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Time Trial…

I decided to leave my TT rig (road bike conversion) at home and see if I could get similar results with my road bike. I brought along my clip-on aerobars, my disc wheel, and my aero helmet. To make it as close as possible to my TT position, I lowered my stem by 20mm and reversed my Thomson set back seat post to get over the BB better.

The course is the same course that I have done the last two years, so I had some basis for comparison. The course is rolling at first with a 1/2 mile hill near 1 mile out. After that it is all downhill (or flat). Since I was using my road frame, I had my SRM to see if the power numbers that I have been seeing on my Polar WIND power sensor make any sense.

After warming up, I lined up to get ready for my start time. I was happy with my start and the first part of the hill climb… I slowed down more than I cared for over the top, but was putting out good wattage numbers. Going down the descent, I pretty much spun out (definitely missing my bar end shifters from my TT bike). I held it pretty well together over the dam and down towards the picnic area.

As I approached the final curves, the sun was in my eyes and there was a group of about 20 people walking along the road (walking back to the parking area). They were well clear of my path, but at 30+ mph in the flickering light, it caused me to hit the brakes a little into that final part. This is probably what caused me to roll a time a little bit worse than last year. I ended up with a 9:02 compared to a 8:55. It is probable that there was more of a headwind as well. In any case, the 9th place it gave me was pretty disappointing. Road bike 0, TT bike 1.

Criterium….

The Cat 3 crit wasn’t until the afternoon on Sunday. The weather was pretty mild and the rain chances forecast never materialized. For the Chattanooga course with the bricks in the corner of Market and 13th Street, that is a very good thing. In the morning, I converted my road bike back for criterium action. The way the cables are setup, I have to remove my front brake caliper to get the stem over the steerer tube. This small thing would prove to be an important detail during my race….

The River Gorge criterium is a pretty wide open flat course. The wind and high speed cornering pretty much do the damage on the field. Matt and I warmed up riding all over and around downtown Chattanooga. In general, I felt pretty good going into the crit. As normal, there were a few pair of fresh legs at the start, but I figured it would not be that big of a deal.

Lined up front row, got a good start and settled in about 10 back into the first turns. As we hit the first corners as a big blob, a little braking was needed to stay off the wheels in front. I noticed that I was basically bottoming out and my brake caliper quick release was open. Down the long straightaway, I closed the front one as the field surged. Going with them felt a bit tough, but I thought it was just the previous day’s climbing coming back to haunt.

Surge, cover, repeat…. The criterium proceded as a normal late season crit does, with everyone trying to beat the field into submission. Matt jumped off the front of the field and got a few people to go with. I surged up to the front and took the lead for a half of a lap to assist in developing a gap. On the long straightaway on the back side, the field surged around me and I found myself gasping for the back of the field. Unfortunately, it was the start of a vicious circle of at the back, off the back, back to the pack that meant that I was doing a lot of work, but not getting anywhere. Occassionally, I would find the opportunity and move up, but the surges would send me back to the back.

After the half-way point, I found myself off the back and chasing for 2 laps+. It about killed me, but I made it back. A break of 8 had established in the interem and the race was pretty quick. I ended up last in the field sprint (23rd overall). After the race, I was thinking how could my fitness be that bad? It didn’t make any sense…

When I got back to the car, I picked up my bike to take off the front wheel to put it in the car. When I did that I noticed that the wheel didn’t move. I gave it a spin… it only went about a 1/4 turn before stopping. Nice. Hard race made even harder by a split second decision on lap 1.

I ended up with an average speed of 26.0 mph and a NP right at my FTP. (IF = 0.997). Hard race, bad result. Now it is time to lay low and gear up for the 2nd season… CYCLOCROSS! I plan to race mostly in October/November this year.

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I took a bunch of photos of the Cat 4 crit, but unfortunately, the first 100+ are trash since I had the camera on the wrong mode…. Here are the good ones…

Lined up with about 30 others for the Category 3 River Gorge RR. For the first time, the Cat 3’s were split out from the P/1/2 so we had race that we could be competitive in. The course is a 60 mile loop featuring two marquee climbs of several miles plus a handful of other smaller hills spread out over the distance.

Even during the neutral roll-out, the attacks started (although that one wasn’t too serious). On the first part of the course, the races heads down US Hwy 11. A few miles into the race a break was established with 8 in it and they started to build up a lead. Seeing this develop, I decided to try to bridge up to this break a few miles before the first hill. I rolled out pretty hard and quickly started to make progress towards catching the break. A mile or so after it, I was joined by another coming up from the field and we worked together to the short hill leading to the first KOM spot (no prize in our race, but it was marked just the same). I continued to push hard up the hill and soon after that I was alone. By the time I got to the KOM spot, I was within 15-20 seconds of the catch (according to the time check) After the KOM, the course heads downward down a twisty road. Even though I rode this section hard, I lost time to the break (time check was 20 seconds+ at the turn near Whiteside). At this point, the going got tougher for a lone rider trying to catch since it was lightly rolling and into a head wind. By the time I got down to Nickajack Lake, the moto told me 1:20…. I didn’t get a time check to the field, but they looked to be about 1:30-2 minutes back when I looked across the lake as I went over I-24 hwy.

Up and over Ladd mtn and down the other side to the wide open part (again into a head wind) meant that I was bleeding time all the way to New Hope. At the turn towards Sand Mtn, I heard over 2 minutes and I suspected that the field was also closer than before, so I figured that I could at least get up Sand a bit before the field passed me.

About a 1/3 of the way up, the front of the field passed me (Barrett first)… I tried to stay with him and the others I dropped back, but ended up falling back to about mid-field. Over the top, I got into a good working group over the top and down the descent. We picked up a rider falling off the leaders over Ladd and continued the chase back to the Lake. As we approached US41-64-72, the leaders (by this time consolidated) were just ahead. At the base of the US41 stair steps, I jumped ahead since our group had slowed a bit and the lead group was just ahead (in distance, not in time). When I was about 2/3 of the way to the group, a portion of our chase group came by and we reintegrated just before the top. Going over the top, I was pretty gassed, but managed to hold on and planned to rest as much as I could before the final climb.

Down in the low parts of the road (along the river), Barrett (Cumberland Transit) jumped up the road and quickly built a lead. Everyone must have been as tired as I because we never mounted a serious chase (and we never caught him). I started the Raccoon Mountain finishing climb with the group but couldn’t stay with the lead 6 (2nd-7th on the road). Matt was just ahead of me and by halfway up I closed to him and we worked together for a while pacing each other. By the final part, I felt like I could maybe catch the back of the splintered group and I rode away from Matt at the end. I didn’t catch anyone unfortunately and we finished 8th and 9th I am pretty happy with the result, of course, I wanted it to be a top 5. Given our lack of hill work in Memphis, we did alright.

During my solo work and on both of the climbs, I demonstrated an average power in line with my FTP. I finished the 3 hour race with a normalized power right at my FTP. Confirmation of what I already knew…. I worked hard today.

When I registered for the omnium, I signed up for the Masters 30+ crit in addition to the Cat 3 crit since it was only $10 additional. I figured I could get used to the course at speed. The M30+ field started off quick and really didn’t let up. Pretty early in the race a sizable break went and got out of sight after a few laps. This left the rest of the field to fight it out for the low places (I want to say 8 or so was in the break).

The sprint for 9th (or whatever it was), I ended up about mid-field which probably meant 20th. I didn’t see the crit results (I only saw an omnium sheet). At the bottom of the course there were a group of fans that were clearly enjoying themselves.

Right after the Masters crit, the cat 4 lined up. Todd and Michael got in the break and Todd took the win…

After the Cat 4’s were done, Matt and I raced the Cat 3 crit. After the celebrating the night before, I figured I would try to lay low, but dangerous riders kept jumping off the front.

I bridged up to a break that failed and probably once or twice tried to start one (so much for laying low). My positioning wasn’t great heading up the hill and I ended up in 20th. With my 2nd place RR, 11th TT it was good enough for 9th in the omnium. Sort of a disappointing end, but ended up coming home with quite a bit of cash. Matt rolled a 2nd place TT and a top 10 in the crit to get a 6th in the omnium. Not the pair of top 5’s we were hoping, but a pair of top 10’s will work as well.

To cap it off, Andrea completed her sweep of her omnium by soloing away in her criterium.

Next up is the River Gorge / BMW Omnium in Chattanooga. By coincidence it is the last day of my former office / plant there, so I am going over a bit early for the last day.

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Photos from the crit: Masters 30/40+ | Cat 4 | Cat 3 | Women 1/2/3

After a few hours after picking up Andrea from her road race victory, Andrea and I headed to the other side of Oak Ridge to race the 8 mile TT held within the secure area of Oak Ridge labs (or whatever it is called). Unfortunately, the TT was running an hour behind…. At least I didn’t start warming up early since I knew about the time shift. While we were waiting, I got the opportunity to try out one of the handcyclists’ bikes. It was a a bit different than I expect. Those things are hard to turn (granted I was trying to turn a tight circle in the parking lot). I ended up “cheating” using my feet to move it around. I didn’t want to run into anything trying to get turned around. (The guy that we talked to used to ride a regular bike, but was partially paralyzed after getting hit by a car on a training ride.)

The course is the same mostly flat course (1-2% false flats) as last year. Since the road is closed to normal traffic, your first look at it is your race. I started off pretty well and quickly settled into a rhythm that I felt I could maintain for the duration (last year with fresh legs, I rolled a 19:10). The wattage shown by my Polar CS600 WIND power meter (which is a pain to deal with, but when it works gives workable numbers) were under target wattage on the outbound leg (looking down occasionally). When I downloaded the file, the numbers were close to target (maybe even a bit high IMHO). Anyway, I left it all out on course… To get a self timed 19:06 (official time was 19:08).

The results were emailed out later that night and I found that my effort was good for 11^th out of ~20 riders. Not terrible, but worse than I expected given my perceived effort and Polar data. What it does tell me (along with several similar experiences with LAMBRA stage race TT’s) that my road bike conversion TT bike needs to be changed out. It is not so much the frame aerodynamics, which are not too bad on my Kebel, but it is the position that I am not able to obtain. Just not low enough. Looks like I will need to get a frame this winter and stop messing with the half-measures that clearly aren’t working. The road bike conversion has got me through two seasons as an incremental step above clip-on aerobars. This bike has taught me a bit about what I want and need in terms of geometry which I can use to pick out a frame for the 2010 road campaign. One more race on the Kebel (Chattanooga BMW Omnium next weekend).

After the TT, nearly the whole Memphis Velo team in attendance converged on Big Ed’s pizza in Oak Ridge. Our table put down 5 large pizzas and I am not sure how many pitchers of beer. It was a celebration of a good day of racing and teamwork. My Cat 3 state jersey, (Andrea’s Woman 1/2/3 jersey), and Todd’s 3^rd place finish in the road race were probably as good as we have had it team (although Andrea is not a current MV’er, but you know what I mean).

The next morning came up quick and unfortunately, due to timing we didn’t get mobilized fast enough to catch the handcyclists criterium….

(rest of post will have to wait, this is all I could get written in the car before I had to take over driving.) Time to go to bed….

Galleries from the Sunday crit are up:

• Masters 30/40+
• Cat 4
• Cat 3
• Women 1/2/3

I felt a little sleepy this morning, but otherwise good. I wasn’t sure how this course would race as a Category 3 only of 30 or so (last year it was combined with the P/1/2 field due to small field size. So we (Matt and I) started off on our 66 mile Tennessee State Road Race in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

With only two of us, I thought it better to let the team-vs-team dynamic play out on this rolling course. And it did, with all breaks coming back during the first two laps.

On the start of the 3rd and final lap, there was a small group of 4 riders up the road, but in sight. Barrett Krei (Cumberland Transit) was sort of caught out in no-mans land in between. At the front, Brent Mahan (Nashville Cyclist) was trying to pull back in Barrett at least, but all were sort of stuck. I moved up from about 4-5 wheel and took over for Brent and pulled back in Barrett. I think Carr (maybe another?) countered … I pulled part of way up and I am pretty sure Brent finished it off. Groupo compacto. Two more started pushing a gap soon thereafter and stayed just out in front of the field.

On one of the larger rollers in the lead-in to the big hill, one of the two riders fell off leaving just one up the road. I pushed hard up the hill and reached him. When I looked back, we now had a gap and so we went. I honestly thought that it would just get us over the hills leaving us to get caught on the relatively wide open highway.

Starting at 20 miles to go, we traded pulls. We worked well together, he paced up the hills and I drove the pace on the flats and downhills. We stayed away those final miles to end maintaining a minute gap whenever we heard time checks (which stopped in the final miles for some reason). At the end he stuck on my rear wheel and with the pack closing I didn’t want to play too many games. He came around me before the finish, so I got 2nd. However, he was an out of stater so I am the 2009 Tennessee Cat 3 road race champion.

It has been a long time since my previous state win (2001 Maryland Cat 4 road race). It would have been better to win the race, but I will take the jersey. We rode hard for it.

I got my crankset back from SRM this morning. I installed it and then rode up and down the street. Clearly enough testing before the state RR.

The construction of this iteration of the FSA / SRM crank seems to be better in terms of the non-drive splines. It also seems to be much lighter than what I sent off to SRM a few weeks back.

This weekend is the Oak Ridge Fall Velo Classic. The road race on Saturday is the Tennessee State RR. It is a fairly hilly course, so I am glad I got my SRM back…..

Waking up on Sunday morning, I wondered how the road race would play out. I knew that I needed to get a 1st place or at least beat the guy that scored a 2nd place in the crit, to take home the top spot in the ominium. I felt pretty good, the criterium the day before didn’t really tear up my legs that much.

The race started out fast down the narrow roads out to the loop. By the time we got out to the loop, 2 were off the front (Memphis’ Clark Butcher riding for Herring and a Tria market guy). At the end of the 1st lap, 20-22 miles into the race the generally slow pace of the race had their lead out to over 2 minutes (2:30, I heard). The race ended up being fairly sedate for the most part except for some spirited attacks, especially uphill. By 40+ miles in (2nd lap), the lead was cut down closer to a minute. At the end of the 3rd lap, entering the connector to the finish, the gap was 30 seconds and they were in sight. The catch occurred with 1 mile to go as the field ramped the speed up to the uphill lead-in to the flat finish.

I knew that I had to beat Lackey (Tria) to get the omnium win and was watching Simpson (VeloCity) as well. I charged up the side of the field on the uphill closing down the gap to Lackey and going back Simpson… As it leveled out Simpson came around and I stopped closing to Lackey. 3rd on the day it would be. 2nd in the omnium for me. I didn’t really notice how I fared overall in the sprint (scored separately, so I couldn’t tell from the results).

It ended up being a good weekend of racing to get geared up for Oak Ridge next weekend. And the payout was good, so it ended up paying for itself and then some. Unfortunately, that has been a rare occurrence for me this year.

Yesterday, I started out with the Trinity ride on my X-Fire (with road wheels), After my short ride, it was time to finish getting ready and hit the road down to Meridian. The trip went pretty quick because I finally tried out the Economist audio edition. I am always having trouble getting the weekly issue read (and yes, I do want to read most of it). The audio programs are well produced. After this weekend, I should be caught up on my “reading”.

My criterium wasn’t until 6pm, but I came down to the race course in time to watch the Cat 4 race play out. I had 4 teammates in it with two of them finishing 4th and 6th. Here is the gallery.

After taking photos of the Cat 4 race, I started to get ready and to warmup. I was going to ride the trainer, but decided to go up and down Front Street which worked out well with a slight hill and a good run without stops.

I had an okay start, quickly getting into the pedals (Speedplay Zeros are working a lot better than my Keo did). I did, however, start out in far too hard of a gear.

So I started out closer to the middle back than I was comfortable with… I worked my way up while trying to stay out of the wind. The course was generally safe, but some of the corners had some pretty sketchy pavement some of which was unavoidable when in the field 2-3 wide through some of the corners. After some initial attacks went and came back, I was close to the front at just over 20 minute in. Looking up the road, there was a small group with most of the all teams represented. I jumped and fairly quickly bridged up to the group (through a few corners). The group itself numbered about 8 when I joined. A lap after joining the group, I pulled off after a pull and what seemed like a lot of riders joined us (turned out to be just 2). I figured we were caught, but wanted to stay near the front anyway.

After a while, we started getting time checks from the side of the road. For several laps, I wondered who was up the road. In retrospect, it makes sense, I just misread the situation. It wasn’t until the time checks grew to over 1 minute and then switched to “20 seconds until lapping” that it dawned on me. We were the lead. Which made a lot more sense since I know I didn’t see anyone go off (and we had the lead moto).

Our group was 11 strong with one each from MV (me), TriStar, Myogenesis, Tria, Precision Bicycles, Hot Tubes, and several from Herring (5). More importantly (to me), I was the only Category 3 and this race was scoring / paying out separately, so I essentially had the Cat 3 win. With a few to go, the group fractured with 4 in the front group. I wasn’t going to kill myself to bring the group up and the composition of the rest of the group, pretty much meant that they weren’t to be caught. I found out later that the officials finished the field out a few laps before we were done, which is probably good since we would have caught them with only a few laps to go. (Also, notice that I for the first time in my racing career, I managed to pin my number on the wrong side…should have been on the left. Since I was in the break, they were able to keep track of me pretty easily….)

In the end, I ended up 9th in the group (overall), 1st cat 3. Todd took some photos of my race (gallery).

Today is the road race. I like this course, I hope I can do well here as well. Two years ago (as a Cat 4), I spent most of the first lap off the front either solo or with a small group. After coming back to the field, I also went with the winning break, but fell out of it up one of the hills.

Yesterday, the Marx & Bensdorf cycling team hosted another training race up on the short 5 mile loop north of Arlington. The course is lightly rolling with a 3/4 mile or so hill up to the finish. For us in the 1/2/3, it meant going up it 10 times for a total of just over 50 miles.

The field was fairly small with 12-13 starting. M&B had 6 at the start and Memphis Velo, we had 2 of the racers in the field. The rest of the field was made up of lone riders from various teams from the region.

I knew that with so many riders, M&B would be looking to put someone up the road and if I could do anything about it, I needed to be one of them. The first lap saw some attacks from various teams but nothing got very far. On the second lap Robby from M&B rolled off a bit and bridged up to him and past him hoping to get something going…. When he didn’t pull through I suspected that it was a no go, but I waited up at a corner by taking it pretty slow. The second time not coming through (or even staying with me) made me realize that it wasn’t the proper break so I shouldn’t expect any help … I rode it out up the hill at my own pace and was back with the rest over the top.

On the third time up the hill, there was an attack (not sure exactly who started it), but it ended up with a TriStar (Tower), Herring (Moak), and two M&B (Parker and Funston) getting clear. Aaron ended up dropping back after a 1/2 lap or so, leaving the rest to gain time. The time checks were pretty random, but the gap grew to about a minute by 5th or 6th lap. Then the rains came. I expected that given the radar and forecast, but it usually takes a few minutes to sort it out and get soaked before you can just get on with racing.

Onward we pushed into the driving rain and started to get serious about pulling the break back in laps 6 or 7, when we heard the gap was at 30 seconds. When it is raining hard, I would much rather pull into it than be trying to draft and not run into back wheel of another with fogging glasses and road spray. I think it was on the 8th time up the hill we caught up with Funston dropping back from the other two leaders. This meant that for at least for a while, we were off the hook and putting M&B at the front to chase. And they did. We caught the two leaders at the top of the 9th time up the hill leaving us all together (albeit with a smaller group by then – we were down to 7).

On one of the smaller hills about a third of the way around the final lap, a Kodak Galleries rider (no name, sorry) attacked off solo. We pretty much didn’t give it much chance and let him build up a gap. Funston and then me did some pulls late in the lap, but he was not to be caught. The other 4 riders in between powered up the hill leaving Bryant and me behind for 6th and 7th. I am pretty sure that Matt ended up in 5th position.

As for the race, we didn’t get a real great result, but I was pleased how Matt and I worked together to change the way the race played out. Should we have pulled earlier and harder on the last lap? Sure, in hindsight that is clear, but we didn’t, so the solo rider was able to take the “W”. And we ended up going home with slightly more $$ than we put in ($70 for 5th overall and 3rd/4th in Cat3 versus the $60 in entry fees). Just a little gas money for the trouble.

After my race, I stayed and took some photos of the Category 5, Masters 50+, and women’s races. They are in a mixed (chronological) order, but it is pretty much self evident which are which. Andrea ended up taking second after a good hill leadout for Casey. Their race was sort of odd that it was completely an intrasquad race for the recently formed M&B women’s cycling team.

link to Photo gallery

On Saturday night, a few members of the team stayed in Oxford. Not much was open downtown (we ended up at Rooster’s). Probably it was because it was a holiday weekend… or maybe most of the bars close down for the summer… It was my first time in Oxford, so I have no point of reference.

The next morning, we woke up to rainy conditions. My race wasn’t until 10:50 by the schedule (it ended up starting a bit late). By race time, it was overcast and relatively cool (for once). But the roads were dry. Oddly enough the corners on the criterium course were much less technical than the circuit race. None were tighter than 90 degrees and all had good pavement.

3/4 race

Our plan had our Category 4’s joining us for the 3/4 race on Sunday, so we were most of the field. In total, we were 10 strong (4 cat 3’s and 6 cat 4’s). This meant that we needed to keep the pace high and keep launching our guys up the road. Over the 40 minute criterium, I lost count of the attacks, but I know that I did at least 6 of them myself (I suppose I could look at my SRM data, but it is not that important). Our goal was to make sure David was well placed for the omnium. With a half lap to go, Michael launched with David in tow and got him in a small group for the sprint. He netted a 3rd from it. The downhill sprint made for some interesting dynamics as I felt I hit my top speed (which needs some work mind you). I didn’t get a look at the final results sheet, but I was probably 7th or 8th right behind Mark who pretty much pulled me down the final meters after I caught up to him.

1/2/3 crit.

Three of us also raced the 1/2/3 crit. I lined up near the start and worked hard in the beginning to stay near the front and work out the tightness in my legs from the effort in the 3/4 race only 45 minutes earlier. After a few laps, I was feeling better and pretty much settled into a pattern of covering attacks, initiating attacks, and just racing really aggressively. Our cross-town rivals, Marx and Bensdorf lined up 5 at the start and were pretty instrumental in shutting me down (along with other team’s attacks.) About half way through the hour long race, a break of 4 established with Tria (Toone), Myogensis (Murphy), and Herring (Butcher and Moak) in it.

That pretty much shut down the field with Herring (Boudreaux) taking up residence up front. We (as a field) tried a few things, but no one had the will or ability to pull back the break.

In the end, it got down to just 8 of us in the field… I ended up in 11th place.

Debbie Milne doubled up after her Women’s race and raced well in our field staying out of trouble and doing some covering of gaps, etc. She finished right in front of me to take the last paying position. After the race, I asked her what I was fighting for…. it was $10, so that was okay. I really didn’t have the legs after racing so aggressively to put a good sprint on. Since I am not a sprinter at all, that is pretty much only game plan.

Both of the races had me with normalized power over my FTP (I.F. of 1.024 and 1.027 for the 3/4 and 1/2/3 races). This weekend ended up being a good way to cap off the first half of my road racing season…. my next event (planned) is the Meridian / Cuba challenge 5 weeks away.

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1/2/3 crit photo album is now up.