The end of my ‘cross season.. There are more races (Knox #2-#4), but I am not going to them. Yesterday was a great cross course at the Greenway Farms park in Chattanooga. Scott Kennedy put enough grass and mud in it to touch on all aspects of cross. I just didn’t have a good race out there… I ended up 3rd (of 4) CX3 who raced in the “B’-race. The separation between all four of us were about 2 minutes from one to the next, so it wasn’t much of a race in that sense.
As for the race, I got sort of jammed up at the start and had to ride behind a bunch of people through the first sections of tight twisty turns.. once back onto the gravel road I started to pass back people and after a while I got into a pretty stable position of 4th in the race (3rd in CX3). Michael V. took off from the gun and quickly established a sizeable lead. The 2nd place rider was a BikeZoo rider that also steadily pulled away from me. I ended up catching and battling back and forth with Ty Geren (a master’s racer). On the last lap, he dropped back and ended up a bit behind me at the end.
During the race, I had a few mistakes that were pretty costly. The main one is that I was unable to ride up the muddy climb. I got close a few times, but just couldn’t make it happen. One of the times in the middle of the race, I had just passed Ty and was trying to ride up the climb (in the 4th different manner). As it became clear that I wasn’t going to make it, I started to dismount but the front wheel had no traction and slid out from under me and ended up on the ground… a lap before I also slid out on a corner (a sharp corner with slick mud)…and ended up on my side still clipped in…
The other issue was in tire selection… I went with Michelin Mud2’s. The problem with these tires in this race (and others) is that mud tends to accumulate and not shed off quickly… Once the mud is there is tends to blind off the tread making the tires nearly useless. I might have to look into a square block tread.
Andrea took a bunch of photos of me… [photo album]
Okay, I have a bit of time on my hands staying at the hotel last night. Here are some interesting graphs from the 4th Columbia race that I was able to make pretty quickly (I am an engineer after all) showing the lap after lap performance…
The course was a up and down course that started pretty flat (on the grass) before diving downhill (gravel road) to the flat by the river. The runup was steep and long and was followed by a road section and then back to the grass.
The speed is pretty much as you expect…I generally faded to some degree but tried to keep the speed up because I was chasing 2nd place (Barrett Krei)
And finally the HRM graph… The drop-outs of the reading where up the run-up.
I wish there were a way to make these graphs quickly in the Polar software using the lap markers… That would interesting especially for event with 20-25 laps (like crits).
Here are some photos that I got from Bill Parsons who came out to photograph some of the action at the Tenn. CX states race.
Over the barriers ….
And Bill got some photos of Susan Williams in her race as well….
One lingering effect from Sunday’s race up at Columbia came from an unexpected thing… The run-up was hard but fundamentally is not much different than squats and other weighlifting things.
The thing that tore me up was actually the high-speed barrier. On Sunday they reversed the course and the lead into the barrier was a slight downgrade on a pretty decent gravel road. Every lap (especially when I was chasing) I usually tried to fly into the barriers as fast as I could and dismount at speed. The rapid deceleration (since I can’t sustain running that fast) tore up my quads. Andrea likened it to downhill running or other eccentric contractions.
Due to this, I will postpone my weight lifting for today and just spin it out on the trainer for 1.5 hours…
Here are some photos that Keith Nash took on Sunday (Columbia #4) of the nasty, nasty run-up.
First lap up the hill:
Stepping across the washed out run-up, still first lap up
2nd lap, Barret caught up!
3rd lap… battling it out with Barrett and Brett.
Top of the hill, getting ready to chase…
The small chicane before going onto the pavement….
Results are up for both days….both on TBRA and USA cycling.
And I moved up into 4th on the TBRA CX3 rankings… I could move up and end the season as 3rd if I get out and race Chattanooga next weekend (like I am planning). But there are three more races in Knoxville that might mess that up (I am not going to those) and some of those others may/may not just based on geography (they live much closer than I do to Knox).
- Michael Biegalski 424 pts
- (Edward) Barrett Krei 316 pts
- Noah Niwinski 202 pts
- Ryan Bosio 175 pts
- Cal Hill 173 pts
- Chad Black 163 pts
- Michael Viertel 137 pts
The other thing that has been improving is my ranking on USA cycling for Cat 3 cyclocross. I know that only the Columbia races have been reported to USAC… I am not sure why only some of us that are racing show up in the ranking, maybe the CX and Road category need to be 3? I am currently 15th with a bunch of mid-Atlantic and NE racers ahead of me. I really don’t understand these rankings since they appear to be so random…. even USAC’s own cyclocross nationals were not reported… how does that work? Only about 1/2 of the races are usually put up. It is inconsistent enough to be annoying. And meaningless.
Raced in the sub-freezing conditions.. Ended up 3rd after battling (Edward) Barrett Krei most of the race…
The course today added back some road sections and a nasty long un-even run-up. My start was okay and I was up to third place after the first part of the first lap chasing the eventual winner (Michael Viatial) and Brett Billings. Michael just took off from the start and was quickly so far ahead we only saw him occasionally when the course doubled back on itself. For the first 2-3 laps, it was Barrett and Brett fighting it out… By the 4th lap (maybe 3rd) it was just Barrett and me. I had some issue with unclipping going into the run-up two times at the base (before the barrier). I think the issue was trying to unclip while my foot was at a weird angle. I was able to fight back to the group both times, but it took a lot of out of me. Barrett was on a mountain bike, so the different strengths of the particular bikes played out over the race, but ultimately he just rode a stronger race and got up the run-up a lot faster than I did. I was only able to close the gap some on the long grass sections after the start/finish line and ended up 10-15 seconds behind him at the end. The rest of the race was much further back.
After this race, I should continue to move up the TBRA ranking for CX3. I moved up to 6th place (from 7th) and should gain another place or two after today and next Saturday (if I race Chattanooga). There are two more races in Knoxville, that I know I won’t do, so we’ll see how that turns out.
As for the Columbia series, I raced all four races and got a 4th (6 starters), 6th (8), 3rd (8), and 3rd (8). I think I improved over the course of the series and laid down some good fitness for the upcoming road season. Now I just need to get back to riding the miles again and I will be all set for April racing.
Well, I decided to race it after all…. I figured the frigid weather would give me pause for riding on the road…. and plus cross is so fun…
Anyway, lined up for the CX3 race with 6 others mixed in with the Masters 35+/45+ and Women CX123. I got off to my usual start and had to fight around people after the first hairpin curve. By the long straight aways on the grass, I had advanced up to 3rd place behind Micheal Biegalski and Michael Virtel. At the first barriers (high speed, flat ground), I was preparing for them and the pair of Michaels were remounting the other side. And then…I noticed I was closing on the race favorite Biegalski too quickly…he had broken his chain! So I was quickly 2nd on the road trying to chase down the leader. I sometimes thought I was making way, but ultimately the gap started to increase. By the 3rd lap (maybe 4th) Biegalski caught me and I tried to stay with him but that only lasted a while. He ended up catching the other Michael and putting time on him to end up winning. I stayed in 3rd place with Barrett Krei behind me. Not a bad day at the races…. Did I mention it was cold? This course was entirely on the grass and was pretty much a power course with two hills, one long (with a barrier) and another short and steep.
After my race, the officials offered to have some of us CX3 race up in the CX1/2 race 10 minutes later. I lined up and rode about 1 good lap. I rode 2 more after that. I called it off and decided to save something for tomorrow. I looked at part of the course and there is a nasty long run up on the course.
I was looking around my place and I quickly found 4 race numbers scattered about in different places. The numbers were basically left where I unpinned them from the jersey for the wash….
As TBRA cyclocross season marches on into January, there comes some inevitiable choices to be made. Spend the day on the road driving for 45 minutes of racing…or stay in town and get two long rides in. I think I may stay away from Columbia this weekend. Currently, I have moved up into 6th place in the TBRA rankings for CX3 after states, but it would pretty much take me racing both Columbia races and the Chattanooga race for me to move up even to 4th place…
So I will try to get in some long cold rides this weekend and setup more for the upcoming road season… I will still plan to race back in my old stomping grounds (Chattanooga).
The race results were posted up for the Tenn CX states race today. As I already knew, I was 4th and 3rd in the state in Category 3. I was proud of the way I raced the last two weekends… even if you don’t place highly, a well executed ‘cross race is an addicting thing. Plus it is only 45 minutes…much easier than 3+ hours especially if it is close to freezing (like it is supposed to be this weekend).
