Last Wednesday, Mobtown Modern kicked off its third season at our new performance space. We had an amazing crowd, who definitely got their money’s worth with some stunning playing by special guest Todd Reynolds and the rest of the MM players.
Up next for Mobtown on October 7th is Low Art, which showcases myself on baritone and bass saxophones and our spectacular clarinetist Jennifer Everhart on bass clarinet. I’m obviously really excited about this show and a big reason is that all of the music I’m playing is stuff that I’ve wanted to play for quite some time but never got around to for whatever reason—David Lang’s Press Release, Scelsi’s Maknongan, Anubis et Nout by Gerard Grisey, and Lee Hyla’s awesome bari sax/bass clarinet duo We Speak Etruscan. Jenn’s also going to be playing some selections from Michael Lowenstern’s Ten Children.
Luck was not on my side at last week’s Green Mountain Stage Race. In the last 150m of the 72-mile circuit race I was sitting pretty about 7th wheel when the genius to my right thought it would be a good idea to switch lines aggressively. He took three of us out at 35+mph. I started the next day—the queen stage—and felt great over the first two climbs. I was really looking forward to the summit finish at App Gap, but that was also not to be. On a dirt road section 60 miles into the race, my front wheel went into a deep pothole and slid out. I hit the deck again. Just bad luck this time. I would have continued but my rear wheel was punctured and the wheel van was 15-minutes behind us. I watched the race from the referee’s car. That sucked.
I’ve got a bruised knee and shoulder and plenty of road rash after those two crashes. Hopefully I paid some good luck forward for next season.
5th Place. Time: 3:55 (official); 3:50 (according to my power file). Avg watts: 426. I think there was a problem with the timers. I’m not the only one who had a somewhat major discrepancy with the “official” time (taken with stopwatches) and what the power file said. I know that there can be small differences when you’ve got humans clicking stopwatches, but a 5-second difference over such a short effort seems rather odd.
I have to admit that I had not heard of the Dirty Projectors until my friend Sarah, who owns the Metro Gallery bar/performance venue/art space in Baltimore, booked them to perform at Rufustival, the Gallery’s 2-year anniversary concert extravaganza. Since then, I’ve been listening to their latest CD non-stop.
I just realized that I’ve been not reporting the small things on SLN as much anymore because of the Twitter, but I think I’ll try to get back in the habit. What better way to start than with this: The Baltimore paparazzi caught me at Artscape this weekend with Ms. Maryland. Gasp! That’s right, people, new music series curators in Baltimore are like David Hasselhoff in Germany. Perhaps this post will undermine any possible blackmail attempts by a certain music critic who might have the same shot on his cell phone camera.
Normally, my unending supply of bike snobbery would have me running far, far away from an event like this. But since it’s in the name of contemporary music (and the fact that I’m organizing it) makes it more than worth the possible loss of cycling cool. For those interested in participating, show up at the Metro Gallery at 3pm, where we’ll stage and instructions will be given. See you there!
Stage 3: Columbiana RR
Though I was slightly bummed about falling from 1st to 5th on GC after a less than stellar crit the day before, I knew that I’d be able to make up a lot of ground on Stage 3, a 66-mile RR (2 laps of a 33 mile loop) with lots of climbing and some KOM points up for grabs. As is my custom in hilly road races, I went to the front on all the long climbs and set a hard tempo; not with the intention of dropping anyone, but just to make them work harder than they want to and gradually wear them down. The KOM sprint was at the top of a 2-mile climb with a pretty steady 6-8% grade that kicked up slightly around the last bend to the summit. I had Tom from Team Spin on my wheel the whole way up (he was also top-5 on GC), which didn’t bother me because we’d lost two of the other top 5 GC contenders on the very first ascent. Tom jumped around me at the last second to take 1st for the KOM, but I took 2nd and some bonus points.
The second lap was pretty uneventful. I proceeded with the same M.O. and was kind of surprised by the size of the pack coming into the last 10 miles or so. It didn’t look like we’d really shed too many people and there were still about 40 or 50 people present. Things started heating up at this point and there were the usual flurry of attacks, none of which stuck. With about 4K to go there was a lone rider off the front by about 10 seconds. With 3K to go Tom attacked out of the bunch hard and I went with him, sensing that this was the move. Nobody could follow us and we were gaining on the leader. We’d left it a little late though and I knew with 1K to go that it would be close. I attacked my chase companion up the hill with 500m to go and missed catching the breakaway rider by 150m. I took 2nd and moved to 2nd on GC. Felt great to be aggressive at the end of the race like that and also to see the hard tempo I set on the climbs pay dividends at the end when the group couldn’t react to that late attack.
Stage 4: Downtown Youngstown Criterium
Tom had a pretty insurmountable lead on me going into the last stage so my plan was to sit in and play it cool until the closing laps of the race and maybe throw down something to try and catch him off guard. I didn’t mind conceding the stage and letting a break go as long as I could protect my GC spot. Looking at the GC standing before the race, I wasn’t too concerned because two of the guys didn’t finish the RR stage so I thought they wouldn’t be able to contest the overall. What I didn’t understand before the start is that omniums suck because unlike stage races, where you have to finish the stage to contest the overall, you only have to start an omnium stage to do that. So, if you’re a big pussy and get dropped the first time up the climb on a hard road race stage and quit 12 miles into the race like a big pussy instead of suffering like everyone else to finish the stage, you can still take 2nd on GC by 1 point over the tougher and more consistent rider (ahem, that would be me, if I’ve lost anybody). So when the big effing pussy got into an early break in the crit, I didn’t care because I thought he couldn’t contest the overall. The break stayed away and though I was poised to take the field sprint (and save my 2nd on GC), when we got to the last corner, someone was laying in the road and I had to scrub speed and you know, when that happens in a sprint, you don’t win the sprint. I ended up 7th on the stage and 3rd on GC.
A few weeks before I went on tour, Molly’s dad wrote to her and asked if I’d heard of the Tour of the Valley, a brand new stage race that was being run right around their home in Ohio. I hadn’t but since tour ended up in Pittsburgh, we decided that we’d spend a week with her parents and I’d do the race on the weekend. Perfect!
Stage 1: Ellsworth TT
The course was a mostly flat, 4-corner, 5.5-mile circuit out in the middle of nowhere. I’m glad I went to do my race prep on course the day before because I was able to 1) know that I could take 2 of the 4 corners at speed on the TT bars (important because of the short distance) and 2) know that the center of the road was the best line on the stretch after the 2nd turn because the rest of the road was all ate up. As with most TT’s, there’s not much to report except that I caught my 30-second man halfway through, and almost caught my 1-minute man. And, oh, yeah, I won! That was pretty awesome. Average speed was 29.3mph.
Stage 2: Downtown Canfield Criterium
Though being the race leader going into Stage 2, a technical downtown criterium around the green in Canfield, that afternoon was pretty awesome, being the race leader going into a crit without any teammates and 60 guys who you don’t know really sucks. I was completely isolated against a couple of stacked teams. I ended up burning a lot of matches having to chase most things down myself. Even when things were extremely difficult and a few of us tried to force a break from the carnage, it became obvious that I was on an extremely short leash. I must say that I missed MABRA during this crit; many of the guys seemed to have no idea how to take corners smoothly. Setting up for a right-hander, a guy in front of me moved right (WTF?!) so I took the wheel he was on, but then he abruptly changed his mind, switched left again and rode me into the gutter. I stayed upright but pulled something in my leg. I basically lost the race with 4 corners to go, when a guy who will become known as “Big Pussy” (the dude on my wheel below) almost wrecked me. I had to scrub a lot of speed and since it was technical to the line, I got stuck finishing in 12th place. I slipped to 5th on GC.
Report from stages 3 and 4 coming later this evening…
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