roadcx.net

I wondered how things would go after not riding my road bike for a while before late in the week.  I found out pretty quickly.

The crit started out pretty fast and stayed reasonably fast the whole time (as usual).  My legs took a while to wake up and I paid for it.  Ended up struggling to move up and finished in the back of the pack.  In general, it wasn’t a good race for us expect that Travis Sherman (who was guest riding with us) was in the break and got a 4th.  For several guys on the team, it was their first 1/2/3 race, and in general it was good to see the future of M-B team out there mixing it up.

On Saturday night, a bunch of us stayed at a the course as a guest of one of the promoters of the race.  Very nice indeed.  The location is pretty rural and we finished the evening out shooting off some tracer rounds on the shooting range (interesting since I am not normally a gun guy).

The next morning, we woke up and ate breakfast with the race registration right outside the house we were staying in (very convenient).  The road race went better for us as a team.  The race was a 1/2/3 race but the 3′s were scored separately and we had our our purse.

From the start, we were pretty much always with 2-3 of us near the front of the race.  We had a total of 6+1 (5 cat 3′s, 1 cat2, and one cat 2? guest rider).  Johnny Mac rolled off with the first break of the day from mile 2 or 3 (it seemed) and they dangled off the front for a while as we tried to keep things in order up front.  Eventually they rolled further out and out of sight by the end of the first lap.  Okay, things were looking good.

Attacks continued for a while, but they were normally short lived.  Most of the way though the 2nd lap, Travis (guest riding) jumped on a move that included the eventual race winner (Toone).  They move out quickly and out of site.  Even better.   At this point, I was thinking that there was another break to be had and was preparing to join it (or start it) at some point in the 3rd (and final) lap.

About 1/2 way through the 3rd lap, JMac came back.  Crap.  Okay we still have Travis up the road…  5 miles later, there comes Travis.  Not good.  So when in doubt, I attack.  I didn’t have much, but I was able to move up the grade a little bit.  A minute later, a few came up including Robbie (my teammate).  We sort of worked together for a while before things started to fall apart.  I wanted to keep things going and quickly found myself out there by myself again.  After a minute or so, I was joined by Frank Moak (Herring).  I thought that could work since he can motor along, but it was short lived as we were joined by the field.  Groupo Compacto with 3-4 miles to go.

Going into the final mile or so, John King, Ben Knoernschild, and myself were at the front of the field, with Robby Holdich and Scott Newberry not too far back.  Scott launched with a mile – 1.5 mile to go and Ben joined him with John and I holding pat watching for a reaction.  The reaction came and I followed a rider as he wound it up dropping me off with 300m to go or so.  At this point, I couldn’t do much but sprint early, and lead out whatever was behind.  That didn’t last long, but at least Robby finished it out with a Cat 3 win and Ben held on for a 2nd.  Result.

So with that, my road season is done.  It was  good weekend and I had a lot of fun and was glad to see the nouveaux Cat3′s in action.  It is going to be a good year next year for M-B.

Time to step back and then wind up for cyclocross.  I haven’t typed up a calender, but it will really start to hot up for Louisville (Oct 23/24), Memphis (Oct 30/31), McEwen (Nov 6/7) and Outdoors (Nov 14).  Time to glue the tubulars!

After leaving Copper Harbor we hit the Michigan Tech trails (my engineering degrees are from there) on the way to my mom’s house in Marquette, Michigan.  Andrea already blogged our ride, so here it is.

On Friday, we rested and went on the Cleveland Cliffs Iron mine tour.  Sort of long, but they have some pretty cool equipment.  Sorry, no photos are allowed, so you will have to just imagine a pit a mile across and 900 feet deep.  The processing plant is all about large rotating equipment and iron ore dust everywhere.  After the tour, we did a bit of a tune up ride and along the way stopped by the Ore to Shore registration.

On the race morning, we got there early (around 8:20a or so) for a 9:45a start.  People already were putting bikes down in the start grid (except those with a preferred start at the front.  We setup in the 2:50 or under group (expected time) and then walked around to warm up (since we didn’t bring another bike).

The start was fairly fast, but not too bad.  I sort of laid up a little to make sure that Andrea was making good progress (first two miles are generally uphill and on pavement).  Once we hit the trail, we separated and I avoided a few crashes (most were guys lying in a puddle or hung up in the sand).  I continued on and then thought I should wait for Andrea.  Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did.  About 40 people passed as I slowed up and then stopped for a minute.  Once she passed, I caught up and then I lost her again.  At this point, I decided to hammer and improve my placing. I repassed everyone that I let go by the Misery Hill feature (loose rock powerline climb).

After this point, it was taking longer and longer to bridge up to the next group, but I continued to pass people until maybe 5 miles to go. I had my only “crash” of the day which wasn’t a real crash, just a near miss.  I dove into a steep sand pit (I took the wrong line) and had to suddenly stop to avoid the endo.

Along the way, I ended up working with one guy for a while (one of the photos below is us at the finish line).  He ended up missing a turn and finished a minute or so after me.  By the end of the race, I was spent, my arms were getting weak and I was ready to be done on the last mile or so of pavement to Lakeside Arena.  Towards the end we started to overtake some of the back markers on the Soft Rock (28 mile version that started 45 minutes before ours).  So I wasn’t getting bested by someone’s grandma…

In the end I finished 1 second over 2:55 for 86th place.  I probably wasted 5 minutes with waiting for Andrea (and about 40 places), but I certainly didn’t have anything left after my efforts the last 40 miles.  I don’t have power data, but almost 60% of my race was in the threshold heart rate zone.

My mom took some photos at the start and the finish.  She was out on course, bu didn’t get a chance to take any photos.

Been pretty busy since returning from Colorado..  Got in some good rides and some days didn’t have time to ride.  On Wednesday, the Marx-Bensdorf team showed up in force for the Metro Moto training crit in Collierville.  With 3 new Cat 3 members (2 of which were racing), we had 10 (I think) in the field of about 20.  With half the field, I liked the scenario better than the first training crit (2 of us versus 5-6 Memphis Velo).  The format was also different, race 30 minutes then miss-and-out (dropping 2 at-a-time until down to 6, then 1-at-a-time).

We were active on the front with people heading up the road, dropping back to chase pairs, etc.  In the end we took 5 of the top 6 placings.  I was around 10th based on my elimination (survived 5-6 sprints until I “missed” and was “out”).

I have poached some the better shots Dale Sanford (sitting out due to an upcoming Ironman tri…).  These have been through the Facebook photo destroyer, so keep that in mind.

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With that I am headed for a forced break off the bike.  I am headed to China tomorrow for a week (work trip).  Despite the millions of bicycles, both personal safety and lack of time will keep me off the bike for the duration (maybe ride exercise bike at the hotel?).  When I get back, I will make one more push with Ore to Shore (8/14), Meridian-Cuba (8/21-8/22), and maybe River Gorge (8/28-8/29) on the menu.

On Sunday, I had a long drive back from Wisconsin ahead of me… The drive back to Memphis is something along the lines of 11.5 hours or so with stops… As I was driving back, I was sort of lamenting that I felt good and the lack of racing in my immediate future…so when I stopped for gas in Rockville, I used my iPhone to search out the possibilities….  A  crit in Peoria, but it was at 4 pm and too far from home….  Searched on MOBRA, and found what I was looking for, a criterium in St. Louis at 4pm.  I hammered it in as the new destination on my GPS and saw my ETA was 2:30 pm…  perfect.  I checked the weather and it said rainy, but it is summer and that sort of forecast doesn’t always hold up.  I took the I-55 path and headed on down the road towards StL.

At Bloomington, Illinois, I made my lunch stop.  Had a footlong ham sub built up at Subway… Somewhere along the line the guy behind me and my sub got mixed up and I had one of his.  A meatball sub on white.  Yuk!  I was hungry and about 15 miles down the road, so I ate it….

Over the bridge, I missed the exit to I-44, so I had to take a cutover route from I-64 to get back to where I needed to go… I took the exit off 44, it suggested and followed the signs to the College… and ran into the course.  Success!

After registering, I geared up and started to ride around.  I ran into some local riders and followed them for a warmup.  My crank arm on my SRM was noisy (it was noisy on the ToAD races as well).  I decided it wasn’t getting worse, although it made it obvious when I was coming.  The field lined up with about 40 or so in the Cat 1/2/3 race.  The course had a power climb on one side and a bombing decent on the other.  Fairly non-technical, it was a fun race.  The race was full of local St. Louis teams.

The couse was fluid and and there were plenty of places to advance (and therefore to fall back if you weren’t careful).  There was a break of several that got off, but I wasn’t in position to get to up to it clear.  I tried a few moves, but they were either covered right away or I saw jammed up trying to attack the side around the corner.  With 2 laps to go, I heard the race announcer say something about the break lapping the field (or about to).  On a lark, I attacked hoping that the 2-to-go would turn into 1-to-go for the field with me clear…  I stayed clear, but there was still a lap to go when I came around.  I was caught up the hill and could barely hang onto the back of the field (nearly puking up that stupid meatball sub)… 32nd.  Oh well, it was worth a shot.

And then I drove the 4.5 hours to Memphis.  The race got the blood pumping so I was in good shape until the last hour or so, when I needed a little truck stop coffee to finish it out.

Tonight I took a closer look at my SRM..  The FSA non-drive side crank arm is failing.  Another one!  It took it off and dashed off an email to SRM.  Hopefully they have more NDS arms.  I put Andrea’s SRAM Quarq powermeter on my bike.  It is acting up (that is why she took it off her bike), I hope I can get it to work.

The second of the two race that I planned on racing up here in Wisconsin this trip was the Fond du Lac crit installment of Tour of America’s Dairyland.  The course is a nearly flat rectangle.  The wind was a brisk southern wind so the back stretch was a power alley and the finishing stretch was fast.  The strong wind made a pretty good place for reorganizing and even attacking as the field slowed into that wind every short lap.

My brother, sister-in-law, their daughter, and my mom were in attendance lined up on the finishing straight and the crowds were generally good for a Friday afternoon in downtown FdL.  I did a few laps of the course between the races, one too many as I was forced to line up nearly back row.

The first couple laps were about moving up and jumping across gaps that would form as surges and the head wind on the back stretch would split the field.  About 15 minutes in a rider had a small lead over the field and the field slowed up, so I attacked.  Jumping laterly into the headwind (wide road), I was clear in no time… (that headwind did hurt)

I ended up chasing him for 3 laps or so, before we both were coming back to the field.  Slid to the back, recovered, and moved back up.

There were a few short attempts at getting clear, but a good one went at about 30 minutes in.  A few minutes later, I jumped just after turn 2 (into the wind again) and caught the two riders a half-lap later.

two turns before I jumped again to the break

break, first iteration

The group added a few more (up to 7) and lost one.  We worked well together and gained big time over the field.  There were some primes thrown in, one of which was $50/$40 two-placer… I jumped after a guy going for it, and took the 2nd place on that one.  We soon folded back and knocked out the final 10 laps to the end.

separation after a prime.

On the last back stretch, I wasn’t sure how we were doing (never look back) and did a hard pull finishing the backstretch.  This and the other stuff before cost me and I ended up at the back of the group to finish 6th.   My brother and my mom took a bunch of photos which I will put up later, for now I just put a few good ones in this post.

On Wednesday, I made the 11+ hour drive up from Memphis to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.  The idea was to get up and visit my brother and race two stages of the Tour of America’s Dairyland…two stages of which are within 20 miles of his house.

The first up was the Greenbush road race stage.   The course was a rolling course with a few longish hills and a some long twisty descents.  Other than a few (well-marked) bad pavement section it was a perfect course.

The race started out up a hill and there was an attack straight away.  Another rider bridged up and they had a quite a gap heading down the descent.  The course turned up and I pushed a bit harder than the field and found myself between the field and the break…. I motored for a while but it looked like I was coming back to the field faster than I was going up to the leaders, so I pretty much sat up and dropped into the field.  One of the two came back and there were numerous other attacks.  I covered some and initiated some, but ended up that there was a break of 5 (?) that stayed away.  I tried some things to move up and attacked some later in the race, but ended up with the field leading to the end of the race.  I was a bit further back that I would have liked as we headed into Greenbush the last time and was moving up.   I had to let up when a rider crashed (hooked bars?) in the final stretch.  I was moving up on the uphill finish, but was really out of the places anyway.  I swerved around him and finished it out.  The field had thinned a little bit, so I probably ended up in the upper 20′s -th place in an original field of nearly 40?   Not a great result, but I did try to get into the move and it ended up that I couldn’t get into the right one.

Tomorrow is the Fond du Lac crit.  Should a fairly fast, flat crit.

no report yet, for now:   I processed all the criterium photos…

• Masters 50/60+
• Women
• Masters 30/40+
• Cat 3
• Cat 1/2
• Cat 4

Quick report because I am pretty busy on this short week before driving up to Wisconsin to visit my brother and race some Tour of America’s Dairyland (Greenbush RR and FdL criterium is my plan).

As always the S&N GP was a hot.  This year it was in the mid- to upper 90′s all weekend and no rain in sight.  The road race started off with 6 of us from Marx-Bensdorf (plus one BPC rider) against 7 of my old team Memphis Velo in about a 30 man field.  As this race typically turns into a pissing contest between teams, it was going to a fight.  On the first lap, a small break established and was soon augmented to 9.   This nine included Robby from our team, 2 MV, 2 Walmart (AR team), and 2 SCV (my previous, previous team from Chattanooga).  Not really a good break for us, but we didn’t chase it.  Mistake.  They stayed away and Robby ended up 8th from the group.  Along the way, I tried a few attacks which were mildly successful in stringing out the field for a mile or five, but we were all together going for 10th place up the final “hill”.  An attack went, I tried to bridge it, fell short and was swamped by the charging field.  22nd.

In the afternoon, the part of the omnium is the TT.  I was underperform in this TT, and this year wasn’t different (too many long attacks probably).  I rolled a 8:41 which is nearly the same time I did in 2008 and 2009.  At least I am consistant.  This time put me 13th.

With not much in the way of points, we looked at the crit as a stand alone event with not much to go for in terms of points.  With 6 of us in the crit, we had the bodies to affect the race.  The course is non-technical and basically flat.  This means pretty fast with a very wide road almost all the way around the course to jockey for position and attack.  Early on, we covered moves and kept it together under the hot sun.  About 35 minutes into the crit, I felt good and the oppotunity presented itself, so I jumped hard.  I got some daylight behind me and stayed gone for 3 laps.  The field came back to me just after 5-to-go.  The counter really didn’t come as I thought it should have, but the move mostly had the desired effect (it mostly neutralized AR’s Clint Austin…not the target, but he was bearing down at me looking at the photos).  The pace picks up and everyone wants to be first around the final corner.

Robby was best positioned out of our group and finished 4th to end up 5th in the omnium.  Not quite the result we wanted, but we executed most of the plan we set out to do.  In racing, to get most of it right is pretty good.  (I finished at the back of the field, 19th)

After an early wakeup (4:20am), we got up, ate, finished packing, and drove across the lake to New Orleans.  My criterium wasn’t until 11:15am, but the women raced at 7:30a.  Andrea ended up winning the criterium in the sprint, completing her sweep of the TdL stage race (like 2 years ago).  I played support and photographer for her race and then I sat in the car until it was time to get ready for my race.  The weather was warm with high humidity, so I took a piece from the pros and ran the car and sat in the A/C as long as possible.  No sense exhausting myself until it was time to get on the bike.  Even sitting around, it was clear the heat takes a toll.

A few hours later, I got out to watch the end of the Masters 40+ race.  Teammate John McLaughlin finished with the field to maintain his overnight lead in the G.C.  Not too bad.  2 for 2 on Marx-Bensdorf winning.  In my race, the 1/2/3, I was really not in position to win, but I wanted to advance a little from my 19th G.C. place after stage 2 and get some high speed criterium work.  Succeeded in the first and the second mostly happened (lots of braking and accelerating).

I lined up a little further back than I would like, but I figured I could move up.  The course is a winding course around City Park in New Orleans.  Most of it was very flowy, except for two turns.  The first turn was an 180 degree turn at the end of the boulevard, the second slow down point was the 3rd corner which is slightly sharper than a 90 degree turn.  The bunching up at that would happen at this corner as the field went from flying down the finish line stretch to braking into this corner was probably the only part I didn’t like about this course.  Even the bad pavement, which mostly were small ledges to fly off, was not that bad (and there was only a few of those).

The first part of the race had me hanging out near / on the back.  Not my favorite place, but I was pretty good about moving around faltering riders as they got into trouble.  The speed was not incredible, but we were moving along pretty well, and the sweltering temperatures as the race was at mid-day in June in New Orleans took their toll on some.  After 20 minutes, I started to work more on moving up.  I was generally able to advance, but it was normally short lived as we all braked into the 180 degree corner, the field would fan out and it seemed like I would lose spots.   I could get them back on the return trip on the boulevard, but I couldn’t get up much further.  The one time that I moved up a bunch, there was a split (which eventually welded together), so that was good.

The end of the race sped up like I always does and I got a little gapped coming around the Art Museum, but was able to nail it back enough to end up with pack time.  Making it with the group, moved me up to 15th, the final paying place.  That was a nice surprised, I figured I would gain a spot or two, but four.  Pretty nice.  Looking at the results, it is all about the time trial (as it always is) and surviving the road race and criterium.  I need to turn the page to being active at the front the criterium as I move up from racing as a cat 3 in the 1/2/3 field to a 2 that is gunning for the top slots.  It is definitely not a lack of will, it is just continued progress in building on my training (and maybe getting that TT frame finally).

I have processed the photos from the criterium.  I took some of the Womens/Juniors race.  Andrea took some of the Masters 40+ and the 1/2/3 races.  I will upload them when we get home (we stayed the night in New Orleans and we are currently headed back to Memphis).

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Here are the albums

• Women/Juniors
• Masters 40+
• Cat 1/2/3

Another hot TdL was on the menu for this weekend.  Andrea and I headed down for another 3-stage, 2-day installment of the long running race in the New Orleans area. We drove down on Friday and planned to ride some when we got there.  Last year, we ended up parking in downtown Covington and rode the Tammany Trace down to the lake and back.  This year, we opted to try route from the hotel.  Outside the hotel we were staying at is the highway US190, which is 3 lanes in each direction and pretty not-bike-friendly.  (I would argue it is not driver friendly either.)  We tried to get over to the Trace again, but our route took us on a road that didn’t exist (it was merely a muddy pipeline right-of-way with a creek crossing, not really suitable for our road bikes).  On the way back, we were chased by two small dogs and came upon a shirtless, wheel riding rider, that would exhale cigarette smoke while riding a wheelie for 100 feet.  Andrea dubbed him the “dragon”.

The weekend started with the road race up north of Covington.  For the first time, I raced with teammates (3 other years I was solo racing with Memphis Velo).  Flying the Marx-Bensdorf colors was Aaron, Robby, Jonathon, and me.  By the 9am start time, it was already hot and humid.  The field for the 80 miler numbered 47, which is a few bigger than I have ever ridden with in this race.  As usual, there were a few breaks, some more serious than others, some lasting longer than others.  I tried an attack or two, but nothing really got any traction, so by the last lap I was just sitting it.  As we wound up for the sprint, Aaron was in good position, and I was close to him.   The lead in to the finish was up and down, but mostly up.  Aaron ended up in 8th place, and I finished in 15th place with the same times as the bulk of the field.

After some lunch, some working on bikes, and some rest, the next stage was the 3 mile time trial.  I was looking forward to racing my new Uberhund bars on a course that I had some experience on…  I warmed up on the course since I was the 2nd rider to go.  I have sort of conflicted relationship with short time trials like this.  On one hand, I like that they are short.  On the other, they hurt.  Alot.  Last year, I ran a 6:26.  This year I self-timed a 6:33.  The Polar WIND said I did more watts than last year (not exactly an SRM..)… we’ll see how I stack up.

Tomorrow is the crit.  It is expected to be pretty hot tomorrow also (94F).  The best part is that we plan to stay another day in New Orleans.  The last 3 years, we have come down to race with a short visit to the city before the race.  It will be nicer to visit the city after the racing is done.

update (results were posted as I finished this post)

Andrea won both the RR and TT.  She a nice lead going into the criterium tomorrow.  Teammate John McLaughlin is also winning the Masters 40+ (he also won both stages).  I ended up 21st in the TT (out of 40).   I am 19th in G.C. overnight.  [results]

I haven’t been in a while (since 2006), but wanted to give it another go before I do something crazy and earn an upgrade to Cat 2.

Anyway, the weekend started off pretty well.  I posted a 10:52 time up the hill which is light years ahead of my previous time of nearly 13 minutes.  Granted, I probably was 15# heavier back then, but… I’ll take it.  Unfortunately, this improvement only got me a 26th place of the 67 that started.  Teammate Aaron was only a few seconds and places back.

Later that afternoon, all I really wanted to do was take a nap.  Sometimes, that feeling really works for me and I roll a great race.  On Saturday, it meant I was there.  Just couldn’t get going and only managed to not get dropped up the hill the first time.  The second time, I was gapped and had to chase back for what was only a few miles, but felt like forever.  In the end, I escaped with a pack finish to preserve my 26th place.  The sprint was crazy with the course funneling down at the end and alot of snaking.  I was moving up with Aaron when the field slammed over.  Not wanting to be another JM road race statistic, we braked and tried again.  Aaron was able to move up, but only to 16th.  I was further back in 36th.  Really none of this mattered since it was a stage race.

The next day, the Cat 3 crit was late (4:10pm start), so all the Memphis people I knew including Aaron bailed.  We still had 50 or so at the start.  The weather turned from cold and windy, to moderately sunny with no rain (it was forecast for the late afternoon).  The course was slightly different with a few more corners (12 in total), but the main decider was the several block long upgrade through and beyond the start finish line.  Before the race, I wanted to take a lap and when I came around, I was lined up near the back.  As always the race started off with a bang (what crit doesn’t?)  Strung out, didn’t get up the hill the first time as fast and was soon in the position I was in for most of the race.  Just picking off people falling off.  For a while, I thought it was doing something, but all of us just ended up collecting up and riding out the rest of the crit as the chase group.  With 2-to-go, they pulled the plug on us and we were done.  Crit fail.  I am not rocking the crits this year.  It probably doesn’t help that they are all 1/2/3 or NRC weekend Cat 3 races, but nevertheless, I am not doing well.  Due to the crit, I fell to over nine minutes back (ouch!) and ended up 32nd G.C.

Generally, it all come down to weight (or more precisely power-to-weight).  Five pounds over where I was last year, it played out in several places.  I was happy with my power numbers (on track), but the speeds they generated were off.  By simple ratio, 5 less pounds would cut 20-25 seconds off the TT time, made the RR go easier, and might have kept with me the field in the crit.   I am not alone in these challenges, but there it is.  I am not fat by any normal sense, but for competitive cycling, extra pounds = poor results.

Next weekend is Highland Rim, but in general, I don’t like any part of that race.  I need to be convinced to do that race.  The road race has a hill, but then a long plateau and a finishing descent (state championship….really?).  The TT is another uphill TT (which I don’t hate, but it doesn’t save the weekend).  The crit has a nice off-camber corner that normally claims a few during the day.  I might just hang out at DSG and train while Andrea is racing.   Or I might have to go to China for work again…. I hope I can salvage something out of this season.