roadcx.net

I really have no idea what of this list I will race other than probably the Memphis one, the GP of CX in Louisville, Hoss of Cross, and probably a bunch of the Nashville series…but here is the list of what is pretty reasonable from Memphis.

• 9/26-27: Beat the Freak #1/#2 (Fayetteville, TN)
• 10/3-4: Cross the Way #1/#2 (Madison, TN)
• 10/11: Have a Hart CX classic (Nashville, TN)
• 10/17-18: Beat the Freak #3/#4 (Fayetteville, TN)
• 10/24-25: Beat the Freak #5/#6 (Fayetteville, TN)
• 10/24-25: Derby City Cup (Louisville, KY)
• 10/31-11/1: Cross the Way #3/#4 (Antioch, TN)
• 11/7-8: Hoss of Cross #1/#2 (McEwan, TN)
• 11/15: Outdoors, Inc MidSouth CX Championship (Memphis, TN)
• 11/21: Cross A Nooga #1/#2 (Chattanooga, TN)
• 12/5-6: Cross the Way #5/#6 (Nashville, TN)
• 12/19-20: Cross A Nooga #3/#4 (Chattanooga, TN)
• 1/2-3: Columbia #1/#2 (Columbia, TN)
• 1/16-17: Columbia #3/#4 (Columbia, TN)
• 1/23-24: Cross the Way #7/#8 (Donelson, TN)
• 1/30-31: TN State Championships (JC, TN)
• 2/20-21: Cross the Way (Madison, TN)

On the way from Marquette to Midland, Andrea and I stopped on the side of US-2 near Brevort to go down to the lake with the dogs. This was the first time the dogs had seen water like this…. Indy’s initial instinct was to lunge and bark at the waves as they came in.

Andrea has a passion for back roads and we found a couple that didn’t quite go like the map says they should go…. Just as last post, here is the plan (in red) versus our actual (in blue).

Map from today with notes!

Both days were good rides, but if you are in the area, I would advise against M-35 north of Palmer (Tilden mine location) if you can… Most of the roads around Marquette County are covered up with dump trucks going somewhere, but this highway is pretty narrow with lots of double trailer dump trucks going along pretty quick.

A nice cut over turned out to be Jarvi road connecting M-35 to Old CR-480. It was short, but had a nice short hill on it which made it interesting (and functional).

Here are a 4-pack of photos from Suicide Bowl Road (sign, ski jump, random lake at the end, and end of the road for us). This road is casually paved… or at least casually maintained, leaving me wishing they would just grind it up and turn it to gravel-it would ride better.

Suicide Bowl Rd near Negaunee … dead ends to Cleveland Cliffs private road.

The last part of our ride had us chasing after dead ends almost back to Marquette, trying to find another way back to Marquette (cutting off some riding on US41). All of those attempts led to nowhere.

And for the random photo of the day, this one had to win. This camper / truck combo was spotted down on the Marquette waterfront when we went to go see a short musical comedy (about Ice Fishing, of course) down at the boat house last night.

Our trip started out by heading north to my brother’s in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. We knew from last year that the riding was good in that area, so we were looking forward to that (and this time we wouldn’t have to rely on maps, since I have a Garmin 705 now).

The area is pretty much farms. Both dairy and crops…. And wind farms.

A few wind turbines….. Am I wind powered now?

Dairy machines.

7 Hills Road near Fond du Lac.

One of the roads we worked to get into our long route was the semi-famous 7 Hills Rd. This is an ~8 mile road that includes probably about 12 hills, not 7, but some of them might not count. Each hill goes into the next.

After spending a few days down at my brother’s in Wisconsin, Andrea and I headed further north to my mom’s in Marquette, Michigan. Last night Andrea plotted out a semi-ambitious route from Marquette that was likely to involve some gravel…

We started out right away on the gravel going up and over Mount Marquette.

Gravel road… pretty rideable.

Overlook over the city of Marquette.

After we descended, we rode down the highway to the next section of gravel. It started out pretty innocent, the pavement ending a few miles off the highway, but then as the road narrowed, the sand started…. And deep. We walked through the deep stuff, and managed to ride the not-so-deep stuff (we started to get pretty good at that, some skills that will play out at some point). After another mile or two the road went to pretty ridiculous, turning into a sandy, rocky, 2 track… Just when we were about half way to the next pavement (we think), the road ended at a private road.

End of the road and deep, deep sand.

So we had to turn around and head back…. after getting back to the highway, we continued on finding some more gravel along the way to the east end of our planned route (this time it went back to the pavement again). Just when we thought we were doing well on completing our loop, it happened again… The road (this one completely rideable) ended at two closed gates.

The route we plotted on MapMyRide (in red) and the actual route (in blue) we took on the ride are shown below… The two dead ends are on the south/west and the east end of our actual route.

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.

My original plan was to race both races (3/4 & 1/2/3), both days, but I ended up pulling back from that to not overtax myself by doubling up on Saturday. It worked out well because by Thursday, I had some sort of minor stomach issue that kept me from eating well on Thursday and lingered in my July 3rd day off work. I really started to feel a lot better by Friday night.

We lined up a total of 5 riders in the 3/4 race with Curt doubling up from the 4 race (he wasn’t to race on Sunday in any case). Pretty early on (2nd lap?), David got into a small break (maybe the 1st or 2nd lap) and it started to gain a little bit of time. Knowing the course was wide open and not really challenging (other than the sharp corners), I knew we would have to help defend the break. And that was pretty much our race (for the rest of the team). We would ride up front, pull through and generally just keep it going at 22-23 mph instead of the 25-26 mph needed to pull it back. A few riders tried to move across, we were always jumping on it.

The break ended up lasting the balance of the 40 minute circuit race with David finishing up in 2nd place. The battle for the rest was going to be interesting, so with about 3 miles to go, I ramped it up to string out the mixed (3 and 4) field into the final 3 corners (the final two we would see only at the end of the race).

Unfortunately, we didn’t get another in the top 5, but Frogge was 7t?, I finished up 12th with Curt right behind in 13th. Jarret flatted out late in the race. As a team, we worked well (every man) to make sure the 30 seconds or so the break had for most of the race would not drop to zero.

Right after my race, Andrea raced to a win in the Women’s open race. She got up the road with Debbie Milne (wearing her Master’s nats championship jersey). At the end they battled it out… unfortunately Debbie missed that the race finish was off the loop and sprinted early. By the time she realized, she was sprinting from behind Andrea into the finish stretch. In the end, it was really close, but Andrea took it.

Tomorrow is the criterium on the campus of Ole Miss in Oxford. And yes, I will race both the 3/4 and 1/2/3 race tomorrow.