Don't Mess With Texas!

And now for some completely different weather.

For these past two weeks I've been down in Austin, TX on a business trip. And since it was a full two weeks, I needed to bring my bike to train and race. The first week, I was on a week-long break from riding and just drove around in my Jeep Patriot. The weather was hot! Well, to this northwesterner it was. But while driving around, I thought it was bearable and a non-issue inside the air-conditioned buildings.



It wasn't until I went for my first half hour ride on Sunday that I realized...

IT IS HOT!!!

On the next Monday I went on a wake-up-the-legs ride for 3 hours. I originally had thought I'd go to the office and do some work and then do some riding in the night, but I just went for a ride once my key card failed to grant me access. I had 3 waterbottles on me and had already drank an entire bottle during the 30 minute commute to the office. I started riding out some more and filled up my bottles at a gas station. And then I did the rest of my ride consuming all of the water before I got back to the hotel. Usually 2 big bottles is fine for a 3 hour ride up in Portland, but that would have been a disaster down here. Tuesday I got out to a late start and didn't do all of my intervals, but still managed to get a 9th place on a strava segment.

The Driveway

Thursday was time to race at The Driveway! This race was fun and rather serious for a weekly series. $300 five-deep finish, TEN primes and a new helmet for the most aggressive rider (the rider first across the line the most laps). 60 minutes total. I had been sort of hydrating while warming up, but not throughout the day, so when the race started in about 90 degree heat, I began to feel fatigued much more quickly. The race was hard. A big break of like 12 people got away on the first lap and then I tried to bridge with another guy, but just a little later the field came absolutely roaring past and caught the break in no time. During this whole race I was either in a small break riding super hard or in a motivated and organized chase group.

The highlight of my night was not the finish, not even a prime lap, but a plain old lap. I was on the front for some kind of reason and wasn't going too hard. The finish line was coming up in about 200m so I figured I might as well make a pull to get some aggressive rider points. Usually in Washington or Oregon, the pack would have just let this happen, but not down here! Someone laid down an attack and took that lap away from me! This was actually an awesome feeling because it meant that any time getting across the line first was something you better damn well have earned.

With 4 to go I had an opportunity to take a prime and laid down a sprint probably a little too hard for that late in the race and got the prime. I was exhausted after this effort and tried hard to get a decent sprint position, but the reigning Elite National Criterium Champion David Wenger and 20 other racers easily outsprinted me to the finish.

FRESH

Friday I carpooled 250 miles with a guy I met through the txbra forums to Jacksonville, Texas where we stayed in a hotel. And then it was time for the FRESH Road Race and fresh was a feeling I had not been having lately it seemed. The course was your typical race around a lake. 18 mile laps and the 3s got to do 4 laps. The organizer was pretty sweet and had managed to secure enough prizes to make it a prime lap each lap. It started out with some attacks and early breaks. I tried to bridge up to the break to get a prime the first lap, but was 3rd. But I had gapped the field, so our break worked for a while and eventually got caught. It was a field sprint for the next prime and I think I got 2nd or 3rd again. After this, a break got away and was hanging out there. Just after the biggest hill of the course which was flat by northwest standards I bridged up to the break.

I was drinking quite a bit of fluids on the ride and packed four water bottles of which 3 had powder. There was also neutral water which I took advantage of on laps 3 and 4. I drank half of the neutral water and poured the rest on my back since it was starting to warm up into the 80s already at 11am. By the end of the race I had drank all of the water in my 4 bottles and also the equivalent of about 1 neutral water bottle.

The three of us were holding on and again I got 2nd in the prime sprint. At this point we had dropped the other breakmate, so the two of us starting working. It seemed like I was taking longer pulls than my breakmate, but I had to make the break work. By the time we had about 6 miles to go the pack was nowhere in sight and we were still cooperating. I had made the decision in my mind to try to solo and waited until a slight incline about 3 miles to go and put in an attack. My breakmate couldn't keep up and was soon far out of sight. Not knowing how far back the peleton was, I kept pushing hard until about 500m when I eased up and poster finished! 2nd place was 46 seconds back and the field was 2 minutes back! For this feat I won some cash and the strange, but quite useful prize of a foam-fitting pillow.

Again, it would be nice to have a pic of the finish.

San Antone

And then we drove all 250 or so miles back to Austin. The next day I drove myself down to San Antonio for the crit. This was an all right course. Kind of wide, but not very wide. Corner 1 was more than 90 degress and then it went into a slight uphill. The road bended to the right and then was slightly downhill into another bend which was almost a corner and a final corner onto the straightaway which was about 350m to the finish.

Since the course seemed lacking of dangerous corners and had decent pavement, I decided to ride on my American Classic 58s which was the first time I used carbon wheels in a crit. It actually felt incredible as those wheels always do. But in the corners it was just so smooth such that at one point I was riding a bit too close to another wheel in front of me with about 2 inches maximum to spare, yet at the same time I felt completely in control of my bike and the line I was taking. We didn't rub wheels at all, but this did scare off another rider who observed this happen. At least it wasn't as close as the encounter David Wenger had in Athens.

Photo Credit: Walston Photo

It had to have been in the high 80s when the race started and was warming up still. I had 3 bottles on me and probably should have drank more often. The pace seemed slightly less intense than the driveway, but was still hard. Breaks were happening and then getting reeled back in and then one stuck which I didn't get into which was a mistake because I knew the guy getting into that was strong. Eventually I got myself into a chase break which was working hard to bridge. We could see that we were closing in on a break ahead of us, but we had 5 to go. With 3 to go, we were nearly within striking distance. With 2 to go I put in a hard effort and was able to bridge with one guy from the chase break. Final lap I started winding up already on the backstretch and then kept going hard on the straightaway and took 3rd from this break. However, there were 6 other riders in another break up the road, so I ended up 9th. It also became clear that my front wheel got a flat, so perhaps that hindered my sprint a bit.

The week of Mt. Hood

And then I went back to my car and proceeded to sweat off unprecedented amounts of water. Then it was out to get some fajitas and drive back. Monday was an easy ride and then Tuesday I tried to beat Kristian House's (a former British National Champ who was doing some winter training in Austin) KOM of Lost Creek on Strava. The best I could manage was a minute behind... on a 1.1 mile climb. It's just unreal what the pros can do. Another highlight was that I glued on my first tubular all by myself. It was hard and I ripped the skin off my right thumb three times in the process.



And I'm finishing off this blog post while on the plane to PDX. The plane was delayed so I'm probably going to get home at about 1am tonight which isn't good for my sleep, but hopefully that foam fitting pillow will make things better. Tomorrow I go to Athlete's Lounge to hopefully pick up both of my new bikes. All the parts have been sourced and it's just a matter of whether the mechanics can work some magic since the parts didn't all get there until this Sunday. But things are in motion and the bikes will be ready soon. I'll be sure to have a whole post just about these bikes. As for Hood, I'm going for GC in what will probably be my last race as a 3. And then I fly back to Austin on Monday to work another 2 weeks and will fly back to Portland just in time for Baker city. I'm dreaming and trying to secure a winter-time job through my company in Austin and a summertime job up in Portland - I hope I'll be that lucky.