roadcx.net

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).

–

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]

Now that I am gearing up for my June racing push, I have been laying back a little and focusing on short and more intense workouts along with more recovery type rides.  Tuesday morning I did show up at the Peddler AM ride, and was pretty happy with my efforts which were short and sweet for the most part.  I jumped on McVay and stayed clear until joined by a select group on Poplar Pike.  Our group of 6 was pretty much shut down by a rider going down on the Pike.  I am not sure if he hit a wheel or a pothole, but he hit the deck hard.  Never like to see that.  (He is a bit banged up, nothing very serious to my understanding).

On Wednesday, the Metro Moto team hosted a the 1st of the 3 race criterium series on a new boulevard in Collierville.  I rode the 12 miles or so down there (Andrea was going to drive down, watch, and drive us back).  My legs felt a little wooden out of the house, but started to loosen up on the way down.  At the line, I had a teammate (Robbie), Greg (MetroMoto), Brad (CdV), Ian (Oxford), Boomer (Los Locos), and 5 Memphis Velo (Michael, Todd, Matt, Chris, and Blake).  With such a small field and such great mutual understanding of one others abilities, it was going to be interesting.

Started off sort of slow through the squared roundabout about on one end, and started to pick up down the straightaway.  There were some attacks, but the one that stuck was Boomer, Todd, and Robbie.  (I think it came together in that order.)  I worked the front of the small group to try to make sure it stayed three up there in the break.  I covered one move and half-lap later had to cover when Micheal jumped.  Too much too soon, I couldn’t nail him back.  Micheal ended up making the bridge after 3 laps(?).  This situation was less than ideal (but what else could I expect with the numbers).

Torn between just pulling it back (I didn’t try that), covering the attacks, and starting my own.  None of it was with much heart not wanting to tear my legs off (the earlier stuff just before and after Michael attack was probably too much for this week).   In the end, Robbie came back, and Michael won with Todd in 2nd.  Boomer was 3rd, and Matt won the field sprint.  The final run down the boulevard, I wasn’t into it and ended up at the back of the small field.  I could have played it differently.  I probably should have just sat in and only covered Micheal.  This might have worked, but really it probably would resulted in more MV up in the break.  There wasn’t really a good way to handle this.  Certainly everything that Greg and I did met with reactions.   Another teammate would have been 100% better, but isn’t that always the case?

Andrea took photos of the A-race…

On Thursday, I did the Outdoor’s C-ride on my TT bike (I am using the 130 mm for now).  Got a little wet with a pop-up rain shower, and rode home.  A few beers with friends of Aaron (his birthday) at the Saucer (now at 64/200ths of my way to my plate on the wall).

For two years+, since I coverted by Kuota Kebel into a TT bike, I have been thinking that I can’t get low enough on the frame.  Compounding the problem is that I had an FSA integrated bar…no real adjustment possibilities other than up and down.   Since I only TT a handful of times per year, I have let it go.  Since I have throught it better to spend time and money somewhere else.

With my integrated bar, I hit my knees on the pads if I don’t pay attention, but I was able to get comfortable on the pads and extension for longish rides (normally 30 miles at the most since my events are almost all 3-10 miles).    Last week, I decided to finally make the leap out of the FSA integrated bar to an Uberhund bar.  It helps that it they look good and I personally know all 3 co-owners.  Andrea put it all together last week and I took it out for the first ride Friday evening.  I stopped a few times to adjust the pads, but by the time I made the last tweak, the ride was almost over.

Her little touch was to wrap up the bars (and the lawnmower) with pink bar tape.   It is definitely unconventional, but it does go with the black/grey/white frame.  I guess I need to go fast now.

Tonight I went out for a my normal TT route (~25 miles) with the plan to do some medium length intervals to try it out at speed.  I quickly found that I wanted to be out at the end of the bar with my hands, but that is not where the S-bend allows for a more neutral wrist position.  Clearly I needed more distance.  The stem Andrea put on was a 90 mm (17 degree).  I had ordered a 100mm (30 degree) because I wanted to drop down, but it is clear that I need to go out.  I cut my ride short, and head back home and installed a 130mm, 9 degree stem.  Not as low, but better extension and no knee knocking.  I will have to get that 120mm, 30 degree stem to get the most out of what I have.  I am pretty close to where I need to be, within the limits of frame.  If I continue to evolve my position lower, I will have to get a real TT bike.  At least I will know what I will need.

On other news, I successfully E-bay’ed my Felt.  At least I hope so.  24 hours after winning, the winner hasn’t paid me yet.  At least there were several bidders that bid close in the last minute (when all the bids were submitted).

This weekend is Tour de Lousiane down in Covington/New Orleans, LA.  The weekend after it the Smith & Nephew Gran Prix here in Memphis.  I am feeling pretty good, hopefully it will play out well.  I am really looking forward to the TT’s to see if I can improve my performance on the same courses year over year.

Andrea, Matt, and I drove down to Oxford to the Clear Creek trails.  Jay and Kat followed in their car.  There were a couple of other groups that also came down from Memphis (our trails are still in a rebuilding state after the heavy rains & flooding) and everyone is always keen on riding something different.

The last time I was here, it rained for a good part of my cross-country race.  The narrow bench trail was pretty slick and I managed to crash in several imaginative ways (didn’t help it was my 5th ride or so on a mountain bike).  Anyway, this time the trails were dry save a few small puddles, and I am much better rider now than I was back in September.

As far as my skills, still a little bit to go..  It sounds pretty funny, but I tend to forget sometimes that I am running full-suspension.  Not that I am that timid, I just rise out my saddle when I don’t need to heading down a descent.  All in good time.

I probably will race this weekend at Hamilton Creek if it is not raining.  A nice little 6-hour up near Nashville.  The races I could be doing instead include Tulsa Tough and the Tennessee state crit in far, far away Johnson City.  Both are over 7 hours away and are not really my specialty anyway.

At Clear Creek, I also got to rock my new white American Classic wheels.  I ran some Specialized Fast Trak which turned out to be the tire I was looking for on these conditions (dry, hard pack which is typical in Tennessee summer).  It gives us our first “spare” set of wheels that Andrea and I will probably fight over when running dry roads / gravel.

It was probably about 8pm on Thursday night when we finally decided to bag going down to St. Francisville for the West Feliciana Classic.  It was an okay race last year, but with no teammates for either of us going and a 5+ drive, I wasn’t feeling it.

The weekend then reverted to a few group rides and a party thrown in (teammate Will just got into a house, so he threw a party).  I felt pretty good on both the Trinity ride and the Outdoors ride, trying to do some short decisive hard efforts…  I would say that I was partially successful in that (Saturday much more than Sunday–maybe it was Will’s party?).

For about the 10th time in the last few weeks, I ejected a bottle from my carbon cages just as we turned onto Ramsey road on the Outdoors ride (where it starts to heat up).  The cages I have tend to spread open when hitting a pothole, quickly liberating one water bottle (seat tube mount).  I put an Elite cage on the seat tube and will get a different design that is not so flexible.

Tomorrow, Andrea, Matt, and I plan to head down for some mountain biking at Clear Creek near Oxford, Mississippi.  A bunch from Memphis are headed down (some pretty early).  We will be there in late morning and will try to get some laps in before it rains (if it rains).  My one and only visit there was on a rainy day (Clear Creek Challenge last fall).  I have ridden my mountain more than a few hours by now, hopefully it will go much better for me.

My favorite connector road from TN196 to Collierville, Fletcher Dr is a construction zone for the TN385 loop.  They are building up overpasses, which seems a bit odd considering it is a gravel road (you would think they would just dead end it).   In any case, it was on my route this evening and I decided it would check it out despite the road closed signs.

This is out of sequence, but on the way to the race, Andrea decided to take I-40 from Memphis to TN50 through Centerville to get over to Fayetteville.  All was well and good until the road was closed.  TDOT put up detour signs that were taking us way north with no updates.  Our GPS, was constantly telling us to turn right, so we did….  We diverted down a road called Hassell Creek Road.   The following gallery are a couple photos that I took as we picked our way down this small back road that clearly had extensive storm damage and flooding.  These photos are about 10% of what we saw.

So I decided to (another) mountain bike endurance event.   Why not take it up a notch and do DSG 12 hour solo?  We ended up getting a late start out of Memphis on Friday, but got there in time to set up camp and get a preride in.  Unfortunately my shifting in the largest several cogs was messing up.  The course (at least to me) is a middle ring course running up and down the cassette.  So this wouldn’t do.   As it was getting dark, I replaced the chain but it still wasn’t any better.  I decided to let it go and deal with it in the light of day (bike repairs by lantern light didn’t seem like a good idea given small parts and deep grass.)

In the morning, started looking at the bike some more and decided to add to the chain since it didn’t look right (using the 4 links I took out when I length matched it to the one I took off the evening before).  Still didn’t look right… The RD was hitting the chain stay when in the big cassette cogs.  No good.  I took out my new derailleur and started looking at it.  There is a small post near the bolt that attaches to the RD hanger.  It was not behind the hanger tab.  At least it looked better now and wasn’t hitting the frame.  Still couldn’t get it tweaked out.  Looking at in more detail, the pulley cage was a little twisted (probably from one or all of the 3 RD hanger tear-off events it has experienced).  So with a hour before race time I using a pit neighbors stand (pro category race winner’s pit was next to ours), I changed out the rear derailleur.  Seemed to be much better, couldn’t be sure given the limited time to stress test it..   I set my bike up in the start corral and walked down to the starting area for the LeMans style start.

After waiting around and getting ready for the start for a while, we were getting ready to go.  The shotgun start had a twist with guy coming over from the distance in full camo including face mask and a camo rifle.  He said something like “What are you guys doing here?” and fired off 2 or 3 shots into the air…. we were off.

Wasn’t feeling the run, so I probably was around mid-pack as we hit the field.  I really didn’t want to burn too many matches, just settle in for the long haul.  As expected, there were a few pinch points in the first section with a long stream of riders, but made it through them on foot when someone faltered ahead.  By the 3rd or 4th climb, things started to settle out.   I ended up being ahead and then behind Andrea a few times in the first parts of the course.  The final section was less technical and more power, so I managed to come in quicker (my plan was to do some crewing for Andrea, who was racing the Pro category with a shot a podium and sacrificing some time here and there since I wasn’t really racing this that seriously).

I waited at the pit and tried to get my stuff done before she got there.  She arrived a few minutes later and we started off the 2nd lap together.  Again we rode pretty much around each other until we got to a long climb near the final part of the course… I rode ahead to the finish.  This time, I looped back and told the race announcer that Andrea was coming and that it was her birthday.  She was a little surprised and we rode to our camp/pit area together.  Since I didn’t get a jump on stuff, she was able to get out of the pit quicker than I by a few minutes.  Added to that delay, I forgot my RFID bracelet (for the lap times) and had to divert off course after the field section to get it.  These few minutes would prove to make a difference.

The rain started for me just a little bit into the singletrack on the first steep hill.  The wet rocks were instantly too slick to ride up and the descents down the hill were a bit dicey.  I slipped out two times at least trying to hold control going down the trail.  It started to get a bit better as we made our way south on the trail.  The rain hit in a small area of the trail with parts of not seeing any rain at all.  The parts that did see the rain got bad.  As it started to dry, it turned from slippery light mud to tacky peanut butter.  Peanut butter that picked up every blade of grass or leaf.  Really there was only a 1 to 1.5 mile section or so that was pretty much hike-a-bike.  My rear tire picked up so much stuff, that I had to stop, roll the bike back, pull out a pound or so of debris (think grass+sticks+adobe mud).  Once past that section, the rest of the trail was great, and mosty rideable (save a few slippery sharp hills).

When I got back to the S/F, I found out that the race promoters had decided to run a shortened loop.  Everyone in a particular class need to do the same number of full laps and the short laps would start after that.  For Solo Amateur, that was 4 long laps.  So instead of taking a longer break (as was my plan), I decided to get this last longer loop out of the way before there was no traffic on it.  This section actually rode a lot better that it had during the short rainstorm, but I wasn’t going to miss this part (also the most technical).  Fortunately, the middle section that was unrideable the previous lap had firmed up and was getting to be faster all the time as riders established the lines.  After finishing out my final long lap, my plan was to wait for Andrea to come back from her short lap and take a bit of an extended break.

In that time, I changed out my kit, changed my shoes and socks (I was going back and forth between my two pair of shoes all race), and cleaned the drivetrain of my bike.  On the 3rd and 4th lap, my granny gear was unreachable (by then I wanted to use it a few times a lap).  There was so much mud trapped under the front derailleur that it simply wouldn’t move.  I got all that squared away and waited for Andrea.

She came back and I got her hydration pack setup for her next lap, and then left on my 5th lap.  I pretty much had decided it would be the last one I  would do.  Almost 8 hours in the saddle, and 8.5 hours since the start, it was time.   I didn’t want to dig myself too big of a hole so that I could use this week as a training week, not a laying about recovery week.  I actually rode the last lap pretty well and started to get a bit faster on the last section.   The middle part, I was stuck in some traffic and was missing some important shifts (user error) causing a bunch of walking up the steep rocky bits.  The end of the course featured nice roady climbs (either gravel roads or other pretty non-technical) and some good flowing singletrack.  When I got to the end, I felt I could do another, but I really thought it was enough.

When I got back to the pit, Andrea was back after completing her 6th lap (with a chain mechanical thrown in).  She ended up going out for a 7th while I started with a pulled pork sandwich and a beer to cap off the day.

Here is a small gallery of our camp-pit area post race.  It looks like a crime scene….

As for the results, I was about mid-pack with 5 laps in about 8 hours : 30 minutes which put me in 12th in solo amateur.  Andrea’s 7 laps put her in 4th lap in solo pro female.  I was glad I could spent the weekend with Andrea and really glad I didn’t go to McMinnville.  I am not a huge fan of that race anyway and they got some real foul weather during the road race and canceled the TT for at least some of the group due to hail.  The Cat 3 race came down to a sprint among a small group.  Dustin Greer won it.  I think I would be able to be in that group, but pretty sure I wouldn’t have won the sprint.  Great job Dustin!  (I wonder when I will get my 2009 RR championship jersey?)