Oh look, I have fitness now!

Eugene

So, after Walla Walla I guess that helped my fitness a bit.  Because I made the break didn't sit in and stayed with the contending field at Eugene Roubaix.  Seriously, wtf?  On lap 1 once we turned on to Crow Rd there was a bunch of action as one could expect and I closed a gap to a group that included Liberles, Hoefer and a few others including my favorite new addition to the OBRA peleton, Marek Litinsky.  All of a sudden I look back and we have a massive gap.  Then Bedford and two other contenders bridged up.  And I was like, well, I guess this is the new peleton.  It was so weird.  Basically everyone else dnf'ed and it was an Oregon Cup race.  Most people just quit and didn't get flats.

Post by Portland State Cycling.

Anywho, I had a lot of fun.  Marek was being all aggressive which is great to see because so many OBRAnians just sit in all the time and don't do anything.  Bedford and Liberles both did some attacks, but about 5 of us all from different teams organized into a paceline that chased down Bedford.  It was beautiful.  In the end I got on Marek's wheel for the sprint but couldn't hold on, so I got 4th while he was 3rd.

Post by Portland State Cycling.

Tour de Bloom

I think skipping the mass start hill-climb was an excellent idea in hindsight.  Cause I got to watch the Grand Floral Parade instead:



And I therefore was fresh for the crit.  The course seemed to be a dramatic improvement over the super sketch backside of the previous course and the final corner was super fun.  We went down Orondo on the bricks and passed within a foot of a beer garden crowd at McGlinn's and then raced into the corner going downhill praying each time that my wheel wouldn't slip out and that I wouldn't run out of pavement on Wenatchee ave.  A breakaway got away early and ultimately lapped the field.  I hung out at the front and managed to maintain a good enough position in the final lap to get 10th in the race.



I think I might be starting to get a hang of the crits.  Great Success!

The road race was definitely the most epic race I've done so far this year and may turn out to hold that place.

The race started innocently enough with no rain and it looked like it might stay that way.  We rolled out onto the 102 mile three lap course and there was plenty of jockeying for position.

Once we began heading east we got slammed with a massive crosswind.  Echelons began to form and one started rolling away quite convincingly.  I fought hard to work my way into the next echelon and after a few rotations, the peleton was long gone.  Sucking a wheel was impossible that day.

Our chase echelon was working great with neither the peleton or the first echelon in sight. It was clear that there were some stronger riders than others since we were dropping people from our own echelon as the lap went on. As we rounded the corner to go west we saw two things: the first echelon ahead of us and a nasty wall of rain headed straight towards us. The rain hit us before we caught the first echelon. When we caught the echelon, everyone was suffering from both working so damn hard and from the rain which at times felt like hail. So what was the logical thing to do?

Attack! Yes sirree I shot straight by everyone like a maniac and managed to drag Brian Hitchcock with me. I thought there would be a reaction and a new echelon would form, but instead we found ourselves with a 2 minute gap between both the echelon we caught and 2 additional wackos further up the road!! And this was with 40 miles to go just after I missed my feed since I could barely see anything let alone my mom handing me a water bottle.

Brian and I were holding our gap both ways, but were eventually joined by two strong riders as we echeloned east. We didn't make any dent into the two ahead of us, so it became clear that we were racing for 3rd. As we turned west, the vulture in me spotted weakness in Brian and one other guy, but that the 4th guy was very strong. So what did I do?

Attack! I just started riding hard off the front and after a bit of bucking around, the strong guy dropped the other two and bridged up to me. I wanted third so I did my best to seem like I could keep up on the remaining hills. With 1k to go we got into cat and mouse mode. He made me go first and teased me with a small gap that I bought into too early just before 200m. We were among the few finishers that day that came in as a group. Love it!

I ended up at 8th in omnium points and was the first non-Canadian.

Banana Belt 2

Well, after the 100 mile crosswind race, this whole 77 mile Banana Belt seemed like a walk in the park for me.  Leading up to the race though, there was some tension within the team.  In Banana Belt 1 my team didn't do the best despite having a 7 person team in a 24 person race.  We all met for beers and general team discussion the Thursday beforehand and there was a lot of finger pointing and grandiloquence of what should be done.  I kinda just sat there and ate chicken wings.  Sherm asked me what I thought and I said that "bike racing leadership shouldn't be appointed, but is demonstrated in the race."

Anyways, I got a ride out there with one of our "I'm just getting back into racing after 4 years of living another life" teammates.  The race was fairly typical Banana Belt stuff I guess with all the rollers providing lots of opportunity to attack and stuff.  Dwayne Farr looked quite strong that day, but it was Kyle Medlin that went for a solo effort on lap 3 or 4 that lasted a good 1.5 laps.  After this, Mike Kath and Erik Hofland always seemed to be getting themselves in these teaser breaks that were just a little bit up ahead.  I started getting a little aggressive on lap 5 or 6 where one of my attacks involved going right before the dam hill.  Our team was doing great at making sure they followed the strong wheels with Jeremy especially being an absolute nuisance to Bedford.

Just before the final lap, Bedford and Bourcier were trying attacks and I covered some of those.  Then, I sensed the field was a little tired, so I put in a good attack.  Nobody followed.  The peleton didn't react immediately.  And just like that I had a 40 second gap.  It was a ways to go, but I was feeling great.  I tempoed well up the dam hill and still had a good gap after that, so this was serious.  My moto-official was encouraging me and leading up to the finish it seemed like the peleton was closing in, so I put in some good digs up the final hills.  I looked back before the sprint hill and the gap was still big.  I powered up the last hill in a big gear and poster finished.  Our team led out Sherm who ended up in 4th.  That was a pretty great day for the team.  Oh and guess this race made Jeremy my favorite newest addition to the OBRA 1/2 peleton.

Anniversary Weekend

After BB2, I met my girlfriend and headed out to the coast for a romantic 1-year anniversary where I proposed to her on Sunday.  And she was quite surprised but said yes and we're both quite excited.

Eugene

Well, it's that time of year again for my most favorite stage race: the Eugene Celebration!  This year in revolving chairs lodging arrangements, I scored a ride and stay with Alex Yale and Kyle Brown of Theraputic Associates.



We totally coulda fit another person or two in the ride.

McBeth

Yeah, same hillclimb, about the same time for me as last year.  So moving onwards, let me show you this awesome queen-szie inflatable mattress that Alex let me use:



The bed was a key component of my success the following few races.  I put my legs up on the headrest as I slept.  It was quite comfortable.

Briggs Hill

Well, going in I knew that this race was going to be quite crazy since it seemed like half of the field was known for attempting and succeeding in breakaways.  Also, there weren't really any teams there, so it was basically every man for himself.

About a mile into the race Dillon Caldwell, Ben Thompson and another dude got the gap.  Well, I knew that with the small field and combo of riders up there, it would be dangerous, but not many people seemed interested in actually cooperating to bring it back despite me trying to get people to do so.  We went up Briggs hill and it seemed like we were trying to get a Strava KOM until it was apparent the field was back together after the turn onto Spencer Creek.

Oh, by the way, at this point, Sam Schartz had been off the front for like half a lap.  The pack stopped doing an organized chase everyone-for-themselves-attempt-to-breakaway and eased up.  However, I was at the back and just kept my race speed wondering if anyone would follow, but nobody did.  And so I bridged up to Sam Schartz.  He then decided to start hammering for me which was fine by me.  Before the next hill we were joined by Paul Bourcier and Kai Applequist and we worked well together.  The next lap a sizeable group including Colby WM, Kyle Medlin and maybe 2-3 others joined us.

At this point, those 3 that had basically gone from the gun had 2:30 on us.  But then our race official car stopped us at the top of Briggs Hill cause an ambulance had blocked the way.  And we learned that those 3 had passed the lead car!  And the refs said they were disqualified and no longer the race leaders.  The rest of the peleton was also stopped at maybe 1:30 behind us.

This changed the dynamic quite a bit and it sure seemed like Colby and Kai who were up in the GC were no longer interested in doing much work.  So after we had climbed Fox Hollow it was grupo compacto except for Paul Bourcier who went just before we were caught.  Bedford guttered us all and asked me who had the gap to which I replied "GASP GASP GASP, paul bourcier, GASP GASP GASP."  And he saw that the entire field was behind him so he didn't feel like going again, I guess.  After a little bit of people waiting for someone to do something I put in my final getaway attempt right before Territorial rd and saw that I was getting away.  I got into TT mode for 30 pedal strokes, set my eyes on Bourcier, then checked behind and saw some attempts to bridge to me.  And then I was in TT mode for 2 minutes, set my eyes on Bourcier who I was catching up to, then checked behind and saw the gap was growing to the field.  And this continued up Briggs hill where I caught Bourcier at the top.

We then drilled it very cooperatively all the way until Bourcier gave me the flick with 300m at which point I unleashed the stompie.  I had to give it one final push at 50m to win by half a wheel.  It was a good win, but I was most pleased that I had gotten away from the coulda-woulda-shoulda group.  In fact Paul and I had gotten away to the tune of 2:30!  And that put me in the lead by 3 seconds.

Then Alex and I went out for Thai and I stopped at Laughing Planet for another burrito.

Coburg TT

I was pretty happy about my TT.  It was crappy weather, but I was able to put in a great time and lost only 9 seconds to Paul Bourcier (Paul has beat me in every TT at the stage races this year).  Also, Colby and English didn't gain anywhere close enough time to get back on GC.  Oh, and I got to ride my awesome TT Bike.

Crit

Well, it was just flat and stuff.  Oh and it started raining at the start so it was slick.  Sam Schartz had exploded yesterday, so he was down on GC and nobody seemed interested in chasing him when he went.  But somehow Kaler Marshall also snuck away and both of them lapped us all!  The rest of the race was or really all of it was Paul and I mostly defending GC and everyone else attacking.  I also did a few attacks but when it became clear that Carl Hoefer was gonna take those remaining 4 bonus seconds for third, I settled for a pack finish and prayed that Kaler Marshall hadn't hoped up too high in GC.





Turned out Kaler jumped from 5th to 3rd with me grabbing 2nd GC and Paul Bourcier finally winning his first Eugene Celebration Stage Race in the p1/2s after 80 attempts.

Crit Season is a bust for me

Man, I seriously suck in the last 5 laps of crits. Like badly. Ok, maybe not as bad as those who crash out of them, but I think after the final big crit of the year last night I'm really disappointed in myself. This whole frickin season my best result in a crit is 10th. That just sucks. I didn't win any primes and the only cash I won was at Redmond Derby Days where it payed 20 deep. Seriously, here are my crit results:

Tour of Walla Walla: 85th same time
Mutual of Enumclaw: 53rd pulled out of race
Capital Stage Race: 44th pulled out of race
Mt Hood: 60th same time
St Honore: 17th same timeish
Redmond Derby Days: 17th same time
Cascade: 31st same time
Vancouver: 10th last from break
Franz Bakery: 16th
Cirque du Cycling: 20th

So yeah, I'll go over those last 3 here.

Vancouver

After more trouble than it ought to have been for me, I bridged up to the break of the day.  Eventually it was 10 of us and eventually I could not keep up a reasonable place and got last from the break.  That sucked.

Franz Bakery

So this race I set a record for most spectators coming to watch me.  I had my Mom & Dad, my Mom's friend and her friend's husband, my cousins Eric and Laura and then Laurel, her sister, her sister's husband and their 3 kids.  And all I could show for it was 16th place and in the process I relinquished my 4th place Oregon Cup standings and ended up 7th on year which is good, but not good enough damnit!  I was so angry at myself after that race because it is a race I have come close to winning twice and I really like bread.  It was also immensely stupid because as shown in the photos below I was in a good spot with 4ish to go and just totally blew it the last 2 laps.







Cirque du Cycling

Lots of money on the line for this one. Jordan was saying he was bringing extra medics for the races and Eddie was telling me I need to line up on the line for this race. And it was almost about the thunderstorm. Well, I lined up ok, it didn't thunderstorm and I avoided crashes. But still on the last lap or maybe the second to last lap I thought I was doing good and was something like 4th out of the 180, but by the time I got to the next corner I was out of the top 10 and gave up. Gosh that sucked.





I am truly in disbelief as to how badly I suck in crits. Not cool.

Oh, I almost forgot...

I finally won at Tuesday PIR by doing a successful stompie from a break.  Going clockwise I sprinted with 1k and then held a good speed and the gap all the way to the finish.  Then after getting some dinner at Eddie's I biked home in the dark and while going on Broadway a guy in a Mercedes took me out while diving in for a parking spot.  He felt really bad and settled it out with me by giving me $200 from the nearest ATM.  That is just sad that my crit winnings are less than that crash compensation. 

All right I am done complaining hopefully.  I'm not doing the Gresham crit and am focusing on Eugene for now.

CCC 2013

And that CCC this year stood for Cretinous Crazy Crashes!

This year I decided that I'd prefer racing with teammates and was able to guest ride for Team Oregon.  I got up all bright and early on Friday and Eric Gushurst was nice enough to pick up me, my two bikes, 2.5 wheelsets and red monster suitcase.  Going over to the race with Eric and Chris Dubois put me in a good mood with the near-constant bike race talking and wisecracking from those two.  Oh and watching the tdf on Jorge's phone was an added bonus.

Cascade Lakes

The plan for the race was for someone to get in the early break and then Chris and Eric and I would help Dillon get in a good spot for the final climb.  Oh and Scott Gray and Adam Artner would just be out playing bikes with us too.  So to start things off we all flew down the Sunriver cutoff and then turned right onto FS Road 40/Upper Deschutes.  Then of course the breakaways started and eventually Andrew Boone was off the front.

Then it was time to wait.  The next somewhat exciting thing to happen was perhaps the first stupid crash of the weekend which happened at the feed zone.  A little later I then dropped my chain and pulled over to fix it.  I didn't really notice, but apparently as I was standing on the side and as I leaned down to fix my chain I swung one of my legs directly into the peleton and nearly caused a few crashes.

Anywho I caught on after the chain drop and then made sure I was towards the front to cover any breakaway attempts that may happen before we got to the hill.  We could still see a few guys from the break up there but nobody really wanted to give it a go.  So as we approached the final climb I was trying to get Dillon to get to the front and was looking back to make sure he was on my wheel, but he didn't quite make it on my wheel for some reason.  So I did make it to the front and figured I'd just sit on the lead group and wait for Dillon to get up there too.

As we went up the hill suddenly it was just 6 of us as I glanced back.  I knew this was the move, but I also knew that it's nearly impossible for anyone to bridge to that move so I just sat in expecting to get dropped shortly.  I was pegged at my top end the whole way up the hill, but once we made it past the final steep section I knew I had made the selection.  I didn't do any work until we got to the parking lot road where I sat on Max O'Neal's wheel.  Max covered two gnarly attacks from this kid (hot tubes I think) and then made his own move at 200m.  I waited a little more, but once I heard a guy yelling out "right! right!" I knew he was going for the sprint so I took the long way around the left but it ended up that I had enough speed to get the win.

After the race we drove over to Dillon's soon to be new neighborhood and had dinner at the clubhouse.  Spaghetti and fruit and good scenery.

High Desert TT

I really don't have much to say about the TT except that I was pleased that despite my lack of practice, etc that I managed to get a good enough time to keep me in 3rd GC.  Actually I was thinking about sprinting for the line on the final straight but didn't and in the end the winner of the TT got a time good enough to get 1 second ahead of me in GC, so note to self: always sprint for the line in a TT.

Crit

Since I was 3rd GC and there were no intermediate time bonuses this was a 40 minute trial of avoiding crashes for me.  I sat in and numerous times had to brake fairly hard because of either a real crash but quite often an almost-crash which was causing almost-crashes behind me.  Sorry!  Our team plan was for Adam Artner to win, but he went too early and was a little hard on himself after the race.  He later consoled himself with some avocados and yams (inside joke).

Awbrey Butte

Going into Awbrey Butte our team had a plan to not let a break get away too far and then attack on the way up and through Awbrey Butte on the 3rd lap and then maybe Dillon could get away and place better.  The parts of making it a hard race sounded good to me.

When the race started there was yet another crash at mile 2 that I actually got tangled up in.  I narrowly avoid I think Max O'Neal who was on the pavement and then my front wheel got stuck in someone in front of me and I skidded to a stop somehow remaining upright the whole time.  I checked my wheels and noticed that the front wheel was just a little out of true so I released my brake pads a bit and decided to go chase without a wheel change.

I caught up fairly quickly and I think I noticed Andrew Boone get in the break yet again so it was time to wait.  We went through the feed zone grabbing these neutral water bottles that were only useful for pouring on your back as the caps made you choke when you tried to drink it.  Then we got neutralized twice as the Masters 1/2 passed us twice.  Then the break's 4 minute advantage suddenly went to 0 minutes as we approached the climb on lap 3 - weird, but game on!

Scott Gray starting hammering up the hill and we dropped a fair amount of people, but Kaler Marshal and Ben Thompson were still up there.  The 4th time around our team was planning on keeping the pace tough.  Eric told me he wasn't sure how much more oomph he had and so I asked him, "so how about you string it out right now!"  And he did!  And then he took a wrong turn.  And then I spoke with Adam and told him I wanted him to come one a breakaway attempt with me on the backstretch.  However, Dillon was already in a favorable position so he found himself in a break which looked pretty good.  Adam then countered a few moves and I hung out with the GC leaders.

The final time up Archie Briggs we caught that breakaway that Dillon was in and then it was gruppo clusterfracko.  I was sandwiched at one point between Dwayne Farr and Brian Hitchcock and was making contact with both of them until I decided to relinquish my not-a-spot.  We headed through the roundabout and then I was on Dillon's wheel but then I somehow ended up on the right and was on Adam's wheel.

With 50 meters before the final roundabout Adam punched it into the inside of the corner which was a dangerous move even with us riding thru the roundabout beforehand to know that the inside was clean of any obstacles.  I hesitated and couldn't follow Adam's wheel but also took the inside hard.  Adam then opened up his sprint and completely crushed it while I sprinted for a top 10 after hearing the final gnarly crash of the weekend happening to the rear left of me.

It was then a tense few minutes afterwards as I surveyed the carnage that HSP went through over the weekend but also as I awaited results to see if I kept my 3rd overall GC.  One of the GC contenders got 3rd, but it was barely not enough time bonus that I kept the podium spot.  Adam really saved it for me by winning the 10 second time bonus.

After all that we headed home and made wisecracks the whole way back about bike racing, over-protective cops in the town of Mill City and whatever else passed the time.  Aside from all the crashes this was the funnest weekend of bike racing I had had the whole year, not to mention the best result too.  Having teammates along the likes of those I had over the weekend put me in a great mood which had to have contributed towards my success.

Two more important things worth noting:

1.  After 3 years of Randy's domination, I have finally won the Tacoma mini-league in Tour de France fantasy!
2.  I have yet to receive my prize money in the mail, but when I do I will be sure to split it up.

I had it in me

That was a fun fun fun weekend.

Saturday:

I took the MAX out to Hillsboro and attempted to partly crash the Oregon Cycling Challenge, which had a ride of 400 miles that if finished qualified the cyclist for Race Across America.  But I was out to crash the 60 mile ride which just went up Bald Peak and then back via Spring Hill.  I rode for a little bit with some riders who were actually able to do a good pace up the hill, but then I did 15 minute z3 interval and was gone. I then did a z4 up Bell Rd and then took a wrong turn a few times, tried to draft this group of Porsches out for a day drive and then finally found Scholls Ferry and rode back.  I would've taken some pics, but I no longer have a memory card in my phone and there is some melted remnants of a power bar on the camera glass anyways.

Banana Belt 2:

I had to convince Klipper to commit to giving me a ride despite the forecast suggesting the small possibility of rain.  He came over nonetheless and we drove over arguing discussing about whether one should use the directions a promoter gives you to get to a race or just put in an address into the nearest navigation-enabled device you have.

I didn't quite know how I would feel in the race, seems like the Oregon races are hard to read sometimes, but I wouldn't try breaks too early and try to have good positioning for hills.  I guess I tried a lot of breakaways, but mainly after lap 3.  There were a few good ones including one where it was Zach Winter (he's now on Planet X) and myself.  My rear derailleur was skipping all over the place in the critical range that was needed for the hill sprint, so I was sort of resigned to a so-so finish, but decided to stick it out. 

On the final lap there was a fair amount of action on the backstretch and there was a 2-man break of Rapha and HPC up the road.  It seemed like Bedford was covering a lot of stuff at the front and that a lot of people were tired, so on the last riser before the long flat I decided it would be best to try to be in a break so I'd get last in the break due to the failing derailleur.  I attacked and the derailleur skipped two or three times until I could finally mash without issue and then I was off.  I almost didn't catch the break on the last big hill, but convinced myself to dig deep and finally caught them.

There was a fair amount of cat and mouse going on with the HPC guy who at the time I thought was Trevor Spahr trying to drop us more than a couple times, but I could always catch up.  HPC tried once more to drop us about 200 meters before the wall, but I chased it down and then waited.  Rapha guy took off close to the bottom and I waited while we took the right hand side up the hill.  Right after the worst of the pavement, HPC sort of jumped, but I really kicked it up and passed HPC quickly... and then I passed Rapha... and then I had to shift down for the finish... and with a stroke of very good luck I shifted and the rear derailleur skipped into the perfect gear for the finish... but then I heard a guy coming up hard on the left... and I heard a woman yelling "C'MON STEVEN!!!"... but the gear I was going in was solid... I mashed it through the line before any other wheel and threw my fist in the air with a big smile.

Unexpected Win

Coming into Saturday's race, the St Honoré Criterium, I was feeling kind of OK, but was looking forward to racing with a bunch of teammates. I got in a so-so warmup.

There seemed to be a decent amount of good racers there, Beardsley and his team, Bedford and his team, Liberles, and a few other threats. I started at back with Rocky. It was a fast pace with lots of corners, so there were very few places to move up. However, I eventually found that the back stretch was a good place to move up. But, I didn't get to the front until 30 minutes in. Once I got to the front we had just caught Trevor on his move from the gun, but then I drifted back again. I was feeling like the efforts were really getting to me and it felt borderline Texas hot (ok, not really, but it was warm) and my water bottles had too much sugar.

Nonetheless, with 8 to go I focused on trying to move up again. On 5 to go I took the final corner on the inside as far inside as I could which helped me move up about 10 positions. On the back, I suddenly had an opening to the front. Klipper was sitting 2nd wheel and the pace slowed, so I attacked thinking this may distract people from watching Klipper. Apparently they were still so focused on Klipper that at least Beardsley and Liberles didn't even see me attack. The rest of the laps I just rode as hard and as safely as I could. I also made sure that I was counting the laps correctly and the final lap I looked back and saw no other racers despite the hecklers chanting "they're coming up!" I checked the lap board and it said "00", so I did the best poster finish I could.

Photo credit: Dave Roth

Klipper was waiting to see the finish and did a victory lap or two with me. After the race I got to see my friends who came to watch me race and took some pictures with my teammates. We all had dinner over at the Lucky Lab and were eventually joined by the women's winner, Jade Wilcoxson. Everything felt awesome about that night except it would have been better if another Guinness rider was also on the podium picture.

Photo Credit: Josh Liberles's Girlfriend

So there, after no pictures of me winning in Walla Walla or Texas, the third time is the charm for getting a good picture of me finishing. Ha, that makes it one win in each state this year. Cool!

Post-race Embarrassment

I actually am pretty embarrassed by a number of things that happened after the race. The first thing is listening to a heckler in the crowd who suggested I wear my piece of bread like a crown on my head. I immediately saw at least 3 faces including Rocky's in the crowd express disgust at this major hygiene violation. I would have shared the bread, but nobody else wanted to eat it after that, except me.

The next thing is that I was wearing last year's jersey. This would have been ok, except our big sponsor this year of Athlete's Lounge now has a prominent logo on the front of this year's jersey. I apologized to Scott at Athlete's Lounge for this faux pas.

And now, me winning is THIS BIG DEAL. I made up for the lack of winning finish line pictures and then some at this race. I'm even on the front page of OBRA right now. So now EVERYBODY knows who I am so it is going to be 10 times harder to sneak away. At least 2 people immediately recognized me out of the blue at PIR this week.

Screenshot of OBRA website.

But maybe that is a good thing because I have gotten some flack for this race victory from Oregon Cycling Action:

The field pulled back Sheagley and Edgergton and seemed capable of reeling in Siroky, but confusion about how many riders remained up the road stalled the chase and allowed the Guinness rider to solo in about 10 seconds ahead of the field. Steven Beardsley, who took the bunch sprint for second, momentarily thought he had won before realizing Siroky had finished first. Josh Liberles (HP Chiro/Alpine Mortgage Planning) couldn’t get past Beardsley in the field sprint and finished third.

Oh, and Lang Reynolds rates the Baker City Race where I got 3rd as one of his "top 10 stupidest races."

From Lang Reynolds's Twitter Feed.

So hopefully bike racing will be hard again and that will make my next victory that much more special. Please Oregon Peleton, pay attention to me next time so that I can win while you are giving your hardest effort. Here is a pro-tip for all of you who have trouble figuring out I am up the road: if the follow car or police motorcycle in the crit is not within sight, it means somebody is up the road!

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.

Tour of Walla Walla 2012

I had a really fun weekend. Things really came together in all areas. I got a lot of thoughts, so let me try to go through them chronologically.

The weekend before.

I went out to King's Valley and got a flat on the first lap and had wheel change issues and dnf'ed. It sucked and it was hard to even force myself to do a second lap. The next day I went for a long ride out as far up Larch Mountain road I could with some new biking friends. That was a lot of fun and a nice day.

Things start clicking... literally

On Monday I went to a shop to have them glue on a new tire. While there I also was planning on putting on some new speedplay cleats - a task that was long overdue since I had not done any maintenance whatsoever to the cleats since I first bought the system in July of 2010. They were so bad that the screws attaching the cleat apparatus to the cleat mount were totally stuck if not fused together in a huge pile of rust. Luckily, a shop mechanic was able to drill out the cleat screws and then hacksaw off the apparatus.

Once the new cleats were on (and I had inserted the cleat anglers the right direction) my bike felt like a totally new bike. It was responding with seemingly no loss of power transfer to my every stroke. That night on some hillclimb intervals I easily got the farthest up the hill than ever before. Then at PIR, it felt easy to hang with the pack and even get onto Beardsley's or Ginsberg's wheel in a sprint. However, the wet track and my still slippery tires made things seem a little to sketchy to want to risk sprinting. At least a teammate got in a break so the team got 4th.

And now for the main event

The first stage race of the year for me! There really has not been a stage race that I've been to where it wasn't awesome and this one has been the most awesome yet. I feel like the Tour of Walla Walla is a really challenging regional stage race where doing well means far more than doing well in a local race or even a smaller stakes stage race.

Logistics

Getting there was definitely a battle and I was set on not camping this year. It was also tough to even find a ride out there again, but things worked out. Ted from Audi hooked me up with some other Spokanites (Spokanistanis?) that were renting out a house for the weekend. I slept on the couch the first night and managed to negotiate half of a bed the following evening just like last year. On a sad note, my housemate has been in India for a family emergency, but was gracious enough to loan me his car for the weekend. And off I went!

Friday

This year I have been trying to be a little smarter in choosing where I make my efforts. That means that I did not bury myself trying to breakaway on the first lap. I saved most of my efforts for the hill. The first time up was moderate and I was a wheel-length out of contention for a mountain prime, that was pretty cool though. After that, nobody wanted or could breakaway so I just waited up at the front for the hill again. It came and the pace got harder. Attacks came at 5k to go, but then the winner went at 3k and stayed away by 10 seconds. I came in 9th which I was quite satisfied with. And my mom had some homemade applesauce for me at the finish! Nice.

Saturday

It would seem as if I need to take on some better strategies for criterium riding. Namely not hammering on the front for 75% of the race. After the final prime I actually got away from the field, but then Team Bonehead Cycling sent a guy up to me who then proceeded to attack me and didn't get that far away. Ultimately the peleton caught us after a valiant imbecile pull from another Team Bonehead Cycling guy. I was amazed and then nervously pedaled on the back of the pack in anticipation of a crash that never materialized. Nice.

I took things to another level in the Time Trial. Compared to last year, there now wasn't any wind, I had carbon wheelz and I had a skinsuit. But moreover I again set speed targets for each section of the road. On the first section I didn't anticipate the very slight wind so was a little slower than I wanted to go, but then I crushed it over my target up the hill. On the long downhill I wasn't going as fast as I wanted, but I was still flying. Then I didn't really have a good sense of how far that last stretch was and probably could've pushed it harder. I passed one guy and only got passed by the TT winner which is fine by me, especially since it was Tim. He's all right. My time was 21:16 compared to 24:37 last year. I am pretty stoked about that improvement.

Sunday

Sunday was my day. This time all things came together in the Success Equation, but more importantly I added a dynamic element to the equation in that I adapted my strategy as the race played out. I was sitting 9th in GC, so I was going to breakaway, no question. Last year I attempted to breakaway on the long downhill backstretch on the first lap and then barely had enough energy to stay with the pack after getting caught. This year I was going to go either on the hill after the sharp left or the feedzone hill.

The race day weather was predicted to be 80 degrees with very little wind. So I took 3 water bottles with me. Just before the race I had to swap rear wheels after I had had enough with this valve extender that could not accept air. Right before the start I took a leak (in a port-o-potty) which was a good sign that I was staying hydrated.

As the race began nothing much was happening, except Audi was absolutely intent on getting a break going. They had a guy get away with some other people by the time we got to the backstretch. I was waiting for the GC guys and their teams to do the work to bring it back. Tim (2nd in GC), his teammate and #1 GC put in their time at the front. Eventually we caught them just before the long hill on the front stretch after the break just died completely perhaps due to someone getting a flat, not quite sure.

Now it was time for some counter-attacks. Another Audi guy went up the road along with 2 others. Then a pro-city rider (they had 2 guys in top 10 GC) started mashing his pedals like no other to bridge up. I decided I may as well jump on this free ride and see what happens. It was a little early and not according to my plan, but the effort to stay on that wheel didn't require a lot of exertion for me, so I gave it a shot. We got up to the break quite easily and then were joined by an HSP rider (also 2 of them in top 10 GC). The Audi guy and the Pro City guy fell off, but we still had a yellow jerseyed (not GC-leader yellow) Canadian who claimed he was about to explode due to lack of water.

And so it was 3 of us and we began working. Each of us seemed to be putting in our fair share of effort even despite me taking a break here and there at the back to eat some food. We motored down the long downhill backstretch and then tempo'ed up the feed zone hill. All of us grabbed a watter bottle, but then hammered it down that hill so hard that we almost ran into the lead car if it weren't for us yelling at it. Then up the final hill and we still had our gap. It was then an intense mental and physical battle for us all the way down the hill to the finish. We could see the peleton just dangling about 20-15 seconds behind us most of our descent. After each pull we would nervously look over our shoulder but still kept working. All in all we were quite lucky that the field didn't organize themselves.

We got to the 1k mark and this little 3-man break that could had the podium sealed. After having downed my remaining half a energy bar at 1.5k I was ready for the sprint. We knew yellow jersey wouldn't contest so HSP sat on his wheel and I on his. With 180 to go HSP made a slight move to the right and then I blasted off to the left and pounded it out. At first I was like, is this happening? Am I about to win? Did HSP somehow cross before me? Whoa, I crossed the line! I think I won! I WON!!! YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! I actually screamed "YEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" twice. First time as I pumped my left hand in the air. And the second time while pumping the right hand. YYYEEEAAHHHHHH!!! I just screamed that again in my apartment as I'm righting this, but not too loud, don't want to wake the neighbors. That was an amazing win for me and ranks up there as one of the hardest won and deserved wins given the challenge of the reputable Tour of Walla Walla. I have been so psyched and pumped since this win.

Me and Team Guinness really want to obtain a picture of me winning this stage. Please let me know if you or anyone you know has a picture. I am going to put it here in this blog.

Life After Racing

Long time, no post. Well, that's cause I haven't been obsessively racing to the point of mental exhaustion for some time now. I was about to write up a little bit on how people who continue their racing season with cyclocross are wackos, but I'll just leave it at saying I'm once again glad I'm not getting my bike all dirty, riding through mud and instead sitting in my somewhat warm condo typing on my computer.

Anyways, it's like November now and um, well, I guess I'll just highlight some stuff that happened between the end of bike racing season and now.

The first thing I realized when I stopped racing bikes was that I had no life besides racing bikes. All the people I hung out with happened to be in the bike race I was racing in. And then I had all this free time once I stopped riding bikes all the time. However, the work picked up at my company so I was sorta good there. I also joined this small group from my church, so hopefully I'll have some actual friends in a bit.

I also rediscovered that I had a fixie! Oh man I was riding that around like the hipster I've always wanted to be once I found that out.

Then I took a vacation to Portlandia wherein I tried to do a bunch of things that people who live in Portland do. I only bought groceries from Co-ops, I only ate out at food carts and microbreweries, I was vegan for a whole week, I played blacklit minigolf, I visited new parks and explored. However, a lot of this got boring by myself. So then, I met up for a round of urban golf. Twas a lot of fun!

Photo from MAJOR DUFF's blog

.

BUT THEN, all of a sudden, there was an alleycat happening up in Tacoma put on by 2nd Cycle. So I cashed in some Amtrak Guest Rewards points and headed up. The evening before the race, I made sure I had an excellent pre-alleycat-race diet which involved getting bought a bunch of beers at the Parkway from my sister's new boyfriend and playing pool unitl 1am. I also left the bartender a hefty $1 million bill tip.

Well, the strategy payed off immensely! I was battling it out on the streets after getting off to a bad start wherein I was last place. We went from People's park to the Red Hot, then to this house I'd been to before at a 4th of July party with 40 people on the roof (I left because I was afraid it would collapse, but it didn't). Then to Vassault park, then to the SR 16 bridge park wherein I was now 2nd place. Then down to Bob's Java Jive and then I miraculously passed the first place guy on the way to the 48th street bar & grill even though we both said we took the same route yet didn't see each other. Then to someone's random house and bombing down to The New Frontier via Pacific (on my non-brakeless fixie). I made a number of mistakes on my route choice, but in the end it was better than all 2 other racers so I got first place! Woohoo! Finishing off yet another season with a win!

Well, after all this, it was a bit of a blur as I was working somewhat furiously to help get a demo ready for my company at the biggest Transportation Technology Conference of the year. We did end up getting a decent demo ready, but gosh it would be a lot cooler if we had a true product - which we hopefully will before TRB in January. As a part of this, I was sent out to the actual conference in Orlando! This was pretty sweet. The conference went well, here is a picture of my boss demoing a navigation console that picked up an alert from our traffic systems and a recommended reroute.

Photo from ITS World Congress Facebook page

After the conference I went down to Fort Lauderdale and fell absolutely in love with the area. Before I had always thought it would be a sprawling and depressing place, but after visiting the area I changed my mind. Firstly, the Everglades are now a nationally protected area, so sprawl won't go further out into it. Thus, growth seems to be limited to the already dense area along the roughly 20 miles width of the east coast. Secondly, the weather is amazing. 70 degrees at night and 80ish in the day. Shorts and shirts or no shirt at all! Thirdly, the beach is an awesome place to play. I saw lots of babes in bikinis, surfers, kite-boarders and I even saw a guy with a harpoon gun go out for a swim. Fourth, it is flat which combined with the warm weather makes for easygoing bicycling.

I was so sad to come back from the south that my body gave me a cold upon returning to Portland.

Reflections on last season

OK, so I suppose I have to reflect on what happened last season bicycling. Lots of people said I did great and all. On the one hand, yeah I did ok picking up a win and a bunch of 2nd places and do have enough points to be a Cat 2 racer (but not enough for a forced upgrade OBRA and WSBA!!). Yet on the other hand, as my coach said I went through a bit of a funk in the later part of the season starting after the Franz Bakery Crit. To finish bike racing season off, I proved to myself that I'm a decent bike racer by getting top ten at the Eugene Celebration.

The biggest takeaway I think I can take is that bike racing is a big mental game - even more so in a long term sense. Bicycle racing and really anything in life is a sport where those who do not die do decent. A while ago, I went to one of my sister's piano recitals when I was still in high school. I always thought it was so annoying hearing her play that stupid piano and the same songs over and over and over and was even bored again when she played the same songs at the recital. Like I hadn't heard that before!! Uuugggghhhh. Then after she was done she got an award from her piano teacher saying she was in the top 5 of all her students in playing the piano and there were like 50 piano players there and even more shocking that she had close to the best record for practicing playing the piano.

What?!?! How could that be? All she did was what she was assigned to do. 45 minutes a day 6 days a week it seemed. So what? Couldn't anybody do that? Apparently yes, but not everybody did! In fact most students didn't! The only people better than her were the piano players truly obsessed and in love with playing the piano.

The exact same thing it seems applies to bicycle racing and I suspect every other area of life where work is involved. I had a really good base training season wherein I rode every assigned workout except when I was sick. My season leading up to Franz Bakery was great. Cat 3 was a bit more challenging, but I found my way to the podium three times. After the Franz Bakery Crit and the Swan Island Crit I let my mental game get out of whack. I was no longer excited about bike racing as much as I was addicted to it and felt like I had to do it and succeed in it to fulfill myself as opposed to be happily motivated to have a fun time no matter the result. I'm guessing that the latter is the more sustainable attitude to have.

Now, another tangent is the financial toll that bike racing has taken on me. Good lord! The stage races cost a lot of money and carbon wheels aren't cheap - even on a team deal. The time I could be spending doing other things is quite a bit too. I have a number of web design projects that I just don't get around to because of all this bike racing.

So really, the conclusion I'm reaching is that I need to race less next year. And more importantly don't race small-time races if I don't want to. It's hard for me to say I'm giving up on some pie-in-the-sky goals I have, but maybe all I need to do is give up on the disappointment if I don't reach goals immediately. There will always be Jeff Hoovers who can execute these things nearly perfectly with natural ability, but bicycling is something I can't do that in. Come to think of it, there is nothing I'm naturally talented in doing except continual learning. As long as I push myself to try new ways to do things and not get in funks when I don't succeed I think I'll be allright.


And one final thing since some people ask me. The Dating Season is going iffy. I just haven't found a 5'11" vegan babe who has won at least 2 Cat 1/2/3 ladies races and is completely horny for me. Actually a few things are going on I suppose. I'm not so skilled in meeting women nor do I fully elicit the values that women find attractive and then I'm scared of approaching women and then question whether I'd be happier developing websites and playing open transport tycoon or talking to women about how cute their ugly and smelly pet dog is.

First 1st!

I am feeling pretty euphoric right now. On Saturday I got my first victory of the year.

This past weekend and week started out as a lot of weeks have with me trying to keep up with everything. And this week, I had to deal with losing my helmet and ulock somewhere between Tacoma and Portland. I made a bit of a dent in the dishes but that didn't last for long since I worked late on Thursday.

Friday night I decided I needed to alter my state of mind towards thinking about winning Saturday's bike race. So I downloaded this youtube video a repeatedly watched the finish like 7 times while thinking about tomorrow's race strategy.



Saturday the stress was added again when I realized that I had lost my OBRA Membership Card. I let it go and decided to pony up the extra for a one day license at registration.

I was quite excited since I had found a ride with someone to the races. This made the journey less lonely which was appreciated. I was in a good mood at the race site since it was sunny and the course was dry and very wide.

I warmed up with a few short sprints to get the body going and then rolled up right onto the line to start. The race was going well and some dude had shot off the front first lap. The group was making sure he didn't get too far away, but he did earn the first prime outright. The field caught him shortly after that.

The next prime came up and I decided to test out my legs. Nobody really chased me, but when I did see someone chasing I dropped down 2 gears and hammered it out for those hammer gels at stake. After this I was feeling good and got in the drops and kept going to see what would happen. Eventually the guy that blasted off the first lap bridged up to me and wanted to work with me. So we did just this and started riding away from the field with maybe 7 laps to go. At some point I thought I saw a group of 5 chasing us in short range. However, our gap kept widening and by the final lap we knew we had it. The final straightaway was really long. I had just let this guy take his turn pulling but about halfway down the straightaway I broke off to signal that it was on for 1st. We both sprinted hard for the line and neither of us knew who had got it.

Try to see for yourself who finished first in this race photo.

Both of us congratulated each other and were pretty stoked to have rode away like that. The guy I was working with told me "I'm from Salem, you better not have beaten me on my home turf!" in a half-jokingly way. I could only reply "what do I gotta do, it's a bike race?" At the finish line we were both trying to figure out who won and getting congratulated by a few people. Eventually, I made my way over to the result tent and was informed that I had in fact won the race. This was pretty awesome. There were no hard feelings for the guy in 2nd except that he had gotten 2nd. Such is bike racing.

After this I hung out with the guy who gave me a ride and then watched him race. It was like opposite race day at the Capitol Crit, the 4/5 field had a break that won, whereas both the 3s and 1/2s came down to a field sprint. And once I got back home I slept 9hours. Aw yeah. Also, I plugged in the result numbers and it now looks like I have earned 21 points in Cat 4. I'm going to see what my coach thinks about upgrading.

This next week my coach has me doing a rest week, but there are 2 races this coming weekend. I'm planning on doing IVRR and maybe even Banana Belt on Sunday.