So here I am waiting for my race to start (I got here early, just after 8am…too early to start my warm up so I’m giving the iphone blogging experience a try). I can tell you that the weather is a bitch. It’s probably in the upper 40s and a steady rain is coming down hard. I’m ultra thankful that there aren’t any dirt or gravel sections this week, that’s for damn sure…. Really hoping there aren’t too many bike-handling deficient bozos in the field today, the last thing I need is a bad crash.

I’ll update again, post-race.

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Post-Race update here we go:

The good news is that there were no crashes and really not even any noticeable close-calls within a large field of riders competing in horrible conditions.

Here’s how it went down.

Just like the “Millport Road Race” (Race #2) located just a few miles away (also in Lancaster county PA) the “Mount Joy Road Race” was a scenic Amish country route.  A relatively short race of 24 miles, we had 4 laps of the 6 mile course. The course was actually pretty solid.  Definitely a “power” course where you had some “climbs” but nothing that a strong all-arounder, or even a decently fit sprinter couldn’t power up without risk of being dropped by the small guys.  So for me being somewhere in the middle between a beefy sprinter and a spindly climber…..it worked out well.

The start was pretty brutal, not the start itself even, but the waiting for the start.  I was sitting in my car as long as possible to avoid the rain until about 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start, at which point I did a mini-warm up and then lined up.  Just like 2 weeks ago (same race organizers) the start was massively delayed and everyone who had warmed up, quickly cooled down standing in the 40 degree rain waiting an extra 20 minutes beyond the scheduled push-off.  So there I am with everyone else absolutely miserably cold, soaking wet before the race even began.  Once we finally got going I settled into a bit of a groove, and managed to stay up near the front of the 47 rider peleton.  The usual comfort of the peleton was offset by some nasty road spray coming up off the fertilizer-horse dung-salt encrusted farm roads……pretty much straight into my face and mouth.  Yum.  The more you hugged the wheel of the guy in front of you the more you tasted Lancaster.

So at the start, I had been pretty chatty with some other guys, one in particular on a large team from norther MD (Kelly Benefits) [random segway: I joined a team 2 weeks ago, National Capitol Velo Club and don't recall blogging about that....so more on that later].  Not having seen any other teammates at that point, I chatted with this dude (who I determined was a strong rider) and hashed out a theoretical plan based on his knowledge of the course.  He suggested forming a breakaway toward the end of the 2nd to last lap on one of the climbs that would typically bog down the field a bit.

So there we were, midway through the race with nobody really challenging the field.  Then “Levi” (good cycling name to have I guess) pulled out ahead on the very climb he mentioned at the start.  I was probably 4th back at that point and saw him going for it….and just didn’t have the motivation to jump in with him (bad move Dan).  So Levi peeled off the front and established about a 20-30 second gap.  Then going into the last lap I decided to help reel him in and lead a chase group, which would ultimately be my “lesson of the day”.

I launched to the front on a long downhill stretch and really dropped the hammer.  I was powering along in the low-mid 30s down in the drops with a handful of other guys right with me.  We traded places a few times and I rested a bit before taking my turn on a long false flat section.  In retrospect I was working with riders that were not pulling their weight and I suffered for it.  I think part of the problem was the relative inexperience of us all, in that we never really had an organized approach and never really established a rhythm.  I allowed myself to hang out front way too long, blew up and had to fall back 5-6 spots and rest up.  I knew that going into the last lap I wouldn’t have much time to recover before the finish….which would suck given it was looking more and more like a field sprint where I’d need all juice I could get.

So midway through the last lap, Levi seemed to be maintaining somewhat of a gap, but people at the front of the peleton (including myself) started getting antsy about catching him and picked up the pace.  The last kilometer or so was devoid of any hard turns and was a long flowing approach to the finish.  By the time we closed in below ~1.5k out, about 10 of us were cranking pretty hard up front.  Then with <1000m to go Levi was well within reach and was clearly fading a bit.  With <400m to go, the sprint ramped up and I pulled out along the outside and moved up as hard as possible, but my legs were definitely not 100%.  I felt like I should have been sprinting past some of the guys that were hanging right with me - but I just didn’t have it.  We swallowed Levi at the line where I came in right behind him at 6th.

Now when I think back to the way things panned out… I absolutely should have jumped up with him on the initial breakaway.  Assuming everything else being equal, we would have almost certainly gone 1-2.  Instead, we went 5-6.  I can’t complain too much about a 6th place finish out of nearly 50 riders…so chalking up another one to “lessons learned” (I guess that’s what Cat 5 is for anyway)

Now apart from the usual, “next time I’ll do x, y, z” I realize how physically vulnerable I am to cold rain.  By the end of the race I could barely speak.  My facial muscles were essentially numb.  My shoes covers were sopping wet, having collected the rain from my ankles on down.  My entire kit was functioning as the worst wet-suit in the world….wet indeed, but lacking the warmth part.  I was miserable.  Rolling back to the car, I couldn’t stop violently shivering and my head started to pound.  I jumped into the backseat of my car, pounded some water and some ibuprofen and did everything I could to get warm.  I don’t think I was functional for almost an hour later (with the car’s heat blasting).

I look back to all the ballsy backwoods winter solo adventures I’ve had over the years, where I’ve gone out and done things foolishly unprepared and ultimately suffering extreme cold and discomfort….and today tops them all.  Its hard to wrap my head around how cold 40 degree rain can be.

Anyway, I’m dead tired (having got up at 5am to make the drive up to PA) so more on the NCVC team thing later.

Next week is a mountain race where I’ll have plenty of photos to post up after wards and the week after that I have confirmation that my photographer (aka Oksana) will be in attendance.  So the next couple of races will be illustrated….hooray.

Random: I never remember to update the “150lb contest” results from early January, but I officially lost the contest (between me and my buddy Nick L to drop below 150) back in February.  That being said, I’m now down around 149 each morning.  Thats with a terrible diet right now….including beer and sausage on a semi-nightly basis.  Sweet.

Ok, for starters, I apologize for both the lack of pictures and the bitterness that follows….but here you have it.  I’m continuing with the focus on the more interesting race write-ups on the weekends and just including the rides in between without any unnecessary detail.  If you’re interested in my training data, let me know and I’ll send you the Sigma files ;-0

Many of you have already heard the first person account of yesterday’s mini-drama, but for everyone else I’ll relay the following saga.

I was really pscyhed to race yesterday.  The course was touted as an “instant classic” by the race organizers.  A 29 mile road race with 2 laps of 14 miles and change (a little longer than advertised, but a great course).  The “classic” part relates to the name of the event, the “Fawn Grove Roubaix”.  Roubaix is an often used homage to the French classic Paris-Roubaix, one of the hardest single day races in all of cycling history.  Its a hellish race spanning ancient mud-slicked cobblestone roads, what in fact make it so great (for those of you who call yourselves cyclists but are unfamiliar ;-0).  So instead of cobblestones and mud, our race had an equal portion of dirt roads, rock and dust.  Instead of the French countryside, we were treated to an equally beautiful tour through southern Pennsylvania farm country.  I don’t say that sarcastically either.  It was a really pretty area of southern Lancaster county – an area that I’ll be seeing a ton of this spring given the 4 or 5 races I have planned up there between now and June.  There was about 1200 feet of climbing per lap, and it wasn’t the false flat variety either.  We had some really nice power climbs to separate the pack right from the beginning.  I went out of my way to make special gear adaptations for this “instant classic” as well.  We were told to bring heavy tubes, tires and wheels.  So not wanting to risk my EA90s and pristine DA drivetrain on the Seven, I opted to mount up some bomber Conti GatorSkin Ultra 25s with some thicker tubes to play it safe and hopefully avoid any flats.  I figured my heavy Bontrager training wheels would suck on the climbs, but would stand up to the abuse of the dirt roads just fine.  So the stage was set for an awesome day of racing….Right?

Well, here’s how the race went down.

It was a neutral start, where we were led out by a motorcycle and car onto a paved road before they honked the horn signaling a pretty uneventful start.  The first couple minutes were on chip and seal farm road.  I quickly found myself near the back of a 60+ rider Cat 4/5 peleton given my late arrival to the starting area and some initial inattentiveness.  I hadn’t pre-ridden the course, but I knew based on some start-line conversation that the first gravel/dirt road section was not even 2 miles in.  I also knew that I wanted to be toward the front for that asphalt to gravel transition.  I managed to make my way into the middle of the pack just before the transition.  Sure enough, a rider just a few spaces up from me when down hard right as we made the turn on the dirt road.  I just barely managed to slip around the traffic jam and jump in with about 20 guys that started hammering down the next section.  A mile or two farther up the road, we hit a surprisingly long and steep climb.  Everybody was dropping gears and crawling up the hill right from the beginning.  I wasn’t gonna have any of it.  I powered up the dusty gravel (think fireroad) climb in 39×21 and went from 20 something position to 3rd.  I found myself cresting the climb onto a smoothly paved road with a handful of other riders who quickly formed a break.  I’m almost certain there were just 4 of us, but it’s a little fuzzy at this point.  So while other folks are struggling up the climb, we seized the opportunity and proceeded to hammer down the high speed rollers.  We were buzzing along in the low 30s when the road steepened into a fairly high speed descent.  I looked down and saw upper 40s as we quickly approached a T intersection at the bottom of the hill.  I was in 2nd position at this point and the rider in front of me was blowing into the turn too fast, but just barely managed to make a left turn onto another section of gravel.  I was also coming into the turn way too hot, and didn’t quite make the turn…just barely managing to stay on the bike (so much for a caution sign for those of us that hadn’t pre-ridden).  I tried to downshift and veer left when I realized my chain had popped off….about the same time at which I heard skidding behind me….immediately followed by the sounds of bike and rider making contact with the road.  Ouch.  I was already off to the left out of the way when my adrenaline spiked upon seeing the dude go down, followed by a couple other riders pass by both me (unclipped at this point) struggling with my chain…and the rider down on the road.  In retrospect, I feel a little douche baggy for not having rushed to the aide of the dude having gone down behind me….but my immediate thoughts were “that’s what the race organizers/support car/ambulance are for,” and “what the hell am I gonna do anyway”?  So I got my bike shifting again…and followed the other couple of guys who had just passed me (presumably the other couple that were with us in the breakaway that hadn’t crashed.

So right away we were slogging back up a long rolling ascent.  I looked back several times and thought to myself “man, I wonder if the crash scene at the intersection is gonna hold up the rest of the field as they come down that descent” and “wow, I can’t see anybody coming up the hill….we’re putting on a nice gap”.

About a mile or so up at the top of the climb we hit a 3 way intersection as I catch the lead couple of guys.  The lead rider pulls over to the side, stops, and is looking around when another dude says the obvious thing we’re all realizing after having just labored up a long ass climb with nobody behind us “I think we’re off the course”.

Talk about going from podium to pissed off in about 3 seconds.  A glimmer of hope remained.  Could the wreck and possibility of an ambulance at the T intersection have created enough of a delay for us to double-back and then catch the peleton?  We cooked back down the hill in hopes of seeing some riders at the base of the descent.  There was nothing.  The fallen rider presumably was able to hop back on and ride off without much assistance because in the few minutes it took us to climb up the hill, realize we were off the course, and then double back….there wasn’t a hint of a problem.  My first thought was to blame it on adrenaline fueled groupthink.  We all pretty much acted as lemmings following one another off the cliff.  How the hell did we blow this, I wondered.  2 of the other 4 guys faded out of the picture.  At this point, I’m not sure if they just doubled back toward the start line (afterall, we were only about 5-6 miles into a 14 mile lap) or what, but as I continued onto the remainder of the course in hopes of maybe, just maybe catching the peleton, I found myself with just one other guy.  We vented to one another about the snafu, and continually asked ourselves where the referees or signs were….especially at a T intersection at the base of such a dangerous descent.  As we cruised through the remainder of the lap, “Andrew” and I managed to reel-in a random rider or two, mostly likely other folks that had fallen off the back for any number of reasons.  One thing is for sure.  The course, had I been in a better frame of mind (or in contention for a podium spot), would have been a lot of fun.  The dirt road sections were really gnarly and loose, with much of the stone approaching golf ball size.  From what little time I was able to judge my performance against the main field….I felt tremendously confident where others were getting pretty sketchy with the bike handling.

We finished the first lap and realized after speaking with the USA cycling representative at the start area, that if we wanted our race to count toward an Cat 4 upgrade, then we’d have to finish.  Talk about sh*tty.  There’s nothing worse than riding off the back.  Whereas the pros have a team car to come scoop them up and take them back to get a massage, we were left to complete another lap by ourselves.  We looked at it as just another training ride, but it was hard to overlook the snafu and the opportunity lost.  After circling back around to the scene of the mishap on lap 1, we looked for the signage (or lack thereof).  Sure enough, there was a small DARK GREEN sign with BLACK print, no larger than 10”x15” on the side of the road on a stake planted in some tall grass about 100 meter before the intersection saying “Go Right” or something to that effect.  So unless you were scanning the side of the road for a camouflaged earth tone sign well before the turn (while you’re descending at 45mph), you were very likely to miss it.

Of course if I had pre-ridden the course, this would have been a non-issue.  Yet in fairness to myself, I think that any course you’re paying money to compete on, should be 100% mindless.  You should NEVER ever have to make a decision as to which way to turn.  This isn’t adventure-racing after all.  I’m obviously quite bitter about all this, and even more so the day after, now that I’ve checked the race results only to see that I handily beat the 2nd place guy by 5 spots in the previous week’s race.  Despite our breakaway detour and subsequent 1.5 mile handicap, Andrew and I managed to finish 27/28 out of 60+ starters in the 4/5 race.  So I can’t be too upset.

Another reality check came later in the day when I found out my friend Norman (guy in Brooklyn with the 953 IF) had broken his collar bone on a ride earlier that afternoon.  So in contrast, my day was pretty darn good considering I walked away with my body intact.  Get well soon Norman.

I’m hoping to fare a bit better this Saturday at the Union Grove road race, again up in Lancaster, PA.  I’m not gonna “Babe Ruth it” and point to the podium, but I’ll be surprised to find myself out of the top 5.  There should again be a large 60-70 rider field for this one.

Stay tuned.

Warning the following post is a bit out of date since it was written early last week and remained in draft mode.  I didn’t want it to go to waste and thought this photos were pretty solid, so here you have it.

First, a bit of an off-topic sentiment: I’m starting to feel pretty bad for the Walt Works sitting in the corner of our apartment, utterly neglected since birth. The road racing bug has bitten me pretty hard lately and I’m left wondering how many mountain rides I’ll be able to sneak in considering nearly every weekend between now and July 25 (wedding day) is booked with a road event. But anyway….

As usual, I’ll gloss over the day to day training rides and just recap by saying that I really slacked off last week and only logged 2 rides between Sunday’s Race 1 and last Saturday’s Race 2. I probably had more ounces of wine that week than I rode miles…..(yeah, the Paulson training plan in effect). That’s all coming to an end though. The racing thing is taking hold.

Last Saturday (Race #2) up in Lancaster was SWEET. No I didn’t break away for a dominant victory, but I did walk away feeling like I had some of the best form in the Cat 4-5 peleton that day. Whereas the week prior, I found myself overly aggressive and not thinking through my strategy thoroughly enough, I did almost nothing BUT think about my strategy during the second race. Again being one of the 3-5 guys in the hills without any problem at all. The unfortunate thing about this race and I suspect many of the races that I’ll do, is that the hills are quite short and sweet, without any true “climbing”. The hunt is on for something with some vertical…

Ok, the race report.

The Millport Road Race, was actually more of a circuit, in that they had blocked off about 3 miles of Lancaster county (Floyd Landis’s family lives just a few miles from the course….a huge Amish area) and had us do 9 laps for about a 27 mile race on slightly rolling terrain. The weather gave the race a very Benelux vibe, with wet gray skies, a chilly spring breeze and uninterrupted horizons of rolling farmland. The area had seen a shitload of rain in the days before, so the roads were definitely puddle laden in places, with a mix of damp and dry pavement elsewhere. The only thing missing were the Napoleonic cobblestones (ok, maybe not the only thing missing…).

Oksana and I got up at the ass crack of dawn to roll out of Arlington at 6am so I could make my 10am start with plenty of time to warm up. The warm up turned out to be a moot point because they delayed the 10am start (after everyone was at the line) nearly 30 minutes. It was nipple popping cold standing out on a country road at 10am in damp 40 something degree weather….it was definitely a bit of a downer to be that cold at the start of a race.  Here I am trying my hardest to look tough despite the discomfort:

Once we did finally get started, there wasn’t much messing around before the peleton jacked the pace up pretty high (30ish on the flats). The first couple laps were uneventful, with only some occasional sketchiness in the corners on the part of weaker bike-handlers. Then on lap 3, a bit of carnage. A junior rider (maybe a 19 yr old?) went down hard, along with 3-5 other riders immediately in front of me on one of the wet corners. I skidded to a stop (always a little dicey on a road bike, with 23s at 130psi no less) and busted out a brief trackstand before squirting out around the mess unharmed. Oksana put on her photojournalist hat and managed to snap a pic of the poor lad as he lay face down on the side of the road, with the ambulance on its way:

The next couple laps were much the same as the first few, with a bit more jockeying for position. I tried my best to remain cool and not become too overzealous as I saw the field break out a bit, with a good 30-40 riders ahead of me. I continually yo-yoed between the top 10-15 every time we encountered a hill, and then drifting back into the comforts of the the middle as we got cooking on the flats. It was pretty much exactly as I had planned it out in my head.  Here’s a couple shots of the peleton:

Once the final lap came around, the intensity shot way up as expected. I tried to stay in the top 20 or so as best as possible but was getting a bit boxed out. The largest hill on the course about 2 miles in was my saving grace position wise, because it allowed me to shoot up toward the leaders. Lots of riders were indiscreetly setting up there attack (aggressively moving up, etc.) going into the last straight away before an S-turn, and then the 100 meter finish (checkout the course map here, and you can see the final turn). I jumped on the wheel of one of the more aggressive riders surging on the outside, and moved up along with him coming out of the final turn. As soon as my defacto leadout guy stood up to sprint, I surged out around him (pretty easily done after he had been leading me out for 200meters) on the outside and tried my best to make up some ground on the lead 3-4 riders over to the inside. They had too big of a jump though, and I came across the line with 6-7 other guys about a bike length behind the first 4 and about 30-40 meters ahead of the main field. After the race organizers reviewed the video, I was pleased to find out that I snagged 9^th overall. I kept thinking to myself that if I had only had another 100meters….but then again, I’m sure the x number of guys behind me were thinking the same thing.  Here’s the final sprint.  You’ll notice me on the right side.  Just after this photo was taken, I busted out along the left side of the sprint.  Guy who is in the lead in this photo just barely held off the chase group.  He had a great position coming out of the final turn.

It was a much better race than last week because the size of the field was so much larger, and my tactics were much better thought out, with only the execution needing some work. With the mooched leadout, I was able to sprint up to 38mph on the final stretch, compared to barely over 30mph the week before, both instances being flat with somewhat similar wind conditions.

All this excitement prompted me to immediately investigate my team options. I decided that I no longer wanted to show up as a scrappy “unattached” rider. I pinged NCVC (National Capitol Velo Club) and joined up after exchanging some emails with their membership guy. I attended the first team meeting of the season tonight, picked up my kit and got the full scoop on race reimbursement (they’ll pay race entries) and expected behavior. I’m planning on slowly jacking up my volume and doing a bit more PT to keep my knees in order. If all goes as planned, I should be able to jump up to Cat 4 by July or so. I’m guessing I’ll also jump in a few mtb races this summer as well, just to mix it up a bit. The Wednesday at Wakefield series should be pretty solid mid-week training before I head over to Ukraine.