It nearly goes against all my better instincts, but my new bars have been lovingly wrapped in white bar tape by Andrea. All of this comes at the end of a hell of training week where she (in her coach role) has driven me to a pretty tired state, but also set me up nicely (hopefully) for nationals only 13 days away. But at least she takes care of me after abusing me on the bike.
Here it is hanging next to Andrea’s Cross-Check and my old Cannondale (the one with the black tape).
Well, other than my pride, there was another causality last weekend. Most likely it occurred when I hit the deck over the barriers on the Sunday race… I didn’t really notice the problem until today at Shelby Farms running my ‘cross power loop. I felt something give way at my start this morning, but just rode the tops for the 2 laps over the grassy hills of the Farms.
Here are the photos that Andrea snapped as she unwrapped my bars this evening.
My bars were being held together by the brake cable housing and the electrical tape I use to secure it. I am going back with Richey aluminum handlebar. I never liked using a carbon handlebar for cross…it sort of just came with the complete bike I bought to build my Ridley last year.
Also, a set of photos have been posted from last weekend at Fayetteville … Beat the Freak #5/#6
Here is one I pulled out of the album showing the spiral…this was from Sunday when we basically did the spiral right at the beginning of the race, so we were all still bunched up.
The funniest thing is that this car had the front-driver side wheel half removed on Monday/Tuesday… someone got the final wheel by Wednesday AM. This abandoned car is really close to where I work. Go Memphis!
All of this reminds me of a morning back in 2002 when some enterprising Estonians made off with the wheels off the Avis rental car….
Well, I did half of what I said… sort of. I got a better start, but it still had me playing catch up for the first lap (Just not as bad this time). The 2nd/3rd laps saw Barrett, Brent, Jeremy, and I taking turns attacking and covering. On the 3rd time over the logs, I tried to do a faster dismount by drawing my leg through and failed to unclip…to the dirt! The rest sort of sat up a little bit and I chased back on. At some point, Barrett laid down another attack that strung out the group… I had to get around the others and started the chase. I ended up staying about 10 seconds back. The last time through the stadium, I must have let up a little bit and Jeremy was pouring it on still…. I had to really dig to make sure that I retained 2nd place.
What really killed me at this race was covering attacks. This is sort of new feature to me in cross racing since the CX3 category in TBRA is so competitive this year. Even though the races are small (6-7 racers), I would argue that they are pretty fast… Speaking of fast, at both Beat the Freak races this last weekend we (CX3) averaged 15.4 mph (courses were basically the same but in reverse of each other).
Now, I go back into another training cycle. My first block of cross races went fairly well (1st-3rd-3rd-2nd-2nd), but the important part is how it is building up to Nationals and then January ‘cross racing (6 races planned in January).
Andrea and I traveled most of the way across the state of Tennessee on US-64 to Fayetteville to race the final weekend of the Beat the Freak series. We rolled into Fayetteville about 11am and stopped to eat lunch at Raphael’s Italian Restaurant. I had a pretty good chicken sandwich, but… I think I ate too much too close to my race. I tried to warmup some before my 1:30pm race, but never really could get into it..
The course was a pretty good one that for a dry course, had most of the elements of a good cross race. Lots of high speed grass, some pavement, a high-speed barrier/log pair, a set of stairs, and (a first for me) a cork-screw spiral.
Anyway, I lined with a small CX3 field (4-5 serious contesting). The start was pretty fast…(as usual), me and my rock gut didn’t get off to such a good start. It took about 3-4 laps to settle in behind Barrett in 2nd. I started to get stronger near the end, but I could never close down the 10-15 second gap that he had on me.
On the last lap, I just caught/lapped Andrea (she was racing her single speed as the only Women CX1-2-3). On the last stretch we sprinted it out… I edged her out, but I had to dig to get around her.
So, a bit disappointing on my start keeping me from staying up with Barrett. He might have still won, but it wasn’t even a contest due to my bad. Tomorrow will be a different story. No more bad starts!
It looks like I made the paper again this year. Last time it was Oak Ridge, now it was the commercial Appeal (Memphis’ paper). As of when I linked this, the photo wasn’t working on the page, but I have been told it is Brent and I going over the triple logs on the finish straightaway.
I also got some start line photos from Chuck Lumsden (MV teammate). Here are a couple…
Not much time to post up the whole race detail, but I ended up getting 3rd in the CX3 state championship race this morning in Memphis. Boomer was up in the lead group (with four CX1-2’s) and Barret finished about 30-40 seconds ahead of me. I felt pretty good, but just could not generate the power I needed today to catch Barret.
It will be interesting to try to balance long term goals (i.e. next road season) and the desire to do well all cyclocross season long.
[Barret and his gap]
[Pat and me chasing....for lap after lap...]
Anyway, I put together photos from today that I took of the B-race. In the A-race, Curt and Andrea had my camera….[Outdoors Inc Album]
I also found a couple photos that I took last weekend…. [Hoss of Cross #1 small Album]
Cal sent me some photos from the Saturday race (Hoss of Cross #1). These are from the CX3 race that I won. (May post more up later).
(usual start…in traffic)
(out of the woods and into the cloverleaf section chasing Barrett [Cumberland Transit])
(mud bowl)
(riding the steep uphill…that really got tough by the end)
Saturday (CX3): (6 laps, 8.2 miles, 11.9 mph)
Generally a pretty good course, but a little bit too much single track… (You ask: What is the correct amount of single-track??? answer: zero). At least my trail riding at Shelby Farms came to some benefit…there were three sections of single track per lap…one of which was pretty long. About 7-8 started the CX3 race… after the start, I was probably in 5-6th place into the single track the first time. I was able to moved up into 3rd after coming out of the woods in the twisty clover-leaf section (lots of barrier taped turns in a field). At this point, after a while, I managed to move up into 1st after passing Cal Hill and Barret Krei. Once I was in first slot, I was able to ride the single track as I wanted, and started to build a lead. The course featured a bowl with a small pond in the middle. Riding up and through took me a few laps to figure out but once I did, I was able to do it for 2 of the last 3 laps. In the end, I was up by about 40 seconds and finally took my first CX3 race. I don’t have any photos, but I hope to get some posted from the various people that were taking photos.
Saturday (Hoss of Cross)
This race was a handicapped winner take all type race. The CX3 group started behind the Masters (~45 seconds) and the CX4’s (~25 seconds) on this two lap race. Short races don’t play to my strengths, but I wanted to give it a go. By the 2nd lap, we were passing the CX4’s but were having trouble passing them in the single track. Barret Krei did a better job of it, but neither of us caught the eventual winner, Chris Irwin (Masters) who took home an iPod Touch for his efforts.
Saturday night:
Cal, Chris, and I ate at this interesting Mexican restaurant in Hurricane Mills, just off I-40. We were hungry so we basically stopped at the first place we knew of. Warning #1 should have been that there was not a Mexican in sight on staff, but we decided to go with it. The thing that made it interesting is that apparently half the staff had walked out due to some disagreement leaving the a skeleton crew to man the ship. This somewhat reduced the menu, but a few beers and some serviceable steak fajitas hit the spot. Is this a recommendation?… not exactly. I would say it is one of the better restaurants in Hurricane Mills… although there is not much competition.
On Saturday night, we stayed at one of Cal’s friend’s 2nd house down by Linden, Tennessee. The house was pretty interesting with a corrugated metal front and almost 100% glass back side. I felt like I was in an Ikea catalog. This house had a lot of design features that I have seen in Nordic (Estonia, Finland, Swedish) architecture. Very cool.
Sunday (CX3) – 3rd place (6 laps, 8.5 miles, 10.5 mph)
The Sunday race was essentially the Saturday run in reverse, but included bit more single-track and a steep run-up. Boomer came up from Memphis today, so I knew it would a tall order to win again, but I thought I would try… After the first lap, I was in 3rd place with Boomer riding away from Cal (2nd) and I. After coming out of the long single track section the course loops down fast by the pits and turns sharply back up. I had practiced the line a few times, but this time I was going too fast or maybe bounced in a rut and ended up losing my front wheel and crashing. Brent Mahan passed me as I was getting up. I chased and chased (going by Cal who had a mechanical issue…seat flipped up), but just couldn’t close the gap.
Chasing…. I rocked the right arm warmer down look for more than a few laps after it slipped down (photo by Dustin Greer, off his blog)
I know my big weakness today was the single track (see my thoughts above), so I am not surprised. I finished out the last couple laps holding onto 3rd place. All in all, not a bad weekend. I felt like my fitness was good, but had trouble in the woods keeping the pressure on (on both days really). I know my barrier technique is also a bit rough… What I did this weekend worked, but it was not a fluid as it will need to be next weekend at the State Championships down on Mud Island.
Another milestone over 5 years in the making: 
Next weekend, I plan to kick off my cyclocross season up in McEwan, Tennessee with the Hoss of Cross weekend. Here is what I think I will race this year (CX3 unless otherwise noted):
This weekend I decided to get serious in my training with only 6 weeks to go before Nats. Saturday I rode with a small group out of Trinity Commons, but incorporated two long 20 minute intervals. The purpose of doing these was two-fold, I wanted to get some baseline power numbers for that sort of distance … and… I did them as lower cadence (70 rpm) to more mimic cyclocross.
Today, I skipped my usual long Outdoor’s ride and opted to do some ‘cross riding instead. I started out going to Shelby Farms – Tour de Wolf… my plan was ride around the large field near the visitor’s center.. I was pleased to find a nice loop used for cross country running. After tracing the route out (there was a painted white line to follow), I settled out on a 2.5 mile course to do my hot laps. I ended up doing 3 of them, almost all of the course was on grass with some good rolling hills.
After getting back, I cleaned up my Ridley Crossbow…
The other day, I had the shutter open on the front window and some phone books stacked up by it…. Indy took advantage and had a look around.
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