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!

Racing Like an Idiot

Stage 1 of the Baker City Cycling Classic seemed to start out as it did last year with a lot of action to see who would be the morons that would breakaway at mile 12 of the 72 mile race. I guess I just couldn't help myself, I was up there seeing what would happen and I saw that nobody was going after one of the original protagonists who was going hard on the front, so I bridged up. Some other guy followed me too and it was the three of us - these two Idaho guys and me.

I did expect us to build up a bit of a gap and it was 50 seconds, then 2 minutes then we got to the hill. We made up the hill with the pack nowhere to be seen, so this break had a really good chance of making it. Going down the hill we heard a report of 2:50 and we knew we had a great opportunity, but I knew those remaining hills that never seem to end were still ahead. When those hills came, I sat on the back almost the entire time barely holding on. Climbing up what seemed to be one of the final hills, the follow car came up and told us 1:15 and we got a bit worried but he said this was the very last hill. So I sort of foolishly attempted to pull, but my breakmates still set the pace. That last hill did not end around the next wind at all! It kept going and I got dropped at the next wind around the hill, but at this point we were still way ahead of the pack.

Luckily, the hills finally ended and I began descending and watching the other two guys ride away. I time trialed the best I could and got 1:14 behind the leaders and nearly 3 minutes ahead of the pack. All in all, I was rather stoked about getting 3rd place in my first p12 race.

Photo Credit: Vitek Siroky

Time Trial

Not much really to say with the time trial. I still haven't been able to get the TT bike setup and it just seems like I can't get to my upper z5 heart rate in a TT. At least my disc wheel didn't flat.

Photo Credit: Vitek Siroky

The Crit

In the Crit I missed the break. I saw Erik Slack go and then Liberles chasing after Slack and then I didn't see those guys again until they came up from behind after lapping the field. Nothing got organized and I was slightly confused and stupid going into the final sprint because the lap board definitely said one to go, but that was for the leaders, so I ended up sprinting all out on the 2nd lap and then had nothing on the actual final lap.

Photo Credit: Vitek Siroky

Mt. Dooley Tour d'Horn

I certainly regret the move I made on this final race. Initially I had thought I'd try to get in the very first idiotic break and hope to win the overall. However, I didn't think I was warmed up enough when that break went, so I didn't make it in that break. I tried to get away a few times and eventually did at mile 20 and nobody followed me. I worked alone until I caught a dropped Bob's rider. Then on the climb to the feed zone I dropped Bob's and the field caught me right at the feed zone.

I thought I could hang on, but after the attacks that Lang Reynolds and Erik Slack threw down, I just couldn't make it up the hill to the long downhill with anyone. I was dropped for good and was all alone. I pretty much didn't see another racer or a hint of a bike race except for the 2nd feed zone until the climb where I believe I saw Trevor Spahr waving at me from atop another switchback. I had ran completely out of food too once I hit the climb. By the time I got to the finish I was 26 minutes back.

After the race, I had some good conversation with Sam Krieg, one of my breakmates from day 1, who did think my move was crazy, but that it was good that I raced my bike. I dunno, I've heard this sentiment from a few others and do think that tactics are a part of racing your bike and that sometimes the best way to race your bike is to sit in. And that is something I do think I need to practice doing more often.

Photo Credit: Vitek Siroky

For the Record, Erik Slack is a Badass

Erik Slack winning Stage 1
Photo Credit: Vitek Siroky

Stage 1: Erik Slack starts out the day long break. At mile 50 in the race, his rear wheel is definitely wobbling out of true. He then proceeds to win the race. After the race, it becomes apparent that the reason his wheel is out of true is because a spoke is broken on his rear wheel.
Stage 2: OK, so the TT isn't Erik's thing, but he only loses a minute to the winner Sam Krieg.
Stage 3: Laps the field and then wins the sprint.
Stage 4: Pulls the field for almost the entire race. Counters all attacks and winds up 4th place at only 41 seconds back. He wins the overall a full 50 seconds ahead of Krieg and nearly 4 minutes ahead of 3rd place. Erik earned the overall jersey and if there were a sprinter's jersey or hillclimber's jersey he would have won those too.

More Idiocy at PIR

Yes, it all continues again at this Tuesday's PIR. I got in an early break with Klipper which was really good because he was yelling instructing me to sit in when the break got a little slow. That break got caught probably because Rapha didn't have anyone in it. Then Eddie got in a break and I started to get really ancy. When the pace sort of slowed for a bit, Klipper and Liberles launched off and I followed. Klipper couldn't handle it and wished me good luck. Eventually Liberles, a Theraputic guy and myself all made it up to the break.

Once I made it to the break, I think I was actually being smart through the next hot spot which I contested in a reasonable fashion against Bedford, Liberles and Eddie French. I got 4th in that hot spot, but then I started to act like an idiot. I attempted to breakaway right after that hot spot and Bedford was the only person to take me up on that while the rest of the break chased us down. Then I tried all these other attacks for reasons I can't quite explain now, except for the all out sprint with 3 laps to go where I seriously thought we were on the final lap. All the while, some other Team O and a Theraputic guy were riding away for the win from the break. On the final lap, wherever I was, it was a bad position and in the final 400 I tried to lead the last splinter of the break up which included Eddie, but that entire splinter passed me at the finish so I got dead last in that break.


I guess I'm at a point where I'm really strong, but really dumb not smart enough. Getting myself into breaks though is pretty much my only strategy thus far, but once it comes to actually sprinting I am way outclassed. In the last 3 successful breaks I've got myself into, I've gotten dead last in each of them. I need to wise up really quick and I am very happy to be surrounded by much smarter teammates who will hopefully guide me towards the path of enlightenment in all these upcoming crits.

Summer Update

All right, here's a little update. I just got done with Austin trip #2. It was warming up still to the point where it was typically over 100 degrees every day. On the first Thursday, I headed down to the Driveway on a Thursday and found it quite hard. I didn't get any primes and didn't even break the top 20 in the sprint despite staying somewhat towards the front. Guess it wasn't forward enough.

The Garmin is showing 101 degrees in the bottom right on my ride out to the Driveway.

That weekend I had to go and be at this Formula 1 Expo at the Austin Convention Center, so I did a group ride on Saturday and then rode out in the neighborhood of the F1 track that's being built in Austin.

Setting up for the F1 Expo

The site of the Formula 1 Race still under construction (in the distance on the left).

And then I became sick. At my worst I was coughing up huge wads of flem. On Thursday I had had enough and went to an urgent car place and they prescribed me 3 different kinds of pills. I stayed at the hotel that day and the next and the pills seemed to be eliminating the flem, but also making me really dehydrated upon waking up each day. This whole week was a rest week anyways, so I didn't really miss any workouts. On Sunday though, I decided I was feeling good enough to race San Antonio again.

San Antonio

I now knew kind of what to expect this time around. It was even hotter than before, but I was feeling decent enough and wasn't coughing. The race began and I was trying to not go all out for breaks for at least the first 24 minutes. At the halfway point, the field became noticeably tired and I knew that it was time for the true sufferers to start their walk away from the field. At about 36 minutes a 3 person break with at least one guy from the winning break last time we were here was up the road. Some suffering now would probably pay off for getting a top spot at the finish.

Bridging up to the break

Photo Credit: Walston Photo

I attacked the field and was luckily joined by a really strong rider. Together we were able to bridge up to the break. There was a late prime that me and another guy went for. He outsprinted me, but we dropped a guy from our break, so it was 4 now. The field was a safe distance away and we were all working well together until some real slight cat and mouse began. On the final lap, I was the first to burn my matches and attacked on the backstretch. Jack & Adams and the guy I bridged up with countered and rode away. Same thing happened around the final corner, except the sprint was a little longer, but I got beat by about half a wheel.

The sprint for 3rd.

Photo Credit: Walston Photo

I was still quite happy to get 4th even though I was last place in the break. And then things started going downhill. My cough suddenly came back and was quite bad. I almost completely lost my voice and felt like I was drowning in my cough. It was sooo hot and I was sweating so hard. I was evaporating you could say. Luckily I had carpooled down with some University of Texas friends I had made and they were laughing at me for how badly I was dealing with the heat, but they were there for me. It actually wasn't so much the heat as it was the illness. I had stopped early on taking my medications because all I didn't get antibiotics, so it wasn't entirely necessary to take all those meds anyways.

Back in the Northwest

This time I have actually been having good communication with Athlete's Lounge and at the very least, I'll probably have my Cervelo R5 ready to go if not also the TT bike. Having these bikes will help for sure since I'll be doing the P12 race.

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.

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.

There's work to be done

What a whirlwind of a past few days. I did ok facing a logistical nightmare for this weekend. Unfortunately, I did not setup my two new bikes in time for Enumclaw, but things are in the works for them. Even still I had a whole lot of work to get done and used a lot of cool tools to make sure I had everything planned out in an accomplish-able manner. Most of the weekend it seemed like I was either completely busy or had wayy too much time to kill.

Friday:

6:30: Woke up, prepared today's and tomorrow's breakfast. Prepared my race bike for transport by strapping my American Classic Wheels to the bike so I could have Amtrak take a bike with four wheels. Walked and caught the MAX with my big red suitcase, wheelbags with my carbon American Classic 58s, my backpack and my race bike with four wheels.
8:00 Train to Tacoma. Ate breakfast on train and did some work which included booking airline tickets for an upcoming 2 week trip to Austin, TX.
11:00 Arrived in Tacoma and picked up Karly's car at Tacoma Dome Station. Went back to the train station to pick up the rest of my luggage. Drove to Seattle to pick up a TT frame and Disc that my teammate Todd Gallaher sold to me.
13:00 Picked up my frat bro Gianpaolo and chose a restaurant to eat at in Little Saigon that had a direct view of Karly's car. Food wasn't so great, but the conversation about women was.
14:30 Drove to Tacoma Bike and picked up a trainer that Mike Brown graciously loaned to me for the weekend. It was rather strange this time in Tacoma Bike since I knew nobody that worked there. And furthermore, compared to my new bike shop of choice of Athlete's Lounge in Portland it didn't seem all that race-worthy as it used to. Also picked up a bike box and had to put the TT Frame and disc inside of it and remove the headrests of both front seats in order to fit everything into the car.

16:30 Met the newest housemate of Tracy's no... Karly's no... umm that house on South 7th. And she was a cute Christian chic who was about to go on a bike ride! Zing! I kitted up really quick and rode with her out as far as 19th and Jackson and then did some intervals around the 5 mile drive.
19:00 Took a shower and then biked out to a Taco Truck. Saw Gary (a guy who I used to be cool and ride fixed around Tacoma with) walk by and chatted a bit.
20:00 Bike conversion to TT setup and then in bed just after 9pm!

Saturday:

6:00 Woke up, packed all stuff for the day into the car and drove out to Enumclaw.
7:30 Setup and warmup for the TT.
9:54:00 TT Start
10:08:30 Finished TT. Was not happy with that time. A number of things were not right for this. Firstly, I didn't have a TT bike. I now have the frame so I am solving this issue. Also, my heart rate monitor wasn't working. And I was riding the course for the first time, but man I was hoping to have rode that faster.
12:00 Terriyaki lunch with Todd G.
13:00 Killing a lot of time.
15:00 Decided to go do some work in the Enumclaw library. Did that and then watched the last stage of the Tour of California that another racer was watching via internet feed in the library.
18:30 Sort of warming up for Crit.
19:40 All of the Cat 3s had lined up for the crit that the tech guide said was actually starting at 7:50. I still managed to get a good starting position on the line. In this crit I really realized that I have a lot to work on in my cornering abilities. The only places to move up were on the long straightaways or the corners, but using the corners right meant everything. I just could not find a good line through the final corner and despite being 6th wheel going into the finish I didn't make the top 10.
20:40 Talking to my coach and Klipper about my suckiness averageness in the TT and Crit.
21:00 Drove home. Showered, ate some food.

Sunday The Day that Cycling BC utterly dominated the Mutual of Enumclaw:

7:00 Woke up. Biked to the Hilltop Safeway, cooked breakfast, setup the bikes and headed out.
11:00 Let a borderline hypothermic Andrew Austin warm up in the idling car. He was waiting for his dad to finish the masters race so didn't have any spare clothes. But even then I had to pretty much yell at him to take off his damn soaking-wet kit and change into some dry clothes I borrowed to him.

I also checked out the Cat 3 GC standing at the moment. It read as follows:
1. Apex
2. Apex
3. HSP
4. Cycling BC
5. Olympia Ortho
6. Apex
7. HSP
8. Apex
9. HSP
10. Team Stanley

And I was sitting 29th. At 1:42 back.

13:00ish The Cat 3 Men begins. Weather is wet, but there are still perhaps 50ish riders at the start. On the corner to 456th a Cycling BC kid takes it too hard and crashes himself, but that is the last thing that goes wrong for that team today. Next an obligatory early break starts off with what appears to be an Apex guy and someone else. I try to position myself towards to front to see what this hill is like. The hill is pretty good, nice and long with a few steep sections. Then a long downhill where I was either braking to go the speed of the pack or nearly hoverplaning over the rumble strips.

OK, I'm now just as bored with writing this race summary as I was with actually racing going on a fun ride up until the final 2 laps. Basically mostly HSP and Apex set a pathetic pace that had my heart rate dipping into z1 territory. I made some attacks, but then they just sat on my damn wheel so hard that I literally had to stop pedaling entirely for them to pull through. On lap 3 there was some action going on with the climbs and I was up there with the attackers, but the field kept in contact.

Lap 4 is where things got interesting. Right before the hill, a Cycling BC guy kindly asks me "do you want to go on the hill?" I reply "If I have it". Cycling BC attacks hard with 2 of their guys on the 2nd steep section on the beginning of the climb. Nobody responds. I myself at that point thought "eh, that part is too steep." But then I didn't even go on the false flat. And nobody went! When we got to the downhill we could see Cycling BC catching the day-long break up the road that was 1:40 away at the last random-voice-from-the-road.

At this point the field was reduced to perhaps 20 riders, but it was seriously only 2 guys working and again lots of braking on the downhill. My breakaway tactics had no success on the flats and after seeing Cemanski and Tim pull - if you can call it that - a good distance to the bottom of the climb I knew I was going to attack on that climb. Shortly after the two steep sections there is this little bump and I went there and nobody except another Cycling BC guy followed so we started breaking away from the field. And we worked together until we reached the break up the road which was not the other two Cycling BC guys from the previous lap, but one Cycling BC guy and an HSP guy which really surprised me. Me and my breakmate were pulling hard still, but then his teammate yelled at him "No! We have a man up the road!", to which at first he replied "No, c'mon we can do this!", but his teammate insisted on not going. Also me hammering my ass off on the downhill probably convinced him to let up as well.

I was just trying to breakaway and get any seconds or at least 5th in the race so I kept going hard downhill. HSP dude didn't pull through until we got to a flat section of the downhill and it was quite clear - clear due more to his speed of pulling through than his constant ranting of "I dunno if I can keep this up, I think I'm going to die any moment!" - that he wasn't going to keep a strong pace. Cycling BC didn't pull once in our break. And then when we turned right onto 284th, both guys from Cycling BC laid down an unmatchable attack up the little riser. It was then a left onto 440th and the field was closing in. HSP was now even more ferverent in his predictions of imminent explosion. I kept pedaling past the 1k and it was gonna be close. Left onto Railroad and I started getting out of the saddle and got passed only by 1 person from the field for 5th place.

Race post mortem

In this race, Cycling BC took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. 1st place solo'ed away to put 1:40 ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS!!! on the field plus a 10 second time bonus to take 1st in GC. And this wasn't the Cycling BC's guy who was 4th GC going into the race - he was right around the exact time back I was! Cycling BC's 4th place GC going into the race got 2nd place, had 10 seconds gap and added 6 seconds bonus which put him in 2nd in GC. The GC leader going into the race came in nearly 7 minutes behind, but only one Apex guy held onto the pack to salvage 3rd GC and the only final top 10 GC from Apex after beginning the day with 4 members in top 10 GC. HSP pretty much held their spots, but then the 3rd place Cycling BC guy launched himself up 2 spots in GC into the top 10 at 9th.

I personally am asking myself some serious questions like "why didn't I follow the race-winning attack on the hill?" or "should I have tried harder to mess with the minds of my breakmates when I did breakaway?" or even "should I have been yelling at the field for being a bunch of sandbaggers?" Whatever the case, it is still clear that my road racing tactics are not perfect and need more work. And for the other teams out there, I'm not going to go into any more detail, but I hope you all realized how badly you got your asses whooped. If you don't realize this then I would be happy to explain it to you.

And onwards

16:30 Changed in my car, packed everything, called in an order to go at El Camino, checked race results, picked up fajitas to go, drove to Tacoma Amtrak and had about a half an hour to spare.
18:00 It now was really dawning on me how bad Cycling BC beat us and I was explaining in detail the situation to a long-lost friend-of-my-sister, Becky that was taking the train too. I ate a bunch of food on the train.
21:00 Transported my race bike, bike box and suitcase with the help of Becky back home.

23:00 Losing sleep thinking about Cycling BC's domination.

Monday

8:00 Packing for trip to Austin.
12:00 Lunch with family.
13:00 Struggling to fit 3 wheels and race bike into a bike box. Had to call Brent from veloshop Portland Bicycle Studio to figure out that I was a total moron and was twisting my pedals the wrong way as hard as possible in trying to get them off.
15:00 At PDX.
00:30 (Central) In AUS.
01:00 Rolling in a rental Jeep through massive Texas interchanges.

And with that publish post button I'm off the bike for this week. I'm planning on doing Austin's version of PIR next Thursday and then driving for 5 hours to get to a road race that Saturday just to drive back to San Antonio for a crit the next day. And then I'm flying back just in time for Mt. Hood where if any of you poser Cat 3 racers from Washington come down you're probably in for an even worse ass-beating unless you all learn real quickly how to climb hills and protect your GC leaders. Actually, I look forward to seeing you in all honesty. :)

Thanks to the following people/entities for their support:

My sister Karly for going out of her way to loan me her car and to let me use her dwelling place.

My employer Mygistics for being very flexible with my racing schedule

TrafficBug^® - The Commuter's Companion^SM (ok, I helped myself with this) for being such an awesome traffic app that provided realistic travel times for driving and thus scheduling my weekend.

Tacoma Bike for letting me borrow a trainer for the weekend.

The residents of the house on S 7th for good company and some garlic I took

All of the volunteers and coordinators who made the MOE happen

Becky for helping me haul all of my bike equipment back home on the MAX

My family for delivering me to the Airport

Roller Coaster

Guess I better update this blog. Last time I wrote, I was high off of the stage win and ultimate 6th in GC at the Tour of Walla Walla. So clearly, I was back on track towards a future pro career in racing, just like I may have believed last year. Not!

Next up was winning the Washington State road champs of course up at Olympic Valley. Now, all right, this year I think I have a little different perspective on racing. At this point perhaps I have given up on being the next Lance Armstrong overnight, but I have not given up on improving my aptitude and fitness as a bike racer. I approach races considering what the course is like and learning from mistakes which always happen, but the fewer, the better.

Olympic Valley

Honestly, Olympic Valley wasn't much of an event to write home about. Apex and Olympia Ortho sent some guys out on an early break and then proceeded to sit on the front. At one point, an Olympia Ortho rider went to the front and seemed to be actually doing some work. A douchebag concerned Apex rider thought out loud, "gosh does that OO rider know he has a breakmate off the front? I better go up and tell him." At this point, I just got so pissed off at this lack of racing and put in a hard attack and closed about half of the distance to the break with Apex sitting on my damn wheel and no other teams doing anything. The race after that was rather boring except for all the pointless crashes and slow-speed jockeying for position towards the end. It came to a field sprint and I ended up following a dumb move at about 200m meter sign which was actually 500m. Once the real 200m actually came, the actual sprinters sprinted past me. However, on the plus side, I still rode hard enough to avoid getting rammed into from behind.

PIR

Again at PIR, it became apparent that I have to work on my field sprint. I tried to breakaway a lot and didn't have much of positioning or sprinting abilities. Good thing this race is every Tuesday and there are hot spots which makes for lots of practicing opportunities.

Vance Creek

And now for a course that isn't mostly flat! As I drove to the course, I noticed that the finish line was moved about 200m further west than last year so it was a false flat followed by very slight uphill immediately after the big hill. A finish very suited for me. This turned out to be a really fun race for me. The weather was really interesting in that it was dry on the western half of the course, but then rainy on the east side. We were going to do 6 laps, but on the first lap a big breakaway with all kinds of teams got away. Another highlight from the first lap was that there was another random pointless crash that I nearly missed - in fact there was a wheel of a bike flying in the air that I nudged out of the way with my right hand. There were perhaps 7 riders in the break so I decided that I should try and get in on that break since although it was really early, it may have a chance of surviving. So me and an Olympia Ortho rider attacked the filed and took about 2/3 of a lap to catch the break. But when I got to the break, it became apparent that the pace was a little too relaxed. It was so weird, there were like 9 of us - all from different teams - and on lap 4 we lost the entire 1:40 gap.

Well, back to the drawing board. There were some attacks after that, I can't really remember, but nothing was sticking. On the final lap Alex from Old Town made a good move for his abilities by attacking right before the farm road. He held a good gap, but lost it on the rollers. It was going to be a field sprint again. I positioned myself on the right and kept following wheels and scooting around people getting dropped. By the time we got to the top, I was third wheel and then Matt attacked. The wheel I was following jumped out and I had to give him some room to not take me out, then I followed that wheel, jumped around it and sprinted for 2nd! Woot Woot!

Montinore

On the way home from Vance Creek, I ended up getting to bed later than desired and not sleeping as much for the 9am race start the next day at Montinore. The course was really cool with lots of corners and a long power hill. The Klipper-mobile came by and we all got to the race with less than an hour to prep which is usually not enough for me I have found out. I kind of need to do everything before the race. Change, go to the bathroom, get the carbon wheelz ready, get my food ready, get my numbers ready. Perhaps I'm just slow at this prep work, but I got to the start line barely before the race started without having made as much use as desired out of the bathroom.

The pace was fast from the beginning and I was already getting slinkied off the back due to no warmup. The first time we went up the hill I knew I was in trouble. I was moving backwards in the pack and had to chase on the downhill. I also really had to go to the bathroom. The 3rd lap I had managed to get to the front and figured that since I was probably going to get dropped anyways, I might as well put in a good pull since not many other teams were racing. Just before the hill, I used some sharp corners and speed up and really strung out the field going into the hill. And then I proceeded to drop back through the field and ended up off the back at the top. I had to chase with a few other people for a while on the flats to get back on all while being in pain in the groin area at that point. Next lap I was dropped for good and detoured to the porto-potties at the staging area. But I still went for some riding after that and paced the women's field up the climb again. However, on the descent I noticed that my rear wheel was noticeably flat, so now I just called it quits altogether.

Rest Week

I'm pretty sure I still have not figured out how to execute on a getting a good rest week. The afternoon of the Montinore race I hung out with Klipper originally intending to hangout and help him with some yardwork. Instead, that turned into drinking 5 beers, watching the Giro, then watching Rugby 7s, then watching the Giro again and me finally biking home slightly intoxicated at about 11pm.

Two days so far this week I have gotten 9+ hours of sleep which were immensely needed, but the rest of the days have been around 7 hours and I am now grumpy. And I'm probably going to not do the OBRA champs tomorrow cause I'm grumpy due to lack of sleep. And now something smells in my apartment which is probably due to me not cleaning it. Right now I am in such a grumpy mode that I just want to yell "SHUTUP" to those little children nextdoor; I am entertaining going on another Facebook unfriending rampage against some people for really petty crap; and I want to even further highlight how disgusting some of my friends are for eating ice cream with a topping that had - I am not making this up - lactic acid as one of its ingredients. But I know all these things are counter-productive. Kids are actually very positive and fun, I regret unfriending some people from previous rampages and now it'll be weird if they ever find out, and there is actually debate as to whether lactic acid is as bad as it is made out to be.

Next rest week I seriously need to start it out right with going to bed at 9pm the first night. All this unpreparedness and lack of sleep I'm blaming on myself not getting a good start of getting to bed early enough and then not starting my day right enough the next day. I feel like a bike chain that hasn't been lubed in a while right now.

Coming up on DJStroky Racing...

1. Mutual of Enumclaw is going to be a serious race for me next weekend.
2. I'm getting a new race bike
3. I'm getting a TT bike
4. I'm not upgrading to the 2s yet, however I calculated all my upgrade points and I am still in the zone where I have enough to upgrade, but not enough for a forced upgrade! So all you people calling me 'sandbagger' can ponder that info. I actually don't have anywhere near enough points to upgrade if only my Oregon races are counted. My plan is to upgrade after Mt. Hood.