I lost to a Triathlete

Well, I guess I should finally just say it.  I lost the Mt Ashland Hillclimb this year.  But more disappointingly is that I lost to a triathlete.  It was bad.

My sleep was so-so going into the race, but whatevs.  I didn't have a floor pump and was using my hand pump instead so I probably only put in 100 pounds.  At the top my front wheel was quickly going flat.  But the big thing was that when the triathlete made his move I didn't follow.  But he didn't even make a move was the thing, it was kind of like Eugene where everyone else is looking at each other waiting for someone else to do something and before you know it someone is up the road.  I guess nobody took him seriously, but damnit, he won.



That just really irks me about Oregon road racing is that it always seems like when you lose, you lose for a stupid reason and not because it was a hard bike race.  At least in cyclocross you do get your ass handed to you by the likes of Shannon Skerritt and Carl Decker, but all the roadie pros have left or just don't enter many Oregon road races.  Please Pros, come back and whoop on us so we are all taught what it's like to race a proper Pro/1/2 road race.

But hey, at least I won these in the raffle!

Negative Racing

I didn't have a very good weekend of racing results wise.  I should have been able to do better than high teens and 23rd in both races.  I could blame it on the 3 crashes that happened right in front of me, but on the other hand Zak crashed and still won it.  I could blame it on the big team presence from HPC and Team O, but on the other hand Tim Reinhart and Steven Davis made that break without having a 10-person squad.

And on top of that it sucks that there isn't even a fall back of at least having a teammate who did get the prize, all I'm left with is a disappointment in myself.

Enough ranting from me, not all weekends can be awesome.  Next up for me is Redmond Derby Days, Montinore and then I'm probably guest riding for Team O at Cascade.

Meh

Well, it's been two weeks and there honestly isn't much at all to wrote home/to my loyal fans/to the internets about.

The week before

Man, I can't even remember what I did during the week. Oh, right, I just looked at my workout history, now I remember.

PIR

So Tuesday (7/10) I did PIR and it was kind of boring really. It was a really long race again and I got in the break again. Bedford, Hoefer and Austin represented Team O in the break and then there was Benno, two Rapha guys, Corey Stayton and a river city guy. I guess I don't know everyone's names yet. Anyways, it was a little boring since the break was easily staying away (at least easily for me), but it was good because I got to work a little bit on the timing of my sprint. I am not sure if I have the sprinting power of all the other guys in the break, but I at least had a chance to work on positioning. Ended up 6th which was good for me.

Tabor

The next day I got in a Mt Tabor race while I still could since it was the last of the year. I managed to get a prime, but got dropped hard on the final lap after Bedford attacked so fiercely on the final lap.

Camping

Then I finally picked up my new road bike on Friday and set out towards Timothy Lake. I took a bus out to Estacada and biked from there. The scenery was pretty good and with the help of some random people from OBRA chat I found a way that was mostly paved.

While camping I honestly didn't enjoy myself as much as some other happy campers did. I dunno, I guess my tolerance levels for adrenaline are just so high that I don't get a kick out of seeing Mt Hood. And furthermore, I spend time outside in nature for better or worse (read in freezing rain and beautiful northwest summer sun) almost every single day. Descending at 45mph on single lane paved logging roads however does get me excited. And on top of that, more than half of the original people that expressed interest in going bailed out. I slept up there Friday and Saturday nights and didn't do any exercise on Saturday (a 3 mile hike doesn't really count). Sunday I biked back almost all of the way into a headwind, but got done with the ride in good time.

I may even have regretted going camping that specific weekend since there were some big money crits such as Boise and Redmond that I could've gone to.

Cascade

No PIR this week, but Thursday I finally picked up my TT Bike. It felt really fast and easy to hammer away on that thing.

Cascade Lakes

So I couldn't find a ride over so I rented a Zipcar and drove out to the Cascade Lakes Stage. I have decided that this stage doesn't really suit me since I'm not a pure hillclimber. There was an early break right after the downhill ended of course and that break eventually grew to 4 riders after the feed zone. Once we got onto the long straightaway, I had a bit of an argument with Rocky since him and Kaler Marshal were attempting to breakaway, but seemed to be arguing about breaking away more than actually riding. I bridged up and said "c'mon let's go" but Rocky thought I was chasing him down. After discussing this post race it did make sense that since it was just two of us teammates in the race that I should only bridge by sitting on a bridge if he's in a break. Fine, my mistake.

Anyways, I attacked again after having a chat with Rocky about this and was joined by two other willing compatriots. At this point, we were the 4th break up the road. We caught 2 other guys and then three more so we were 8. And then pretty much all of the people we caught suddenly didn't want to work with us. I was so pissed and eventually we got caught. So at this point, all that mattered was to try to be as close to the front as possible before the big climb. I was maybe 30th wheel going into it which was sort of ok. I was getting popped and was always just so close to the back end of the first pack, but just couldn't bridge up. I ended up 21st. Meh.

Afterwards

After the race I did not have a very good post-race diet and ate way too many blueberries and not enough grainy carbs (rice, bread) so I felt quite ill. It was also my 4th week of hard workouts so I was strained a bit. I was making quite a fool of myself over at the Serna's house being all sick and finding any flat surface to lie down at - couch, floor, bed, bench at the burrito place.

Skyliner TT

Finally, a full TT setup. TT Frame, integrated TT bars, Disc, Skinsuit, TT Helmet. Well, guess I was missing shoe covers. Anyways, I did considerably better than last year's TT where I missed my start time by over a minute. This year, the course was slightly different, but my time was 28:37 compared to last year's 31:29. It's hard to say where exactly I improved, but it's still probably a tough course for me since there is a lot of climbing and that is where the majority of the time spent on the course occurs. I ended up 40th in the TT which I wasn't happy about.

Crit

My biggest fear in the crit was wrecking my nice new road bike. Fortunately that didn't happen and Rocky got 13th. It's a tough course to read. Actually, I made a mistake again of being unaware of how many laps were left. It wasn't until 3 laps to go that I finally spotted the lap board and at that point it was probably too late to move up. Corner 3 wasn't as hectic as any of the other laps on the final lap and people didn't sprint for 50th so all was fine.

Awbrey Butte

Again a tough race for me to do well in due to Archie Briggs. Rocky went from the gun, but got dropped at the feed zone. The 4 other guys stayed away until Archie Briggs on the final lap. I counter-attacked right before the riser before the roundabout on Mt. Washington and got a good gap on the field. Unfortunately nobody had the power to bridge and work with me and the break up the road was quite powerful. I could see the pack closing in on me just before the Tumalo Reservoir descent, so I decided to maintain my break and make it a little easier going into the hill with a gap.

The rest of the race I mostly sat in except that I was in survival mode going into the feed zone climb and Archie Briggs and moved up as far to the front as possible. Ultimately I really screwed myself over in this race by not eating enough. I even had enough food with me 3 power bars and 2 gels but I only ate 1 of each. Shame on me. I got dropped the last time up Archie Briggs and pedaled in with other popped guys to finish 59th on the day and 31st GC.

"Meh" pretty much sums up my weekend of racing. Good news is I didn't get in a crash like last year. But I've got a lot to work on still. I feel like I need a better TT fit, need to force myself to eat properly, not have so many blueberries and peanut butter and be more persuasive to fellow breakmates. Oh and I need to figure out a way to thwart stupid three-time winner Randy in next year's Fantasy Tour de France.

screw this

Why haven't I made a blog post lately? Because racing sucks.

And the recap:

Portland Plaza Rules Committee: Voted in favor of keeping the rules the same and not allowing bicycles in the elevator and thus residents' units. And I didn't raise a big enough stink about it.

Ironclad Crit: Won two primes, but then the final lap someone else pulled my same move for the win and then I got lectured for being dangerous (which was deserved).

Brad Lewis Crit: Won two primes again, but then "Sofa King" won the race and a pair of ZIPPs.

Tabor: Psyche! Tabor is all done for the season. Hustled over there and then it wasn't happening. Then I went to pump my tire and the valve came off.

New Carbon Wheels: Stayed past my bedtime numerous nights to see my new carbon wheels come to being.

Cascade Lakes: Attacked got swallowed, attacked got swallowed. Putzed around with the filed until the final climb and then didn't hang on. Not a bad finish, but probably coulda done better.

TT: A minute 15 late for my start. And then got passed by 2 more people. Didn't realize tubulars lose air like crazy so was probably riding at 40psi.

Crit: Nipped for a prime, stuck behind a clusterfrack on the final lap.

Awbrey Butte: Had a great technique of hillclimbing against a pathetic field where a break never materialized. Final lap we alleycatted our way past stopped cars on the course while going downhill, then raced thru a final roundabout that had kids on cruiser bikes going thru it and then I was smack dab on the front with 400 to go and knew I was screwed. I completely gave up and floated back so hard that some guy rammed into me, snapped my deraileur hanger in half, gashed my rear tire and gashed up my new carbon wheel that had been ridden for the third time ever. I drug his bike for about 50 meters while staying upright.

And then Randy won the Tacoma fantasy Tour de France mini-league. Someone kill me and put me out of my misery now. Thanks.

Accidental Mullet

After I wrote last week's post, I realized that I left out a funny story from the Eugene Roubaix. There was a side competition for the best euro-mullet. At least a month back I had gotten a haircut and it was admittedly quite bad and seemed really long in the back. But whatever, I just rolled with it. Fast forward to Eugene Roubaix and I'm chatting with the volunteer coordinator who asks me, "so have you entered the mullet competiton?" And I say "wow, this really looks like a mullet?" And then another lady racer chimes in "that's like asking a fat lady if she is pregnant!" Whatever tho, if there is a competition that I feel like I have a shot in, I'll enter it and thus I present my euro-mullet pose (I did not win the competition):

This week I had been feeling pretty good except for a nagging sore throat. I speculate it has something to do with my uncleanliness. I don't clean my water bottles enough or my apartment enough. In fact this week I told my landlord that I was moving out partly due to the fact that I wanted a fresh start at trying to be somewhat clean.

Friday I took the train up to Tacomaland, had a nice bike ride down Yakima to PLU and then slept in Karly's bed. No Karly was not in her bed, she was down in Ashland with Tacoma Bike's spring training camp.

Saturday I headed out to Ravensdale. I might as well had been racing for bullseye cycling team after last week's performance. Any and every break I tried was chased to good effect. So it came down to a field sprint. I was strategizing on when to sprint and decided to go just after the final crest. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't on anybody's wheel when I started going at the crest and the crest was about 400 meters from the finish line. I ended up 11th after giving a killer leadout for 1st and 2nd place. I was mad at myself for making these two mistakes, but knew I had to try to put a positive spin on it and just take the experience with me to the next race. So on the post-race call with my coach, I told him "I am the best leadout man ever!"

After this I showered and went down to Tacoma Bike where Tony fitted me with my aero bars. I got to see a lot of characters down there including Micah who I got to say "DRILL BABY! DRILL! Everyday all the time everywhere!" He was quite happy to be back up in the northwest.

Originally I had thought that I may just go back home, but then Scott wanted to hangout and Tony wanted to ride next morning. I decided to stay. I went over to Scott's and heard his Ravensdale story that went something like this (sorry Scott for stealing your thunder): "me and a new Tacoma Bike rider were in the 5s race and I was totally dicking around at the back of the pack. The new guy asked: what should we try to do? I told him: see that guy right there? He's going to win the race, just sit back here for a while. Then on the final lap, I saw a hole on the left and told him to go now! And he went and ended up getting 2nd while I got 5th". And then Scott had a good laugh after telling his story. We then hungout with Jenn's sister and talked about a bunch of Tacoma locals' lives were going.

I headed back to Karlys, slept and then woke up to ride with Tony. We did a great loop of Gig Harbor including the LWV course where I got 4th last year. It was fun to relive that race. I hopped on the train heading back to pdx and made it back in time to catch my first church service since March. The service was Mother's day themed of course and then a plea for more volunteers because apparently their membership has a problem of making too many babies. Volunteering to take care of a bunch of kids with a set time limit sounds fun to me, but I can't reliably do that. But I was able to catch up on my tithing, so at least I can help out in some way!

Next week is Wenatchee. Who wants to give me a ride there and back? I can offer lodging at my parents in exchange!