Friday, February 8, 2013
Masters Worlds Race
No shots of me in here, but this is what the course was like for my race. I had a little bit of a slow start compounded by crashing on some ice later on lap 1 that set me back.
Monday, November 19, 2012
In case you missed it...
I think everyone has seen this by now, but if you were hiding off the grid all weekend...
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Cross Catch Up
We are in the swing of cross season, and i've been too busy to write up any race reports.
Here is a summary of what has happened:
Hermann CX. I came into the season still working to develop my high end. This showed as I was not able to go deep in this race, and nearly blew up just trying to ride with the leaders
Boss Cross 2. I was travelling the week before and came back to jump in this race. It would have been nice to be a little more prepared as it was a good race up front. I missed out by botching the sand on the first lap and ended up having to play catch up. Again, the legs just weren't there
360 Cup. Definitely rode better, definitely had a crappy start both days. Not sure where my start legs went, but they have not been doing me well. Fortunately, I was able to do negative splits for the first 6 laps on both days and get 2nd.
Cross Out Cancer. I finally had a good start and moved into the lead of the race only to immediately roll my rear tire and crash hard on the first lap to give everyone a minute on me. Then I rolled to the pit and got my Crux, then I got after it. Caught the leaders with only a little bit left to race and came out 2nd. The legs are coming back!
Here is a summary of what has happened:
Hermann CX. I came into the season still working to develop my high end. This showed as I was not able to go deep in this race, and nearly blew up just trying to ride with the leaders
Boss Cross 2. I was travelling the week before and came back to jump in this race. It would have been nice to be a little more prepared as it was a good race up front. I missed out by botching the sand on the first lap and ended up having to play catch up. Again, the legs just weren't there
360 Cup. Definitely rode better, definitely had a crappy start both days. Not sure where my start legs went, but they have not been doing me well. Fortunately, I was able to do negative splits for the first 6 laps on both days and get 2nd.
Cross Out Cancer. I finally had a good start and moved into the lead of the race only to immediately roll my rear tire and crash hard on the first lap to give everyone a minute on me. Then I rolled to the pit and got my Crux, then I got after it. Caught the leaders with only a little bit left to race and came out 2nd. The legs are coming back!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
MO State Crit
I wasn't sure about going to the MO crit. I've been pretty excited to race cross in the fall and have been working on base miles for that. Anyway, I decided pretty late (on the Sta PV ride) that it would be good to go and support the team and check out the race. I've never been to Jeff City before but almost everyone likes the crit course.
I showed up about an hour before the race, got registered and found out there were going to be about 50 guys in the race. Pretty awesome. My goal was to cover moves and support the team. The race started out at a nice quick pace, and my legs weren't too happy about that. I just tailgunned it for a few laps, then started to try and move up, but didn't make it very far. So I just sat and waited for the pace to ease up. When the first prime was called about 30 mins in, the pace did ease up on the backside, so I launched after Adam Mills and another rider going for the prime. When I got up to them we were about to get caught, so I sat near the front waiting for a counter.
There was another move immediately after, so I just followed wheels and we were clear too. This was a bigger group that continued to go over the next few laps until there were over a dozen riders. At this point people started to skip pulls and let gaps open. There was another prime, so I jumped from that group figuring it would draw a couple of others looking for cash. But nobody came with me. So I just kept riding assuming this would at least give our guys in the group rest before the sprint. I just kept it steady and stayed out for about 5 laps when I saw a small chase coming up with Austin Vinton, Justin Maciekowicz, and Josh Leibowitz. It looked like they had a pretty good gap to the field, so I sat in and took some pulls as I could. With 2 to go we still had 30 seconds and were rotating well. I tried to position myself well for the finish, and put myself on Austin's wheel, but ran out of gas up the last little rise to the finish and ended up 4th. The sprint was just behind us and teammate Jim ended up 10th. Earlier in the day, Brian Bradley won the M40+ race, so in all, it was a pretty good day for the team.
I showed up about an hour before the race, got registered and found out there were going to be about 50 guys in the race. Pretty awesome. My goal was to cover moves and support the team. The race started out at a nice quick pace, and my legs weren't too happy about that. I just tailgunned it for a few laps, then started to try and move up, but didn't make it very far. So I just sat and waited for the pace to ease up. When the first prime was called about 30 mins in, the pace did ease up on the backside, so I launched after Adam Mills and another rider going for the prime. When I got up to them we were about to get caught, so I sat near the front waiting for a counter.
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| Two great shots from Flannery Allison. |
There was another move immediately after, so I just followed wheels and we were clear too. This was a bigger group that continued to go over the next few laps until there were over a dozen riders. At this point people started to skip pulls and let gaps open. There was another prime, so I jumped from that group figuring it would draw a couple of others looking for cash. But nobody came with me. So I just kept riding assuming this would at least give our guys in the group rest before the sprint. I just kept it steady and stayed out for about 5 laps when I saw a small chase coming up with Austin Vinton, Justin Maciekowicz, and Josh Leibowitz. It looked like they had a pretty good gap to the field, so I sat in and took some pulls as I could. With 2 to go we still had 30 seconds and were rotating well. I tried to position myself well for the finish, and put myself on Austin's wheel, but ran out of gas up the last little rise to the finish and ended up 4th. The sprint was just behind us and teammate Jim ended up 10th. Earlier in the day, Brian Bradley won the M40+ race, so in all, it was a pretty good day for the team.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Colavita Cross Country Challenge
A few weeks back I did the CCCC MTB race. It was a great event. I'd not ridden the Wyandotte Lake trails prior to a few days before the race, but was impressed. The Colavita crew did a great job putting on the event and it looked like a very solid showing of racers.
As far as the actual race went, I had some issues. I didn't start well because I was apprehensive about leading the first quarter of the lap. It took about 4 laps to catch on to the leader Roger Williams, and then shortly after I crashed hard, chased hard, started cramping a bit and had to shut things down considerably to keep going the rest of the way.
The whole MTB thing is pretty darn fun. I hope to work on enough skills to be able to go hard without being in constant danger of crashing.
Ok, a few more road races this year before the real season starts!
As far as the actual race went, I had some issues. I didn't start well because I was apprehensive about leading the first quarter of the lap. It took about 4 laps to catch on to the leader Roger Williams, and then shortly after I crashed hard, chased hard, started cramping a bit and had to shut things down considerably to keep going the rest of the way.
The whole MTB thing is pretty darn fun. I hope to work on enough skills to be able to go hard without being in constant danger of crashing.
Ok, a few more road races this year before the real season starts!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
State Line RR
It has been a while since my last race. Travel for various reasons had me out of town the last couple of weeks. But I did get in a great week of riding in Portland with some great weather and fun climbs.
The State Line RR looked like a good race. It is always a bit of a gamble going to new races, as it is never certain what you will get, but the new races this year have been really good. (Salina, Tallgrass, This race). Hopefully they will be back in the future.
The cat 1/2/3 field looked good with about 25 starters. I was hoping to get in a breakaway with some others, but that ended up being a challenge. I kept trying to get into a promising move, and there were several, but the field was not willing to let me get much up the road. BB and JB rode well to keep most of the dangerous moves in check that we weren't in, but in the end, Brian West and Andrew Lyles got away, with Brian taking the win. I made it into the final chase group, but was in bad shape. We caught up to Andrew, but I exploded on the last climb with some pretty violent cramping.
That ends the heavy part of my road season. So I'm transitioning to more dirt time in preparation for CX. I'll kick start that by racing at the Colavita MTB race this weekend. I pre-rode the trail on Sunday and it looks like it will be a good time.
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| Being chased - a lot of this going on. |
The State Line RR looked like a good race. It is always a bit of a gamble going to new races, as it is never certain what you will get, but the new races this year have been really good. (Salina, Tallgrass, This race). Hopefully they will be back in the future.
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| More attacking |
The cat 1/2/3 field looked good with about 25 starters. I was hoping to get in a breakaway with some others, but that ended up being a challenge. I kept trying to get into a promising move, and there were several, but the field was not willing to let me get much up the road. BB and JB rode well to keep most of the dangerous moves in check that we weren't in, but in the end, Brian West and Andrew Lyles got away, with Brian taking the win. I made it into the final chase group, but was in bad shape. We caught up to Andrew, but I exploded on the last climb with some pretty violent cramping.
That ends the heavy part of my road season. So I'm transitioning to more dirt time in preparation for CX. I'll kick start that by racing at the Colavita MTB race this weekend. I pre-rode the trail on Sunday and it looks like it will be a good time.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
State TT & Strava
I tend to be a little slow to jump onto social media (I still don't understand Twitter). But I finally joined Strava. It is a pretty cool application that I think is a better way to view ride data than the Garmin Connect site that I had been using. The problem is now that I know these benchmarks exist, I will have a hard time not chasing them. Anyway, If you want to see my profile it is here: http://app.strava.com/athletes/612424. I've been backing up my GPS files thinking that there may be some new software tool that I would want to upload my data to, so that worked out well here.
The state TT was back on the old Walnut course. Last year there was construction on a course bridge, so we went the opposite direction and it was tough. I really enjoy this course and was looking to have a good day. My time-trialling has been kind of up and down this year. I've felt good and been able to make solo attacks work in road races and crits, but somehow things have not come together in actual time trials. My time at the Hermann TT was a bit slower than in 2011, and the only 10k TT i've done (Bruce Edwards TT) was not a good time either. But I knew this course suited me and i'd been putting in some good time on the TT bike leading into the race.
The think I like most about this course is it breaks naturally into 4 about equal segments that go in all directions, neutralizing the wind a little. I was hoping to break the 54 minute barrier, but just missed out. Here is the file from the race: http://app.strava.com/rides/10993110
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| At the turnaround |
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