Ready for Cat 2

Ready. Set. Mt. Hood.

Got into PDX at midnight. Got into Athlete's Lounge the next day and my bikes are not available at all, all parts are still in the boxes. I call my teammate and travel buddy for the weekend, Todd Gallaher who then calls Klipper who then both proceed to lecture me on how much of an idiot I am for expecting two bikes to be ready within 3 days notice and no extra details provided. On top of that, Athlete's Lounge was completely slammed for the biggest triathlon weekend of the year busy assembling bikes even more expensive than my upcoming Cervelo R5. For a moment, it seemed that I would not be racing this weekend. However, the shop owner whipped out an amazing deal on a bike on the sales floor a 61cm Cervelo S1:



Sold! And for such a good deal I will not say on this blog. Combined with the pedals I had brought from my Felt which I left in Texas for my 2nd Austin business trip, it was ready to go with only adjustments to the seatpost height and saddle position. The rationale behind this rather sudden and unexpected new bike was that I really wanted to race and that the Felt is probably nearing the end of its usefulness - at times I have heard something rubbing hard during sprints that I don't think is the wheel.

So off me and Todd went to The Dalles and we managed to get in a nice ride that evening. The bike actually came with a compact crankset which at first I was concerned about, but later very very thankful for.

Friday

We raced out in the hills southeast of The Dalles. With all the clouds and gadgetry I still could not figure out if we were going to get rained on or be 2km away from the rain and was concerned for having forgetten my bibshorts at the hotel. Turns out it rained a little bit.

Anyways, the race seemed like a hold-back-fest. Nobody wanted to play. On the only decent hill, the hillclimbers would always get a gap on the rest of the field and then proceed to let up allowing most people to catch back on. I was off the front probably too much. The final lap up the long false flat I couldn't stand it and attacked out with a Bob's rider. I pushed it hard up the hill hill and dropped Bob's, but probably should've waited for him. And then I was attempting a 10 mile solo break into the finish. It was windy and I thought that if I could make it to the downhills I could still have a chance against all the climbers who can't descend. Turns out I myself couldn't really descend as fast as I wanted which I speculate was due to a slight lack of eating. The peleton of about 40 caught me with about 2km to go. And then I had nothing for the final hillclimb finish and got gapped off the back at 17 seconds back.

I was pretty pissed that nobody else wanted to try to do a break in the 3s. Tactically at the time, that was the place to make a move for all people unsure of their climbing abilities. Yet out of who knows how many teams, I guess nobody else wanted to or perhaps they already had made up their mind that they were going to get beaten. But don't take my word for it, on the 3rd lap we were just mosying up the hill and someone from beside the road yelled at us "GROOOUUPPP RIIIDDEEE!!" He was so right, nobody except Garmin Kid, Bob's and me were trying to attack. People were having conversations in the field. The race was not hard at all.

Scenic Gorge TT

This race was just injury upon insult for me. I was doing somewhat ok in my race up to the Rowena Hills. I had passed one or two maybe even three guys and only had gotten passed by the ultimate winner. But then I got a flat about 2/3 of the way up the hill. Game over. I got a ride to the finish and got the worst actual finisher's time of 25 minutes back. GC fail.

As I got the flat, I set down my bike and started cheering on my other competitors as I waited for a ride. Then I saw a nice shady area to wait at and picked up my bike which then caught the 30mph wind with the disc and aero frame causing the downtube to slam into my leg giving it a nice looking bulge. Cherry on top!

Hood River Crit

Redemption time. A crit with hills is usually a crit I can rock and roll in. In this crit, Garmin kid really wanted to play from lap 3 and soloed away. I knew he would get it because the only team that may have been organized enough in the peleton to bring it back was Team Guinness - yes me alone bringing back that break slowly but surely over many laps but also dragging the rest of the field with me in the process. I seriously think that in the Cat 3 peleton I have tried to breakaway so many times (and been successful in half as many attempts) that the rest of the riders have an instinctual reaction to immediately chase down that break I get into. So I had to watch out and let Garmin kid ride away and hope for the best because I'm not going to chase down 1st just to get 30th.

Anywho, I don't remember much until the few final laps where I maintained a decent position and moved up on the final lap. This year the same thing happened where on the backstretch some people in the middle were on the front with the left sort of encroaching and the right side wide open. This time I punched in hard up the right and took as much of the final 3 turns as I could. Coming out of the final turn I sprinted with what I had left and managed to get 4th in the crit.

Photo credit: Dave Roth

Now there are a few things to mention about "bad style" in the above photo. First off is Jeff Gaeckle's bad style for getting a little too excited about getting 2nd place - a one handed wave or fist pump is probably more suitable than whatever Jeff had going on there. And yes he got 2nd, Garmin kid was 23 seconds ahead of him. And then after that is that weirdo Guinness rider wearing a little too much clothing. If you look closely, he is the only rider in the whole peleton with bib pants or even leg warmers on. Word from other riders was that he also has a knack for always wearing wool socks and always putting on his race numbers such that they inevitably tear off. But in my lame defense, I just came from Austin, Texas where the low temperature is 75 degrees!

Three Summits



Time for some real climbing! This year, I tried a different race strategy: not attacking from the gun. According to the senior Guinness Cycling Team race strategist on hand, Todd Gallaher, this race is always won on the final hill. Ok, so the course has 3 hillclimbs. The first isn't too bad at 2300 feet spread out over 13 miles, but there is a quite steep section for about 3 miles that a lot of people get dropped on. The next climb is 2000 feet over 7 miles. Definitely steeper and this will whittle out to close to the final selection of riders. The final climb is 2400 feet of climbing over 10 miles with a gradually increasing grade most of the way to the finish. Explosion avoidance is critical on the final hill.

For me the race didn't get very dramatic until after I had to hammer very hard by myself after taking at least a minute long nature break. I time trialed quite hard and was glad to have caught the slow field just before the steep section of hill 1. I made it over the top with the lead group and then descended carefully. Usually I descend very aggressively, but my brake pads were squeaking hard and the valve was making an unpleasant rim-whacking noise. Despite going somewhat easy on the downhill I still was first to the bottom.

Then going up hill 2 Garmin kid goes again. I guess I convinced myself that I would just hold on and not attack with him since by the laws of physics and me being the tallest if not heaviest Cat 3 in the peleton I was disadvantaged on the hills. Nonetheless I stayed with the lead pack and then mosied along with the now 7 man pack and again descended with squeaky braking.

Immediately at the bottom the pack slowed down a ton. It was a very slow pace for me so I just started setting a pace off the front. It looked for a moment that Bob's was following me, but then I was solo. Going up the final hill is interesting because the first section is this long and straight section where you can see a long way up or back down the road. And whenever I looked back it always looked like the chase group was within striking distance. I wasn't even attacking all that hard, my heart rate said I was in low z4 at the time, but I was going steady.

But then Tim Smith bridged up to me and we started working. And then a Mellow Johnny's rider from St. Louis bridged up too. I really wanted a podium and resolved in my mind that I would fight for it. Just before the cut-off to the ski area, Mellow Johnny's attacked us and we let him ride away. I sort of worked with Tim, but with 500 to go I attacked and then rode on up to a 3rd place finish in the stage! Podium!



Well with that I am pretty confident in my decision to upgrade to Cat 2. Ever since Walla Walla where I finally had the fitness to perform, it seems that it has been easy enough for me to get a podium if not win as long as I don't do constant futile attacks most of the race. Or I can still do lots of attacks and stay away in places where people don't know I can stay away... like in FRESH Road Race in Texas. And honestly, it really seems silly to see that podium shot of the final stage with me, this monster of a biker securing a podium performance against the likes of true climber-type bodied racers. It's time for me to seek tougher bike racing.

And now I'm back in Texas for another 2 weeks. I'm planning on doing the San Antonio crit again and then will be flying back just in time for Baker City.

The next level

It's time for me to step up to the next level of bicycle racing. This week I joined an Oregon bike racing team: Guinness Cycling Team. And also with the results this weekend, it's pretty convincing that I'm ready for the next level.

The Guinness Cycling Team should work out well for me. There are a few Cat 3s and a few Cat 1/2s that race, but not dozens so it will be possible to perform well without competing with a ton of teammates. Through brief encounters I've had with riders on the team I'm looking forward to the season. Last summer when I came down for some Crits, I saw Alex, a Cat 3 rider, do a solo breakaway at the Franz Bakery Crit for the win. And then down in Eugene I had a humorous encounter with a Guinness rider whose pre-hill-climb strategy was to chug a can of red bull - and it worked, he was 40+ seconds faster than me and I was 2nd in the 4/5s. This year, I met Cliff who was the guy who gave me a ride to the Capitol Crit last week. Cliff is a very chill and nice dude who races a lot. On Tuesday I met up with a group from the team for some drinks and it seemed like I would mesh well with the team. And another pro about this team is that it's cool if I still wear the Tacoma Bike jersey in my Washington races. However in Oregon I'll be wearing some white and green.

As for training, this week was a rest week. And it was a rest week where I was resting after coming off of a win streak that I was resenting resting and really wanted to get out and do some sprints. At work I was having trouble focusing because I wanted to race so badly. The weekend could not come soon enough for me.

The weekend finally came and I was excited. I had reserved a Zipcar for the first time and made my way up to the gloomy area by Centralia for the Independence Valley Road Race. On the way I was listening to the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy so I was amped. I got to the race area and it was packed. It was so packed that the only parking spot left was in a huge puddle. I parked there and did a little dance of getting out on the passenger side and tiptoeing on some dry land. After putting together the bike, I barely made it to the start on time.

The race had a big field of 76 riders, however, I only saw a few sprinter threats and was really wondering if some climbers would make or break the day. The race began and I was playing the move up through the field game for a while. The first hill came and it was quite big. The field was going hard up it, but mostly stayed together. On the other side of the range I kept moving up when I could. Finally about 15 miles in I found a hole going up to the front so I attacked and didn't have enough to really go, so the field caught up.

Coming up on the 2nd climb of the big hill I was planning on attacking on the upper part of it, however when that point came, I was already at 188bpm, so I was not in a position to mount an attack. The field seemed to break up a bit and a few of us were trying to paceline away. However, this paceline of ours kept growing in number, so I stopped doing pulls and waited for the next small hill. The next hill came and it was again a big effort for us, but this breakaway field of us stuck together. At this point, I knew it would come down to a field sprint, so I focused on positioning. When the 1k came up I put myself at about 5th and made my sprint at the 200k mark. I flew past the 4 guys in front, but apparently gave a great leadout to the guy who won the race. I placed 2nd and that was fine by me since I have found it hard sometimes on the field sprints. I drove on back to PDX and got some good sleep.

Randy and I after IVRR

Sunday morning I headed out to Hagg Lake with Cliff again. The weather was quite dreary with rain nearly the whole race. The field was much smaller - maybe 25 guys. And the race had a bunch of small hills, but nothing major. There also weren't really any attacks either. I made a few but still felt like I couldn't keep them going. On the 4th lap my front derailleur started having issues and couldn't shift to the big ring. I decided that I would hold onto the pack for the field sprint since I could power up the 200m uphill finish in a big rear gear. However, with about 2k to go the chain randomly shifted up to the big ring. I thought "wow cool. ATTACK!!!" And I did, but again I didn't have enough juice to get away for good. At this point I was debating about downshifting again, but kept it in the big ring for the finish. I was in the 2nd row approaching the 200k and then went. The Banana Belt series leader made a good jump too and powered out for the win and some other guy managed to claim 2nd. Still though, a podium from the field was satisfactory for me.

After this I volunteered as a corner marshal to pay my race fee and hitchhiked with a masters guy back home. Whenever I can on Sundays I go to church and have lately been contemplating whether trying to be better than all these other bicyclists is really showing mercy and being nice and basically doing God's will as opposed to helping dig a well for some poor Malaysian tribe. One of my friends suggested that my rationalization process of saying: "ok I've been working since September on this bicycle racing thing and now I want to stop? I don't think so." might actually be the righteous thing to say. And in this week's message I randomly flipped in a pew Bible to Psalm 107 telling stories of how people desert God but then decide to come back. And the Sermon was about Hosea who I guess invited Israel to come back to God by naming his kids weird names. I'm still unsure about whether this means that this bicycling is the wrong thing, or this message was a warning from straying from my bicycle racing. I'm gambling that it's a warning to not stray away from bicycling so I'm going to keep pressing on.

And with that, it's time to upgrade and go to the next level: Cat 3. At this point, the only way to move up another category is to be good. It's possible in Cat 4 and 5 to simply do a lot of races and then you can upgrade, but in Cat 3, you must earn 30 points to get to the 2s. And then with the 2s you're racing with the 1s and Pros so it is quite hard. But I've proved myself out of the 4s and it's time to see how well I can do at this next level.