Thursday, May 27, 2010

Pic

Here is a picture from the Eagle Creek circuit race two weeks ago.

There was one photag out and she charges for pics. My team bought some and this was among them. I think it's a good pic, basically because it's of me. Kidding. But I do think it's a good pic.

Monday, May 24, 2010

St. Leon RR RR

St. Leon Road Race Race Report.

Awesome day of racing. It was the first really hot day of the year and we had 4 ~18mile laps on tap for a 70+ mile RR; long by Cat3 standard. The course was changed from years past and included a brutal climb that I'm guessing was once paved, but now is mostly just crumbled asphalt, sand and gravel. In other words, totally awesome!
I knew this course would suit me well and I was feeling good going in. I generally do well in the heat, but being the first hot day, I wasn't sure how I would handle it. And having raced St. Leon before, I know the course somewhat, but 1) it was different as I mentioned and 2) I hadn't raced there for 2 years I think.
My ~plan~ was to hit the climb hard the first lap and try to whittle the field down to maybe 10 or so. As we approached the climb me and my teammates moved to the front and I attacked out of the group to try to break up the field. The move worked better than I planned and better than I had hoped. It turned out just one other guy followed the pace and we found ourselves w/ a large gap over the field that was growing. We decided to keep drilling the pace and if anyone was bridging, we would slow to get a few more bodies in the break. No one bridged and it was a 2 man break for the remainder, which was ~60+miles. I had no real desire to ride at breakaway effort for 3hrs, but that's just the way it played out (for non cyclists: breakaway riding is harder than "normal" riding. You have to ride hard at the front w/very little rest between your hard efforts. The more people, the more rest, the easier it is. If you're alone, there's no rest, w/ two there's very little rest, w/ three a little bit more...etc). We motored on and built a lead of almost 10minutes on the field.

(leading through the start/finish on lap # ?)

There's a decently hard, but much shorter hill about a mile from the finish and on the last lap I decided that I needed to attack my "break mate" there, since I have no sprint. I went, but I could hear his creaky bottom bracket right behind me, so I knew my chance of winning was slimmer than I wanted it to be. I was outkicked at the line and beaten by ~2bike lengths. All in all a great day though; super hard racing, how it should be.
I had some very solid training over the past couple weeks (when it wasn't raining!) and some more n tap. I'm going all right right now. Hopefully it lasts.

St. Leon Pic Dump

(Tom Stahly wining. me 2nd)


(leading through lap #?)
(cool pic of bottle mid-launch going into into last lap)

(me going for a hand up of water [which I missed] just after launching bottle above. note: I had a full bottle of EFS still, but really wanted a big pull off of a cool bottle of plain water)

(leading through lap #?)
(2nd)

(Cat4 teammate Daniel took a beer handup from the hillbillies that live on the course. These guys set up bleachers in their front yard and yell for us all day. They've been there evey year I've done the race. Totally awesome. I think Daniel's 19, the hillbillies didn't ask/care)

Monday, May 17, 2010

At least it's wet everywhere

Looks like the Giro d'Italia was passing our Bottom Road on Monday. Front view.


Rear view.

I stayed nice and dry on my ride...because I rode rollers in my basement! It was pouring rain and I needed to do a EZ recovery ride, so I just spun on the rollers. Then on my ride into work I got totally soaked.
Over the weekend we went up to a park circuit race at Eagle Creek Park in Indy. It was a short (~4min) lap w/ no real elevation, so I didn't really expect that I would come off w/ any result to speak of; not really the kind of race that suits me. So once we got rolling, I kind of decided to attack a bunch an counter as many attacks as I could to at least get a good workout in. And if an attack stuck, that'd be cool too. None did, but I rode an okay race, got a good workout w/ no result to speak of.
This weekend is the Ohio Valley road race at St Leon, which is in Indiana, but barely. Its off the last IN exit before entering OH. I guess there's some changes to the course, but it a good course. And since I haven't ridden it for a couple years, even if there are changes, I'm not likely to remember the course to a T anyway, so it shouldn't matter much. As long as it still features the big climb and the rolling roads that follow the climb, I should be okay.
Today is #2 for the year of the Tuesday night TT's at Morgan Monroe so I plan to hit that up. I know April shower are supposed to bring May flowers, but I feel like May has been pretty rainy. Maybe the flowers will come in the couple weeks. They better, because it'll be June after that.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Feeling Summer

(this is the start of hill on Miller road. It's little known, but feared by those who know it. I'm not 100% sure if it's the absolute steepest [paved] hill around here, but it's definitely a top runner for that title. It looks so peaceful in the pic, it's not)
I have had a pretty good week of riding, though my Power Tap has been giving me some problems. The battery in the head was dying, so I switched it out, but then the batteries is the hub died too the next day. Then I was having some download issues, but it all ~seems~ resolved now. (Cyclops has three places things can go wrong: hardware [hub, head, USB cradle], software [the Power Agent program on your PC] and "firmware," which isn't really hardware, but isn't really software either, something in between that they made up.
It has been kind of rainy in these parts. Nothing too terrible, but I've had to have the "rain bike" out quite a few times. Plus all the atmospheric moisture is making it humid as all hell.
It has been kind of rainy in these parts. Nothing too terrible, but I've had to have the "rain bike" out quite a few times. Plus all the atmospheric moisture is making it humid as all hell.
Racing on tap for this weekend has changed. I was planning on doing a Ohio Valley road race that was what seemed to be a brutal course w/ 20% grades. But a schedule conflict is going to put me in Indy instead doing a "circuit race" on a course that most likely doesn't suit my style. But whatever, it'll be a good workout if nothing else.
Otherwise, everything's good. I do feel lately as though I can't eat enough. I'm not working out more than usual, and I can't really say I'm even "hungry" as it were, I just want to eat constantly. Luckily Lindsay and I don't keep snack food around our house because I'd eat all of it (or drive myself crazy w/ internal battles). Kind of weird though. Actually, it just right now occurred to me that I have been doing at least one evening ride per week the past few weeks and that could be throwing the normalcy of my metabolism for a loop. Maybe...
Anywho, the rain has "kept me" from "being able" to mow this week. So I have to get that done tomorrow. Great.

Monday, May 10, 2010

When 40k becomes 100k

This past weekend, the plan of racing a 40k TT turned into hammering out a 100k road ride. Basically, it got cold again here all of the sudden; lows in the 30's. And the Monrovia 40k's start at 7:30a.m. So when we were to be starting, it was ~38*, and I have no desire to TT in that kind of cold unless it's crucial for stage race points or something. Call me a wuss (part wimp/part pussy), but putting in a TT effort w/ cold joints, etc seems like a good way to wind up injured.
So a couple of guys and I waited for the temps to rise and busted out the 100k route around Lake Monroe. This is a very hard route that I usually do only once a year or so. Plus it was still ~chilly~ out and pretty hella windy, so it was extra hard. We kind of killed it though. W/ just three of us we av'd just under 21mph, which is pretty good for that ride.
So, nothing new to report really. I feel like I haven't raced in forever, though I did a TT 8days ago. But I[m back to road racing this weekend in Ohio. A course that is supposed to be brutal w/ climbs featuring 20%+ grades. I tend to do okay on course like those...we'll see.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The rainy TT

A small crew of us somewhat reluctantly went over the Seymour for stop 2 in the TT series we heard about and started doing late last year.It was rainy all day and rained off/on the whole way there, but we actually got the 20k race in w/ no rain. But being between fronts, it was very windy; some of the windier conditions I've TT'd in I'd say. It was a stiff headwind out (6.1miles) then a huge tailwind pushing you back (6.1). I know the theory is your reward for pushing into a headwind is cruisin' w/ a tail wind, but this doesn't work so well in TT racing because you have to go 100% hard both ways. So when you're on the verge of being blown from ~15min of headwind, only to turn around and be spun out, theory goes out the window. My time was good given the conditions, but almost a minute off of best on the course. I went 27.31 and my last year time was 26.41. Oh well, it was good for second (to RS of course), which is in the money. I'm glad I went because it was a super hard effort, and I probably would have ended up sitting around doing nothing if I hadn't gone due to the weather.
It's kind of TT season for me I guess. Our Local 10mile TT "series" starts tonight (5/4) and the first of the Indiana Race Series 40k TT's is this weekend. I had a couple hard days last week, and w/ the TT a couple of days ago, and another TT in a few days, I've told myself to not go 100% tonight at the Forest TT, but I probably will; it's hard not to. We'll see.