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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Not much to report from my end other than a trend I’ve discovered in my afternoon crit racing. 1) Legs always feel good. 2) I attack at some point. 3) I cramp in my abdomen so bad that I have to pull out. Has only happened in the two afternoon crits. I should probably eat a real meal for lunch.
You’d think that a Cat 3 would know how to get out of the saddle on a climb without throwing his bike back. You’d also think that a Cat 3 would know how to hold his line and not switch off it quickly after throwing his bike back. And if someone did those two things, taking out your front wheel and crashing you, you’d think that he’d apologize once you finished chasing for 15 minutes to get back onto the main group. Well, you’d hope. Sadly this was not the case last weekend. (Yes, I am talking about you, Yellow Tire Guy.)
I’m at the end of a 4-week block of training and racing and I need a break. Good thing next week is a rest week (seriously, have you seen the weather report?). I was planning to race Turkey Hill yesterday, but bagged it in favor of napping. Being that I’m feeling a little stale at this point, I went to the Hop with no expectations. However, much to my surprise, about 15 laps into the race, I knew that I had some good legs. Everything was comfortable and I felt smooth. Halfway through there was a good attack by a Bike Doctor and I followed and we ended up with a group of 5, including a Bike Rack, a Coppi, and someone else. It was a good move for my good legs, except about 10 minutes into the break I got a terrible cramp in my abdomen. I know where that came from: I’m in the Army and I have to take the PT test 2x a year, which I never practice for and therefore always end up sore a week after the test. Revenge of the sit-ups today. I tried to tough it out for another lap, hoping the cramp would go away, but when I couldn’t take a good deep breath I was done. I called it. Hated to do it since I was feeling good, but there wasn’t anything I could do. There’ll be other races.
There were four components to my Battenkill race plan:
Doing each of these things (and avoiding bad luck like crashes and punctures) would hopefully guarantee a top placing. Here’s how it went.
The first thing that was on my mind was having a decent position when we staged since there were 100+ riders in my field. I didn’t want to be at the back and have to spend the first 6 miles leading up to the left hand turn to the covered bridge worrying about moving up. I solved this problem by getting to staging about 20 minutes before our race went off and tacking onto the back of the Cat 3 field set to go off right before us. I was in the first line when our field went off and had no problems protecting my spot at the front up to said turn, which I had positioned myself perfectly for in about 5th or 6th wheel. Seems as though others had seen the course beforehand and had the same idea since once we were through the bridge and took the right-hander the pace really picked up onto the dirt. First goal accomplished.
Next on my to-do list was to hit the left-hand turn onto the dirt of Juniper Swamp first since this was where the first crucial climb (a steep, steep ~400m wall) resided. Again, mission accomplished. And I was first over the Juniper Swamp climb. At this point, the race started to split up and I got an idea of who was going to be around for a while. I recognized a few guys from Fawn Grove 2 weeks ago—Jeff from CRCA/Sanchez and Mattio (a.k.a. “The Purple Bike Guy”) from Kissena—and made some new friends—Mike from Boston and William from Kissena. Jeff in particular had a huge engine, which unfortunately I think he used (in frustration) way too much during the race. But still, some serious power there. By the next long climb (can’t remember the name of the road) a selection was made and the field was down to about 20 riders.
I’ll fast forward to the lead up to the final climb at mile 56 since nothing of consequence happened for about 30 miles. With about 2 miles to go to the base of the final long dirt climb up Stage Road, people started hammering. It wasn’t all out but it was enough to get me thinking about how I was going to approach the moment. I talked to a couple guys who I thought were strong and basically said come with me if you want/can. Okay, here goes, covered bridge on the right, left turn onto Stage Road. Because of the pace up to the climb, I decided that instead of attacking right away that I’d set a hard tempo for the first 3/5 and then ratchet it up for the last 2/5. And that’s what I did.
With my 20/20 hindsight, I messed up on the last climb. I was hesitant to hit it at the bottom because I didn’t want to blow up. And even though I ramped it up for the last 1/3 of the climb and ended up having a 5 second gap with one other guy who bridged all too effortlessly up to me (the eventual winner) by waiting to apply a little more pressure, I let the 10 guys left in the field settle into a rhythm. I should have punched it at the bottom and held 400-450 watts for 2-minutes and then assessed the situation. Oh well, you learn something in every race.
Anyhow, descending into Cambridge we had a group of 13. And everyone was saving it. The pace got ridiculously slow. Knowing that I probably wasn’t going to win a straight-up sprint, I decided that I’d attack 100 meters into the last corner and try to hold the gap for the last 250m which followed that corner to the line. Unfortunately, my plan was foiled by Jeff and William who decided to take the bull by the horns (and burn themselves up) 200m before the last corner. I still had good position out of the corner and held on for a 5th place (though the photo looked like I had 4th, but who’s splitting hairs?). I had an awesome ride and it was a great course. I want to go back next year.
There's more where that came from. Music, videos, and albums by Brian all inside.
