Puget Power

"Great kid! Don't get cocky..." More East Coast Bike Racing and Tactical Mistakes at the Kissena Fall Classic

2011-09-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, I'm in Tobago! It looks like this:

I'll have some updates on the races here shortly. Until then, here's something I wrote on the plane.

I've been talking a lot lately about racing tactics and the mistakes that have been made this year. I don't know if the quality of racing has gone down or I'm just becoming a grumpy old man, but it seems to come up a bit here (and will come up more in some posts I haven't published yet). However, I definitey make my fair share of mistakes and a few weekends ago I totally botched up a race I did in New York. I'm not perfect and I make my fair share of tactical mistakes in races so here's a story about messing things up, hopefully we all can learn something.

The Kissena Fall Classic was a 45-mile circuit race in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, which is a 3.5-mi rolling circuit with one 1-minute big ring hill. It started at the ungodly hour of 6:30 in the morning, so I was barely awake when the gun went off and some dude attacked right away. The field was small but people were attacking so his gap wasn't very big at first. Another guy bridged across on the second lap but for the most part there was a lot of Frandy Schleck racing going on - guys would ride hard for 5 seconds and then look around instead of actually attacking and committing to moves. Once I realized the race was going to go down like that, and seeing that the two guys up the road were starting to get away, I realized I was going to have to just attack until I got off the front to avoid getting stuck behind with a bunch of guys who wouldn't work.

So I attacked right at the end of the third lap, on a false flat section before the "climb" and bridged across. Some other guy sat on me the whole way across, telling me in broken english he had a teammate up the road. I didn't really like towing somebody across, especially someone who already had a teammate up the road, but I didn't have much of a choice as I figured if I sat up and went back to the field I wouldn't have any better chance of making it to the break again without the teammate.

When we got across to the break everybody was working well together, and I worked hard for a few laps to help establish the gap before dialing it back a notch to assess the situation. The name stickers on the two teammates' bikes' had Costa Rican flags and they were both pretty strong. The one who had sat on me when I went across seemed stronger than the one who was already there, but they were both taking hard, fast pulls, even on the downhill sections which meant that they had to be pretty fast since they weren't big guys. The fourth guy seemed to be in over his head and working really hard.

Over the next few laps I tried to work as little as possible without upsetting the break. I kept my pulls short and timed it so that I was pulling on the slower sections of the course, and put in some hard pulls on the hill to see if I could put a little bit of hurt on the other guys. Coming into the last few laps I figured my best shot was to attack with 1 or 2 laps to go and try to get away with one of the teammates. I didn't want to wait for the sprint because the Costa Ricans were making very fast accelerations and seemed like they would good sprinters, and I didn't want to wait for them to start attacking because they had a numerical advantage and I didn't want to get caught out chaisng one of them and then counter-attacked.

The CR guy that had attacked from the gun seemed to be fading a bit, and a few of the times I pulled on the hill he was getting gapped off at the back, so I figured if I hit it hard enough on the hill I could drop him. I hit it on the hill the last time up, but over the top the guy I thought was weak countered and got a gap. Dang, I guess he was faking it earlier... fooled me! The fourth guy had been dropped and the other CR guy was just sitting on my wheel. I couldn't close down the gap before the road went down and we picked up speed, so I just waited for the fourth guy and then we worked together to bring the gap down to 10sec with a few k to go. Then the fourth guy jumped us and got halfway across the gap, so I was really screwed. I rolled along for a while waiting for the inevitable attack from the other CR guy and tried to go with it. He hit it HARD, though, and I couldn't follow. So I ended up 4th out of a break of 4, which is basically like getting dead last. Shameful!

I would have been better off just waiting for the sprint, but with a race that short you never really know how everyone rides until the chips are down in the finale. I definitely seriously understimated the Costa Ricans; they turned out to be WAY stronger than I thought. Which, for them, is a card well-played since you always want to make it look like you are weaker than you are in a breakaway.

So that's my story. Even when you're a tactical GENIUS like me (ha ha) you can screw things up pretty badly. It also just goes to show how much of good performances has to be chalked up to getting lucky, despite our tendancy to pat ourselves on the back for tactical nous or unbeatable legs. When I won the Rist Canyon RR I got really lucky because nobody really knew who I was or considered me that big of a threat; if they had I definitely wouldn't have been given nearly enough leash. You win some and you lose some, and in either case you have to look at what you did, what you can do better, and try not to get too big of a head when you do well because it can obstruct your vision of what actually happened in the race and your ability to learn from it.

Mt. Greylock HC TT

2011-09-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Just ran across this picture from the Mt. Greylock Hillclimb Time Trial, which I won last week:
I was kickin it in and rolled up on this guy and he started sprinting me... relax bro it's a TT! No need to sprint! I thought about explaining how I started 10.5 minutes behind him so I was going to have a faster time regardless of who won the sprint, but I was a little out of breath at the time (as you can see from the Garmin Connect data below).

It was a pretty low key but a great little event run by the Northampton Cycling Club. Mt. Greylock is the highest point in Massachusetts and it is quite the climb, I definitely recommend it if you're in the area. It's 9.1 miles long with an average grade of only 6%, but the grade is super variable so there are many pitches between 15-20% sustained, alternating with flatter portions which makes it very difficult to hold a steady tempo. I was happy to get a win against some fast guys after a lackluster GMSR the week before (more on that later).

Here's my Garmin Connect data (unfortunately I didn't have power data since my SRM battery is dead and I wanted to ride the Cole Ventoux race wheels since they are sick light):

Rist Canyon Road Race

2011-08-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

Well, this is out of order since I'm WAY behind, but I wanted to write about the Rist Canyon RR today while it's fresh in my mind. Plus I'm not too cool to admit I feel happy of myself when I manage a good result (if you don't... you should probably try doing something else) and writing about racing is a lot easier when you feel happy of yourself.

The race went like this: attack, attack, attack, sprint, win. Keep reading if you look for more detail in a race report.

I came out here to Colorado for the Fort Collins Cycling Fest because my (pregnant) sister lives in FoCo so it was a good opportunity to do some bike racing and visit her and my bro-in-law before the baby comes along and ruins everything. Just kidding, babies are awesome.

Post-race with my preggers sister. Even in comparison to a pregnant lady, my head looks huge.

Plus, this is the time of year when I run up credit card debt to fly planes and drive my car all over god's green acres in order to do as much bike racing as I possibly can before that terrible time of year when there is no road racing to be found anywhere in the Northern hemisphere. Also kidding, I've never run credit card debt. Not kidding about the flying/driving part.

Sidenote: on my way out here I did the Mt. Spokane Hillclimb in Spokane (duh) WA. It was a mass-start hillclimb up the 10mi/3500ft climb which was pretty shallow at the bottom and then real steep for the last six miles. I'm happy to report that E WA road racing is alive and well, and it was great to race over there. Mike Sirott from Spokane Rocket Velo put on a great series this year with a bunch of awesome road races and I wish I'd had a chance to race over there earlier in the year. It would be pretty cool if we could figure out some way to have some races in locations more convenient for both E and W WA racers to attend - I think both communities would benefit from more diverse competition and some new courses. Anyway, as far as the race itself, despite a bunch of great work by my new teammate Gabe in the first four miles of the race, I couldn't seal the deal and finished 2nd.

Back to today. Or actually yesterday, when I started the weekend of racing with the FCCF Crit here in FoCo, which was the Colorado State Crit Championships. Seventy minutes on a nice wide 8-corner course. I did my usual crit thing, which is attacking a lot but never really at the right time or with the right people and coming up short at the end. For some reason there were approximately 500 crashes in the last 5 laps (even though the course should have been really safe) so after a few digs to try to jump across to moves up the road, I shut it down and didn't mix it up in the Sketchy McCrashypants sprint for 4th place.

Ok back to today, for real. On tap was a (relatively) short 66-mile road race with a bunch (6,000ft) of climbing:

The opening 10-mile climb up Rist Canyon is one tough mother of a climb. I did it a few times in training last week and found it to be really hard. It starts out easy enough, with about 4 miles of gradual gradient, but then keeps getting steeper and steeper as you go up. So you hit the steepest pitches at the highest altitude, 8,000ft at the top (i.e. where it is the hardest to breathe, at least for this lowlander). Even though I've been climbing pretty well this season, I was honestly afraid of getting dropped on the climb; I hadn't done any altitude riding since Cascade and was going pretty slow up the climb in training. So I figured I'd go in the early move to make it over the climb without dealing with the accelerations in the pack, and jumped on my buddy Dan Harm's wheel when he countered off a move about six miles into the race. We bridged up to the two guys up the road and the four of us had three minutes on the field halfway up the climb, as the pack sat up behind and let us build a gap.

Getting a feed from my sis. Luckily the baby didn't get in the way.

Good thing she practiced

Somebody started riding hard behind as the gap fell towards the top, but we just kept it steady and even to keep the break rolling over the top of the climb and the next 20 miles of descending and gradual downhill. We were working well together but around mile 40 it looked like we were getting caught by a group of ~10, which was what was left of the field at the time.

I had also ridden the last 20 miles in training and knew we had one gradual ~seven minute hill and five pretty steep ~two minute hills, with a little bit of descending in between each, before a flat run-in to the finish. We were on the seven minute hill when it was obvious we were going to be caught - there was a bit of a tailwind so I attacked the move right before we were caught and got off solo. I wanted a few guys to come with me but that didn't happen so I just rolled it steady hard and took advantage of the tailwind to ride my own sustainable pace off the front. I made it over the first two two-minute climbs solo, then halfway up the third saw the Trek-LS and Cal Giant guys coming across. They caught me over the top of the climb and I sat on for the descent and next climb to recover a bit, then started pulling through before we hit the last climb.

The Cal Giant guy was pretty frisky and put in an attack over the top of the last kicker and then again on the flat part after the last descent, but we were heading back into town and into a headwind, so we brought him back. I told him we didn't have enough of a gap to mess around that far from the finish, so we all rolled through a bit more. The Trek-LS guy was looking pretty tired - I figured we could drop him with some more attacking and waited until we were back on a faster section, then attacked after he took a turn on the front. It worked and it was down to just me and the Cal Giant guy, but the Trek-LS guy was only 5sec back so we still had to ride pretty hard the whole last 3k. With 1k to go the Cal Giant guy started sitting on as we entered the finishing circuit, which was the crit course backwards. I didn't want the Trek-LS guy catching back on so I just drilled it and hoped I could do a good sprint anyway. I thought we were going to do a whole lap of the crit course, but after just two turns the corner marshals in the next turn were waving us back onto the finishing straight. It was going to be a super short sprint so I lucked out and leading it out of the last corner was actually the way to go. Here's a video of how it went down - this one is better quality than the one I posted before:

Rist Canyon Road Race 2011 P/1/2 Finish Sprint from Lang Reynolds on Vimeo.

And here's some newspaper coverage of the race. Yeah, I'm ok with getting buried underneath the women's race... the winner was only bazillion-time world/national/galactic evergreen champion Jeannie Longo.

Nobody wanted to stand on the podium with me :(. Not even the podium girls. Whose job it is to stand on podiums :( :( :( (They were too busy getting chatted up by the D_Harm). Oh well.

Save Steve Fisher!

2011-08-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

Please sign this important petition ------------------------------------------->>>>
To save my teammate Steve Fisher from himself and the silent killer known as cyclocross, in order to better prepare for his true calling of road racing in the 2012 season.

2011-08-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along I-90, driving home from a bike race:

Colin Gibson and I during a stretch break on the drive back from ye old Elkhorn Classic, captured by Chris Wingfield. Race recap coming soon.

May Recap: Carnation TT, GOLAZO!!!, Wenatchee Omnium, Enumclaw Stage Race

2011-07-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

There wasn't too much racing in May so this'll be pretty brief (hopefully). I'll toss in some Garmin Connect files to spice it up a bit. I know what you're thinking: YES, Garmin Connect files... SO SPICY.

Anyway, after driving back from Colorado and getting in at midnight, I got up the next day and did the Carnation Time Trial Series #2, the "Hill Race." I didn't set an alarm and figured if I woke up in time (~6:30) I would go to the race and if I slept in I wouldn't. I woke up at 6:00 and was immediately wide awake despite having driven 18hrs and not sleeping much over the previous two days. I tried to talk myself out of going to the race. Really, I did. But I wasn't getting back to sleep so I figured I might was well go race my bike. What can I say... I like bike racing.

Carnation TT #2 Profile:
Nobody showed up because it was raining, so the only other competitors were Mensher (who flatted out) my teammate Colin (who was sick) and some dude on a road bike (um... really? a road bike?). So I ended up winning, which is always fun, but I wouldn't pretend it was anything more than it was, i.e. a nice hard 30+ minute workout on the TT bike.

Garmin Connect Data (TT is Lap 3):

On the plus side, I was introduced to a can of wonder called Golazo at this race, and it's amazing stuff. It's an energy drink that actually tastes good. Technically it's only for soccer fans, but I've found it compatible with my life as a bikelist. And when I say good I mean DELICIOUS. I won a case of it at the race and I've been drinking 5-6 every day. Time to get more. And no, I didn't get any free Golazo to say that. Although hopefully I will once they see this blog post.
The following weekend I posse'd up with Colin again and headed over to Jake Macarthur's hometown of Wenatchee for the Wenatchee Omnium Stage Race. Our hopes of dry Eastern Washington weather were once again dashed by more rain. Rain in the TT, pouring rain in the crit, and pouring rain in the RR. The road race is one of my favorites in the WSBA season because the course is not flat, with 4 trips up Joe Miller Road, a climb of 4 miles at an average of 6% and max ~15% (steep as!) gradient. Because the course is not pancake flat, very few WSBA bike racers show up to race and the field was primarily Canadians. It's pretty lame that more WA racers don't show up as it's not that far of a drive and the course isn't really THAT hard. If more people showed up a larger field would mitigate a lot of the course's difficulty because there is actually a lot of flat ground and groups would come back together.

Anyway, highlights from the start of the race included Colin getting in the early break, and seeing one of the Canadians roll up with just short sleeves and a shorts despite the 50 degree pouring rain. Come on dude, it's 50 degree rain, not 70 degree rain. Pretty sure he wasn't there after the first lap. Anyway, anyway, Colin got in the early break with a Canadian and Mensher, which allowed me to sit in and relax for a bit. The first time up the climb was hard but not unbearable, and then the second time we took it pretty easy. By the end of the second lap I was really cold, despite wearing a lot of clothing, and wishing I had been in the break so I could keep warm. And also hoping we would go hard that time up the climb so I could warm up. I didn't have anything to worry about as we went up the third climb super fast. Lots of guys were getting shelled and I was just hanging on until Sam countered an attack from Davis Sheppard which I couldn't follow. At this point the pack was down to only 5 guys or so and I chased the rest of that lap with Jason Thompson from Garneau (with whom Colin and I were temporary roommates at our host house for the weekend... funny how racing works out that way sometimes).

We picked up Colin at the top of the climb and he drove it all the way down to the base of the last climb (thanks bru!), where we caught Davis and Mensher. Jason and I kept the pressure up on the climb, dropping those guys and catching a couple more guys up the road. Over the top of the climb there were only 2 or 3 guys ahead of us so we started motoring down the descent, which was shrouded with fog that time. Then, somehow, I got dropped on the descent. I'm not really sure how it happened because I was cornering fine and it happened on the long straight section. I just spaced out for a second and a little gap opened up. Despite pedaling my 54x11 as hard as I could, I could not close it down and it got bigger and bigger. I'm going to blame my lack of weight and parachute-like rain jacket... but I probably just need a bigger gear.

When we got off the descent we faced ~8-miles of flat, tailwind riding to the finish. I rode hard for the first 5 miles in an effort to catch Jason, but he was taking 5 seconds out of me every mile or so and it was clear I wasn't going to catch him despite my best efforts. I was feeling pretty Le Tired by this point and when I looked back I couldn't see anyone so with 5k to go I shut it down and started rolling in nice and easy. About 1k before the finish line I looked back and saw Mensher closing on me pretty fast, so I pedaled a little bit for the last K and luckily held on for 5th. I don't usually get lazy like that in races but since it was an Omnium, finish time didn't matter, and after giving it a full stick effort to catch Jason and only losing time on him, I was lacking motivation and couldn't really be bothered to keep riding hard.

Wenatchee Omnium Road Race Garmin Connect:

After Wenatchee I drove straight to Cali to help out Rhae Shaw at the Tour of California Women's TT, which was a pretty cool event. The best part of the trip, aside from Rhae Shaw kicking some ass, was finding my power animal:

Her name is Coco.

Then I jetted back to WA for the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race, which was part of my buildup for the Mt. Hood Classic. MOE, as it's sometimes called around here, is yet another stage race with a short TT, crit and not-very-difficult RR. I'd like to see them put the finish of the RR back on top of the hill, but that's just me. I did a mid-pack TT and finished with the pack in the Crit. In the RR I was having a pretty good race, mixing it up with attacks as we were trying to get a move going off the front to put pressure on the GC leader from Exergy. We attacked what felt like a million times, and despite getting Kennett off the front for a solid two laps, nothing rolled that put too much pressure on the GC leader or his team and in typical NW fashion plenty of other teams were happy to do the GC leader's work for him. The race came to the line in one group, which my teammate Ian Crane won. I'd like to say I helped set him up, but I had a mechanical on the 6th climb, and just rolled it in for the last two laps.

BAM! Nice work Ian.

And that was May. Oh yeah, I also did a Seward Thursday Night and got this sweet injury:
Some guy fell over and I fell on top of his chainring at about 5mph. Just a flesh wound, which turned into an awesome scar. Getting asked about it every 5 min = not awesome, however.

Next up: June racing...

Out with the old, in with the new

2011-06-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

Real post coming soon, but I just realized it's been quite a while since I've updated my "teammates blogs" section. Adrian and Sam are no longer my teammates (tear). Ian, Steve and Colin have been my teammates for a few years now, but they've all recently made the jump to racing with the Elite team so I can actually acknowledge their existence now and talk with/to/about them. Fortunately they are almost as good at blogging as they are at riding their bikes, which is to say that their blogs are awe-SOME!

Check out my updated "Teammates' Blogs" section to the right --->

Ian Crane
http://craneimal.blogspot.com/

Steve Fisher
http://fishersteve.blogspot.com/

Colin Gibson
http://bubblewrapbartape.blogspot.com/

You heard it here first: Rhae Shaw is faster than fast

2011-06-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Ok I meant to write this post way back in February, so chances are you've already heard it from somewhere else, maybe someplace like Podium Insight, but it was in my mind first so I'm still taking credit: my girlfriend Rhae Shaw is FAST.

I tried for YEARS to convince her to switch to road racing from triathlon, where she would routinely destroy the bike leg, beating pro's when she was an amateur and humiliating dudes who thought they were all that and a bag of compression socks. Of course, she didn't listen to me. Then randomly one cold rainy day last winter some homeless caveman dude saw her riding on Lake Washington Boulevard and said "hey, you look really fast. Have you ever thought about bike racing?" To which she responded "hey, you know what? That is a really great idea! I think I will!"

So she decided to switch to bike racing full time and give it a go. And go she did! She had great rides in Cali at Madera, SDSR and Redlands and then followed that up with some more smashing at Sea Otter and Tour of the Gila, which earned her an invite to the Women's TT at the Amgen Tour of California in Solvang. Not to mention winning the volunteer park crit and finishing the cold, wet 90-mile Olympic View Road Race ahead of most the P/1/2 men in the race.

Then after a stellar 4th place overall and 3x 4th place stage finishes at the Mount Hood Cycling Classic she focused on the Candian National Championships in Burlington, Ontario (wait is that a state or a city?) and took home the Bronze in the TT, just 1 second off of Silver! Pretty darn awesome if I say so myself. Bike racing is different than triathlon, so there have been a lot of learning experiences but all in all she is really doing well in her first year of racing big races. It's a lot of fun to watch. I'd like to take credit for all of her success but since she a) doesn't listen to me and b) is already relatively faster than I am, I pretty much just watch her kick ass and trick her into riding harder with fake promises of cheese tours at the end of a hard race.

In fact, she is so fast she has to wear a helmet at all times to avoid TBI:

Rhae Shaw demonstrating proper safe toof brushing

Here at Cycle University, we take safety VERY seriously.

This is a picture of a typical training ride. We count down intervals using fingers. It's a good method because we never have to do more than 10 intervals:

Rhae Shaw demonstrating proper interval counting methodology. Today we do 8 intervals.

Ok but seriously, here are some pictures of her kicking some ass:

Rhae Shaw on the podium at the Canadian National TT Champs! Bam!

Rhae Shaw in full flight at the Canadian National TT Championships

Rhae Shaw crushing it at the Tour of California Women's Time Trial

Rhae Shaw on a training ride outside Santa Fe, NM

Rhae Shaw getting in a little extra training (note cape)

Rhae Shaw and her better half

aka me

April Recap: Tour of Walla Walla, Tour of the Gila... and some local racing

2011-06-24T09:55:00.001-07:00

Well, it's high time I update this thing with some actual racing. When I last wrote, I was just getting back from California, where I had a couple of terrible rides at the San Dimas Stage Race and Redlands Classic. I headed back home with a new car:

(FRESH new V70)

for some R&R and a bit of local racing at the Volunteer Park Crit and Olympic View Road Race. It was a rather forgettable weekend for me personally, as I missed the breaks and spent the days playing the "teammate up the road" game (my least favorite game in bike racing). Last year I won the OVRR, but this year was a 4-hr slog in pouring rain (after I missed the break) and meditation on how much luck and teammates has to do with winning bike races, unless you are way way stronger than everybody else (which I am not).

Volunteer Park Crit

The following weekend we headed over to Eastern Washington for the Tour of Walla Walla and hopes of sunshine, which were of course dashed with more rain on the very first stage (causing a huge crash 5 seconds into the race). This year's ToWW was marked by lots of baffling tactical errors (which I hope to write about in detail soon), some by us, some by other teams, which left a bad taste in my mouth. The strongest guy in the race (Jamie) definitely won, however, and you can't take anything away from that. We went out on a high note with a great race on the last day, attacking the S out of that S with Dan B. and Chris P. taking 1st and 2nd on the stage.

Tour of Walla Walla TT

Here I am taking a bottle handup from the FRESH new team car during the stage 4 Kellog Hollow Road Race at Tour of Walla Walla

After the ToWW I drove to New Mexico via California to pick up Rhae and head down to the Tour of the Gila. Avid Puget Power readers will remember my last assualt on Gila, when I did the Cat 2 race in 2006 which ended terribly... so actually I'd prefer if you didn't remember it. I flatted in the first inch of the Time Trial and lost 5 minutes, and then got destroyed by the altitude the next day on the final climb of the first road race. A certain Tejay Van Garderen went on to win the race, and despite having better days on the later stages, I finished the race pretty far back.

While I set the bar for myself pretty low, this year I wanted to do more than just "improve." Gila was not originally on the team calendar, but there were a few of us who really wanted to do it (mostly Kennett, but also Dan B. and ChrisP) and we managed to talk Joe into letting us go. Climbing stage races are what I really enjoy and the more I can do, the better. Plus Gila is just an awesome race, and the scenery and landscape are incredible. For Seattleites, Gila is a tough race due to the high altitude and warmer temperatures. The host city of Silver City sits at an elevation of 6000 ft and all of the racing happens above 5000 ft, with peak altitudes around 7500. In order to acclimate, Rhae and I spent a week in Santa Fe, which is one of my favorite spots to ride in the US. Not much traffic, generally favorible weather (when it's not snowing), and plenty of desolate mountain roads:

Typical Santa Fe-area Road

Gettin' my GTL on in the SF

The race itself went better than I expected. The first stage was pretty easy until we hit the crosswinds with about 20 miles to go and the field shredded into multiple echelons. I didn't make the front group and found myself chasing with some other guys. Echelons can get a little crazy sometimes and unfortunately I watched my roommate from the Tour of Southland last year, Kevin Nicol, take a nasty fall right in front of me after crossing wheels with another former teammate, Sean Passage, who luckily stayed up and didn't fall. I learned later that Kevin sustained a broken hip - hope you've healed up buddy!

Local NM fare - Green Chile Enchiladas!

Luckily the race came back together and I started the final climb in the front group. The final climb is a stair-step climb, with an initial steep section, followed by a mile of crosswind flat across a mesa, and then the final 3-miles straight uphill. I knew from the racing it before that you had to get up the first section as far forward as possible because the groups would separate further going across the mesa. So when things started heating up on the first section I dug as deep as possible and was the very last guy to make the front group onto the mesa. I was happy to see Chris P there as well, and when we hit the final climbing section I dug deep again, passed some guys and finished 32nd or so, happy to be more or less in the mix.

The second stage Inner Loop Road Race was another 80-mile juant with plenty of climbing. The very first attack went before we even had a chance to hit out, and it stuck as the main break of the day, so we just sat in and then tried to get up front at the end for the sprint. We didn't really do a good job of that and got a bit gapped off in the final 1km, but the pack was pretty much altogether, so we only lost a few seconds.

The third stage was the Tyrone Time Trial, which I'd rather forget as I had a pretty bad ride, despite giving it everything I had. At least I look fast, right?

The crit was similarly uneventful, with the exception of some excitement at the finish due to the officials giving us "1 lap to go" with 2 laps to go, and then giving us the bell again the next lap around. Some guys sprinted twice, and were pretty angry about it. Wah wah wah.

The final day's Gila Monster RR is notorious for being one of the hardest climbing races in the US, and it definitely lived up to its reputation. The Cat 2's do a kiddie version of this stage, so while I'd done parts of the course before, I hadn't done the two huge climbs in the middle of the stage that usually split the race for good. At this point I was in the 40s or so on GC, so I didn't really have anything to defend. Based on the first stage, I knew there were at least 30 other guys who could climb better than I could in the race. I don't race for 30-40th place so I figured the best shot at a good result was getting up the road. Kennett and Dan were thinking similarly, so we asked our wise PRO former teammate Sam Johnson (who was in the break on the Gila Monster a couple of years ago) how to get in the break. He told us what he did that year was just attack from the gun and keep riding hard until you are in the break. Ok. Simple. We know how to do that.

We lined up at the front and stuck to the neutral car's bumper like glue until the flag went down and then hit out. Unfortunately, it seemed like many other people had the same plan, and despite repeated attacking, none of us could get off the front in a move that lasted more than 30 seconds or so. We were going pretty hard attacking to get up the road and then all of a sudden we took a left turn and BAM, the race went in the gutter. We were on the first climb of the day, but with a cross-tailwind it turned into a cross-tailwind climbing gutterfest. This is a pretty rare occurance but let me tell you it's painful. Not only do you have the normal pain of a crosswind guttering, riding on the last possible centimeter of road before it chops off and turns into dirt and cacti, looking up at the last minute to swerve around rocks and potholes that guys are definitely NOT pointing out because they can't even see straight, but you also have a gradual incline just to make things that much harder. Peeking up the road when possible I could see gaps opening up as guys got shelled so I put in a few big efforts to get as far forward as possible before hunkering down again on the white line and trying to get as much of a draft as possible from the guy in front who is also riding RIGHT on the white line.

Finally we passed the first KOM line of the day and the race settled down a bit as we hit the descent. Phew. I relaxed a bit on the descent and forced some food and drink down to compensate for what I'd burned going all-out for the last hour. We took a couple of left turns onto the valley road at the bottom of the descent and then BAM it was back in the gutter. GODDAMNIT! DIDN'T I JUST LEAVE THIS PARTY??!!

Crosswind Guttertime, Typical Gila Riding

I had relaxed a little too much before the turns, found myself once again caught out, and spent the next 20 minutes in a big group about 30 seconds behind the pack. Eventually we closed it down, but it took way too long. I tried not to think about the fact that the hardest parts of the race were still coming up, and concentrated on getting down as much food and water as possible while sitting out of the wind in the pack.

After what seemed like just 10 minutes of recovery, we hit the first big 10-mile climb of the day. Luckily it was a bit of a headwind and by this time the break had gone, so Real Cyclist was setting tempo and it wasn't too difficult to sit in. It was hard, I definitely had to dig deep in the red to stay there, but luckily it wasn't a total shootout like it would have been if the break still hadn't been established. Guys were getting shelled and the group was down to only 50 or so by the time we hit the top and started the descent into the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Holy cow that is one gnarly descent. Nothing like going as hard as you can on a climb and then railing a descent while you're still cross-eyed from exertion.

Coming out of the Cliff Dwellings we faced the big climb once again, this time steeper and longer. The race blew up at the bottom of this climb as Francisco Mancebo decided he'd had enough of the games and laid down the law himself. I went as hard as I could but it turned out that wasn't as hard as I needed to. By that time we had already been racing hard for almost three hours, and I had already done almost 2500kj of work, which is 500 more than I normally expend in a complete typical race in WA. I was dropped early and did the rest of the climb at my own tempo. Eventually I found a group, including Sean and Sam, and we worked well together all the way up the climb. Right at the top, Sam's DS came up and told him he had to ride harder as he was their third man on the road and they needed him to get a good result for Exergy in the Team GC competition. So Sam punched it over the top. At the time I didn't know the Team GC part of it, so when he punched it I yelled at him so we could keep the group together, figuring we'd be faster together on the descent anyway.

Of course a small group of cracked and broken wannabe climbers is not faster than Sam Johnson on a descent, and he managed to blitz down it and bridge up to the next group on the road. That wasn't the first time I didn't go with Sam when I could have over the top of a climb, and I'm still kicking myself for it... just like that other time.

From there to the finish it was pretty much just a 40-mile group ride as we continued to pick up riders, including strong guys like Jamey Driscoll and Danny Summerhill, all the while rotating through-and-off to keep the speed up. At that point I just wanted to get done so I rode hard on the climbs and tried to keep all the guys working, which was harder than you would think when you're already off the back. Come on guys... this is not a breakaway.

We ended up 15 minutes down on Francisco Mancebo, which is pretty astonising considering we were still riding hard all the way in. I was ~40s on the day and Top 30 overall, which was a pretty good improvement over BOP in the Cat 2 race. Like I said I wasn't there to get "most improved" but all in all I was happy with the race. That's my best NRC GC result to date and despite making a few tactical errors I gave everything I had when I could and raced as hard as possible. I've settled the score with the Gila... but I'm not exactly satisfied. The more steps of the ladder I climb, the more come into view above me that I want to climb.

After Gila, Rhae and I drove home via Colorado for some R&R at my Sister's place in FoCo. The best part about chillin with my Sis and Bro-and-law? Hanging out with their dog Chukai, a.k.a. the illest dog ever. Here he is playing pattycakes with @RhaceDayRhae:

Which way to Colorado?

When I'm planning racing trips, sometimes I don't fully internalize how long these drives take, or just how big the US is. As it turns out, these United States are incredibly vast. We put over 3,000 miles on the car in who knows how many hours of driving. All that driving was tiring, but you see so much desolate beauty it's just about worth it:

The Southwest Airlines Personality Test

2011-06-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

THEPersonality Test

Ever since I started riding for the Hagens Berman Elite Cycling Team, I've taken a lot of flights on Southwest Airlines. We fly Southwest all the time because our manager The Joe Holmes accidentally set his browser homepage to Southwest.com a few years ago and can't figure out how to change it or navigate to other travel sites. Just kidding, it's really because Southwest has relatively inexpensive flights and until Frontier Airlines announced bikes could fly for free, Southwest had the cheapest bike fees of any airline ($50 compared to the ridiculous $175+ of Delta, United, Continental, etc.).

If you've never flown Southwest, they have an interesting boarding procedure called "open seating." Instead of getting a ticket with a seat number on it, you get a ticket with a "boarding position" number on it. These numbers are ordered in three groups (A, B and C) of 60 people each. What number you get depends on when you check in for your flight, which you can do starting exactly 24 hours before your scheduled departure. When the gate attendants are ready to start boarding, they call you up by group and you line up according to your boarding position next to a series of pillars in the boarding area which are marked 1-5, 6-10, etc. Then you get on the plane and you can take any open seat you want.

In the early stages of boarding things are normal enough - people grab window seats or aisle seats according to their preference, and the plane gradually fills up from front to back. Most people, it seems, prefer a faster exit after landing to smelling the lavatories the whole flight. As the plane fills up some fun things happen. Some people put their bag in the middle seat to scare off a potential neighbor. People crane their necks to look nervously towards the back of the plane to see if there are open "good" seats further back.

Last year my then-teammate Sam Johnson and I noticed that the whole process amounts to a de facto personality test. So if you're wondering if that guy/girl you've gone out with a couple times is going to be worth your trouble to keep dating, instead of taking them on more dates you can save yourself a bunch of time and take them on a Southwest flight somewhere nice (such as Reno, NV) and figure out who they really are under the pressure of the crucible that is the Southwest Airlines Personality Test (SWAPT).

The SWAPT really begins way before you get on the plane or even before you get to the airport: it starts with checking in ahead of time and getting a good boarding position number. Southwest basically admits this whole process is a personality test by labeling the groups according to personality types. The first group is "A," as in Type A: "I set an alarm to go off at 7:59AM the day before an 8:00AM flight so I have a shot at A1." As long as you check in relatively soon once the 24hr window opens you'll get an A Group boarding pass. Group B is for Type B people: "oh no, I totally spaced out on printing my boarding pass because I was busy watching YouTube videos of kittens all day! Well, I still remembered to print my boarding pass later in the day, but shoot... now I have a B Group number. It's no big deal, though, because I am Type B so I don't get stressed out about stuff and I won't be bothered by getting a second choice seat somewhere near the back of the plane."

Group C is for another personality type called "failures" who can't be bothered to print a boarding pass in advance at all, and don't get a boarding position assigned until they get to the airport. "Oh no! I didn't even know what airline I was on because I was re-building my bike all day yesterday and now I have to call The Joe Holmes from the airport 5 minutes before my flight is supposed to leave!" They'll be getting a middle seat for sure.

The next part of the SWAPT occurs when they start the staging process for boarding. This is kind of like staging for a crit - you want to get a good spot near the front. But it's not a total free for all because you are supposed to line up according to your number. Of course there are always some cheaters who try to line up in front of their number. So what kind of person are you? Do you follow the rules and go straight to where you should be (i.e. are you Canadian?) Or do you try to fudge forward a couple of numbers? If you get caught do you play dumb or fess up? If you see someone else cheating (more egregiously than you are cheating) do you call them out on it or let it slide?

Then once you get on the plane, your choices are equally revealing. If you have your choice of any seat, do you take the window or the aisle? Are you content chilling in your own space by the window, at the mercey of your aisle-mates as to when you can get up to stretch your legs, or do you prefer the CONTROL of sitting in the aisle seat, deciding just when people can get out to use the bathroom?

Are you an optimizer or a satisficer? As the plane fills up, do you grab a sub-optimal seat at the front or hope for a preferred seat towards the back of the plane? Exactly how bad does the situation up front have to be before you make the leap to try the back of the plane? If you roll the dice on a better seat towards the back of the plane, and once you get back there you don't actually find a good seat, do you go back to the front and take a middle seat up there? Is a middle seat in the front any better than a middle seat in the back? To what extent are you concerned with seat choice? How fast do you make decisions? Are you even aware you are making a decision?

So many choices! It's just sitting down on an airplane! It can't be that complicated! Well, for some people it is, and some it isn't. That's how you can tell everything you need to know about someone after just a short trip on Southwest Airlines. And if you've made it all the way to the end of this post, I suppose you now know just about everything you need to know about my personality too.

How To Make Someone Else's House Your Home

2011-06-08T22:29:00.001-07:00

(Edit: Blogger is messed up right now and I can't put the pictures where they should be in this post... just imagine them where the labels are below)

One of the fun things about bike racing is that we often stay in host housing when we're on the road: generous people in the race community open their homes to us so that our team can afford to travel to more races instead of spending our entire budget on a week of hotels in, say, Redlands. The great part about host housing is you get to meet a lot of really interesting people, and it's much more comfortable and less stressful than staying in a hotel. However, because you are staying in someone else's house, some things are sometimes not exactly how you like them... Now, I'm not particular but there are some things I prefer to happen certain ways and over the years I've developed some strategies for making homestay experiences as comfortable as possible. Here's what I've learned:

The race really starts well before the bike racing: the race to get the best room in the house. Like all important races, this race is against your teammates and you have to make sure you beat them. Get in the host house FIRST and grab the best room put your bag on the bed and immediately set off a clothes bomb to mark your territory. The ideal room is on the ground floor with a real bed, functional curtains, no cats, fully soundproofed and has zero room for any of your teammates. In Hood River, Ian and Colin got to the host house first and snaked the best bedroom - our house had LOTS of stairs (see below) and I got stuck on the top floor. By the last day of a 4-day stage race, all those stairs really take their toll. Well, who am I kidding... those stairs destroyed me the very first time up (I did a pretty hard core taper for Hood).

Picture of Endless Stairs

Scope out your room and make "modifications" as necessary. Personally, I have a hard time sleeping when there is light in the room. Lots of rooms I've stayed in this year didn't have any curtains so most of the time I fashion curtains out of... whatever is laying around. At Hood I used a snuggie (with our host's permission, of course):

Picture of Snuggie curtain

Sometimes a snuggie curtain isn't quite enough to make things dark - in that case I add in a little blanket fort action:

Picture of blanket fort

Next up you get your electronic devices hooked up with the house wifi:

Picture of Electronic Devices

As everyone knows, if you can't tweet, blog or facebook about what particular excuses prevented you from winning the race, it may as well have never happened. Every once in a while the host house doesn't have wifi (god forbid) and you're forced to spend the down time before and after the races interacting with other human beings face to face. It's very strange and uncomfortable.

Next up: get some groceries! I have a list of about 10 food items I can get at any grocery store, and I eat pretty much the same thing at every race. Altoona, PA, doesn't have a Trader Joes and I guarantee you're not going to find any wheat-free, egg-free, dairy-free omega-3-enriched organic trail mix there either. So you can't be too picky and it helps to have a few "comfort items" like Fuji apples you can get just about anywhere.

Picture of mass Groceries

Oh yeah - don't forget to label your food, otherwise it may mysteriously disappear over the course of the weekend...

Picture of labeled milk

This concludes Lesson 1.

I bought the Giro and so should you

2011-05-26T22:37:00.001-07:00

It's May! Which means it's Giro time. Of course, it's been Giro time for almost a month. But hey my blog is behind so just pretend you're reading this one or two weeks ago. The Giro is, of course, any bike snob's preferred Grand Tour. "Oh, you haven't seen the GIRO??? it's the BEST grand tour. WAYYY better than the Tour de France." Unfortunately, this is actually true - the Giro is (usually) way more interesting and dynamic racing than the Tour and most of the time you never know who is going to win until the last stage. There are also (usually) many more successful breakaways in the Giro than the Tour so that every day is like attacking/breakaway 101 and you can actually learn something about bike racing by watching it (unlike the Tour, which teaches people that bike races are won by teams of 9 robots that ride the front all day).

Now, there are only 3 days left in this years Giro d'Italia and we already pretty much know who is going to win, but I still think everybody should buy Universal Sports' Giro package for video coverage. Well, maybe not this year as that comes out to $5/stage, but next year, ok? Or later this year if they over coverage of other races. Sure, you can watch it on TV for free if you get the US channel (which I don't... since my girlfriend broke my TV), or online on one of the many pirated feeds. Like any cycling fan I've watched many bike races on pirated European feeds, but when the opportunity arises to pay for quality coverage I am more than happy to do so, even though I have no money. In addition to the fact that you can watch every stage commercial-free and almost in its entirety on demand, paying for coverage is something I actually believe in as a bike racing fan: if fans are willing to pay for coverage of races, there will be more and better coverage and cycling in general will grow (especially in the US).

Up to this point, we've been able to get a lot of coverage for free. With Universal Sports coming on the scene a couple of years ago we have even more coverage for free inlcuding all the major spring classics, the "other" grand tours, the world championships, etc. I don't know what their business model is, but I can't imagine it's anything but an experiement and I can't see it being profitable in the long term. Are cyclists really the target demographic for Ex-Tenze and "The General" Insurance? I don't think so. The current media market is so fragmented we're going to have to start paying for the content we want to see. This is the opposite of what we're used to, especially on the internet, but the alternative is more and more advertising. Even with more and better-targeted advertising, I can't imagine cycling broadcasting could ever be profitable in the long term due to the smaller audiences. Personally I hate ads, so if I have the opportunity to watch a race like the Giro ad-free for a little over $1/stage, I'll take it in a heart beat. Aaaand so should you!

Spring Campaign

2011-05-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's pretty hard to get motivated to blog when things aren't going well, and for the first month of the season things really weren't going well.

The season started well enough for me at the Madera Stage Race in NorCal, where I ended up 6th overall after sitting on a late break in the final-stage road race. It was actually pretty funny because the road race went over a 5-mile section of terrible pavement - picture the worst potholes and pavement you can imagine and then imagine a squadron of B-52s plastering the road with cluster bombs. That's what it felt like at least. Anyway it was funny because on the second to last lap the race went ballistic through this crosswind "pave" section and I got dropped because it turns out I'm terrible on crosswind pave. I got in a small group and we worked together and caught the pack a couple miles after the pave when it had slowed down after a bunch of attacks. Kennett had been up the road all day in the break with some other guys, and the attacking in the pack turned out to be the race leader and one other guy going off the front to bridge across to Kennett, while his breakmates got dropped back into the pack. At this point the rest of the top-10 GC looked at each other as the 3 up front rode away.

After a few minutes of sitting in, some attacks started going and I covered the 6th or 7th move, which was looking pretty dangerous. We immediately had a 30-sec gap and things looked good. It was only two other guys and I was just sitting on because we had Kennett up the road and our GC guy Dan (who was in 3rd) back in the pack, so I had no reason to ride with the other guys, one of whom was high up in the GC. The high GC guy flatted 10 minutes into our effort when we already had a minute on the group, so at that point I started working with the other guy. Then 3 more guys bridged up and I started sitting on again since I wasn't sure where they were on GC and didn't want to help a bunch of guys leapfrog Dan or catch Kennett. Of course they weren't happy with that. I tried to explain my rationale, but it turns out a lot of brains don't work that well after three hours of hard riding, so there was a lot of yelling at me. Which is totally understandable as I would have been yelling at me like crazy if I was them (more about yelling at people to come in a later post). I really had no reason to ride, though, so I just kept sitting.

In the end we never caught the three guys up front, although we came close, and Kennett took 2nd on the stage. I didn't sprint out of respect, but as it happened I was the highest-placed GC guy in the move and that put me in 6th overall at the end of the day, with Kennett and Dan also in the top 10. That wasn't really what we were going for as it would have been better to protect or improve on Dan's 3rd place or win the stage, but it just didn't work out.

It was a funny race because it just goes to show that you can get dropped, get back into the race, and still have a good finish. That's one of the things I love about bike racing: literally anything can happen over the course of a long, hard road race and if you keep riding hard and don't give up, good things will happen.

Warming up for the first TT at the Madera Stage Race

After that it was all downhill for a few weeks. My car broke down driving back to SoCal from Madera and I had to buy a new car with no lead time, then I got a really bad stomach virus which knocked me out for the better part of two weeks. I had terrible rides at San Dimas and Redlands as a consequence, and left California at the beginning of April with not much to show for my winter of hard work.

2011-05-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know I'm well overdue for an update. Until then, here are some Garmin Connect files from the Tour of the Gila to tide you over, including Stage 5's Gila Monster Road Race, aka the hardest race EVER.

California Update: A Lot of Training, a Little Racing

2011-02-09T10:17:00.000-08:00

Greetings from California! I fled Seattle for the first time this winter in search of warmer and drier training roads and settled in the Santa Ynez Valley, just north of Santa Barbara. Kennett came down here in December, scoped the place out and after seeing how things turned out for him I decided to come down here too. Then Spencer got jealous and drove down from Canadia to make it an HB party down here:

(Courtesy of Jeff Clark Photography)

I can’t believe I didn’t do this before as not having to deal with the cold wet weather day in and day out has allowed me to train way harder than I usually do over the winter. Since I got here on January 2^nd, it’s been cloudy twice and I’ve only ridden in the rain once. Pretty much every day is sunny and 70 degrees and the roads provide a good mix of flat, rolling, and mountainous climbs with little to no traffic. This is just what the doctor ordered to prepare for the upcoming season, as I only started hard training in January, much later than normal.

Typical empty road on a typical sunny day

View from the top of Figuoeroa Mt, the local 1-hr climb

Somebody did some shopping in downtown Solvang

Solvang is a Danish-themed town. Yeah, it's weird.
A bobcat spotted on a ride

The other good thing about being in California is that racing starts super early. With my late start to training, I was planning on waiting to start racing until March (usually I start in February), but with races in our back yard I’ve been lucky enough to race a couple of times already without having to travel far at all.

The first race was the Poor College Kids Road Race, just up the road in Los Olivos and for the first time ever I was able to ride from my house less than a half hour to the start of a road race. The course was a 17-mile out-and-back that we did twice, with a small climb at the end of each lap. Looking at the large number of riders from just a few different teams at the start, I figured there was a good chance the early break would stick as teammates did the classic “sit up and let it go”. So when a few guys rolled off the front over the top of the climb, I made sure to get myself in the move, and that turned out to be the break of the day.

It started out with eight guys – two sets of two teammates and four singles. A bunch of the guys seemed to be slaying themselves from the very beginning, even though the first quarter of the race was all downhill and we were flying at 30mph the whole time. With such a big group and so many guys riding so hard, I just rolled through and tried to save as much energy as possible while making it look like I was working sufficiently hard. At the first turnaround after 17-mi, we had 40 seconds on the pack, where the Kahala-LaGrange team was chasing on the front as they had missed the break completely.

Going over the second small climb approaching the halfway point, one of the guys hit it pretty hard and all of a sudden we were down to five guys. At the turnaround at the halfway point, after the descent off the climb, we had 40 seconds on the guys who had been dropped from the break and 1 min on the pack, which had split into two groups and was no longer being led by LaGrange – most of their guys had apparently been dropped. Going over the third small climb heading back out on the course, we dropped another and were now down to four guys. The guy from Pista Palace (who turned out to be Adam Livingston) had been sitting on ever since the break split over the second climb and although he would take a few pulls when we yelled at him, he mostly kept sitting on. Although I didn’t know it at the time, the other two guys in the move turned out to be Kayle LeoGrande (formerly a pro with Rock Racing, in his first race back from serving a two-year suspension for EPO) and Ricardo Escuela (formerly a pro for Succesful Living). Kayle was by far the strongest guy in the move all day – he was killing it from km zero and taking massive pulls. Escuela was doing the same thing I was, rolling through and doing work but not any more than was necessary to keep the speed up. The PP guy just kept sitting on the whole time.

Coming out of the last turnaround we got another look at the chasing groups. With 17 miles to go, the race behind had shattered completely into several small groups. The first group of 10 or so guys was at 45 seconds and the next one was at 1:20. Both Escuela and Livingston had teammates in the second group, so they both started sitting. One out of four seems like better odds to me than two out of 14 so it didn’t really make sense to me but that’s what they did. With those guys sitting I was screwed either way: Kennett was in the third chase group so if I sat and killed the move we would get caught, and if I worked I would be giving those guys a free ride. I figured if I was screwed either way I might as well just ride because one out of four was better odds than one out of 14, and if we could stay away until the last hill, I thought I might be able to put in an attack and get away there.

So I decided to just keep working and took turns with Kayle driving the move all the way back to the finish. The time checks to the chase group kept going up – from 45 seconds to 55, then 1:10. At that point we were a couple miles from the last hill, and with five miles all downhill from the top of that last hill to the finish I knew we would stay away. So at that point I dialed it back in the hopes of saving up some energy for an attack on the hill. About halfway up the hill I hit out, but the Pista Palace guy countered me super hard and got a good gap. Escuela got on his wheel and I had to dig super deep to get back on. LeoGrande was dropped by about 10 seconds and we started the fast descent and run-in to the finish. When I got back up to the two leaders I sat on for about a minute to recover from the effort. Then I got impatient and attacked immediately on a small riser, which was stupid because we were still going really fast and I was tired from riding hard all day. The other guys brought me back no problem and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to drop either of them before the finish. So I decided to roll through so they didn’t start attacking because at that point I was worried about getting dropped. With about 500m to go I got stuck on the front, so I just set up right on the yellow line and waited for them to jump.

Escuela jumped to the left, over the yellow line, which took me by surprise because the ref had specifically told us the yellow line rule was in effect all the way to the finish. I started sprinting but I had already been gapped off so I just bagged it and rolled in for 3^rd. Escuela was relegated to 3^rd for his yellow line infraction, however, so I ended up 2^nd. Despite playing the finale idiotically, I was pretty happy with the race overall, as I didn’t know what to expect in my first race. I felt good and rode strongly, but I wish I’d been a little more cunning in those last five miles and set myself up better for the sprint; I should have definitely just sat on the whole time as those guys had been sitting on me and Kayle for the last 20 miles.

Poor College Kids RR Garmin Data:

The following weekend, Spencer and I:

(Courtesy of Jeff Clark Photography)

rolled over to Santa Barbara for the Gibraltar Time Trial, an 8-mile uphill TT from SB to the top of La Cumbre peak. It’s a great climb and we had been doing it every week after the Sunday Morning group ride, so when we heard there was a race up it I was all about it. There’s not much to say about a TT except you ride hard and put yourself in the pain cave for as long as it takes. In this case it was just a little over 41 min which was good enough for the win and a new course record. It wasn’t a super serious race and a lot of fast guys were out of town, but there were also a lot of fast dudes there and you can’t beat people who don’t show up, so I was happy to get my first win of the season.

(Courtesy of Jeff Clark Photography)

Gibraltar TT Garmin Data:

Obligatory tree/sky photo

Doping... Anti-Doping

2011-01-28T20:26:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been an eventful week or so in the world of Pro Cycling and anti-doping. First, Sports Illustrated ran a story about the Case Against Lance Armstrong, containing a lot of new evidence against the Tour champ that hadn't previously been aired to the public. Next, Garmin fired longtime sports director Matt White for referring Trent Lowe to that guy who threw away doping trash at the Tour in 2000, who, as it turns out, is a doctor in Valencia, Spain. That story got even more complicated when Slipstream revealed that Lowe and his adviser had attempted to blackmail the team. Then this week, the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) handed down a "proposed" one year ban to Alberto Contador for his Clenbuterol positive at last year's Tour de France, which Contador has since appealed.

I don't really want to talk about any of these stories individually because they're each pretty complicated and I could spend all day talking about any one of them. I'm more interested in the larger question, which is: how do we actually stop doping? What we are doing now is obviously not working. I want to feel like progress has been made recently and the tide is turning in the anti-doping war, but the number of positive tests this year alone makes that hope either naive or ignorant. In some ways it keeps getting worse, as now several guys I've actually raced against on a number of occasions have tested positive or otherwise been busted. With the recognition that the system is thoroughly broken, here's what I think needs to be done to fix it.

1. Clean house at the UCI. It's been almost 12 yrs since the Festina scandal marked the beginning of the modern anti-doping era and despite the length of time given to get it right, the UCI has failed miserably. There is more than a little evidence that they are not genuinely interested in cleaning up cycling. Both Floyd Landis and Jesus Manzano have alleged that certain teams were made aware of when drug controls would take place. Positive tests have been swept under the rug, and there is evidence that even Contador's positive from the tour was in the process of being "disappeared" before a German journalist got wind of the story. So, they are at worst complicit and at best incompetent in the doping problem. Any CEO of a corporation would be fired after just a year of such obvious ineptitude - McQuaid should resign.

2. All testing, analysis and sanctioning should be performed by WADA. This is a huge can of worms but it seems that between national federations, testing agencies and the UCI, there is just too much room for inconsistency. Some federations are more lenient than others, resulting in some dopers getting away with lighter sentences than they should. There are too many conflicts of interest between federations and their riders; too many opportunities for federations to look the other way when it is in their interest to do so. All of the testing should be brought under the auspices of one global organization that has no financial stake in the outcome of its tests. I admit I have no idea how this would work practically but I'm pretty sure we could figure it out if we wanted to.

3. Hold team management responsible for riders' positives. This is my favorite idea and I can't believe I haven't heard anyone else mention it. I'm pretty sure it would stop doping overnight. It's not hard to connect the dots between team managers, sports directors, and their doping riders. Do we really believe that all of these riders are doping all by themselves when:
A) It is virtually impossible to name a team that doesn't have confessed dopers on its staff as a GM or DS (Riis, Gianetti, Andersen, Zabel, Aldag, etc. etc. etc.).
B) There is actual evidence that team doping programs are organized by team management.
I'm all for individual responsibility and at the end of the day a rider that chooses to dope makes that decision on his own, BUT there wouldn't be such a big problem if there wasn't a culture of enabling within the teams. Katusha wanted to fine its riders five times their salary for a doping positive, but I think the opposite would be more effective - give the team a hefty fine, and also find some way to personally punish the DS and GMs. License the DSs just like racers and make them responsible for, say, 1/4 of the team's riders. If any of those riders test positive, they get suspended too. Basically we need to give the teams a greater incentive to ENSURE that their riders are clean. As opposed to right now, when there is a great incentive to dope (winning races, prize money) and virtually no downside to getting caught. Sure, they lose a rider and get a little bad publicity, but only very rarely has a team actually lost a sponsor because of a positive. You can be damn sure the DSs and GMs would be a little more interested in keeping their guys clean if their necks and wallets were on the line too. Some would argue that they would be damaged by false positives, but the rates of these are really quite rare and there are far more false negatives.

4. More Testing, Better Testing and Stiffer Penalties - I think at the end of the day the problem really comes down to an economic argument. Currently, there is a HUGE incentive to dope. You can win. A lot. Races and money. Heck, in the US we have masters doping to win races with no money. Which just goes to show that people will do almost anything to win if they don't think they are going to get caught. If there is not much of a disincentive, nobody is going to follow the rules. If Floyd's allegations are true, there is way more doping going on than even the most cynical observer might guess. So it's clear that cycling needs more testing, better testing and stiffer penalties.

A lot of pros (one in particular) like to cry about how often they get tested. Boo hoo. Most of that crying is for publicity purposes to keep up the sham that he is the "most tested athlete ever" (which he is not). We don't need more testing across the board, but we do need more testing of those athletes identified by previous tests or other intelligence to have suspicious values, as outlined by the WADA Independent Observer report on the 2010 Tour de France. I'm not a testing expert, so I don't know the intricacies of which tests need to be administered more often, etc., but I'm pretty sure we can all recognize that if the system is as easy to cheat as it is, we need a new and better system.

For the most part I'm talking about European cycling here, because I know there isn't enough money in the US to do more testing. I'd love to see more testing here - in five years of NRC racing I've never been tested and that's pretty lame. But until it becomes a bigger sport here, I don't see how we're going to get more money for testing. The only way we can prevent doping is by making sure it's not happening within our own spheres of influence. Unfortunately that will probably not be enough.

Stricter Penalties - Going back to the economic argument, the number of people still getting caught for doping is enough to prove that the punishments need to be stricter. I think a 4 year ban for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second would be more effective. It has to be very severe or there is no power in the punishment. People have to be more afraid of getting caught than they are tempted to dope. That will only happen if the punishments are very severe. This is sport. We aren't saving anybody's life or doing anybody a great service - we choose to do it because we love competition and if an athlete can't respect the rules of that competition they need to find something else to do. This isn't elementary school and you can't just apologize and expect to go back to the way things were. If you don't follow the rules, you can't play the game, and there's no reason to let people back in the game who repeatedly disrespect the rules.

That's it for now. You guys can all thank me when we wake up tomorrow and doping is a thing of the past.

Hello, NZ!

2010-10-31T01:18:00.000-07:00

After 32 hrs of travel and 4 weeks of waiting I finally made it to New Zealand! It's much less exciting than it sounds. We're here in Invercargill for the Tour of Southland and while I am really looking forward to the race (it's supposed to be brutal) I think Invercargill might be the least exciting place in all of NZ (no offense guys). Flat, lots of farms and not much going on.

The race starts tomorrow with an 8km Team TT in the morning followed by an 80km road race in the afternoon. I'm not sure how I'm going to go but we have a pretty solid team of guys from the US so it should be a good week. Training for this race has been one of the hardest things I've done since I started racing, mostly because nobody else in Seattle was training for anything. My last real race was September 18th - after that I took a week off and then started training again. I did the Echelon Gran Fondo in Hood River (where I "beat" Chris Horner in a hillclimb (ha ha)) and also a few Friday nights of track racing up on the indoor velodrome in Burnaby, BC (where I scared the crap out of myself and found out I am a really bad track racer). I had two really solid weeks of training and then the wheels kind of fell off for the last bit before I left so between that and the lack of real racing I have no idea how my form is right now. We'll find out tomorrow!

Here are some pictures from my trip out here and the first couple of days in Invercargill:

End of the season, sort of...

2010-10-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well first off I forgot to post this picture from after the Univest crit - we were covered in dirt from the road spray and our bikes were a mess too. Luckily some nice people let us use their hose to spray off the bikes, otherwise we would've had to pack dirty bikes for the flight home and that's never a good time.

After Univest I flew to Dallas for the TX Tough, the final crit of the USA Crits series. I went there last year with Adrian and while he crushed it in the rain I had a terrible race, so I wanted some revenge this year. I also have a couple of friends in Dallas so it's a good chance to catch up and hang out in the blistering Texas heat. It's an awesome race - the course is a bit boring but it's downtown and goes around the hockey stadium and there are always a ton of fans and the feeling of a big event. The race itself was not my best - flying solo with no teammates I was gambling on a move going later in the race and was saving a bit early on. I lost that gamble as something rolled pretty early and got a solid gap before too long. I made a couple stabs and got off the front a bit nothing worked out and I had to settle with a pack finish. Here's some video:

And some other pictures:

Before I flew out on Saturday I decided to hit up the Cotton Patch Challenge road race, a small local race not too far from Dallas. It started at 7:30, which I think is the earliest I've ever raced my bike, but when we got out on the road I was pretty glad we started early because it got crazy hot. There were only 30 or so guys there so it was a pretty silly race. I attacked a bunch in the first 20 miles to try to get into the break and spent a fair bit of time off the front but there were a bunch of guys who were really into chasing me down, sitting on, and then letting the counters go up the road. After the first hour when people started getting tired something rolled with a few strong guys and that was pretty much it. There weren't any teams with the numbers to chase and no amount of attacking could get a second group going. So we rolled around for the last 50 miles of the 85 mile race and it came down to a downhill tailwind sprint for 4th place. Not my kind of sprint but I gave it a shot and came in 4th in the sprint for 7th on the day.

After that I drove pretty much straight to the airport, packed my bike, and hopped on a plane back to Seattle, where it was 40 degrees colder and raining - apparently fall had already fell in the Northwest.

Normally my season would be over by now but I decided to go back and do the Tour of Southland in New Zealand Nov 1-6th. I was all set to go last year but I broke my collarbone the day before I was scheduled to leave and didn't make it. So I'm giving it another go this year, pending my Dad's health. Everybody else on the team is done and nobody in Seattle is training right now, so I'm finding it incredibly difficult to continue hard riding. This race is one I've wanted to do for a while now, though, and despite being difficult motivationally the training is going really well from a performance standpoint. So provided I can actually get there I'm hoping to do a good ride. Stay tuned...

Univest GP

2010-09-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we were out in PA for the final Elite Team race of the year, the Univest GP in Souderton (Sow-der-tonne). They changed the format for this year, removing the Team TT and trading the European-style road race for an urban circuit race on Saturday. Unchanged for this year was the Sunday crit in Doylestown and the high caliber of competition including a bunch of pro teams and top amateur teams from Europe (where "top amateurs" get paid). The other cool thing about Univest is that the teams are limited to 6 riders so the race is very unpredictable and the bigger pro teams can't control the race as much.

Spencer, Kennett and I made the scenic drive down from Vermont and stayed on the outskirts of Philly for a couple of days before our host housing in Souderton opened up. The drive ended up being a lot longer than we thought so we had a really late night and I spent the next few days feeling pretty cracked from all the traveling of the week not sleeping well when we were at GMSR. I had to go super easy the rest of the week but by Friday I felt pretty good and like I could actually race my bike.

Last year, I had a pretty terrible race at Univest, crashing out of both the TTT (although we finished 6th) and the road race on the rain slicked roads. I was hoping for better weather and better luck this year; another rainy day on the technical circuit race would have been utter carnage considering the crazy crashes that happened last year on straight flat roads. Our plan for the 85-mile circuit race was to be aggressive and get guys up the road in breaks. Given the course we were anticipating a kermesse-style race where groups go up the road, re-form, then split up in the finale; where you can find yourself dropped simply by not attacking. So attack we did, but unfortunately we didn't get anyone into the main move of the day which went on the second or third lap. The gap hovered between 40 seconds and a minute for the whole race, so after it went we kept attacking to try to get a second group going and get someone across.

After Kennett's string of good results in the last few weeks he was our protected rider for the race so we tried a few times to slingshot him across to the break. Here's a shot of one of those times, going up the KOM hill where I drilled leading into the climb and then Kennett attacked on the hill:

We all got off the front numerous times but we couldn't get anything going that worked well together. On one lap I bridged with another guy to a move of three guys, but one of them was an Amore & Vita rider who was just sitting on the move because he had a guy in the break. Nobody else wanted to work with the A&V rider sitting on so that pretty much killed the cooperation, which was dumb because we could have made it across if the other four of us had been working. Yeah, we would have given the A&V rider a free ride but at that point it was our only chance to get in the break, which looked like it was going to win the race. It was pretty dumb for the A&V rider to not work as well, because all of us were amateurs. Yeah, he had a guy up the road - but if he goes across with four other guys who are probably not going to beat either of them anyway, that can only improve their tactical situation. With no cooperation, however, we were soon reabsorbed. When we switched to the small circuits I was organizing the guys to put in another effort to get Kennett across the gap. I hadn't seen Kennett and told him yet, so right as I got up to him, he attacked into the first corner of the new circuit and got taken out by some euro who didn't know how to drive a bike. I actually didn't see him crash and thought he was up the road, so it was a good thing we had Joe in the caravan to pace him back on.

Coming into the last few laps, Amore & Vita started crushing it on the front (apparently they didn't like the chances of their guy in the break) and they brought the whole thing back with about one lap to go. The whole last lap was crazy fast and I fell asleep at the wheel a little bit and got caught too far back. I thought I was in ok position but then it got strung out single file and I was way too far back. The whole course was basically a big crit so I made some progress on the hill, but once we got over the top of the hill with about 1k to go, there were so many corners and it was so strung out moving up was impossible; it was basically a 1k sprint. Or at least that's what it felt like to me. I rolled in with the pack, which ended up being only about 50 guys as a lot of guys had been dropped throughout the day and a bunch also sat up on the last lap.

On Sunday we woke up to steady rain, which put everybody in a pretty bad mood. I've never seen a less-motivated group of bike racers. It's the last race of the season for a lot of guys, it's raining, and it's a fairly technical 8-corner crit... hard to get psyched up for that one. For me, with the TX Tough crit coming up the next week, I was resolved to race and get some good bike ninja practice. It ended up being a pretty crazy race with a super fast start and a bunch of crashes on the first lap the bunch was in about 5 groups almost right away. It was the usual wet crit carnage and sensory overload - people crashing, guys taking bad, slow lines through corners and getting gapped off, people yelling, etc. The front group of almost 20 guys had 30 seconds on the rest of the pack and it looked like the race was over before it even started. I got stuck at the back for the start and had to close what felt like a million gaps before I finally made it into the "pack" which was still 30-some seconds down on the lead group. It helped to have raced the course before because I knew there were certain parts where you could ease off and let a little gap go if you could corner fast through the technical sections. The front and back sraightaways were both followed by two fairly tight corners so you could coast the straightaways and then not brake and rail the corners, coming around guys as they exploded from closing gaps on the straightaways and braking hard before each turn. I'm definitely not the best crit rider ever, but it felt good to be able to get through a tough, wet crit like that when I was having a lot of problems handling the bike earlier in the year.
Around halfway through the 35-lap race the pack caught the front group so everything came back together in a much-reduced group of 40 guys and one of the Swedish guys stayed off solo for the last 5 laps for the win. After getting tangled up in a crash with 8 to go and taking a free lap I had great position with 6 to go but couldn't hold it and had to settle for 28th. Given the conditions and how many guys didn't finish, though, I was pretty happy to just make it through.

New Poll!

2010-09-16T20:38:00.001-07:00

I just added a poll, vote now right here ---------------------------------->>>>

GMSRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2010-09-11T06:07:00.000-07:00

We're here in Souderton PA for the Univest Grand Prix but I just wanted to recap the race we did last weekend in Vermont, the Green Mountain Stage Race (GMSR). I did GMSR a couple of years ago and had a pretty bad ride - I flatted in the queen stage right before the dirt section and never got back and then had a bad ride in a crit. So this year I was hoping to do better and get my revenge on the race. GMSR is a cool race because there are always a lot of fast guys there, including some pros like Ted King (Cervelo), Tim Johnson (UHC), etc., along with plenty of strong amateurs, but there aren't any big pro teams with full squads so it's possible to get a meaningful result. It wasn't a full team race for us with Kennett, Spencer and I, and some of our teammates were there for the Cat 2 race.

Things didn't start out so well in the 10k prologue TT where I had a mediocre ride for 47th out of 100-something starters, but Kennett had a great ride for 10th. The next day we were looking to be aggressive and get someone in a breakaway so we all took turns attacking and getting in moves. None of the stuff we were in stuck until Kennett got into the big 18-guy split on the last time up the 5-minute KOM climb. I started the climb with good position but got a little lazy and didn't close down a few gaps right away and never got across to the lead group. I was kind of waiting for some other guys to close stuff down because although it was a hard effort it didn't feel crazy hard and I figured there would be plenty of guys trying to get across. I definitely screwed that up and should have just went across the gaps myself when they were smaller because once we got closer to the KOM the gaps were too big and I didn't get across. I finished with the main pack about 1:30 down on the group of 18 but somehow moved up 6 spots on the GC.

With those 18 guys getting up the road in the CR, the race for the overall was pretty much over for everybody else. There was still a shot to go for the stage win in the road race, though, which includes several long climbs and a nice long and steep finishing climb. After starting neutral on a descent we hit a nice 8-minute climb and guys were attacking right out of the blocks. I was mixing it up to try to get into the move but it looked like the field was pretty motivated to bring things back so I slid back a bit and tried to recover for a while. Up at the front, a move actually did go over the top of the climb (d'oh!) and then after the descent a bunch of groups started going up the road. It was really weird and I've never seen anything like it in a race of that level - groups of 4-6 going up the road with guys just sitting up and letting them go. Of course, the couple of groups that I went with got brought back and then another group would go immediately after that. Pretty soon there were about 30 guys up the road - Spencer and I got stuck in the "peloton" while Kennett got into one of the groups up the road. Eventually the bizarre splittling stopped and the MetLife team started riding on the front until we hit the next climb up Middlebury gap.

They were still riding on the front until the climb got steep with 5k to go to the top, when Tim Johnson hit out and started killing it. The group exploded and was down to about 10 guys immediately - I started with good position and was hanging in there until just before the top when I completely exploded trying to follow yet another acceleration. There were just 4 or 5 guys when I got dropped and I was hoping to catch back on the descent but they were going way too fast so I waited for some guys to come up that I could work with. I got caught by a couple of Battley-Harley Davidson riders and a CCB guy who loved taking huge surging pulls which pretty much ruined the cooperation of the group. So we didn't make up any ground because these guys had apparently never chased on a downhill before. Eventually we got caught by what was left of the field and Battley started riding because they had a guy in the top 10 who had missed the split.

Before too long the big chase group came into sight and we caught them right before the second, short KOM climb, so the race was all back together except for the 7-man breakaway up the road. We didn't get any time gaps or numbers from the officials so I didn't really know what was going on but I figured we would just ride at the front, keep Kennett out of trouble through the dirt section, follow moves until App Gap (the final climb), and maybe try an attack on the stretch between Baby Gap and App Gap. Nothing really happened on the second KOM climb, which was only two minutes long, and then we hit the 2-mile dirt section. Except for a few guys flatting, this was also pretty uneventful - we all started the dirt in the top 10 and stayed there throughout, making sure Kennett got through without flatting and also staying out of trouble ourselves.

Right before the start of Baby Gap there was a brief cross-tailwind section and things got guttered out for a short period of time. We were all the way across the road even though it was supposed to be a centerline-enforced race - nothing like going 35mph and dodging oncoming traffic. It was another weird time in the race and guys were letting random gaps open. I was up at the front on Ted King's wheel and somebody let a big gap open to the guys who were riding on the front. I guess he didn't feel like closing it because he put his hand back for a handsling, so I grabbed it and he threw me across the gap. It turned out to not really matter because the guys on the front stopped riding but it was good to start Baby Gap at the front of the pack because one of the Trek and one of the Jelly Belly guys started riding on the front and shredded the field down to about 20 guys. Spencer, Kennett and I were all still there going into the start of App Gap so we just stayed up front and held on as long as we could.

App Gap is kind of a weird climb, it has super steep pitches but it's a little under three miles long and not a constant grade at all. There are several parts where it flattens out so if you can hang on the wheel in front of you over the steep parts you can get a little bit of rest on the flat parts. I got dropped with about a mile to go, right before Kennett got dropped. I saw he was getting dropped so I put in a dig to get back up to him and try and help out on the short flat part that we had coming up. Once we hit the next, final steep pitch I was pretty done but luckily we just had 200m left. Kennett really likes 1-minute climbs so when I saw the 200m to go sign I figured that would be about a minute and yelled something incomprehensible about 1-minute climbs at him. The last 200m is crazy steep and I just limped home for 16th, 3:30 down on the winner (from the breakaway) and about a minute down on the rest of the guys who had been in the front group. I was definitely kicking myself for missing the breakaway and was hoping to do a little better climb at the end but it was enough to move me into the top 20 overall, right behind Spencer.

The next day we did the Stage 4 crit in Burlington, which is a really fun, fairly technical 6-corner crit with a nice fast downhill leading into the final turn and hill to the finish line. I started up front and was hoping to put in a few digs off the front but I didn't feel great so I just sat in and made sure to finish in the front group out of trouble. I ended up moving up two spots to 16th overall, although unfortunately one of those spots was at Spencer's expense as he pulled the pin with about 10 laps to go.

I think I finished in the 70s or 80s two years ago, so I was pretty happy with 16th overall. I was hoping to do better than that but given how the first couple stages went I was happy to claw back some time and finish in the money. In hindsight I definitely didn't take enough rest after Utah and doing 5 races in 7 days before GMSR was probably a bad idea but I don't want to make excuses as everybody has things they could have done better. I definitely won't be doing that next time, though.

I haven't found too many pictures of GMSR so until I do I'll just share some of my Garmin Connect data:

Tour of Utah TT Video

2010-09-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

Here's some video from the Tour of Utah Stage 3 TT at the Miller Motorsports Park, which was a really fun place to race a bike. As I wrote about earlier my TT wasn't spectacular or anything but it was a pretty good one for me as far as TTs go. Oh and don't mind the music, it's an inside joke on the team.

Tour of Utah - The Good Part

2010-08-26T23:10:00.000-07:00

Prologue - Utah State Capitol
Tues PM, 3.1 mi - High Point 4,668ft
Although I'm putting the prologue in with the "good" part of the race, it was actually pretty bad for me. I had a great warmup and my legs were feeling really good but I totally messed up the pacing and held myself back a bit too much on the way out to the turnaround. The course went out a gradual uphill along a ravine, went through a wide hairpin that led to the turnaround in a parking lot, then came back along the gradual descent, around some wide sweeping turns, through a tight blind right/left combo onto the 200m finishing straight. You could take all of the turns without brakes and even though it was a little scary you could fly through the last blind one because it really wasn't as tight as it looked at first.

Because of the topography and wind it was really only a 3-minute effort to get to that hairpin as everything after that was 30+mph. I got a great start but felt like I was going out a little too hard so I dialed it back just a tad and before I knew it I was at the hairpin and then rolling into the turnaround. I hammered it back and took all the turns without brakes, except the last blind one where I chickened out. My result was pretty terrible, towards the bottom of the pile, and while I'd definitely like a do-over on that one it wasn't the end of the world because I didn't lose very much time.

Numbers:
6:55 (26.9 mph) 5.3 w/kg
First 3 min 5.9 w/kg (20.9 mph - definitely should have gone harder there!)
First 40 sec 7.1 w/kg

Stage 1 - Ogden to Salt Lake City
Wed AM 91.5mi 6,000ft of climbing - High Point 7,275ft
Click here for Garmin Connect Data

Front row start boo yah!

Team Meeting:

The first road stage of the Tour of Utah started with some neutral laps around Downtown Ogden, which was really cool because for the first time ever the "neutral" laps were actually neutral and really chill. We just rolled around and chatted. Then the race started up Ogden Canyon and it was on pretty hard from the gun. There was a bit of a tailwind up the climb but it wasn't super hard so I threw in an attack to see what would happen. Not too much, as it turned out, but it was good to get off the front for a brief moment with a few other guys.

It was super hot, over 90 deg at the start, so it was obvious the day was going to be all about staying cool, hydrated and topped up on fuel. We hit the first of the two big climbs of the day at mile 25, a two-part climb that was seven miles long and gained about 1500ft of elevation. Not that big a deal and with a bit of a headwind it was pretty mellow the whole way up. I tried to get a bottle in the feed zone with 1k to go to the KOM which was a really bad idea as the field shredded over the top of the KOM with guys going for the points. Sam didn't bother going for a bottle and threw in an Adrian Hegyvary-style "tuck and roll" attack down the descent which got him 10-miles of solo camera time and a win at the second intermediate sprint point. Eventually a group came up to him and he spent the next 30 miles in the main breakaway of the day, which was sweet. Meanwhile I got stuck in the second group over the top of the climb but the descent was so fast that everything came back together by the time we hit the bottom.

After a brief lull following the descent, Francisco Mancebo put his Canyon Bike "Utah All-Stars" team on the front to chase because they heard that Sam was up the road. For the next 26 miles until the final climb, things were pretty hard. Although I went back and got a bunch of bottles, I think I was behind the 8-ball on hydration a bit because we weren't going SUPER fast and it still felt pretty dang hard; we were going around 30 on the flat and it was double-file with a bit of a crosswind.

Riding in the bunch during the flat part:

With 20 miles to go we hit the final big climb up Big Mountain, which gained 1500ft over 6 miles. The climb was mostly headwind again and BMC was setting tempo on the front. About halfway up they started turning the screws a little harder and the pack started to thin out with guys getting dropped. I held on as long as I could and cracked with 5k to go to the summit, then rode as hard a tempo as I could manage to try to get to the top of the climb in the race caravan (team cars). I made it over the top and got down the descent as fast as I could - Ben Jacques-Maynes dropped me pretty hard on the first part 'cause he is a pretty big guy, but after it opened up a bit more I managed to get on some cars and get back up to the next small group of guys in front of me.

We hit the last 4-minute kicker up Easy Canyon and could practically spit on the lead group in front of us, but at about that point the wheels completely came off and I cramped like I had never cramped in my life. My whole upper legs were seizing up, quads, hip flexors, everything - it was all I could do to keep pedaling and just get through it. It hurt no matter if I was pedaling or just sitting up so I figured if it was going to hurt I might as well ride as hard as I could. From riding the climb in training I knew it was only four minutes long so I hit the lap button on my Garmin at the base and pretended I was doing a Vo2Max interval. I've done about a thousand 4-minute Vo2Max intervals so I know how to do those - I just watched the clock, rode as hard as I could, and told myself I just had to make it to 4:00.

Our little group was down to just two other guys by the time we hit the top and we went down the Emigration Canyon descent like maniacs. Unfortunately after the first mile it's not a very steep descent and it was also a headwind so we had to work pretty hard. Eventually we caught or got caught by a few more guys and had a pretty good group of six or seven working together. After what seemed like an eternity we took the right turn onto the finishing straight in the University of Utah Research Park and made it to the finish. We only lost a little over 1:30 on the small main pack, which moved me up about 70 spots on the GC to the high 40s, so it ended up being a pretty good day.

Numbers:
3:44'37" (including neutral), 2800kJ
Snowbasin Climb: 12' @ 5.1 w/kg, then 2 min descent, then 17' @ 4.6 w/kg
Big Mountain Climb: 25' @ 4.5 w/kg
East Canyon Climb: 4'06" @ 4.7 w/kg
Obviously these numbers are a little lower than one might expect (and lower than what I was doing in training) but keep in mind that the later climbs came after a couple hours of fairly hard riding in high heat and elevation.

Stage 2 - Thanksgiving Point to Mt. Nebo
Thurs AM 80.6 mi 4,700 ft of Climbing - High Point 9300ft
Click here for Garmin Connect Data

Stage 2 started off with more blessed true neutral laps and then we were off onto a really bumpy road with a bunch of potholes. I was glad I started with 3 bottles as one of mine immediately jumped out of my cage. With a flat 50 miles before the hard core climb up Mt. Nebo we had Sam and Kennett looking to get in the breakaway and were planning on leading out Sam for the Intermediate Sprint if there was no group up the road. Unfortunately Kennett flatted shortly before the race started and spent the better part of the first half of the race chasing back on.

Front row start, yeah:

A big group got off the front almost immediately and Team Type 1 and Garmin started chasing because they missed it. The group was big enough that they were rolling pretty fast and stayed about a minute off the front for what seemed like forever. We were heading South down the Western edge of Utah Lake with a bit of a cross-headwind so most of the time things were pretty chill in the pack where I was trying to sit in, conserve energy, and avoid the mistakes of the previous stage. Unfortunately about 30 miles into the stage we came around a bend onto a long, straight section, the wind changed, the pack went from 6-abreast to 5-abreast, to 4, then to 3, then to 2 and the SHIT! We were guttered in the crosswind. Of course nobody wanted to start a second echelon so I was stuck riding on the two inches of pavement on the left side of the road between the white stripe and the edge of the road, trying to get the non-existent draft off the guy in front of me. There were a few times when it bunched up a bit and I made big efforts to get up to the front group but it would always line out again and I'd be stuck back in the gutter. Luckily I survived for long enough and after we took a left turn into more of a true crosswind and we got a real echelon going and made it back to the front group. Phew! It was definitely a moment of panic and I found myself working way harder than I wanted to that early in the race just to not get dropped on pan flat roads.

Here's what getting guttered in the crosswind looks like (not fun):
Photo from Velonews

After that we went through a canyon and George Hincapie crashed himself out. Boo hoo:

Then we hit another flat headwind section, things finally calmed down, and I grabbed a sweet sweet musette bag in the feed zone from Christine, which was filled with water, coke, and an ice sock to put down my back. That pretty much saved my life, along with the other bottle of water Phil was nice enough to get for me from our team car. Thankfully it was cloudy and much cooler than the day before but I think I still managed to find myself behind the 8-ball because of the crosswind section, where it was basically impossible to eat.

After another 20 miles or so of that we finally went through Nephi and started the climb to Mt. Nebo, which is pretty gradual through a canyon at first, then kicks up after about 10 miles and doesn't relent for another 10 miles of super steep climbing. It's really an incredible climb, probably the longest and steepest sustained climb I've ever done. As soon as we turned onto the climb it was a tailwind and we were going a million miles an hour. I hung as long as I could but came off pretty early - having ridden the climb in training I knew how long it was (over an hour!) and I didn't want to go too far into the red right at the bottom of the climb. I knew a lot of guys would blow up so I just kept it right at the limit and rode as hard as I could sustainably do for an hour. Some of the pros like were already calling gruppetto (that's how early I came off!) but I wanted to see what I could do so I kept riding hard. I past a ton of guys that had blown up and after the first 4 or 5 super steep miles I found myself in a pretty good group of guys that were going the right speed. We worked pretty well together over the flatter middle section and when we got to the last pitch after the last flatt-ish spot, I knew it was just a couple of K's to the top so I dug as deep as I could for that last bit and put 30 seconds into the guys I was with, which put me in 40th for the stage and 42nd overall, 5th (true) amateur.

Climbing Mt. Nebo:

Numbers:
3:23'41" 2723kJ
Guttered in the crosswind: 24'25" @ 5.1w/kg NP
Mt. Nebo Climb 52'12" @ 4.4 w/kg, last 6' @ 4.7 w/kg
Again the numbers on the finishing climb are lower than I would expect but keeping in mind the altitude (up to 9300 ft) and the difficulty of the day they're not too shabby.

Stage 3 - Miller Motorsports Time Trial
9 miles - No elevation gain, located at 4400 ft

Not too much to say about this TT except that it's one of the coolest TTs out there because we get to zoom around on a car race track. It was totally flat with a million turns that you could take really fast in your bars. My legs felt pretty terrible after the efforts of the previous two days but I got in a good warmup and was feeling good by the time I got to the start ramp. I rode as hard as I could and paced it fairly well for a mid-pack finish which was actually pretty good for me since I've been pretty terrible in TTs this year. I almost caught my 30-second man and only lost a little bit of time on some of the other guys around me. Thanks to my colleague Sam for the following pictures

Our warm-up area in one of the Pit Row team bays. I am getting pumped up with some BRMC, the same playlist that has been on my shuffle since the Icebreaker TT.

Whoa!

Sam on the racetrack part of the course:

In the start house:

Numbers:
18'41" (29.0 mph) 4.6 w/kg
After going 5.0 w/kg for a 14 min TT the week before I was expecting to go a little faster but given the fatigue of the previous two days I got about all I could out of the ol' engine.

Stay tuned for Part II of the ToU wrap-up.

Tour of Utah, a photo interlude

2010-08-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to our guest DS Mark Twight for the first 7 of these photos:

Phil doing some feeding from the car

Our DS Joe - Havin' fun in the caravan

Same picture two angles - whoa!

Close to the end of Stage 1 - hurting bad. Pushing through some monster cramps to limit my losses to the front group.

After the finish, hurt

Kennett getting a feed

Coke feed for Phil

Recovery mode

During the prologue TT

High Altitude

2010-08-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

Two years ago when HB got invited to the Tour of Utah, I spent 3 weeks in Fort Collins, Colorado in an attempt to acclimate to high altitude and have a good race in Utah. I ended up having a pretty bad race there so this year I am trying a few different things.

Probably the most significant reason I had a bad race there was that I was a little slower in general during the summer two years ago. I hurt my knee in April that year, had to take a few weeks off training and never really got back to 100% race fitness after that. This year I've had nothing but solid training or racing since I broke my collarbone in October and I am faster across the board than I've ever been. I was also a little overweight in 2008 and coming into this year I got myself down 10lbs compared to two years ago which is a lot better for the power/weight ratio that determines climbing performance.

At 5,000 ft, Fort Collins may have been a little too low for such a short high-altitude camp so this year I went to Park City, Utah, which is just a shade under 7,000 ft in order to apply a little stronger altitude stimulus. By staying in Utah I also avoided one of my mistakes from last time, which was spending 10 days at sea level between camp and the race - this year I'm going straight from Park City to Salt Lake City where the race starts on Tuesday.

I also did very different training this year compared to two years ago, when I basically tried to transfer straight across the way I train at sea level. Two years ago when I tried to do Threshold and Vo2Max intervals I couldn't put out any power so those workouts were basically a waste of time. This year I split the training and did a lot more volume combined with super-high intensity intervals, which aren't as affected by the lack of oxygen.

The first week up in Park City was pretty rough so I basically just took it easy and didn't do too much, trying to recover from Cascade and get acclimated to the altitude. The second week I went pretty big with the volume, doing 24hrs (my biggest week ever, I think) including some intensity, a lot of tempo, a weekday SLC crit, recon of 3 ToU stages, and a monster 118-mile 15,000 climbing ft day. Then I backed off this last week and did a little less volume with another local crit, some work on the TT bike, one last long 5 hr day, some more anaerobic work, and finally a couple of rest days to freshen up.

The Tour starts Tuesday with a short prologue in Salt Lake City, so we'll see how it goes. I feel rested and ready and according to the power meter I'm much more acclimated than I was last time I tried to race at altitude. Anyway, that's enough talking, here are some more pictures:

Recon of Mt. Nebo mountaintop finish - gonna be a tough one!

Spencer looking up at Mt. Nebo from the base of the climb

On our way to the Sundance climb during our 7-hr recon of Stage 6. Tallest peak in the Wasatch range in the distance.

We took a couple of easy days, too

Stormy sunset over Park City

A rock formation in Big Cottonwood Canyon - Sedimentary?

Summit of the Mt. Nebo road, highest point on the Tour