I haven’t been exactly on form since my Estonia trip a few weeks ago. The last week or so has been a bit crazy with work with the additional load of buying a house (I expect to close by the end of September). The main reason I even went to Oak Ridge this weekend was in support of Andrea’s quest to seal up the Womens 1-3 TBAR jersey (she had a lead, but needed to get another RR in to make sure).
Time Trial - 8 miles. The event was an out and back TT on Bethel Valley Road which is actually a closed road within the secure complex in Oak Ridge. This meant the road had little traffic and good pavement. The original distance was 14 miles, but they shortened it to start at the Portal (guard shack) and use a roundabout as the turn around. I was pretty tired (we rolled into Oak Ridge after midnight the night before and my TT start was 8:20am). Despite this, I managed to roll a pretty good TT (for me) which was good enough for 3rd of 7 (small field).
Road Race - 66 miles. The lack of sleep Friday night was my big concern acoming into the hilly road course. Because of the small Cat 3 and P12 fields, they combined us for the road race. As expected, this increased the pain. Right out of the neutral zone, a group of 7 to 8 (mostly 3’s) jumped off the front. The rest of the field chased and I tried to save my strength for the two big hills on each lap. As we hit the bigger one about 10 miles in there was some hard attacks and the field strung out and I was put off the back. I chased and chased, but the rear of the field was chasing hard and I was losing time to the chase. By the second hill I caught up with a dropped rider. We worked together and pulled in another a bit later. By the start of the 2nd lap, we were 4. After the big hills on the 2nd lap, one dropped off quickly, so we continued on as 3. We lost another that pulled out of the race at the end of the 2nd lap, so it was two. After the descent of the big hill on the last lap, I rode away from the last guy (he must just sat up, I had 300 feet when I noticed that I was alone) and finished out the lap alone. The main reason I bothered to ride it out, is that omnium scoring was 20 deep (and double points for the TT & RR), so even the 11th place was worth getting. This puts me in 5th place for the omnium going into the crit (only single points).
Well, I finally was able to meet up with the main interested buyer for my bike and now I am down by one bike… I know it was the right thing to do …to let it go, but it was time to move on. Who needs 5 bikes anyway… ;-P
This is what I moved from my for sale page… and the nice photos Andrea took of it when I decided to list it.
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Trek 5200 bicycle
- 2001 Trek 5200 (size: 62 cm)
- Crank: SRAM Rival (like new, <1000 miles)
- Drivetrain: Shimano Ultegra 10 speed (53-39 x 11-23). About 1.5 seasons of use.
- Brakeset: Shimano Ult 9 (not really different than the 10 speed)
- Wheels: Shimano Ult hubs, 32 spoke, Mavic Open Pro CD rims
Geometry
- Head angle: 74 degrees
- Seat angle: 72.5 degrees
- Top tube length: 23.3″ (592 mm)
- Chain stay: 16.2″ (412 mm)
- Bottom bracket height off ground: 10.6″ (269 mm)
- Offset: 1.8″ (45mm)
- Wheel base: 39.7″ (1008 mm)
- Trail: 2″ (50 mm)
- Standover height: 33.2″ (844 mm)
Photos:
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Here is my bike only a few month old….30 minutes after taking the 2001 Cat 4 Maryland state road race.
To the last race, the 2007 Racoon Mtn RR in Chattanooga last April.
Today I finished out the omnium for the BMW Omnium. I was pretty tired after the double climb road race on Saturday, but still managed to hang on okay. Unfortunately, there was a crash in the middle of the field that split the Masters 30+ race apart. I was towards the back and by the time I dodged the flying bikes, there was a good gap to the leaders. I remember thinking it odd, but the racers put out by the wreck were just riding and not chasing hard at first… we could never close the gap and we were racing for 20th+ place… Because of the various teams represented in the lead pack, we never got closer than 10 seconds and generally were not going that fast. I worked pretty hard a couple of laps (along with some others), but they were gone. In the end, the chase group sprinted and my legs were junk…40th place (yuk!). I ended up 15th in the omnium due to omnium points in the road race and the crit. It was a disappointing weekend, but I sort of expected it given my recent work trip putting me off the bike for over a week.
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Andrea put in a great effort to solo lap the field in wet conditions (it started to rain again in her crit, it was basically dry for the M30+)..
Day 1-BMW Omnium (Chattanooga)
The long course was a tough, tough course. In the Masters 30+ race, a break of about 6-7 rolled off the front in the first 10 miles… somewhere in there part of it came back… I was near the front on the transition from first pitches. Crossing I-24 the first time, I was in a group of 4 off the front 5-10 seconds. We were pulled back on the minor climb of Ladd Mtn…. I slid back as we came over Ladd and was near the back as dropped down the other side. On Sand Mtn, i was able to move up near the front in early part of the climb, but couldn’t stay with the main group as the road continued upward. So the rest of my race was all about chase groups… we collected to about 8 or so starting on US41. Up the stair step and across the valley road, we got down to 5. On the final climb, all 4 ended up climbing better that me. I ended up 24th overall (of 38 finishers). 11th 30+ racer (TBRA) and got 3 omnium points (13th ominium rider).
For context, the race was 59.3 miles and featured 4715′ ascent / 3652′ descent. I averaged 19.0 mph and climbed Raccoon Mtn in 22 minutes (which is 3 minutes worse than I did last year in the short course as a Cat 4 last year). I was in pretty bad shape going up Raccoon Mtn!
As for the TT, I did a lot better than my 9:30 last year and rolled a time of 8:55 (26.3 mph). That was good enough for 13th place in M30+. The course is a short 3.9 miles that is actually mostly downhill. The uphill section (about 0.5 mile @ 6%) is a bit rough after this morning, but at least it is followed by nice high speed downhill.
TT: 3.9 miles, 144′ ascent / 312′ descent.
Tomorrow, I need to get some omnium points to get into the money (top 10) for M30+. I think I am right at 9th-10th right now.
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Andrea continues her march towards winning the TBAR jersey. With her RR result today (6th) and her TT win today, she moved to within 1 point of 1st place. The TBAR system is best of 5 RR’s, 5 TT’s, and 6 crits–this is a pretty good system in that it does not reward someone who just races everywhere and helps to reduce the east Tennessee bias of TBRA to some degree in that us West Tennessee riders can skip races up in the Tri-Cities and still be competitive in the series. (Or also in Andrea’s case, skip TBRA races to do big races out of district.)
If it is the fall, it is time to climb…in Chattanooga. My original plan was to race P123 this weekend at the BMW Omnium put on my old team Scenic City Velo. My week off the bike and general lack of feeling really awesome has led me to race the omnium in the 30+ category. Don’t get me wrong, it expect the race (and the competition) will be plenty hard… but maybe I can be competitive in the group. Last year I raced a couple Masters 30+ criterium after my category 4 race, but this year the Masters race has generally been on the schedule before the Cat 3 crit, so I have opted out. So this will be my first master’s crit since last year.
But the feature event is not the crit or the time trial….it is the road course:
I really wish I felt up to racing with the big boys this weekend, but really, I don’t. So I won’t.
It probably was crazy to think I would be alright racing a fast criterium (Elite cat 3 crit at Downers Grove) with 7 days off the bike and a 18 hour journey with jet lag. Things started out okay and I was moving up but the hill took its toll after 15 minutes. I started to move back and was gapped up the finish grade and had to cover a few times. A few laps of this and I couldn’t do it anymore. Dropped. I am pretty disappointed despite all the reasons why I shouldn’t be. I was hoping that I could at least hold on.
Andrea had a better day on Saturday, taking 25th in the non champ race (P/1/2 women). The big event was a lot longer and faster and she wasn’t able to hang with the group. All-in-all, it was an exercise in humility, for me it is that you cannot race a big race with the wrong leadup and for her, a reminder of the gap between her and the top level pros. Not an unmanageable gap, but something that will take some time.
I took a bunch of photos of the women’s elite race and cut it down to 120 or so… here is the album.
As previous mentioned, I am out in Estonia this week (in the cold rain, as it were) for a work trip. I am flying back to Memphis this Saturday… So far, so good. Just a normal trip (I have made over 30 of them in the last several years).
Go back a few days, Andrea gets a message from her team manager that he wants her to do Downers Grove / US Crit championship. This is a huge deal, this is the race that Tina Pic has won 7 of the last 8 years or something like that. Now Andrea doesn’t expect to win, but a top 20 placing (or even a field finish) would be a victory for her.
Now, I usually fly back from Estonia via Chicago (on Scandinavian Airlines) which would have been perfect, but this time I am flying back on Northwest right to Memphis. I did some fare shopping and came up with a good price to fly up there to watch. She is racing both Saturday and Sunday, but I can get up there Saturday night to see the race big event on Sunday.
Then, I get to thinking… she is driving up… and she could bring my bike. And there is a cat 3 race at 10am on Sunday. So in the end I made the maybe foolish choice to race the next morning after flying back from Europe. The good news it that it is in the morning… in the late afternoon will be the problem.
So to recap.
Saturday:
7am (eastern european time) to 4:50 pm (Memphis time) fly via Amsterdam to Memphis
drop off back at my car in the parking lot… or put it in left luggage if time is short.
6:35 pm (Memphis) to 8:20 pm (Chicago).
Sunday:
10am, race the Cat 3 crit championship in Downers Grove
noon, watch Andrea tough it out against the best crit women in the country
after that…watch the pro men?
oh, and drive back at some point… not sure on those details yet. So this whole thing will cap off a pretty crazy week.
Did I mention that I have been off my bike since last Saturday (the morning before I left)….? Although I have been running some…
Another hot day on the blacktop. I think it was a bit cooler than than last years parking lot crit, but nevertheless, it was hot. I didn’t have the legs I wanted, but managed to stay towards the front most of the race and even jumped pretty hard one time (and not so hard a few other times). I thought there was more time left, but when I saw the 3-laps-to-go card, I knew I was doomed. I made it about 3/4 of a lap out there before getting caught (see photo below…why am I smiling?).
I plan to put up some more photos, but here are some random ones to get you started.
During the races, a guy scaled the Gateway Bridge (visible in the background of the photo above). Andrea blogged it well, so I will leave it alone.
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I have linked the photo library. These were taken with the B-camera, so they are less than great, but here they are….
Hot… and tough. The Cat 3 road race was 4 laps of hilly 15 mile course. The way the laps were run, we got to do the finishing climb 4x before the final time. I spent a good portion of the race near the front and some time off the front, but also found myself in trouble a couple of times. The worse time was on the 3rd lap? where I slid to the back due to some attacks at the front. On dropping back, my teammate Aaron Parker was also in trouble,… we paced back to the field and caught on when the field slowed. That was pretty much the entire race, people would attack and the responses would get weaker and weaker and the general speed would drop.
In the end, there was a small group of 4 about 20-30 seconds off the front and 3 of us in the field behind (Bryan Marshall, Aaron, and myself). On the finishing rollers, M&B rider Bryant Funston jumped hard and several were able to follow (including Aaron). I was not able to… Unfortunately, Aaron couldn’t hold on and locked up going up the steep pitch after the feed zone area (about 1 mile to go). I ended up passing him, but couldn’t manage better than 15th place. Bryan and Aaron finished a few places back in 17th & 18th. What a tough day.
Later on, we had a rolling to flat 10 mile TT to contest. My legs felt bad and I only managed about a 25:50 (self-timed). I have no idea where that puts me, but I would guess about mid-field…although the TT was only contested by those that are more serious about it (about half the field).
Photo from Bart Nave photography. Visit his site for more thumbnails…
Tomorrow is the blacktop parking lot crit at Titans stadium. It promises to be hot at the 1 pm start time….
Back-to-back weekends over in Lebanon (Tennessee). This weekend is the Tennessee state road race (Cat 3 = 60 miles) plus an omnium that adds a 10 mile TT and a 50 minute criterium. The road course is a new course, but all the reports that I have seen is that it is fairly hilly 15 mile loop.
The plan (for Andrea and I) is to leave out of Memphis this morning (took the day off work) and drive out to Nashville to pre-ride the course this afternoon. It will be good to get a look at the hills and the landmarks even before we do the first lap. It might be possible that something will go on the first lap and stay away taking the race.
Tuesday, I went out and did the usual pre-race ride at Bikes Plus. This ride is a slower pace ride overall, but always features some long lead-out type sprints. The bike-handling of some of the group members is less than the best, so I tend to like to do the lead-out or attack. Most of the time, I don’t even really contest the sprint because I have led the group out at 30 mph+ for a while by the time we come to the final yards. Near the end of the ride, I decided to jump early on Winchester Road (west-bound) as we rode towards the Nike factory. I did a hard effort to separate and drilled it up the long gradients. The group was chasing and by the time we got to the last pitch they were getting to the point they were 100 feet back. In the end, only Aaron Parker jumped out and around me before the turn. He came by me like I was standing still. At least I confirmed (to myself) that I am ready for this weekend.
One thing I did notice this week is that my legs were still feeling bad on my TT bike. On Wednesday, I went out for my usual 23-24 mile loop (Cordova out through Country Woods, Fletcher Trace, Davies to Kingsridge, Canada to Monroe, Chambers-Chapel to Sumac, Airline/Reed-Hooker, Four Winds, Windcliff, Latting to Pisgah, new neighborhood to Far Rd, Macon, etc…) This loop is up and down after Canada road and allows some fast and some good long grades. By the time I got to Four Winds, I stopped in the heat (it was probably about 100F) and raised my seat about 1/2″. What a difference that made. I think the issue is that I tend to ride on the nose of my saddle which means my effective seat height is lower than if I rode in the middle of the saddle. This field adjustment gave my legs the needed extension. I will see if this helps on Saturday (10 mile TT). I wish I would have picked this up last Saturday for the State TT, my legs felt really stuffed up…the issue might have been ridding without full leg extension.
