time the weather gets really bad I'm drawn to ride up Montebello and today was no exception. After spending 3 hours on the rollers Saturday watching Milano Sanremo I had to get out. It wasn't raining when I left home but by the end of Grant road I needed my rain jacket on.

By the time got to the top of Montebello I'd been through rain, hail and it was now snowing. No big deal though as I was warm enough and staying fairly dry. The wind was howling and I was glad to start the descent down Page Mill. My feet were cold by the time I got home but that was about it.

This should be a standard training week with a road race next Sunday before. Recovering for the Top Sport Stage Race at the end of the month.

Location:Mountain View, CA

Missing SDR

This was supposed to be my biggest weekend of racing of the year so far. The plan was to leave on Thursday night and drive down to San Dimas for the San Dimas Stage Race. This is a great event with a 2's only field and an uphill TT. Couldnt be better suited to me really. Unfortunately Apple, Inc. decided to put it New iPad on sale on Friday and this crushed any hopes I had of getting away to race this weekend. Due to some undocumented changes from the previous version we had to do some modification and upgrading to the DODOcase and that took all of Friday. This race will have to wait until next year.

Seems like the weather was crap anyway.....

Location:Borello Way,Mountain View,United States