Race Report: Tour of Washington County (Cat 3)

June 22, 2009 at 8:55 pm · Filed under Blog: Summer 09, Cycling, Race Report

My original plan was to head up to Jersey with Mike and Allan to clean up at the Giro di Jersey. (Though looking at the results, they obviously didn’t need any help.) However, my leave request was denied at work, which meant I couldn’t make the Friday GdJ TT, so I headed out to the Tour of Washington County instead, wanting to be able to contest the overall at something that weekend. Glad I did. It was an awesome weekend of racing. Here’s the recap:

Stage 1: Smithsburg RR
The two biggest things I remember about this stage were the heat and the freakin’ wind. Good lord. Every time we came around that right hand corner to start the next lap it was misery. Though I hated the wind, I loved that long big ring climb halfway through the course. In my mind, that climb was the key to the race (unless it was going to come down to 200m) since there was that twisty downhill section following the left hander after the climb was over; a good place to sneak away if you already had a gap.

With this in mind, I made sure to go to the front on that climb and drill a hard tempo. On one lap (can’t remember exactly which on at this point) a group of about 6 or 7 of us started to roll away. It looked promising briefly, but a look back at the field revealed that they were still pretty motivated and didn’t want to let us go. With the field still motivated, it wasn’t worth the effort so I shut down my effort and the sentiment pretty much made it through the group.

Somewhere on the 5th lap, there was a 4-man attack which included Tim R and Lance A, from Bike Rack. One of those guys yelled, “Hey, come on, Brian!” and I think I yelled back that they were crazy. (Maybe so, but they ended up staying away.) Fast forward to the last lap on my favorite climb. Same deal: I went to the front and rode hard and ended up rolling away from the field. About halfway up, I looked back and saw that my gap was increasing so I committed to the effort, wanting to get maximum time on the field before the narrow twisty section. When Steven Kendall and Rob Sheffield bridged up to me, I knew we had a good group so it was on.

I was feeling it (in a this-hurts-a-little-more-than-I-want-to-be-hurting-before-a-couple-nasty-climbs kind of way, not the badass way) and ended up dropping a little off the back of our chase group; I didn’t want to pop on the wall climb. Steve attacked Rob at some point and made off pretty good with a 2nd place. I passed a popped off Rt 1 Velo dude and snagged 6th. The field rode in some 10s of seconds later.

Stage 2: Boonsboro TT
You know those warm-ups where you kind of know you’ve got some good legs? Well, that’s how I felt before the TT. Not too much to report here. I went harder up the climbs than on the descents. Passed three people even though there were two ghost riders in front of me. Couldn’t have gone harder. 3rd place here. (N.B. Tom beat me by 2 seconds even though he was working on very little sleep. He’s a killer.)

Stage 3: Williamsport Crit
Probably the best decision I made all weekend was getting a hotel room in Hagerstown rather than heading home for the night. Not only because it allowed me to sleep in an extra 1.5 hours before the TT, but also because after the TT, I had a place to go take a shower and take a 45-min nap with my legs up before the crit. Good thing too because the first 5 laps of the crit were ridiculously hard. Seriously, it was one long line for 5 laps. Before the race people were concerned about the screaming downhill into the hard right that we’d take at about 40mph each time, but actually I though this crit was one of the safest and most fun I’ve ridden.

Nothing of consequence really happened throughout the race in terms of breaks and so on. Everything got brought back pretty quickly. So the good stuff, final lap. I was in good position maybe about 7th wheel coming down the hill into the turn. Got held up a bit behind a Bike Rack dude going into the final tight corner and then behind a little scrum after the corner where two guys went closer to the curb than they probably planned. I took 5th in the sprint and was making up ground on DJ! I wish I’d been a little more aggressive on the last corner and tried a tighter inside line. Oh well. I got 4th on GC for the weekend, edged out by Steve Kendall by 2 seconds.

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Mobtown Modern 2009-2010 Season

June 15, 2009 at 11:23 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 09, Mobtown Modern

This past Friday at Future Party, we unveiled Mobtown Modern’s 2009-2010 season with “A Message from the Future,” a video transmission from outerspace. It’s been an awesome two-year run with the Contemporary Museum and we’re really looking forward to a greatly expanded third season.

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Race Report: Chruch Creek TT Cat 3

June 14, 2009 at 11:51 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 09, Cycling, Race Report

Let’s start this report with two facts: 1) I train and race with a power meter; and 2) I do not have a power meter on my disc wheel. So because I’m used to seeing power data all the time and the fact that this was my first 40K TT ever left me a little worried about my ability to do a good ride simply by feel. But as Molly said on the drive out, if I was the main character in a movie I definitely wouldn’t have a power meter. So I pretended I was some 2009 version of Breaking Away. Okay, not really, but it was a decent joke.

Anyway, I ended up doing a good ride even though it felt like there was a headwind throughout the entire course. I passed several people, but more importantly, did not get passed. When it was all said and done and they posted the results I wasn’t even on them! Must have been because I flew by the finish line so fast they couldn’t read my number! Actually, I owe a big “thank you” to Tom for giving me a call to let me know that my name wasn’t up. It was the only time I didn’t stick around to see the results posted. Luckily, we’d only gone about a mile down the road, so I turned around and contested. After a long wait, they found me scribbled on the page of a notebook. I turned in a 56:25 (26.4 avg mph), which tied me for 4th place with Stephen Wahl.

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Race Report: Fulton RR Cat 3/4

June 1, 2009 at 5:03 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 09, Cycling, Race Report

This was possibly the most fun I’ve had in a race ever. Why? I had two teammates—Allan W and Mike R—who had come out to play and did an awesome job. We didn’t make a plan prior to the start but just sort of let things unfold. I was super-excited about this race because the course really suits me; two decent climbs (the second was more fun) and a long drag to the line with a power hill for the final 200m.

Here’s the way it played well into our hands. Mike jumped off the front on the second lap and got up to as much as a 45-second advantage. There were no shortage of motivated guys on the front willing to chase so Allan and I got to sit on for a free ride. The field caught Mike at the top of the first climb the following lap and nothing really happened until Allan jumped off the front. He was gone for a while too. Now Mike and I got to sit in. Somewhere along the line, Mike snapped his rear derailleur and was stuck in his 12, which makes what he did at the end even more sweet. Since Allan was away during the final lap, there were lots of attacks and attempts to bring him back. I marked them all, tacking onto the back of anything that looked promising. Just before the descent to the second (last) climb, a group of 3 with me on the back had escaped though the field caught us at the base of the climb.

I felt good at this point and as I’d done for the entire race, I set a hard tempo up the climb—passing Allan about 1/3 of the way up—and kept up the pace when it leveled off towards the end. The pack regrouped after the descent and we started lining up for the sprint. Allan, who had just done a freakish descent to catch back on after his breakaway asked me if I felt good. Of course I did. So he and Mike (in his 12, even up that hill!) went to the front and lined it out. We were in control with 1K to go, when Mike dropped off and Allan took over. I got bumped around and pushed off Allan’s wheel briefly, but got back on. He delivered me to 300m to the line at which time we got overtaken on the right side. Somebody jumped over there and I couldn’t get across the road to his wheel. I took 3rd in the sprint.

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