Raced day 2 and 3 of the Tour of KC last weekend. It was awesome to have a full team in the race. I think the fields were a lot smaller this year, but there were still a lot of big hitters in our race.
Saturday I tried to get into a break with some of the other big teams, but nothing was sticking. After that the heat really got to me and so I tried to hide in the group as much as possible to help out teammates at the finish. That didn't work out very well because I struggled with cramps near the end. Afterwards we had a team BBQ and had a good time.
Sunday was another hot day. My game plan was to be more conservative early. Unfortunately, the winning break went up the road early and I was totally out of position. I probably should have tried to get up to it as soon as it went, but instead just sat there. After that I took some small pulls at the front but the break was well up the road and gaining. I started to really struggle again in the heat and just tail-gunned for the rest of the race. Fortunately, my teammates did well again in the sprint.
I've just gotten a mountain bike for the first time in about 5 years, so I'm going to start riding that much more over the next couple of months. Should be fun/hilarious.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Time Trials
A couple of time trials the past few weeks. First, the Jesse Blancarte 5.8mi TT on the well known Gardner course, then the State Championship race in Walnut, on a new 20.4 mile course.
JBTT: I was the first rider off, followed by Craig Henwood. Craig and I tend to be very closely matched whenever we go head to head, and this was no exception. At the turnaround he had made ground on me, then going back in I gained a little back, but not enough, Hemi won by 3 seconds and we posted the top two times for the day.
State TT: A new course that headed to the west, then south to the turnaround (the normal course had a bridge washed out). The course was quite hard, the south leg featured a long segment of very rough chip & seal that made holding speed very challenging. The other hard part ended up being the eastbound stretch back to the finish line which had momentum killing rollers and a headwind. I ended up doing the first half a little too fast and really suffered on the way back in.
In the end, it was another close one, Hemi was only 6 seconds behind me, Bob Cummings 24 seconds back, and Walt Bleser at 33 seconds. Bruce Tanner was the fastest on the day by about 50 seconds, but raced masters. As usual, the Tailwind crew put on a great event.
JBTT: I was the first rider off, followed by Craig Henwood. Craig and I tend to be very closely matched whenever we go head to head, and this was no exception. At the turnaround he had made ground on me, then going back in I gained a little back, but not enough, Hemi won by 3 seconds and we posted the top two times for the day.
State TT: A new course that headed to the west, then south to the turnaround (the normal course had a bridge washed out). The course was quite hard, the south leg featured a long segment of very rough chip & seal that made holding speed very challenging. The other hard part ended up being the eastbound stretch back to the finish line which had momentum killing rollers and a headwind. I ended up doing the first half a little too fast and really suffered on the way back in.
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| Thanks Roger Harrison for setting up the turnaround point and taking pics |
In the end, it was another close one, Hemi was only 6 seconds behind me, Bob Cummings 24 seconds back, and Walt Bleser at 33 seconds. Bruce Tanner was the fastest on the day by about 50 seconds, but raced masters. As usual, the Tailwind crew put on a great event.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Tour De Grove - pt 2
The Sunday course was really cool. And it was dry at the start, so I was pretty excited to get going. Then started raining again mid race. There were wrecks three corners in a row when that happened. I was caught in the third wreck, I think that about 15 people went down in that one. I ran someone's bike over trying to get through and went down again. There were literally bodies and bikes across the whole road.
They neutralized the race, people just kept rolling into the pits from the first two wrecks too. I was in a really bad spot in the restart. I did another lap but I was at the back, and people just kept dropping out, so I had to keep leapfrogging to get back to the group, I ended up just riding along alone for a few laps till they pulled me. I'm still in one piece and I've got most of my skin, so not too bad all things considered.
They neutralized the race, people just kept rolling into the pits from the first two wrecks too. I was in a really bad spot in the restart. I did another lap but I was at the back, and people just kept dropping out, so I had to keep leapfrogging to get back to the group, I ended up just riding along alone for a few laps till they pulled me. I'm still in one piece and I've got most of my skin, so not too bad all things considered.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Tour De Grove pt 1
Back to St. Louis for the Tour De Grove.
Forecasts called for rain all three days. Friday night we got lucky and the rain held off, but it was windy. The Midtown Alley course was a big rectangle of wide open streets, pretty straightforward. Adam, Justin and I were representing St Johns. We all put in little digs here and there, I got in a couple of moves but nothing was getting any leash or sticking at all because of the wind so we sat in for the sprint. I was hoping to lead out Adam in the sprint, but on the last lap things slowed up, I got swarmed and Adam ended up on the front in the wind. In the sprint Adam ended up 11th and I got 5th and Justin finished in the group.
Saturday the rain came and the winds stuck around. We were minus Brian who headed home but added Brian. This course was wet and had some technical corners plus lots of rough pavement and some road obstacles. I went to the front on the first lap and didn't have too much trouble sticking there for most of the race. I heard lots of crashes behind me. There were a lot of guys in the race, 107 according to the officials at the start. So even when I did feel like I was drifting back, I'd check back and see about 40 or 50 guys behind still. Kinda crazy. Anyway, with about 10 minutes left I wasn't paying attention and took a bad line into the 180 corner before the S/F ended up turning on the painted centerline and lost my front wheel, wiping out and breaking my shifter. Dumb. But I didn't get hurt or hurt anyone else so that was good. Thankfully, SRAM Neutral Race Support was on hand to replace my shifter for tomorrow: Another rainy crit.
Forecasts called for rain all three days. Friday night we got lucky and the rain held off, but it was windy. The Midtown Alley course was a big rectangle of wide open streets, pretty straightforward. Adam, Justin and I were representing St Johns. We all put in little digs here and there, I got in a couple of moves but nothing was getting any leash or sticking at all because of the wind so we sat in for the sprint. I was hoping to lead out Adam in the sprint, but on the last lap things slowed up, I got swarmed and Adam ended up on the front in the wind. In the sprint Adam ended up 11th and I got 5th and Justin finished in the group.
Saturday the rain came and the winds stuck around. We were minus Brian who headed home but added Brian. This course was wet and had some technical corners plus lots of rough pavement and some road obstacles. I went to the front on the first lap and didn't have too much trouble sticking there for most of the race. I heard lots of crashes behind me. There were a lot of guys in the race, 107 according to the officials at the start. So even when I did feel like I was drifting back, I'd check back and see about 40 or 50 guys behind still. Kinda crazy. Anyway, with about 10 minutes left I wasn't paying attention and took a bad line into the 180 corner before the S/F ended up turning on the painted centerline and lost my front wheel, wiping out and breaking my shifter. Dumb. But I didn't get hurt or hurt anyone else so that was good. Thankfully, SRAM Neutral Race Support was on hand to replace my shifter for tomorrow: Another rainy crit.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Joe Sheehan Memorial RR
JB and I went the the Joe Sheehan Memorial RR this year to battle the north winds. This race was moved back a couple of weeks from the last few years, where unpredictable April weather plagued the race.
Two years ago, we had rain, sleet, snow, and 20+ mph winds. I won in the Cat 3 race by attacking solo about 20 miles into the race. I attacked only because I was so cold in the group in that I could barely shift or brake. Last year I flatted trying to bridge to Walt Bleser's solo brakeaway, which ended up being the the winning move after Phil Gronniger bridged up.The thing about this race is that with the north winds if you can get a break going on the way out and have it stick through Atchison, it will probably stay away.
We showed up about an hour before the start and registration was a mess. The line was out the door. About 5 minutes before the start they pushed all races back by 15 minutes, whew. The other issue was our wheel vehicle was a small car that was jam packed with wheels. In fact, we were only able to put one set in.
So the race finally started and we had a nice sized group of 25 or so. My early plan was to get into a break after the initial attacks happened. Bill Marshall got away solo early. Then a chase group formed with some of my old teammates Craig Henwood and Cam Rex. I was interested in bridging to this group then jumping up to Bill, but the trouble was that Shadd Smith was in the group and I didn't really want to drag him up to Bill. Bob Cummings was in the group too and he's been riding really strong this year, so I was hoping we could get away together to get up to Bill.
It turns out that both Shadd and I were marked pretty heavily by the rest of the field. Shadd was putting in some little fake surges to keep the group from organizing, and I wanted to counter but if Shadd didn't immediately grab my wheel, someone else did.
We hit some new gravel sections, and Shadd really drove the pace through those. I got through behind him, but several people (including JB) ended up flatting here. It was kind of weird deep gravel with some really big chunks, but everyone seemed to ride it cleanly.
At this point Cam had jumped across to Bill and they were working well together and putting in alot of time to the group. I really wanted to get a whittled down chase group going but everyone was now looking at me or Bob to attack, so no one was really working. Coming out of Atchison, there is a medium length climb, so I punched it and Shadd was the only one that could hold the pace. Not ideal. But the gap to Bill and Cam was over 2 minutes at this point and growing, so it was the time to try to get up there. I just kept it rolling and trying to monitor the chase to see if they were closing the gap to us. In the meantime, I was closing the gap up to Bill and Cam, but not very quickly. In retrospect, I should have eased up a little out of Atchison to let some others come up with us and then spread the work out. As it was, I got to solo TT and drag Shadd in my attempt to catch up.
Anyway, I brought the gap down to about a minute with a couple of miles to go, but it was too little too late. Enough to keep them honest. So Bill won, Cam took 2nd, Shadd sprinted for 3rd, I got 4th. Lots of work for 4th, but money in the bank for CX season, where it's always that hard.
Two years ago, we had rain, sleet, snow, and 20+ mph winds. I won in the Cat 3 race by attacking solo about 20 miles into the race. I attacked only because I was so cold in the group in that I could barely shift or brake. Last year I flatted trying to bridge to Walt Bleser's solo brakeaway, which ended up being the the winning move after Phil Gronniger bridged up.The thing about this race is that with the north winds if you can get a break going on the way out and have it stick through Atchison, it will probably stay away.
We showed up about an hour before the start and registration was a mess. The line was out the door. About 5 minutes before the start they pushed all races back by 15 minutes, whew. The other issue was our wheel vehicle was a small car that was jam packed with wheels. In fact, we were only able to put one set in.
So the race finally started and we had a nice sized group of 25 or so. My early plan was to get into a break after the initial attacks happened. Bill Marshall got away solo early. Then a chase group formed with some of my old teammates Craig Henwood and Cam Rex. I was interested in bridging to this group then jumping up to Bill, but the trouble was that Shadd Smith was in the group and I didn't really want to drag him up to Bill. Bob Cummings was in the group too and he's been riding really strong this year, so I was hoping we could get away together to get up to Bill.
It turns out that both Shadd and I were marked pretty heavily by the rest of the field. Shadd was putting in some little fake surges to keep the group from organizing, and I wanted to counter but if Shadd didn't immediately grab my wheel, someone else did.
We hit some new gravel sections, and Shadd really drove the pace through those. I got through behind him, but several people (including JB) ended up flatting here. It was kind of weird deep gravel with some really big chunks, but everyone seemed to ride it cleanly.
At this point Cam had jumped across to Bill and they were working well together and putting in alot of time to the group. I really wanted to get a whittled down chase group going but everyone was now looking at me or Bob to attack, so no one was really working. Coming out of Atchison, there is a medium length climb, so I punched it and Shadd was the only one that could hold the pace. Not ideal. But the gap to Bill and Cam was over 2 minutes at this point and growing, so it was the time to try to get up there. I just kept it rolling and trying to monitor the chase to see if they were closing the gap to us. In the meantime, I was closing the gap up to Bill and Cam, but not very quickly. In retrospect, I should have eased up a little out of Atchison to let some others come up with us and then spread the work out. As it was, I got to solo TT and drag Shadd in my attempt to catch up.
Anyway, I brought the gap down to about a minute with a couple of miles to go, but it was too little too late. Enough to keep them honest. So Bill won, Cam took 2nd, Shadd sprinted for 3rd, I got 4th. Lots of work for 4th, but money in the bank for CX season, where it's always that hard.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tour Of StL Weekend
Yup, it's Thursday, so i'll keep this brief:
Went to the Tour of St. Louis last weekend with Teammate Brian. We were joined on Sat by Cale and Jim from Springfield, and JB on Sunday.
Sat:
Circuit race - cold and windy. After racing in 90+ degree tempuratures at Hermann, 45 and 20+ mph winds felt really cold. Highlights of the race: I took of at the start like it was a cross race, then I realized it wasn't a cross race. Things got all goofy, and we ended up all missing out on the first split of the group. Then there were some more splits. I ended up in the 2nd chase group racing for 13th. I pulled alot and Jim got a prime and 13th. BB got the other prime. Rough, but still in the $, so I guess that was good.
TT - Had a funky cough and some really irritated eyes from allergys. Still windy, but less cold. I got all aero and rolled to 8th place out of 16. BB was my minute man, and I totally out sprinted him meters before the finish like a real teammate.
Had an excellent team dinner.
Sun:
Had an excellent team breakfast. Then went for a nice AM spin.
Crit - Pretty straightforward course, a big rectangle with some bad pavement on the backside. A bit of wind, but much warmer than the day before. I tried to get into a few good looking moves but nothing stuck. Finally Brad Huff and Joe Schmalz started racing and rode the rest of us off of their wheels. Jim lost a contact and had to sit out a lap. Last lap and all the St. Johns guys were in it. I tried to go drive the pace to setup BB - but ended up getting him all boxed in and put myself a bike length off the front. Oops. Still ended up with 9th, 13th, 14th, 19th.
Looking forward to more in a few weeks!
Went to the Tour of St. Louis last weekend with Teammate Brian. We were joined on Sat by Cale and Jim from Springfield, and JB on Sunday.
Sat:
Circuit race - cold and windy. After racing in 90+ degree tempuratures at Hermann, 45 and 20+ mph winds felt really cold. Highlights of the race: I took of at the start like it was a cross race, then I realized it wasn't a cross race. Things got all goofy, and we ended up all missing out on the first split of the group. Then there were some more splits. I ended up in the 2nd chase group racing for 13th. I pulled alot and Jim got a prime and 13th. BB got the other prime. Rough, but still in the $, so I guess that was good.
TT - Had a funky cough and some really irritated eyes from allergys. Still windy, but less cold. I got all aero and rolled to 8th place out of 16. BB was my minute man, and I totally out sprinted him meters before the finish like a real teammate.
Had an excellent team dinner.
Sun:
Had an excellent team breakfast. Then went for a nice AM spin.
Crit - Pretty straightforward course, a big rectangle with some bad pavement on the backside. A bit of wind, but much warmer than the day before. I tried to get into a few good looking moves but nothing stuck. Finally Brad Huff and Joe Schmalz started racing and rode the rest of us off of their wheels. Jim lost a contact and had to sit out a lap. Last lap and all the St. Johns guys were in it. I tried to go drive the pace to setup BB - but ended up getting him all boxed in and put myself a bike length off the front. Oops. Still ended up with 9th, 13th, 14th, 19th.
Looking forward to more in a few weeks!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tour of Hermann
Went to Hermann with The Bike Shack crew and teammate Brian. The forecast called for hot conditions (90+ degrees, with wind on Sunday) Race fans may recall the last time we ventured to Hermann, the conditions were epic. This time the weather was excellent but ended up being a factor in the RR. On to the reports:
TT:
A new TT course this year. From the profile, I could tell that the course would suit me better than last year's race, as there was now some elevation change. We got into town on Friday night in time to do early packet pickup and saw promoter Jeff Yeilding who told us to go drive the course so we knew what it was like. Once we saw the course, I was really excited to race it. There were two climbs, one 10% and another 16% that we got to climb on the way out and then again on the way back (I think they were a little less steep on the back side).Overall I felt really good on the TT, I rode a little conservatively on the way out and really had some good sensations in the legs on the way back. I ended up in 3rd overall, 13 seconds back from Justin Maciekowitz and 6 seconds behind Zach Reed.
Crit:
The criterium course is very tough. One big climb, a false flat over the top, a fun, fast descent make this one of my favorites. I was planning on just sitting in for the race and seeing what the other GC guys did, but after a couple of laps Nick Coil had countered some attacks and was off the front solo. The group did not seem terribly motivated to chase so with 8 to go I put in a soft attack at the bottom of the course to try and draw out the other GC riders to pursue Nick. No one came after me so I just went on my own. A couple of laps later I found out I was closing the gap to Nick and that Zack Reed was in chase solo. I had closed the gap to Nick to under 30 seconds, but Zach had caught up to me with 3 to go. I was getting pretty cooked at this point and Zach jumped on the climb and I didn't have the legs to chase. I stayed clear from the rest of the pack but was unable to close the gap to Nick. Zach caught Nick too and jumped him for the win. Another good race for me.
RR:
After the crit I was in 2nd on GC with 6 or 7 guys that could bump me down based on the RR. I decided to play the race very conservatively and see how it went. The tempuratures were already high by the time we started at 10:30. The first lap went pretty good, though I was a little nervous how much water I was going through. I had started with 3 bottles and had one at the feed zone each time, but that didn't end up being enough. Toward the end of the second lap I was starting to feel cramps coming on with hard efforts and after the final climb out of town I was not going very good. I tried to fake it and stick with the group as long as possible, but the writing was on the wall at that point. Each climb there was a surge that put me more into the hurt. Eventually Nick Coil and I both blew up and so we rode around very slowly the rest of the lap. We both had to stop a couple of times to get some more water and abate the cramps. We had almost made it back into town and my legs seized completely. I had to get off the bike for a minute to wait for things to calm back down to make the last couple of miles back in. We both collapsed after the finish, 40+ minutes down on the day - terribly dehydrated. Nick ended up in the hospital on the way home, but is doing fine. The Bike Shack guys took great care of me, peeling me off my bike and making me drink a ton of Gatorade and water which probably helped me from needing the hospital as well.
Overall, I still managed 4th place despite missing out on the points in the RR, so that was good. the support staff for all the races was excellent and all the courses were great. Thanks to Jeff Yielding and the whole Hermann Crew for a great race!
TT:
A new TT course this year. From the profile, I could tell that the course would suit me better than last year's race, as there was now some elevation change. We got into town on Friday night in time to do early packet pickup and saw promoter Jeff Yeilding who told us to go drive the course so we knew what it was like. Once we saw the course, I was really excited to race it. There were two climbs, one 10% and another 16% that we got to climb on the way out and then again on the way back (I think they were a little less steep on the back side).Overall I felt really good on the TT, I rode a little conservatively on the way out and really had some good sensations in the legs on the way back. I ended up in 3rd overall, 13 seconds back from Justin Maciekowitz and 6 seconds behind Zach Reed.
Crit:
The criterium course is very tough. One big climb, a false flat over the top, a fun, fast descent make this one of my favorites. I was planning on just sitting in for the race and seeing what the other GC guys did, but after a couple of laps Nick Coil had countered some attacks and was off the front solo. The group did not seem terribly motivated to chase so with 8 to go I put in a soft attack at the bottom of the course to try and draw out the other GC riders to pursue Nick. No one came after me so I just went on my own. A couple of laps later I found out I was closing the gap to Nick and that Zack Reed was in chase solo. I had closed the gap to Nick to under 30 seconds, but Zach had caught up to me with 3 to go. I was getting pretty cooked at this point and Zach jumped on the climb and I didn't have the legs to chase. I stayed clear from the rest of the pack but was unable to close the gap to Nick. Zach caught Nick too and jumped him for the win. Another good race for me.
RR:
After the crit I was in 2nd on GC with 6 or 7 guys that could bump me down based on the RR. I decided to play the race very conservatively and see how it went. The tempuratures were already high by the time we started at 10:30. The first lap went pretty good, though I was a little nervous how much water I was going through. I had started with 3 bottles and had one at the feed zone each time, but that didn't end up being enough. Toward the end of the second lap I was starting to feel cramps coming on with hard efforts and after the final climb out of town I was not going very good. I tried to fake it and stick with the group as long as possible, but the writing was on the wall at that point. Each climb there was a surge that put me more into the hurt. Eventually Nick Coil and I both blew up and so we rode around very slowly the rest of the lap. We both had to stop a couple of times to get some more water and abate the cramps. We had almost made it back into town and my legs seized completely. I had to get off the bike for a minute to wait for things to calm back down to make the last couple of miles back in. We both collapsed after the finish, 40+ minutes down on the day - terribly dehydrated. Nick ended up in the hospital on the way home, but is doing fine. The Bike Shack guys took great care of me, peeling me off my bike and making me drink a ton of Gatorade and water which probably helped me from needing the hospital as well.
Overall, I still managed 4th place despite missing out on the points in the RR, so that was good. the support staff for all the races was excellent and all the courses were great. Thanks to Jeff Yielding and the whole Hermann Crew for a great race!
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