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crisis weasels × Race Report
I've figured out the progession, now, every year Ice Weasels gets bigger, and every year I ride slower. This year, there was almost no point to lining up -- I was on 5 hours sleep, sick, and barely ate all morning.
Luckily there's more to bike racing than what place you finish in -- like the fact that this year's course was AWESOME. I really didn't care how I did, I just wanted to do some hot laps. Kevin is part badger and had dug out an entirely new back section; we had a new tree section; we had hoppable barriers; and we had as much flow as you can possibly squeeze out of the house section without killing your lap length. The flyover allowed for the figure-eight course layout, which means tons of HEY BUDDY sections. Hell yes!
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| So much fun! |
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| Seconds before this photo I told Sally I was putting her in the tape |
Then I rode directly back to the start line, put the promoter hat back on, and staged the singlespeed race. Then I got chewed out by the officials for the amount of debauchery that the "fans" at the barriers had gotten into. Then went inside and dealt with results and other crises until the sun went down.
I hear there was a sweet party outside, though.
The future of Ice Weasels is pretty hazy right now -- for all of us promoting it, it felt like "Crisis Weasels Cometh." Throughout the day we had the Wrentham Police, the Wrentham Health Inspector, and USA Cycling threatening to shut things down in one way or another. While everything worked out in the end, it's not something we're looking to repeat.
When the race started in 2008, we were like "wouldn't it be fun to put on a cross race?" 150 people showed up and we were thrilled and amazed. I raced Matt Myette on the last lap for a beer feed (there was only 1 cup), and it was all good.
Since then it's been bigger and crazier each year. In 2009, it snowed, and Kevin's Harpoon schmoozing got us two kegs -- which we promptly finished off in under two hours, with 250 racers. In 2010, the scene exploded, with almost 400 racers, and a whole new level of handups, heckling and ridiculousness.
If we keep following this trajectory, in 2015 we'll have to call it Burning Man Weasels.
And there's a reason Burning Man is in the middle of the desert, and not the Town of Wrentham.
In related news, if anyone owns property in the middle of the desert, yet close to Boston, that we could run a cross race on -- let me know!
cyclocross × Race Report
I have never been so pleasantly surprised by a race course in my life as I was at NBX Day 1.
I prerode, and it was basically the fastest, easiest cross course in the history of bikes. As someone who needs accelerations and technical sections to be respectable in the elite race, this sent me into immediate WHINE MODE.
It also sent me into find-a-file-tread mode, because if there aren't any damn corners on the course then I have no intention of having any traction.
So in between whining about how it was a stupid power course and I was going to get crushed and this is lame, bike racing shouldn't have that much pedaling... I got some file treads from Matt Myette. Which was cool.
Then I spent the rest of my warmup complaining about the course anyway. Just to open the lungs, dontcha know.
The Day 1 start is the weirdest holeshot in all of cross, because we ride literally a quarter mile straightaway before the first turn. Everyone accelerates to 28 mph...and then... sits in. So we blast up the hill and then stop blasting and start compressing into as tight a ball of cross racers as we can acheive.
As you might imagine, this makes the first turn especially spicy because we aren't anywhere approaching strung out. And thus the inevitable FREAK OUT took out four or five guys. I saw it coming in time to get a foot down and then sneak by the inside... I think most of the victims were newly-upgraded Cat 3's, who had yet to experience the "joy" of riding in Anthony Clark's blind spot. Hey, now you know!
Then we came out of the turn and it was ON!
My lame-o attitude prevented me from being aggressive at any point in the first 5 minutes, and I ended up with a fairly miserable position. On the plus side, the utter lack of braking on the course meant that I could cruise really, really comfortably around other people's wheels. Especially because was in the even-scrubbier-than-myself zone.
So after two laps of thinking "ride conservatively" I realized that I was actually feeling pretty good, probably because I wasn't doing any work. And it turns out that feeling good is exactly correlated to having fun. Doesn't matter how bland the course is, if you FEEL GOOD it's FUN. Why did it take me so long to realize this?
Of course, I then bobbled the rideup, stepped on John Burns' bike, got gapped off my train of buddies, and that was not fun at all!
However, the chase back on felt strangely... good. Like my body was thrilled to finally give 100%. WHAT IS GOING ON??
So when I made it to the group, I started pushing my way through. Mike Wissell joined me, and next thing I know, the two of us are OFF DA FRONT.
Well, off the front of the 25th-place-group, but still, OFF DA FRONT! Woooooo!
Mike is a very useful engine, and thus we started gaining ground on Evan Huff and some unknown mid Atlantic dudes. I even contributed to the chase, because I work with Evan and I knew we were going to talk about the race instead of working on Monday.
We caught Evan.
Huff is a powerhouse on the road so I started sitting behind him mercilessly, like the useless coworker who takes credit after the project is done.
Then I realized that I did not want Evan bitching at me about sitting on his wheel for all of Monday, so tactics would have to be ignored. I could tell he was feeling cranky for two reasons: 1) he attacked me on the road with the fury of a thousand suns, and then flicked his elbow for me to pull through the second he realized I'd covered it, and 2) cranky is his natural state.
Soooo I enacted plan "pretend to be useful" so that Evan would still be friends with me.
"Being useful" for me generally meant taking my lone pull right before the one twisty section, drilling it in the turns, getting a gap, and then losing said gap AND the lead on the next power section. But hey, I was in front! For like a minute per lap!
At some point Mike and I got away from Evan, I think because of a crash. And Mike is the chattiest bike racer ever! So while I was having significant issues breathing, he was talking about catching Keoughs, and who was behind us, and all manner of exciting things that I was aware of but not able to vocalize.
With one lap to go there were two dudes just up the road, and between Mike's enthusiasm and my bizarrely effective legs, we closed the gap just in time for a FINAL LAP SHOWDOWN, which is my favorite thing in cross, because it means I get to "strategically" sit on wheels and then win sprints.
I snuck into second wheel in our group of four in the sand pit. The guy in front was from Texas, and way better than me, which meant he had traveled a long way and was in save-it-for-tomorrow mode. Thus when I attacked on the penultimate straightaway, he was like "meh" and didn't really react, other than accidentally closing the door on Mike, leaving me with a huge gap to roll in for 21st place.
Thanks Texas guy!
The only thing I learned from this is that I should stop complaining about grass/dirt crits and start trying to make it into a faster group at the start.
Oh, and I totally forgot to mention this, but my tenant and buddy Andrew was in his first elite race and RODE HIS FACE OFF chasing my group. It took 45 minutes for me to stop being worried he was going to catch us. So... nice ride, dude. Don't get any faster, please.
cyclocross × Race Report
So, the plus side of having a terrible weekend of racing at Sterling is that I don't really want to write about it, so I can roll back the clock to TEN WHOLE DAYS AGO and talk about the most epic cyclocross grudge match in the world, instead.
Quick Sterling recap -- Day one was one of those days where you ride around and think about how NEXT YEAR I'M GONNA TRAIN BETTER. My legs were flatter than Iowa. Cary smashed me in our Cross Clash, and with two laps to go Richard Bardwell and JP T-R attacked me so hard I thought about downgrading to Cat 3. I beat all of five people.
Day two was totally different, the course was technical and I felt great! So of course I had a SRAM shifter malfunction on lap three, disengaging the cable and leaving me with a 34x13 singlespeed. For the first time in my life I threw my bike in disgust.
(I already talked to SRAM about it, and it turns out there was some kind of defect in the shifter they sent me, as it has a gap that allows the cable to slip out that no one else's 2011 Red shifter has. I'm getting a new one. Doesn't get me a finish, though)
Sooo anyway. Pictures!
So a few weeks ago, it was announced that the BRC Shedd Park 1/2/3 field would be racing at NOON for $750, which I thought was pretty cool. I tweeted about how into it I was, and Chanbagger agreed, and then I said something like "oh shit, Chandler, it is SO ON."
Chandler is a Cat 3, so we never get to hang out, and he's obnoxious on the internet, so I want to beat him.
Then he started talking trash for two weeks straight, because he's obnoxious on the internet, so I wanted to beat him.
It got to the point where "everyone" knew about it, and I had random people texting me, emailing me, and direct messaging me their encouragement to beat him. My favorite quote came from Mike Golay: "Colin, if you don't win this, I might have to quit social media."
I suppose I should admit at this point that I don't race well under pressure. This is why I have my best rides when I screw around and reverse-holeshot mountain bike races.
When we lined up at Shedd Park, I was *definitely* feeling the pressure. And I did not like it.
The gun went off, I had a mediocre start, and I started playing a game called "where's Chandler?"
The answer to the game, at first, was "a few riders ahead of me," and all was well.
Soon it was "a few groups ahead of me," and all was no longer well. Shedd Park is a fast, power course with plenty of drafting. I was terrified that Chandler would end up in a group with enough horsepower I could never catch it. So I panicked.
I was pushing too hard on the turn back onto the track, that I'd neglected to preride, and BAM! I got way off the racing line and went sideways through a wood stake, breaking it in half and ending up on my ass. Panic factor: doubled.
Surprisingly, panic does not motivate the legs to give 110% like desire does. I felt sick, tight, and weak. Chandler's lead got larger.
Stephen Pierce rolled past and said "I have a vested interest in helping you beat Chandler, get on my wheel." I lasted all of 10 pedal strokes before he dropped me. Things looked grim. I made sad faces at people who cheered for me. I made extra-sad faces if they exhorted me to "beat Chandler." Oh, if they only knew how bad I felt....
Thank god 'cross races are LONG. I rode a few laps while feeling bad for myself. Either everyone else slowed down, or I started to feel better, and while I never figured out how to "go hard" I was at least now "going."
Chandler crashed on the lone technical spot on course (duh), dropped his chain, and suddenly his 25-second lead was down to 10 seconds and his group was gone. My spirits rose from the ashes like a phoenix. I've got a chance!
I made contact a lap later.
Since Chandler and I are both wheelsucking sprinters with embarassing power numbers, we now had a problem.
No one wanted to work, but no one could make an attack stick. He barnacled himself to my hull the same way I do the Wilcox. I tried hitting the ride-ups with four-figure wattage, but it didn't matter. You think you're gonna drop a guy who wins 1/2/3 crits with a 5-second burst? Riiiiiight.
When I wasn't attacking, I was softpedaling, going so far as to take my hands off the bars and move over on the track. Of course, he didn't pull through.
Finally John Burns (and some other guys!) caught us, so now we could both follow a wheel. The pace picked up markedly.
While my track record of sprint finishes in cross races is really good, I was afraid of riding around for another half hour with Chandler. Like I said, the dude wins 1/2/3 field sprints on the road, which is more than I can say. Weird stuff happens at the end of 'cross races. Don't wait until the last lap unless you have to, right?
I realized I only had one tactic I'd yet to try: hopping the barriers. I did it a bunch warming up, and it was a tiny bit faster, and I figured it would give him something else to worry about. If I pulled out the hop after five laps of racing, maybe I had other tricks up my sleeve, right? (spoiler: no, I don't)
Since he was staying directly on my wheel at all times, it was pretty straightforward to bust THE HOPS straight in his face. And apparently, this psychological warfare was the straw that broke the barnacle's grip, because when we crested the rideup thirty seconds later he was GONE.
This motivated me in a way that panic had utterly failed to motivate me half an hour prior!
So then I went really hard for a lap, and he dropped out, and that was that.
Then Burns and I rode around for the rest of the race with a junior and a 45+ guy. The 45+ guy crashed, and the junior made the mistake of taking a pull, and then it was just me an' Burns. Obviously, I drafted him for most of the race, and then dropped the hammer when he bobbled, to roll in for a totally mediocre 16th place!
Due to the magic of Chandler talking trash on the internet, people seemed to think I rode really well, even though all the elite scrubs I usually hang out with were minutes ahead of me.
Thanks Chan!
Quick Sterling recap -- Day one was one of those days where you ride around and think about how NEXT YEAR I'M GONNA TRAIN BETTER. My legs were flatter than Iowa. Cary smashed me in our Cross Clash, and with two laps to go Richard Bardwell and JP T-R attacked me so hard I thought about downgrading to Cat 3. I beat all of five people.
Day two was totally different, the course was technical and I felt great! So of course I had a SRAM shifter malfunction on lap three, disengaging the cable and leaving me with a 34x13 singlespeed. For the first time in my life I threw my bike in disgust.
(I already talked to SRAM about it, and it turns out there was some kind of defect in the shifter they sent me, as it has a gap that allows the cable to slip out that no one else's 2011 Red shifter has. I'm getting a new one. Doesn't get me a finish, though)
Sooo anyway. Pictures!
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| Hoppers gonna hop |
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| Tasha makes me look so much better than I am. |
Chandler is a Cat 3, so we never get to hang out, and he's obnoxious on the internet, so I want to beat him.
Then he started talking trash for two weeks straight, because he's obnoxious on the internet, so I wanted to beat him.
It got to the point where "everyone" knew about it, and I had random people texting me, emailing me, and direct messaging me their encouragement to beat him. My favorite quote came from Mike Golay: "Colin, if you don't win this, I might have to quit social media."
I suppose I should admit at this point that I don't race well under pressure. This is why I have my best rides when I screw around and reverse-holeshot mountain bike races.
When we lined up at Shedd Park, I was *definitely* feeling the pressure. And I did not like it.
The gun went off, I had a mediocre start, and I started playing a game called "where's Chandler?"
The answer to the game, at first, was "a few riders ahead of me," and all was well.
Soon it was "a few groups ahead of me," and all was no longer well. Shedd Park is a fast, power course with plenty of drafting. I was terrified that Chandler would end up in a group with enough horsepower I could never catch it. So I panicked.
I was pushing too hard on the turn back onto the track, that I'd neglected to preride, and BAM! I got way off the racing line and went sideways through a wood stake, breaking it in half and ending up on my ass. Panic factor: doubled.
Surprisingly, panic does not motivate the legs to give 110% like desire does. I felt sick, tight, and weak. Chandler's lead got larger.
Stephen Pierce rolled past and said "I have a vested interest in helping you beat Chandler, get on my wheel." I lasted all of 10 pedal strokes before he dropped me. Things looked grim. I made sad faces at people who cheered for me. I made extra-sad faces if they exhorted me to "beat Chandler." Oh, if they only knew how bad I felt....
Thank god 'cross races are LONG. I rode a few laps while feeling bad for myself. Either everyone else slowed down, or I started to feel better, and while I never figured out how to "go hard" I was at least now "going."
Chandler crashed on the lone technical spot on course (duh), dropped his chain, and suddenly his 25-second lead was down to 10 seconds and his group was gone. My spirits rose from the ashes like a phoenix. I've got a chance!
I made contact a lap later.
Since Chandler and I are both wheelsucking sprinters with embarassing power numbers, we now had a problem.
No one wanted to work, but no one could make an attack stick. He barnacled himself to my hull the same way I do the Wilcox. I tried hitting the ride-ups with four-figure wattage, but it didn't matter. You think you're gonna drop a guy who wins 1/2/3 crits with a 5-second burst? Riiiiiight.
When I wasn't attacking, I was softpedaling, going so far as to take my hands off the bars and move over on the track. Of course, he didn't pull through.
Finally John Burns (and some other guys!) caught us, so now we could both follow a wheel. The pace picked up markedly.
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| All aboard the Burns Express! |
I realized I only had one tactic I'd yet to try: hopping the barriers. I did it a bunch warming up, and it was a tiny bit faster, and I figured it would give him something else to worry about. If I pulled out the hop after five laps of racing, maybe I had other tricks up my sleeve, right? (spoiler: no, I don't)
Since he was staying directly on my wheel at all times, it was pretty straightforward to bust THE HOPS straight in his face. And apparently, this psychological warfare was the straw that broke the barnacle's grip, because when we crested the rideup thirty seconds later he was GONE.
This motivated me in a way that panic had utterly failed to motivate me half an hour prior!
So then I went really hard for a lap, and he dropped out, and that was that.
Then Burns and I rode around for the rest of the race with a junior and a 45+ guy. The 45+ guy crashed, and the junior made the mistake of taking a pull, and then it was just me an' Burns. Obviously, I drafted him for most of the race, and then dropped the hammer when he bobbled, to roll in for a totally mediocre 16th place!
Due to the magic of Chandler talking trash on the internet, people seemed to think I rode really well, even though all the elite scrubs I usually hang out with were minutes ahead of me.
Thanks Chan!
cyclocross × Race Report
I think my GoPro is starting to show its age. Today's course was super fun, the racing was great, the field was large, and I wanted SOOOO BAD to make a sweet video of it.
And then... on the start line... ye olde bar cam inexplicably keeps turning off instead of recording DAT FOOTAGE. Nooooo!
Anyway. Text it is!
People kept calling the VeloCross course "mountain bikey," but I like to think it was "euro." Steep drops, sharp ups, velodrome section, whoops, and not much grass? EUROPE. Or as close as we get in New England.
We staged by crossresults.com points (gosh, what an awesome website!) and I got #9, which shows you how leeeeegit this race was. Eight guys in one place who are better than me on a bike, that's preposterous!
Because the course was fun I may have preridden my face off and felt very not-snappy on the start line. Which is not a good feeling, especially when Anthony Clark is next to you. The gun went off and I chiiiiiilled into a very casual 30th-position start. The only way I knew everything was going to be ok is that Mark McCormack was next to me, and if a diesel like him can start at the back then a snappy sprinter with no endurance like me can... wait.
Leaving the track I had an awesome bar-to-bar corner with Mark where I showed absolutely no respect for his seniority and he, in return, let me live.
I spent the rest of the lap playing in traffic and trying to figure out where Chandler was. I race best with a clear nemesis, and somehow my declaration of it "being on" with him at Lowell (aka tomorrow) spiraled into a twitter campaign of trash talk and wagers... and yeah now I really have to beat him, because random people keep saying to me "you better beat Chandler."
Where was I? Oh yeah, so he showed up to Velo Cross for a race-before-THE-race and I knew that letting him beat me on a mountain-bikey (er, Euro! dammit!) course the day before the showdown would be catastrophic.
I located Chandler about 20 seconds ahead and decided it was going to be okay.
Then Pete Smith buried it on the track and we cut that gap in half. It was hurty and efficient.
Somehow I got ahead of Pete later on and bridge up to Chandler.
Then, Chandler and I rode together for a while, and it was hilarious. Because we are both merciless sprinty wheelsuckers, no wanted to pull and no one could gap anyone. We rode SLOW. Very slow. So then Pete caught us and went tearing past and we were both like SUCK THAT WHEEL! And then we went race pace again.
Somewhere along the line, Alec Donahue and Peter Goguen had a barrier incident which led to Al drifting back to our group, and Mark dieseling his way up to our group, and then we had a five-man party train! Whee!
Al and Mark were the strongest dudes (BY FAR) so of course Pete Smith did all the work. Chandler rode around behind me all the while, and I was started getting worried that he was not going away.
So I attacked. For the first and probably last time in my life, I was in a group with Al Donahue and I was like I NEED TO GO FASTER.
Al and Mark were still in chill-mode so it actually worked, although it's possible a crash may have helped my cause. I didn't know because I was OFF THE FRONT!
I had enough of a gap on the track that they didn't even ride all the way back to up to me. I was so confused! But I kept hammering. It seemed like a really dumb idea, because obviously Mark and Al were going to drag Pete and Chan back to me and then I would have ridden really hard for exactly no purpose.
Luckily Mark the Shark has been racing bikes for roughly a century now and he doesn't "help other people" in bike races, ever, so instead of dragging the group up to me he just attacked it and jumped across the gap in a flash.
And then Al was like, oh crap, Mark is racing now! and he had to race now! too, and no one helped Pete and Chandler at all. GLORIOUS. Mark caught me and said "let's go Colin, you and me" and I pretended that there was a chance in hell that made sense. I rode behind him for sixty seconds and then cracked like an egg.
Then Al went roaring by me without even pretending we should work together.
But meanwhile, Chandler had crashed his face off on the BMX track and DNF'ed! I claim he crashed because he was under so much PRESSURE from my "attack" that I can take credit for it. Yes, that is surely what happened. It's either that or he was totally composed and just can't handle his bike, right?
(I realize that taunting Chandler when we have the ultimate grudge match tomorrow is probably unwise.)
So that ended up being kind of the end of the excitement for me. A lap later I had a healthy gap on Pete behind me and a healthy-and-growing gap ahead of me to Al and Mark. Time to mail it in!
I lapped Steve on the last lap, and we hung out and chatted for a bit and then tried to get wicked rad air on the bmx track. There were no photographers around at that point so as far as I'm concerned, I did this on the last whoop and was then relegated to 8th place to being awesomer than was UCI legal.
Or maybe I just got 8th place because I'm a mediocre elite rider.
And then... on the start line... ye olde bar cam inexplicably keeps turning off instead of recording DAT FOOTAGE. Nooooo!
Anyway. Text it is!
People kept calling the VeloCross course "mountain bikey," but I like to think it was "euro." Steep drops, sharp ups, velodrome section, whoops, and not much grass? EUROPE. Or as close as we get in New England.
We staged by crossresults.com points (gosh, what an awesome website!) and I got #9, which shows you how leeeeegit this race was. Eight guys in one place who are better than me on a bike, that's preposterous!
Because the course was fun I may have preridden my face off and felt very not-snappy on the start line. Which is not a good feeling, especially when Anthony Clark is next to you. The gun went off and I chiiiiiilled into a very casual 30th-position start. The only way I knew everything was going to be ok is that Mark McCormack was next to me, and if a diesel like him can start at the back then a snappy sprinter with no endurance like me can... wait.
Leaving the track I had an awesome bar-to-bar corner with Mark where I showed absolutely no respect for his seniority and he, in return, let me live.
I spent the rest of the lap playing in traffic and trying to figure out where Chandler was. I race best with a clear nemesis, and somehow my declaration of it "being on" with him at Lowell (aka tomorrow) spiraled into a twitter campaign of trash talk and wagers... and yeah now I really have to beat him, because random people keep saying to me "you better beat Chandler."
Where was I? Oh yeah, so he showed up to Velo Cross for a race-before-THE-race and I knew that letting him beat me on a mountain-bikey (er, Euro! dammit!) course the day before the showdown would be catastrophic.
I located Chandler about 20 seconds ahead and decided it was going to be okay.
Then Pete Smith buried it on the track and we cut that gap in half. It was hurty and efficient.
Somehow I got ahead of Pete later on and bridge up to Chandler.
Then, Chandler and I rode together for a while, and it was hilarious. Because we are both merciless sprinty wheelsuckers, no wanted to pull and no one could gap anyone. We rode SLOW. Very slow. So then Pete caught us and went tearing past and we were both like SUCK THAT WHEEL! And then we went race pace again.
Somewhere along the line, Alec Donahue and Peter Goguen had a barrier incident which led to Al drifting back to our group, and Mark dieseling his way up to our group, and then we had a five-man party train! Whee!
Al and Mark were the strongest dudes (BY FAR) so of course Pete Smith did all the work. Chandler rode around behind me all the while, and I was started getting worried that he was not going away.
So I attacked. For the first and probably last time in my life, I was in a group with Al Donahue and I was like I NEED TO GO FASTER.
Al and Mark were still in chill-mode so it actually worked, although it's possible a crash may have helped my cause. I didn't know because I was OFF THE FRONT!
I had enough of a gap on the track that they didn't even ride all the way back to up to me. I was so confused! But I kept hammering. It seemed like a really dumb idea, because obviously Mark and Al were going to drag Pete and Chan back to me and then I would have ridden really hard for exactly no purpose.
Luckily Mark the Shark has been racing bikes for roughly a century now and he doesn't "help other people" in bike races, ever, so instead of dragging the group up to me he just attacked it and jumped across the gap in a flash.
And then Al was like, oh crap, Mark is racing now! and he had to race now! too, and no one helped Pete and Chandler at all. GLORIOUS. Mark caught me and said "let's go Colin, you and me" and I pretended that there was a chance in hell that made sense. I rode behind him for sixty seconds and then cracked like an egg.
Then Al went roaring by me without even pretending we should work together.
But meanwhile, Chandler had crashed his face off on the BMX track and DNF'ed! I claim he crashed because he was under so much PRESSURE from my "attack" that I can take credit for it. Yes, that is surely what happened. It's either that or he was totally composed and just can't handle his bike, right?
(I realize that taunting Chandler when we have the ultimate grudge match tomorrow is probably unwise.)
So that ended up being kind of the end of the excitement for me. A lap later I had a healthy gap on Pete behind me and a healthy-and-growing gap ahead of me to Al and Mark. Time to mail it in!
I lapped Steve on the last lap, and we hung out and chatted for a bit and then tried to get wicked rad air on the bmx track. There were no photographers around at that point so as far as I'm concerned, I did this on the last whoop and was then relegated to 8th place to being awesomer than was UCI legal.
Or maybe I just got 8th place because I'm a mediocre elite rider.
cyclocross × Race Report
Dammit! I posted this video to vimeo on Monday and then totally forgot to give it any kind of race report justice or bloggage. GO GO GO!
So for the first time in my life I had Veteran's Day off (thanks Steve) and there was a HOLIDAY BIKE RACE to attend. Awesome! The fact that it was 90 minutes away and the 1/2/3 race started at 10am was but a minor hurdle... until I set my alarm for 5:45. What am I, a Cat 4?
I met up with Jeff Elie in Medford and we rocked down to the cape to resume our mediocre elite rider vs elite mediocre rider battle from Canton. The course was jungle cross at it's "best," super short laps, tons of effective singletrack, weirdly tight 180s -- basically Ice Weasels 1.0 -- but it doesn't matter because TWENTY FIVE dudes are here at 10am to race bikes on a FRIDAY!
The race itself was pretty straightforward, as jungle-cross basically turns into a time trial for an hour. Mark the Shark was going super slow on lap one so I freaked out and passed him. He did not freak out at any point in time, but he did MERCILESSLY CRUSH MY SOUL on lap three once he was properly warmed up.
Old pro power is even scarier than old man power.
I got an early jump on Das Wilcox and held him at 10 seconds behind me for the first 20 minutes or so. Unfortuantely, I'm a fader and he's a surger, so this was bound to fall apart at some time. I had the standard bad-lap-because-the-lap-cards-say-8 and he blew by me in standard Wilcoxish fashion.
I was able to rally somewhat, mainly due to the prospect of not one, but TWO fading Keough's coming backward. But then Nick crashed out before I could get to him, and Jesse crashed out spectacularly (see 7:00 into the video), and next thing I know I've got no one ahead of me but ye olde Wilcox.
Dammit.
I kept heckling Dave to wait for me (thanks, out-and-back sections) but a 15-second gap is so much harder to close than it looks... and Dave wasn't waiting. I think? In any case, I was over a minute up on Jeff (AHEM!) so I had the option to mail it in... but instead I buried myself in the vain hope of Wilcox'ing the Wilcox. Which of course didn't work, but at least it kept him honest.
I rolled across the line in 7th, eight seconds down on Dave. And it turns out that they paid the top six! Which saved me the trouble of "finding the prize money" so I could rush home. Perfect....
cyclocross × Race Report
Traditionally, CSI is where I save my cyclocross season, because it's a crazy-fast grass crit that lets wheelsucking sprinters like myself ride waaaay over their heads. Despite this year's October snowpocalypse, Look Park melted in the nick of time and we got the file-tread conditions I was praying for. The true professionals were in Cincinnati, but everyone who MATTERED (aka my cat 2 scrub brethren!) were present. Let's do this!
I drew a sweet fourth-row start and lined up behind FREAK OUT on the outside. There's basically only two ways this could go: either he freaks out and we get a great start, or he freaks out and I end up in a crash.
The gun went off and we freaked out on the outside line into a top-15 start!
Any time you find yourself coasting in a bike race next to Justin Lindine, things are going well. Unless he is lapping you.
Unfortunately when we hit the first turn, everyone dive bombed it and got jammed, and when Anthony gets jammed he FREAKS OUT (of course, in general, when X happens, Anthony freaks out). So he swung wildly into traffic, and I swung out to stay alive, and the guy behind me swung out... but there was a fence. So he bounced off the fence, and back into me, and I started slowly but surely crashing as we entered the pavement. PERFECT TIMING!
Of course in retrospect I pretend I know exactly what happened, but I am almost certainly wrong about something. I think that Stephen Pierce, and John Burns and I ended up lying on the pavement while everyone else was sprinting as hard as they could, which really sucks for us.
But you know what they say, live by the freakout, die by the freakout.
I got back on the bike and had that sickly feeling you would get if you stepped on your cat by accident. I was ahead of approximately no one. I was NOT HAPPY.
But! Two minutes of riding later on my favorite cyclocross course ever, I had forgotten everything and it was time to RACE DA BIKES. There were a lot of people watching us race the bikes and there was no time to explain to them that I didn't actually stink as much as my current near-last position would indicate. So I better move up!
I did my standard racing "strategy" of sitting on wheels and passing dudes every time there was a course feature other than "straightaway," and after 20 minutes of this I had attained respectability. It was actually working much better than usual, which confused me, and eventually I ended up off the front of one of the groups I had been working through with pretty much nothing ahead of me.
Well, there was a group of like seven guys twenty seconds up, but that group contained Sweeney and The Wilcox, and if there's anything I CANNOT DO it's bridge a 20-second gap, solo, to a group with that kind of firepower. Right?
Half a lap later I realized I was actually closing the gap, and while I didn't understand how it was happening, I sure wanted it to keep happening. I ramped it up to bridge-or-bust intensity instead of just "ride pretty hahd" and sure enough, it WORKED. Uh, wow.
Interestingly, at least three dudes in that group ended up dropping out with perfectly functioning bicycles, proving that for the aspiring UCI-points-scorer, "Colin Reuter just bridged to your group" is a sign it's time to throw in the towel for the day.
But if they don't want to hang out and fight for the eighteen-dollar-zone it's their loss! I fought my way through the group with a rare sense of urgency as dudes fell off the back of it, and eventually it was down to just three of us: Sweeney, Bobby Bailey, and myself. The Wilcox, unfortunately, had noticed that I was in the process of attempting to WILCOX HIM (how ironic) and had attacked the group before I could get to the front. But everyone else was dropped!
I don't know much about Bobby, except that he's one of Jerry's boys from the great white north, and that he is a large man who puts out and absurd amount of power (and draft).
But Sweeney I am quite familiar with.
In any case, it was definitely time to enact the tried-and-true strategy of sitting on and smoking 'em at the end, because I was le tired from my earlier pursuit.
Kevin might've thought that I would pull through since I was his teammate, but the presence of Bobby made me disinterested in helping. I also knew that if I attacked, Kevin would cover it (the same way I'd cover his attack) because THERE'S NO TEAMMATES IN THE EIGHTEEN DOLLAR ZONE!
Seriously.
Well anyway, Kevin was annoyed that we were drafting him, so he decided to crash on a root on the last lap. Bobby drilled it, I went with him, and now it was just the two of us!
Years of coming to Northampton have showed me that the final straightaway is actually impossible to sprint on. Unless you're Luke Keough sprinting against my grandmother, you can't come around ANYONE in those last 100m, so the real sprint comes on the straightaway before that.
It's possible that Bobby didn't fully appreciate this fact.
In any case, I hit that straightaway with a final-sprint effort and got around Bobby AND a rocketing-backwards Manny Goguen* to become the MAYOR of the $18 zone (21st!). Which was pretty awesome considering that I one point I was lying on the pavement wondering if I was going to get run over.
*Every time I beat Manny, it's payback for that time he beat me by one place in my second cross race ever when he was 15.
 |
| BIKE RACIIIIIIIIIIING |
The gun went off and we freaked out on the outside line into a top-15 start!
Any time you find yourself coasting in a bike race next to Justin Lindine, things are going well. Unless he is lapping you.
Unfortunately when we hit the first turn, everyone dive bombed it and got jammed, and when Anthony gets jammed he FREAKS OUT (of course, in general, when X happens, Anthony freaks out). So he swung wildly into traffic, and I swung out to stay alive, and the guy behind me swung out... but there was a fence. So he bounced off the fence, and back into me, and I started slowly but surely crashing as we entered the pavement. PERFECT TIMING!
Of course in retrospect I pretend I know exactly what happened, but I am almost certainly wrong about something. I think that Stephen Pierce, and John Burns and I ended up lying on the pavement while everyone else was sprinting as hard as they could, which really sucks for us.
But you know what they say, live by the freakout, die by the freakout.
I got back on the bike and had that sickly feeling you would get if you stepped on your cat by accident. I was ahead of approximately no one. I was NOT HAPPY.
But! Two minutes of riding later on my favorite cyclocross course ever, I had forgotten everything and it was time to RACE DA BIKES. There were a lot of people watching us race the bikes and there was no time to explain to them that I didn't actually stink as much as my current near-last position would indicate. So I better move up!
I did my standard racing "strategy" of sitting on wheels and passing dudes every time there was a course feature other than "straightaway," and after 20 minutes of this I had attained respectability. It was actually working much better than usual, which confused me, and eventually I ended up off the front of one of the groups I had been working through with pretty much nothing ahead of me.
Well, there was a group of like seven guys twenty seconds up, but that group contained Sweeney and The Wilcox, and if there's anything I CANNOT DO it's bridge a 20-second gap, solo, to a group with that kind of firepower. Right?
Half a lap later I realized I was actually closing the gap, and while I didn't understand how it was happening, I sure wanted it to keep happening. I ramped it up to bridge-or-bust intensity instead of just "ride pretty hahd" and sure enough, it WORKED. Uh, wow.
Interestingly, at least three dudes in that group ended up dropping out with perfectly functioning bicycles, proving that for the aspiring UCI-points-scorer, "Colin Reuter just bridged to your group" is a sign it's time to throw in the towel for the day.
But if they don't want to hang out and fight for the eighteen-dollar-zone it's their loss! I fought my way through the group with a rare sense of urgency as dudes fell off the back of it, and eventually it was down to just three of us: Sweeney, Bobby Bailey, and myself. The Wilcox, unfortunately, had noticed that I was in the process of attempting to WILCOX HIM (how ironic) and had attacked the group before I could get to the front. But everyone else was dropped!
 |
| Fastest (easiest) sand pit EVAR. I have no idea how you could crash in this. |
But Sweeney I am quite familiar with.
In any case, it was definitely time to enact the tried-and-true strategy of sitting on and smoking 'em at the end, because I was le tired from my earlier pursuit.
Kevin might've thought that I would pull through since I was his teammate, but the presence of Bobby made me disinterested in helping. I also knew that if I attacked, Kevin would cover it (the same way I'd cover his attack) because THERE'S NO TEAMMATES IN THE EIGHTEEN DOLLAR ZONE!
Seriously.
Well anyway, Kevin was annoyed that we were drafting him, so he decided to crash on a root on the last lap. Bobby drilled it, I went with him, and now it was just the two of us!
Years of coming to Northampton have showed me that the final straightaway is actually impossible to sprint on. Unless you're Luke Keough sprinting against my grandmother, you can't come around ANYONE in those last 100m, so the real sprint comes on the straightaway before that.
It's possible that Bobby didn't fully appreciate this fact.
In any case, I hit that straightaway with a final-sprint effort and got around Bobby AND a rocketing-backwards Manny Goguen* to become the MAYOR of the $18 zone (21st!). Which was pretty awesome considering that I one point I was lying on the pavement wondering if I was going to get run over.
 |
| Team tactics: lead out the REALLY STRONG guy from another team. |
cyclocross × Race Report
The Canton Cup highlights one of the things that makes 'cross so different from mountain bike racing: it's one of the least interesting courses around, but as long as you can find a group of dudes to mix it up with it's a BLAST. If you get stuck time trialing around by yourself on the mostly-straight, minimally-technical, 9-minute laps, I'll forgive you for thinking that it sucks. But 'cross was meant to be social, so an unselective course can still be totally awesome.
See how I just said nice things about Canton even though I *hate* the course? Coffee makes me so positive sometimes!
This year's Canton was on SNOWPOCALYPSE EVE and every race on Sunday was cancelled. The only chance to look for one's power animal was Canton... so when the weather turned from "45 and overcast" to "40 and effin pouring" two hours before the elite race there was nothing to do except take that lemon mother nature gave us and take a big old bite of it. Yes. This is going to suck. We are going to be cold. We are going to destroy our bikes, our clothes, and possibly our will to pedal -- but it's better than waking up with that antsy didn't-race-bikes tension on Monday. Right? Or is that just me?
ANYWAY. In a rare instance of using my brain at a race, I pinned my number to my team jacket, wore my heaviest gloves, wool socks and booties. I was *never* hot enough to want to unzip the jacket, and I still lost feeling in my hands and feet by the 45-minute mark. No wonder some of the dudes in skinsuits got peculiarly slow in the second half of the race...
The whistle blows and we have a BLINDING holeshot on the puddle-covered road. I think I had debris in my eyes within five seconds of the race starting and would repeat this experience several times per lap for the rest of the day.
So sprinting over speed bumps and around wet corners with one eye closed is not my forte, and thus my start was not very good. Wasn't I just saying something about how the best part of Canton is finding a good group to race with?
Yeah, well, when it's pouring rain Canton gets a LOT slower, and drafting becomes a totally gross endeavor, so the groups were not anywhere near as fun as usual. However, what few turns did exist on the course had achieved ULTIMATE RADNESS and involved actual bike handling, bringing the fun-meter back to acceptable levels.
I spent a lot of lap one riding behind Al Donahue (!!) as he was warming up the nuclear reactor that powers his legs. He was actually holding me up quite a bit for the first few minutes, and I passed him by hopping the mini barriers (AWWW YEAH!). Of course he soon came steaming by me and was never seen again. DOESN'T MATTER, PASSED AL.
At the end of lap one the sadness was confined to my legs and my lungs, which was refreshing given the weather. Last time I raced in conditions like this I dropped out 10 minutes in.
However there was still significant sadness to be had, as Mike Wissell rode away, and Jeff Elie easily bridged up to me on a power section.
Wait.. Jeff Elie? Who?
OH SHIT, IT'S A TOP-25 CAT 3!
I WAS JUST BLOGGING ABOUT HOW THESE GUYS CAN HOLD THEIR OWN IN THE ELITE RACE!
Damn. A guinea pig for my own blog post, how unfortunate. I'll be playing the role of "mediocre cat 2 with delusions of superiority" and Jeff will be playing the role of "guy who would be fine if he upgraded." Sadly, Kerry Litka was not there to enjoy the epic battle that was about to ensue.
So then I rode fifty more minutes with Jeff. Like everyone else I end up evenly matched with, he was a little more powerful than me but a little worse technically. He'd pressure me on the road, and in the soggy fields, and I'd close the gap back down by riding the barriers, corners, or nearly the runup. For a while, I thought it was going to be desperately painful to hang on, but then the lap cards came out and they told a sad, sad story: we were only halfway done.
This dampened our already-wet spirits and the pace slackened just a bit, and I realized Jeff was probably just as sad as me.
We caught the first of several frozen shells-of-men and I lifted the pace a bit as I went around. Jeff went right around as well and back onto my wheel. Damn. What we have here, I'm afraid, is "equal sadness." So we will be sprinting this one out in about 30 minutes, unless someone makes a mistake, I decided.
Jeff may not have been as resigned to a sprint and thus we continued to ride quite hard. We caught a now-hypothermic Wissell and also a Corner Cycle dude (Sam Morse? Too much mud to tell), neither of whom appreciated the Elite/Cat 3 bragging rights that were on the line. Near the end we were even in sight of TWO Keoughs (fully grown ones!) which made me think we were doing pretty decently. However there was a still a Cat 3 riding easily behind me, which doesn't fit the "Colin is having a good race" storyline. I was confused and frightened.
My finish sprint success rate is *shockingly* high (of course, my make-it-to-the-finish-line rate is shockingly *low*, freakin UCI...) so I told myself "just don't eff something up and you should be fine."
Then we went over the final set of barriers and I effed something up! I did that thing where you accidentally downshift your front derailleur when you pick the bike up by the hood. It's ok, though, just get it back in the big ring quickly before the sprint starts...
A really good way to blow a front shift that ordinarily works fine it to do it while PANICKING. It took me three tries because I was mashing the lever like an idiot while jamming the pedals to stay with Jeff while he accelerated. FINALLY it went into the 44 just in time for the real sprint to open up, and I freaked out to win it by a bike length.
BEAT ALL THE CAT THREES AWWW YEAH. Keepin' that Elite street cred (just barely) intact!
As is required in 2011, we both tweeted pictures of the epicness:
This was definitely the most fun I've had in a 40-degrees-and-raining race, so I'm gonna keep racing in my jacket when that happens. Not like anyone was out there taking pictures of me anyway!
See how I just said nice things about Canton even though I *hate* the course? Coffee makes me so positive sometimes!
This year's Canton was on SNOWPOCALYPSE EVE and every race on Sunday was cancelled. The only chance to look for one's power animal was Canton... so when the weather turned from "45 and overcast" to "40 and effin pouring" two hours before the elite race there was nothing to do except take that lemon mother nature gave us and take a big old bite of it. Yes. This is going to suck. We are going to be cold. We are going to destroy our bikes, our clothes, and possibly our will to pedal -- but it's better than waking up with that antsy didn't-race-bikes tension on Monday. Right? Or is that just me?
ANYWAY. In a rare instance of using my brain at a race, I pinned my number to my team jacket, wore my heaviest gloves, wool socks and booties. I was *never* hot enough to want to unzip the jacket, and I still lost feeling in my hands and feet by the 45-minute mark. No wonder some of the dudes in skinsuits got peculiarly slow in the second half of the race...
The whistle blows and we have a BLINDING holeshot on the puddle-covered road. I think I had debris in my eyes within five seconds of the race starting and would repeat this experience several times per lap for the rest of the day.
So sprinting over speed bumps and around wet corners with one eye closed is not my forte, and thus my start was not very good. Wasn't I just saying something about how the best part of Canton is finding a good group to race with?
Yeah, well, when it's pouring rain Canton gets a LOT slower, and drafting becomes a totally gross endeavor, so the groups were not anywhere near as fun as usual. However, what few turns did exist on the course had achieved ULTIMATE RADNESS and involved actual bike handling, bringing the fun-meter back to acceptable levels.
I spent a lot of lap one riding behind Al Donahue (!!) as he was warming up the nuclear reactor that powers his legs. He was actually holding me up quite a bit for the first few minutes, and I passed him by hopping the mini barriers (AWWW YEAH!). Of course he soon came steaming by me and was never seen again. DOESN'T MATTER, PASSED AL.
At the end of lap one the sadness was confined to my legs and my lungs, which was refreshing given the weather. Last time I raced in conditions like this I dropped out 10 minutes in.
However there was still significant sadness to be had, as Mike Wissell rode away, and Jeff Elie easily bridged up to me on a power section.
Wait.. Jeff Elie? Who?
OH SHIT, IT'S A TOP-25 CAT 3!
I WAS JUST BLOGGING ABOUT HOW THESE GUYS CAN HOLD THEIR OWN IN THE ELITE RACE!
Damn. A guinea pig for my own blog post, how unfortunate. I'll be playing the role of "mediocre cat 2 with delusions of superiority" and Jeff will be playing the role of "guy who would be fine if he upgraded." Sadly, Kerry Litka was not there to enjoy the epic battle that was about to ensue.
So then I rode fifty more minutes with Jeff. Like everyone else I end up evenly matched with, he was a little more powerful than me but a little worse technically. He'd pressure me on the road, and in the soggy fields, and I'd close the gap back down by riding the barriers, corners, or nearly the runup. For a while, I thought it was going to be desperately painful to hang on, but then the lap cards came out and they told a sad, sad story: we were only halfway done.
This dampened our already-wet spirits and the pace slackened just a bit, and I realized Jeff was probably just as sad as me.
We caught the first of several frozen shells-of-men and I lifted the pace a bit as I went around. Jeff went right around as well and back onto my wheel. Damn. What we have here, I'm afraid, is "equal sadness." So we will be sprinting this one out in about 30 minutes, unless someone makes a mistake, I decided.
Jeff may not have been as resigned to a sprint and thus we continued to ride quite hard. We caught a now-hypothermic Wissell and also a Corner Cycle dude (Sam Morse? Too much mud to tell), neither of whom appreciated the Elite/Cat 3 bragging rights that were on the line. Near the end we were even in sight of TWO Keoughs (fully grown ones!) which made me think we were doing pretty decently. However there was a still a Cat 3 riding easily behind me, which doesn't fit the "Colin is having a good race" storyline. I was confused and frightened.
My finish sprint success rate is *shockingly* high (of course, my make-it-to-the-finish-line rate is shockingly *low*, freakin UCI...) so I told myself "just don't eff something up and you should be fine."
Then we went over the final set of barriers and I effed something up! I did that thing where you accidentally downshift your front derailleur when you pick the bike up by the hood. It's ok, though, just get it back in the big ring quickly before the sprint starts...
A really good way to blow a front shift that ordinarily works fine it to do it while PANICKING. It took me three tries because I was mashing the lever like an idiot while jamming the pedals to stay with Jeff while he accelerated. FINALLY it went into the 44 just in time for the real sprint to open up, and I freaked out to win it by a bike length.
BEAT ALL THE CAT THREES AWWW YEAH. Keepin' that Elite street cred (just barely) intact!
As is required in 2011, we both tweeted pictures of the epicness:
 |
| My face is dirtier because I draft more. |
This was definitely the most fun I've had in a 40-degrees-and-raining race, so I'm gonna keep racing in my jacket when that happens. Not like anyone was out there taking pictures of me anyway!
cyclocross × Race Report
So apparently the price I pay for NOT racing Night Weasels (aka "how can a mountain be a BOG" Weasels) is that the next time I did show up for a cross race in New England we would get the exact same conditions. Minus the mountain. But Day 1 at New Gloucester was all the derailleur-snapping goodness that Night Weasels was... maybe more. Out of the 23 finishers in the 60-minute elite race, I think all of 3 did it without a pit bike.
I, of course, begged/borrowed/stole Steve's bike to use as a pit bike and I was able to finish the race, although the one time I tried to go 2 laps without pitting it nearly exploded.
Even worse, everyone behind me (and there were quite a few people behind me, no, really) didn't have a pit bike because they're a scrub like me. So their bike broke and then quit. And then when the results came out I was LAST. Because JD doesn't list DNF's because he hates me.
Last place was, in fact, good enough to be IN THE MONEY so it wasn't all bad. You can see how finishing last has almost no effect on my mood here:
Watch more video of Downeast Cyclocross Weekend 2011 on cyclingdirt.org
It did have the long-term effect, though, of reminding me that a sub-300w threshold power doesn't get it done in thick mud. So when I showed up on Day 2 and saw it was still thick mud... I was like... awwwwwwwww.
Where "awwwwwww" is the sound of every last bit of motivation I had leaving my body.
The especially vexing part about this is that, since we're racing in Maine, it's time for my parents to watch their annual cross race! So whining and quitting were not an option. Suck it up and race your bike, Colin.
I drew an amazing starting position, which ended up meaning exactly nothing as Anthony Clark freaked out and almost wrecked half of the field on the first turn. In the ensuing mess I ended up with a foot down, against the fence as everyone else was sprinting... so I left the pavement ahead of about 4th people. Which, sadly, is a much more accurate place for me to be than where I started.
Then lap one happened and it was HARD. There was one epic bog run and two pretty-hard bog rides. The downhill-entrance bog ride was my bread-n-butter, but everything else was NOT. Best of all the bog run was so gnarly that I could barely keep my shoes on. The opening laps went exactly how I feared they would -- I was ahead of a few dudes, behind a lot of dudes, and it HURT, and not in a "this pain is productive and I'm kicking ass" kind of way.
I actually spent most of the first twenty minutes trying to figure out where Cary was. In addition to being my roomate, he had also skipped Saturday's race (due to "illness") and is a Cross Clash nemesis. There are about 500 Embro guys floating around the back of the Elite field these days (burn?) so it was a challenge to find him. I actually thought for a while he might've been crashed out at the start... but eventually I found him -- 20 seconds ahead.
But not getting further ahead.
Situations like this are exactly why the Cross Clash is a brilliant idea. My parents were watching my roommate beat me, which is already frustrating enough, but now the entire INTERNET was going to see it? That's too much. Maybe, just maybe, I can solve this problem if I toughen up and RIDE MY FACE OFF.
The crowd was solid too. I dunno, there's times where people cheer for you and you're like "shut up, I suck" and it doesn't do anything, or they cheer for you when you're drafting someone and you're like "yes, I got this, don't worry"... but when you're burying yourself to claw back a 20 second deficit, hell YES does cheering make a difference. I was chipping away ever-so-slowly, but I was getting there -- and then Cary noticed.
He immediately went from riding last in the group ahead to riding at the front, to dropping them and heading off solo. Because I was CLOSING in a manner usually reserved for THE WILCOX.
My frustration at catching Cary's group now that Cary was no longer in it was manifested by breaking the internals on yet another SRAM Rival shifter*.
But! But wait. It's a muddy day and, for once in my life, I've got a pit bike arranged. I wasn't planning on pitting, but you know, I like having more than two gears, so now I'll be racing the rest of the day on Steve Hopengarten's bike.
I would like to complain about his bike, but come on, if I break that shifter on a dry day it's a DNF because I wouldn't have anything in the pit. Thus his bike was the bestest thing in the history of bikes.
I paid the 5 second penalty to go through the pit (so. much. mud.) and got a shifting bike. Then I resumed my frantic chase of Cary.
It should be noted that we were on pace to ride 10 freaking laps. Of course, that really means that I need to ride a 90% of Lindine-speed just to finish -- and it was NOT a "90% of Lindine" kind of day. The laps were ticking down.. and with two to go, I saw him across the field. He was far enough back, of course, that the gap would be insurmountable to most humans, but the Honey Badger isn't most humans. I realized that I was on my last lap.
I dug deep and finally dragged myself up to Cary's wheel.
We were riding so abnormally fast (for scrubs) at this point (because I was not the only guy whose caremeter is affected by Cross Clash and cohabitation) that somehow the gap to Stephen Pierce plummeted down to NOTHING, even though I hadn't seen Stephen all day, and then there were THREE.
With just over a minute left in the lap, Lindine came through in his pursuit of tasty larvae to eat, and the three of us pulled well off to the side because we know how to get friggin' lapped. Then we reset our race (like gentlemen!) and proceeded. Cary seemed confused at the civility of it all, but Stephen understood immediately and took off like a man possessed.
If you raced Downeast, you know how much off-camber technical awesomeness the lap finished with. Diane was standing at the pavement, ready to pull us the second we hit the straight -- so the obvious choice was to start dive-bombing and chopping each other like our lives depended on it.
Cary left the door open and (since there are no rules with 60 seconds left!) I promptly dove right for the corner. His balance was good and we slid around the off camber shoulder-on-should, but I couldn't get by. But this set him up oddly for the next turn, possibly because I had leaned on him, or possibly because back-to-back handling feats are impossible for him, so he had to swing wide on the exit. I saw it coming, set up the late apex, and got past him just in time to make the last turn.
We hit the pavement and Diane said "you're done," and I was like "that was the most epic battle for 28th place I have ever had!"
So between the roommate-factor, the parents-factor, and the #CXClash-factor I got like 120% out of my legs and it was awesome. 29th/35 ain't so awesome, but hey, it's better than 23/23!
* - I got it warrantied with SRAM Red. We'll see if it lasts. I love SRAM's customer service, but I've reached the point where I don't think Rival is a viable gruppo for cross racing. Your mileage may vary.
I, of course, begged/borrowed/stole Steve's bike to use as a pit bike and I was able to finish the race, although the one time I tried to go 2 laps without pitting it nearly exploded.
Even worse, everyone behind me (and there were quite a few people behind me, no, really) didn't have a pit bike because they're a scrub like me. So their bike broke and then quit. And then when the results came out I was LAST. Because JD doesn't list DNF's because he hates me.
Last place was, in fact, good enough to be IN THE MONEY so it wasn't all bad. You can see how finishing last has almost no effect on my mood here:
Watch more video of Downeast Cyclocross Weekend 2011 on cyclingdirt.org
It did have the long-term effect, though, of reminding me that a sub-300w threshold power doesn't get it done in thick mud. So when I showed up on Day 2 and saw it was still thick mud... I was like... awwwwwwwww.
Where "awwwwwww" is the sound of every last bit of motivation I had leaving my body.
The especially vexing part about this is that, since we're racing in Maine, it's time for my parents to watch their annual cross race! So whining and quitting were not an option. Suck it up and race your bike, Colin.
I drew an amazing starting position, which ended up meaning exactly nothing as Anthony Clark freaked out and almost wrecked half of the field on the first turn. In the ensuing mess I ended up with a foot down, against the fence as everyone else was sprinting... so I left the pavement ahead of about 4th people. Which, sadly, is a much more accurate place for me to be than where I started.
Then lap one happened and it was HARD. There was one epic bog run and two pretty-hard bog rides. The downhill-entrance bog ride was my bread-n-butter, but everything else was NOT. Best of all the bog run was so gnarly that I could barely keep my shoes on. The opening laps went exactly how I feared they would -- I was ahead of a few dudes, behind a lot of dudes, and it HURT, and not in a "this pain is productive and I'm kicking ass" kind of way.
I actually spent most of the first twenty minutes trying to figure out where Cary was. In addition to being my roomate, he had also skipped Saturday's race (due to "illness") and is a Cross Clash nemesis. There are about 500 Embro guys floating around the back of the Elite field these days (burn?) so it was a challenge to find him. I actually thought for a while he might've been crashed out at the start... but eventually I found him -- 20 seconds ahead.
But not getting further ahead.
Situations like this are exactly why the Cross Clash is a brilliant idea. My parents were watching my roommate beat me, which is already frustrating enough, but now the entire INTERNET was going to see it? That's too much. Maybe, just maybe, I can solve this problem if I toughen up and RIDE MY FACE OFF.
The crowd was solid too. I dunno, there's times where people cheer for you and you're like "shut up, I suck" and it doesn't do anything, or they cheer for you when you're drafting someone and you're like "yes, I got this, don't worry"... but when you're burying yourself to claw back a 20 second deficit, hell YES does cheering make a difference. I was chipping away ever-so-slowly, but I was getting there -- and then Cary noticed.
He immediately went from riding last in the group ahead to riding at the front, to dropping them and heading off solo. Because I was CLOSING in a manner usually reserved for THE WILCOX.
My frustration at catching Cary's group now that Cary was no longer in it was manifested by breaking the internals on yet another SRAM Rival shifter*.
But! But wait. It's a muddy day and, for once in my life, I've got a pit bike arranged. I wasn't planning on pitting, but you know, I like having more than two gears, so now I'll be racing the rest of the day on Steve Hopengarten's bike.
I would like to complain about his bike, but come on, if I break that shifter on a dry day it's a DNF because I wouldn't have anything in the pit. Thus his bike was the bestest thing in the history of bikes.
I paid the 5 second penalty to go through the pit (so. much. mud.) and got a shifting bike. Then I resumed my frantic chase of Cary.
It should be noted that we were on pace to ride 10 freaking laps. Of course, that really means that I need to ride a 90% of Lindine-speed just to finish -- and it was NOT a "90% of Lindine" kind of day. The laps were ticking down.. and with two to go, I saw him across the field. He was far enough back, of course, that the gap would be insurmountable to most humans, but the Honey Badger isn't most humans. I realized that I was on my last lap.
I dug deep and finally dragged myself up to Cary's wheel.
We were riding so abnormally fast (for scrubs) at this point (because I was not the only guy whose caremeter is affected by Cross Clash and cohabitation) that somehow the gap to Stephen Pierce plummeted down to NOTHING, even though I hadn't seen Stephen all day, and then there were THREE.
With just over a minute left in the lap, Lindine came through in his pursuit of tasty larvae to eat, and the three of us pulled well off to the side because we know how to get friggin' lapped. Then we reset our race (like gentlemen!) and proceeded. Cary seemed confused at the civility of it all, but Stephen understood immediately and took off like a man possessed.
If you raced Downeast, you know how much off-camber technical awesomeness the lap finished with. Diane was standing at the pavement, ready to pull us the second we hit the straight -- so the obvious choice was to start dive-bombing and chopping each other like our lives depended on it.
Cary left the door open and (since there are no rules with 60 seconds left!) I promptly dove right for the corner. His balance was good and we slid around the off camber shoulder-on-should, but I couldn't get by. But this set him up oddly for the next turn, possibly because I had leaned on him, or possibly because back-to-back handling feats are impossible for him, so he had to swing wide on the exit. I saw it coming, set up the late apex, and got past him just in time to make the last turn.
We hit the pavement and Diane said "you're done," and I was like "that was the most epic battle for 28th place I have ever had!"
So between the roommate-factor, the parents-factor, and the #CXClash-factor I got like 120% out of my legs and it was awesome. 29th/35 ain't so awesome, but hey, it's better than 23/23!
 |
| I complained about the lack of dollar handups on Day 1, so Jordan found me on the next lap with 75 cents in quarters. In related news, there's now three quarters buried deep in a field at New Gloucester. |
* - I got it warrantied with SRAM Red. We'll see if it lasts. I love SRAM's customer service, but I've reached the point where I don't think Rival is a viable gruppo for cross racing. Your mileage may vary.
cyclocross
Every once in a while, I do something here that isn't a race report. I've been meaning to get this one out for a while, now, because it's EARLY CROSS SEASON which means that all anyone ever talks about is how other people need to upgrade.
Personally, I don't spend as much time worrying about sandbaggers as my twitter account might suggest. Such is the advantage of racing in the only category you can't sandbag.
I've been racing cross for six years now and one thing has never changed: people act like the jump between categories is much larger than it is. The standard refrain when someone upgrades to Cat 3 is "well, now it's time to get lapped!" and that is... um... not even remotely true. If you're fast enough to get any kind of merit-based promotion out of Cat 4, then you're already riding at midpack Cat 3 speed.
In fact, this is true for Cat 3->Cat 2 as well. The only catch is that with Elite Men riding up to 10 laps, you can be a mere 10% slower than Jeremy Powers and still get lapped on a short course. So fast Cat 3's are both midpack Cat 2's and in danger of getting lapped. Tricksy!
Quick aside: this is why "getting lapped" isn't an indicator that you don't belong in the elite men's race. 10% back in ANY other field and you're comfortably on the lead lap.
Anyway, to really see the way the fields compare, we can look at lap times on a day when the conditions don't change much. Providence Day 1 is a good example from the recent season.
Obviously, riding more laps will slow down your average lap time, but not as much as you might think. One underrated factor when you move up is that you start racing with faster racers; so you're riding longer, but you're getting more drafting opportunities than you used to. For example, Curtis White won Cat 3 solo by a large margin -- if he'd been in the Elite race he'd have been riding in groups all day instead of eating a steady diet of wind. The chase group behind him (Delinks, Dobie, Herrick) would have been in groups in the elite race as well, but instead of racing for 2nd (and playing cat-n-mouse) they'd have been in the 30s, where guys tend to work together to survive instead of fighting each other for the podium.
So, yes, riding longer is hard. You will go a little slower. Not as much as you think.
Graph time! Here's a bar graph showing the lap times spanned by each field. Note that if you get lapped, I can't tell what kind of lap times you were turning, so this is showing the range of times ON THE LEAD LAP.
Time for some fun facts!
The 35+ Men's race and Cat 3 race have almost exactly the same range of times, but the Cat 3 field has almost twice as many guys in it. This is probably why people talk about how civilized the 35+ race is compared to Cat 3... there's just way fewer bodies out there.
The Cat 3 winner, Curtis White*, would have been 28th/57 in elite men if he could've held his pace for 2 more laps. But he wasn't alone. The top 25 guys in Cat 3 were all turning fast enough laps to make lead lap in the men's race. If they could've held their pace for just one more lap, they'd have made it onto the final lap before Justin Lindine finished.
Conversely, if you didn't make the lead lap of the Elite Men's race, this should tell you how you'd fare in the current Cat 3 race.
The Cat 4 winner, Maksym Shepitko, was on pace for 27th/127 in Cat 3 if he could've held his pace for 2 more laps. Seriously. If you're winning Cat 4, you're good enough to beat 100 CAT 3's.
The 35+ winner, Bill Elliston was doing lap times good enough for 25th/57 in Elite Men, and would have won the Cat 3 race by 40 seconds.
Onto the women!
The Cat 3/4 women's winner, Ellen Noble**, was doing lap times good enough for 21st/37 in Elite Women.
The top 22 women in 3/4 were turning lap times good enough to be "not-last" in Elite Women (everyone made the lead lap).
The HARDEST upgrade in CX is going from Cat 4 35+ to 35+ -- the winner of Cat 4 35+ would have to ride 2 extra laps at his winning pace just to get 54th/61 in 35+!
So, what does it all mean?
It means that if you're fast enough to get anywhere NEAR the sandbagger discussion, you're fast enough to move up a category and not be last. This is true for Cat 4, Cat 3, and Cat 3/4 women -- if you made top 20 in those races, you'd be fine moving up, assuming your definition of "fine" is "not embarrassingly overmatched."
Note that this is NOT the same as "you should move up." You should move up when you want to, or when the heckling from your peers becomes unbearable. My only point here is that you would almost certainly survive upgrading, despite what you may believe.
Update! Bonus Cross-Gender Fun Facts!
Ellen Noble would have been 8th in Cat 4 men and 2nd in Cat 4 35+.
Laura Van Gilder would have been 7th in Cat 3 men, 6th in 45+ and 18th in 35+. She would have just barely made the lead lap in the men's elite race.
The Elite women's race is the exact same distance as 45+ and has virtually the same lap times from top to bottom, but only half as many riders.
Super-double-bonus LVG update!
Laura Van Gilder is 46, so if she raced 45+ no one could complain about her age***
Triple-bonus LVG update!
Laura Van Gilder is really good at racing bikes.
*Unfortunately, Curtis is a Junior and can't upgrade because the UCI sucks.
**Unfortunately, Ellen is a Junior and can't upgrade because the UCI sucks.
***Some of the fastest 45+ guys race 35+, so she's not even close to being the fastest 45+ rider out there. Sadly.
Personally, I don't spend as much time worrying about sandbaggers as my twitter account might suggest. Such is the advantage of racing in the only category you can't sandbag.
I've been racing cross for six years now and one thing has never changed: people act like the jump between categories is much larger than it is. The standard refrain when someone upgrades to Cat 3 is "well, now it's time to get lapped!" and that is... um... not even remotely true. If you're fast enough to get any kind of merit-based promotion out of Cat 4, then you're already riding at midpack Cat 3 speed.
In fact, this is true for Cat 3->Cat 2 as well. The only catch is that with Elite Men riding up to 10 laps, you can be a mere 10% slower than Jeremy Powers and still get lapped on a short course. So fast Cat 3's are both midpack Cat 2's and in danger of getting lapped. Tricksy!
Quick aside: this is why "getting lapped" isn't an indicator that you don't belong in the elite men's race. 10% back in ANY other field and you're comfortably on the lead lap.
Anyway, to really see the way the fields compare, we can look at lap times on a day when the conditions don't change much. Providence Day 1 is a good example from the recent season.
Obviously, riding more laps will slow down your average lap time, but not as much as you might think. One underrated factor when you move up is that you start racing with faster racers; so you're riding longer, but you're getting more drafting opportunities than you used to. For example, Curtis White won Cat 3 solo by a large margin -- if he'd been in the Elite race he'd have been riding in groups all day instead of eating a steady diet of wind. The chase group behind him (Delinks, Dobie, Herrick) would have been in groups in the elite race as well, but instead of racing for 2nd (and playing cat-n-mouse) they'd have been in the 30s, where guys tend to work together to survive instead of fighting each other for the podium.
So, yes, riding longer is hard. You will go a little slower. Not as much as you think.
Graph time! Here's a bar graph showing the lap times spanned by each field. Note that if you get lapped, I can't tell what kind of lap times you were turning, so this is showing the range of times ON THE LEAD LAP.
Time for some fun facts!
The 35+ Men's race and Cat 3 race have almost exactly the same range of times, but the Cat 3 field has almost twice as many guys in it. This is probably why people talk about how civilized the 35+ race is compared to Cat 3... there's just way fewer bodies out there.
The Cat 3 winner, Curtis White*, would have been 28th/57 in elite men if he could've held his pace for 2 more laps. But he wasn't alone. The top 25 guys in Cat 3 were all turning fast enough laps to make lead lap in the men's race. If they could've held their pace for just one more lap, they'd have made it onto the final lap before Justin Lindine finished.
Conversely, if you didn't make the lead lap of the Elite Men's race, this should tell you how you'd fare in the current Cat 3 race.
The Cat 4 winner, Maksym Shepitko, was on pace for 27th/127 in Cat 3 if he could've held his pace for 2 more laps. Seriously. If you're winning Cat 4, you're good enough to beat 100 CAT 3's.
The 35+ winner, Bill Elliston was doing lap times good enough for 25th/57 in Elite Men, and would have won the Cat 3 race by 40 seconds.
Onto the women!
The Cat 3/4 women's winner, Ellen Noble**, was doing lap times good enough for 21st/37 in Elite Women.
The top 22 women in 3/4 were turning lap times good enough to be "not-last" in Elite Women (everyone made the lead lap).
The HARDEST upgrade in CX is going from Cat 4 35+ to 35+ -- the winner of Cat 4 35+ would have to ride 2 extra laps at his winning pace just to get 54th/61 in 35+!
So, what does it all mean?
It means that if you're fast enough to get anywhere NEAR the sandbagger discussion, you're fast enough to move up a category and not be last. This is true for Cat 4, Cat 3, and Cat 3/4 women -- if you made top 20 in those races, you'd be fine moving up, assuming your definition of "fine" is "not embarrassingly overmatched."
Note that this is NOT the same as "you should move up." You should move up when you want to, or when the heckling from your peers becomes unbearable. My only point here is that you would almost certainly survive upgrading, despite what you may believe.
Update! Bonus Cross-Gender Fun Facts!
Ellen Noble would have been 8th in Cat 4 men and 2nd in Cat 4 35+.
Laura Van Gilder would have been 7th in Cat 3 men, 6th in 45+ and 18th in 35+. She would have just barely made the lead lap in the men's elite race.
The Elite women's race is the exact same distance as 45+ and has virtually the same lap times from top to bottom, but only half as many riders.
Super-double-bonus LVG update!
Laura Van Gilder is 46, so if she raced 45+ no one could complain about her age***
Triple-bonus LVG update!
Laura Van Gilder is really good at racing bikes.
*Unfortunately, Curtis is a Junior and can't upgrade because the UCI sucks.
**Unfortunately, Ellen is a Junior and can't upgrade because the UCI sucks.
***Some of the fastest 45+ guys race 35+, so she's not even close to being the fastest 45+ rider out there. Sadly.
cyclocross × Race Report
I have done exactly one non-UCI race this season, the Midnight Ride of Cyclocross, which had enough foreigners in it you'd have thought there were UCI points on the line. So, a wise man might have taken advantage of the first non-UCI weekend in New England in the last month to stop getting sand kicked in his face by the actual good bike racers out there, and instead return the sand-kicking favor to those uppity Cat 3's in a local 1/2/3.
But I am not a wise man... I am a man who is woefully susceptible to peer pressure. Fatmarc started hassling me about attending Granogue back in August 2010.. and by the time 2011 rolled around, I was helpless to resist.
So, off to the mid-Atlantic we go! I had never raced there except for two exceedingly non-awesome USGP's back in the day, so I was interested to see what it would be like. I had ridden my bike once in the last 12 days, so victory was inevitable.
Then I got to the course.
Fatmarc had set me up.
Apparently everyone except me knows that Granogue is the hardest cross course on the east coast. It's incredibly hilly, and we're talking STEEP hills, not that gradual-death vermont style of climb. The course punches you in the face twice a lap and doesn't waste a lot of time being flat elsewhere, either.
Not that there's anything wrong with this, it's just the kind of place where #Lindine is going to smash me and I'm going to hurt a lot. And I realize that could describe every cross race... but you know... especially this one.
Christin kicked ass and took name in the morning, which was REALLY EXCITING to me, and then a guy got knocked unconscious in a crash in the 35+ race which was REALLY DISTURBING to me, and then I realized I never really ate breakfast or brought lunch and I had to race in 2.5 hours and the only food vendor was a barbeque place.
So I ate barbeque and prayed for a miracle and it TOTALLY DIDN'T WORK!
I haven't felt that useless on a bike in, uh, possibly my entire racing career. So I ducked the tape after less than two laps and decided to sulk it off.
Then we went back to Fat Marc's place and watched his brother's kids fight a deathmatch with each other and it was much more competitive than my bike race had been.
But the golden rule, of course, is that it's ok to suck on Saturday as long as you DON'T SUCK ON SUNDAY!
Sunday morning I was prepared to not suck. I ate both breakfast AND lunch. The course had somehow gained even more climbing while getting shorter, because they took out most of the turns. Christin and I had a "oh my god this is a pure power course we're gonna get crushed waaaaah" contest, and then she lost that contest by going out and getting 6th in the 3/4 race.
I spent 2 hours sitting placidly in a folding chair by my car trying to find my power animal.
The UCI random draw was absurdly good to me and I got fourth row out of 55 starters. The start at Granogue is actually really hard to move up on, because it's sneaky-narrow, sneaky-flat and looooong. So we accelerate to 28 mph and then everyone packs into a ball and you aren't going ANYWHERE.
I survived the start in the center of the 28-mph deathball and hit the grass in a good position. However, there were a million feet of climbing per lap so holding "good position" couldn't be achieved with smoke and mirrors, only watts.
In related news, Stephen Pierce passed me on a climb and eventually beat me by like an hour.
More troublingly, Cary the roommate and Cary the Cross Clash competitor passed me on lap two and started riding at the front of the group I was tailgunning. I responded to his attack by bobbling the everloving crap out of an off-camber and running down a hill sideways trying to remount.
I eventually did remount on said off-camber without rolling a tubular, which was cool, but that was the last I saw of the group.
Then I rode around being sad for a while, only interrupting my sadness to put in efforts to draft people on the one flat part of the course, or to look like I was trying hard when FatMarc was cheering.
The "great" thing about 60-minute races is that it's actually possible to put the pieces back together and still have some time left to race, so after several laps of sadness I had finally blown enough of the suck out of my legs to start moving forward.
I caught Shaun Adamson (who I am only mentioning because he was putting the SAD in @sadamson, har har!) and some unknown Mid Atlantic scrubs and even briefly made some ground up on Cary... and then brutality of the course caught up with me.
I slowed down once again, and it became apparent that #Lindine and Troy Wells would lap me so I could ride "only" nine laps and 29,000 feet of climbing.
I stopped at the top of the runup to wait for their arrival while searching the crowd for a beer, but everyone was too caught up in the AWESOME FINAL-LAP DOGFIGHT they were having to give a scrub like me a beer. Which makes sense, really.
I would like to point out that I did not, at any point, hit Troy Wells in the head with my bike because I am not totally clueless about how elite cross works.
Then I made a guy think I was lapping him so he moved over to let me through, and then we got pulled, and yes, I will proudly stoop to tricks like that to get 33rd in a UCI race.
But I am not a wise man... I am a man who is woefully susceptible to peer pressure. Fatmarc started hassling me about attending Granogue back in August 2010.. and by the time 2011 rolled around, I was helpless to resist.
So, off to the mid-Atlantic we go! I had never raced there except for two exceedingly non-awesome USGP's back in the day, so I was interested to see what it would be like. I had ridden my bike once in the last 12 days, so victory was inevitable.
Then I got to the course.
Fatmarc had set me up.
Apparently everyone except me knows that Granogue is the hardest cross course on the east coast. It's incredibly hilly, and we're talking STEEP hills, not that gradual-death vermont style of climb. The course punches you in the face twice a lap and doesn't waste a lot of time being flat elsewhere, either.
Not that there's anything wrong with this, it's just the kind of place where #Lindine is going to smash me and I'm going to hurt a lot. And I realize that could describe every cross race... but you know... especially this one.
Christin kicked ass and took name in the morning, which was REALLY EXCITING to me, and then a guy got knocked unconscious in a crash in the 35+ race which was REALLY DISTURBING to me, and then I realized I never really ate breakfast or brought lunch and I had to race in 2.5 hours and the only food vendor was a barbeque place.
So I ate barbeque and prayed for a miracle and it TOTALLY DIDN'T WORK!
I haven't felt that useless on a bike in, uh, possibly my entire racing career. So I ducked the tape after less than two laps and decided to sulk it off.
Then we went back to Fat Marc's place and watched his brother's kids fight a deathmatch with each other and it was much more competitive than my bike race had been.
But the golden rule, of course, is that it's ok to suck on Saturday as long as you DON'T SUCK ON SUNDAY!
Sunday morning I was prepared to not suck. I ate both breakfast AND lunch. The course had somehow gained even more climbing while getting shorter, because they took out most of the turns. Christin and I had a "oh my god this is a pure power course we're gonna get crushed waaaaah" contest, and then she lost that contest by going out and getting 6th in the 3/4 race.
I spent 2 hours sitting placidly in a folding chair by my car trying to find my power animal.
The UCI random draw was absurdly good to me and I got fourth row out of 55 starters. The start at Granogue is actually really hard to move up on, because it's sneaky-narrow, sneaky-flat and looooong. So we accelerate to 28 mph and then everyone packs into a ball and you aren't going ANYWHERE.
I survived the start in the center of the 28-mph deathball and hit the grass in a good position. However, there were a million feet of climbing per lap so holding "good position" couldn't be achieved with smoke and mirrors, only watts.
In related news, Stephen Pierce passed me on a climb and eventually beat me by like an hour.
More troublingly, Cary the roommate and Cary the Cross Clash competitor passed me on lap two and started riding at the front of the group I was tailgunning. I responded to his attack by bobbling the everloving crap out of an off-camber and running down a hill sideways trying to remount.
I eventually did remount on said off-camber without rolling a tubular, which was cool, but that was the last I saw of the group.
Then I rode around being sad for a while, only interrupting my sadness to put in efforts to draft people on the one flat part of the course, or to look like I was trying hard when FatMarc was cheering.
The "great" thing about 60-minute races is that it's actually possible to put the pieces back together and still have some time left to race, so after several laps of sadness I had finally blown enough of the suck out of my legs to start moving forward.
I slowed down once again, and it became apparent that #Lindine and Troy Wells would lap me so I could ride "only" nine laps and 29,000 feet of climbing.
I stopped at the top of the runup to wait for their arrival while searching the crowd for a beer, but everyone was too caught up in the AWESOME FINAL-LAP DOGFIGHT they were having to give a scrub like me a beer. Which makes sense, really.
I would like to point out that I did not, at any point, hit Troy Wells in the head with my bike because I am not totally clueless about how elite cross works.
Then I made a guy think I was lapping him so he moved over to let me through, and then we got pulled, and yes, I will proudly stoop to tricks like that to get 33rd in a UCI race.
The best feature, by far, of Granogue is the rideable mini-stairs. I think 75% of elite men were riding these... but 90% of elite juniors. GET OFF MY LAWN!
cyclocross
I was totally shattered from a week of race promoting so I didn't race at all this weekend. What's a guy to do? Live vicariously through his girlfriend, of course!
I put the GoPro on Christin's stem, but I neglected to notice that it had some kind of slippery varnish on it that my stem doesn't have... so after a lap, it slipped down and then she spent the rest of the race getting distracted by the $300 of electronics flopping around on her bars.
Whoops.
But LOOK AT THAT START!
I put the GoPro on Christin's stem, but I neglected to notice that it had some kind of slippery varnish on it that my stem doesn't have... so after a lap, it slipped down and then she spent the rest of the race getting distracted by the $300 of electronics flopping around on her bars.
Whoops.
But LOOK AT THAT START!
cyclocross
I drew a back row start and passed like 40 guys in the first 2 minutes to get me into the "slighty over my head zone." Then I suffered like a dog to hang on... only to get lapped on the finish straight with one to go anyway. But so what, it was still awesome:
 |
| He only heckles because he cares. |
cyclocross × Race Report
I'm not quite sure how this happened, but by making crossresults.com my day job instead of my night job I actually got busier. The last few weeks since I got back from vacation out west have been as busy as I've ever been in my life. In case you were wondering why I wasn't cranking out blog content like the old days.
Last night I went out to the Midnight Ride of Cyclocross and it was totally dope. It turns out that participating in a night race is almost as fun as putting one on. Luckily the original New England night race is next week so I get to do both! Yay!
If you need me between now and then, I'll be NOT SLEEPING.
Also, can we get a third night race next year? Then we could make an awesome series and no one would ever sleep in the month of October.
But anyway, before I talk about Midnight Ride I should discuss Green Mountain CX Day 2 (the Euro-ing) and Noreaster (return of the Euro) because there were bike races that happened and must be logged.
Day 2 was the UCI day of the GMCX weekend, which meant SERIOUS dudes showing up. Jeremy Powers and Jamey Driscoll appeared and also some giant French guy named BAZEEEN who has been 13th at Worlds. Meanwhile I can't even get 13th in a UCI race in New England, so yeah, lining up against guys like that is what I live for.
Somehow they made a course with even more climbing/less recovery than the day before so I didn't try very hard in the start, because at some point I knew all the riding up hills was going to break me and really I'm just a giant wuss.
The reality of my crappy start was evident from a spectator saying to me "don't worry about your start, Colin, move up, you got this" at the barriers. Ooooh it was that bad? I looked back and there were a max of eight guys behind me. Crap.
Then I rode my face off for forty five minutes. I hitched a ride whenever possible from other dudes who could "pedal hard" and it mostly worked. Somehow Donny Green started behind me and came through at approximately 8 billion watts; he was not one of the wheels I stayed on. Nor Ted King, who rode from dead last on lap one to fifth overall.
Aside from those two guys I drafted pretty successfully.
Near the end of the race I had gotten picked up by the one and only Austin Pferd, who rides corners more aggressively than anyone I've ever followed. This is actually not awesome at all, because when you enter a corner behind him it only goes two ways:
1) Austin shreds it so hard that he defies physics and you get gapped, having to chase
2) Austin shreds it so hard that physics puts him in his place, and he crashes/bobbles, slowing you down.
Either way, every turn is an adventure.
We had also picked up a Canadian U23 and Manny Goguen. Manny's special talent is riding stupidly fast despite a lung disease, which means sometimes he ends up not riding so fast at all. Aka "with me."
Usually when we catch Manny he has gone to a very sad place and goes straight out the back of the group, but this time he was somehow functioning at 90% of normal Manny, which is exactly my race pace. So he stuck around. Then, with one lap to go, he turned back into ELITE MANNY and hot damn did we get shredded. By the time I realized what was going on Austin and I were already gapped pretty bad and Manny had dragged the Canuck off with him.
My efforts to close the gap by riding my face off led to riding my legs off instead and dropping 40 seconds to Manny in the last lap.
But, I still finished in 21st, in the money, on the lead lap, and only 7 minutes behind BAZEEEEEEEEN so it was ok.
AND THEN WE TORE THE PLACE UP AND IT WAS A HUGE PR DISASTER AND IT COST EVERYONE INVOLVED A BUNCH OF MONEY WAAAAH.
Seriously, that sucks, I don't really know what the heck you can do when your race is in a public park and it rains that much, except cancel it? This is why I run my races at places where they say stuff to me like "we don't really care if you rip it up too much since we're gonna blow snow on it a month later."
As for the actual racing, the race started and about 3 seconds later Michael Rea was surfing Evan Huff through the start line. As with most ugly crashes, I assumed Evan was dead and I was going to have start answering the phone at BikeReg, so I kinda lost my nerve for a bit and hit the grass ahead of like, two people.
Then everyone pedaled as hard as they could in mud for a while, then it got even deeper so we ran in the mud. Somewhere along the line, Cary got the world's most tenacious course tape wrapped around his derailleur and dropped like three minutes fixing it. It was really bad. Even I would only wish a, say, 1-minute handicap on him.
There was one sketchy mud chute on the backside of the course that I crushed on lap two to get back into the "group" I was riding with of Chris Hamlin, Noah Tautfest and Synjen Morocco. Some spectators were audibly pleased with the shredding, so for all of five seconds I was enjoying myself.
Then Synjen started riding away from everyone by pedaling hard in deep mud, and I stopped having fun.
Also, I had lost both of my handlebar plugs at this point since 'cross is crazy like that.
SO. The setup. I come into the mud chute on lap three and I'm thinking "I AM GOING TO SHRED THIS SO HARD SOMEONE WILL TELL ADAM CRAIG ABOUT IT." Unfortunately, I am not as good as Adam Craig so when I attempted to increase the previous lap's radness by 25% I instead increased my over-the-bars-ness by 100%.
FORTUNATELY instead of going over the bars all the way I was able to catch the end of my handlebars in my groin. UNFORTUNATELY the bare metal that had been exposed by my loss of end-plug caused the bar to cut straight through my skinsuit and into my groin about 2 inches away from one of my favorite body parts.
I bounced back up from the crash, because RACING!, but thenn I realized how there was now a giant hole in the crotch of my skinsuit and a stinging, mud-filled abrasion to go with it, and I DNF'ed as fast as possible.
Then I wandered around showing people the gnarly gash in my skinsuit and my almost-balls, which was the highlight of my day, in retrospect.
Here is a picture that Kris Dobie took of me before my wardrobe malfunction.
Last night I went out to the Midnight Ride of Cyclocross and it was totally dope. It turns out that participating in a night race is almost as fun as putting one on. Luckily the original New England night race is next week so I get to do both! Yay!
If you need me between now and then, I'll be NOT SLEEPING.
Also, can we get a third night race next year? Then we could make an awesome series and no one would ever sleep in the month of October.
But anyway, before I talk about Midnight Ride I should discuss Green Mountain CX Day 2 (the Euro-ing) and Noreaster (return of the Euro) because there were bike races that happened and must be logged.
GMCX Day 2
Day 2 was the UCI day of the GMCX weekend, which meant SERIOUS dudes showing up. Jeremy Powers and Jamey Driscoll appeared and also some giant French guy named BAZEEEN who has been 13th at Worlds. Meanwhile I can't even get 13th in a UCI race in New England, so yeah, lining up against guys like that is what I live for.
Somehow they made a course with even more climbing/less recovery than the day before so I didn't try very hard in the start, because at some point I knew all the riding up hills was going to break me and really I'm just a giant wuss.
The reality of my crappy start was evident from a spectator saying to me "don't worry about your start, Colin, move up, you got this" at the barriers. Ooooh it was that bad? I looked back and there were a max of eight guys behind me. Crap.
Then I rode my face off for forty five minutes. I hitched a ride whenever possible from other dudes who could "pedal hard" and it mostly worked. Somehow Donny Green started behind me and came through at approximately 8 billion watts; he was not one of the wheels I stayed on. Nor Ted King, who rode from dead last on lap one to fifth overall.
Aside from those two guys I drafted pretty successfully.
Near the end of the race I had gotten picked up by the one and only Austin Pferd, who rides corners more aggressively than anyone I've ever followed. This is actually not awesome at all, because when you enter a corner behind him it only goes two ways:
1) Austin shreds it so hard that he defies physics and you get gapped, having to chase
2) Austin shreds it so hard that physics puts him in his place, and he crashes/bobbles, slowing you down.
Either way, every turn is an adventure.
We had also picked up a Canadian U23 and Manny Goguen. Manny's special talent is riding stupidly fast despite a lung disease, which means sometimes he ends up not riding so fast at all. Aka "with me."
Usually when we catch Manny he has gone to a very sad place and goes straight out the back of the group, but this time he was somehow functioning at 90% of normal Manny, which is exactly my race pace. So he stuck around. Then, with one lap to go, he turned back into ELITE MANNY and hot damn did we get shredded. By the time I realized what was going on Austin and I were already gapped pretty bad and Manny had dragged the Canuck off with him.
My efforts to close the gap by riding my face off led to riding my legs off instead and dropping 40 seconds to Manny in the last lap.
But, I still finished in 21st, in the money, on the lead lap, and only 7 minutes behind BAZEEEEEEEEN so it was ok.
Noreaster
The next weekend I returned to the glorious town of Burlington with my secret 'cross prodigy Christin for MORE UCI RACING. Adam, JD and Al had made a totally sick Northampton-esque racetrack at North Beach in Burlington... and then it rained. And rained. And rained.AND THEN WE TORE THE PLACE UP AND IT WAS A HUGE PR DISASTER AND IT COST EVERYONE INVOLVED A BUNCH OF MONEY WAAAAH.
Seriously, that sucks, I don't really know what the heck you can do when your race is in a public park and it rains that much, except cancel it? This is why I run my races at places where they say stuff to me like "we don't really care if you rip it up too much since we're gonna blow snow on it a month later."
As for the actual racing, the race started and about 3 seconds later Michael Rea was surfing Evan Huff through the start line. As with most ugly crashes, I assumed Evan was dead and I was going to have start answering the phone at BikeReg, so I kinda lost my nerve for a bit and hit the grass ahead of like, two people.
Then everyone pedaled as hard as they could in mud for a while, then it got even deeper so we ran in the mud. Somewhere along the line, Cary got the world's most tenacious course tape wrapped around his derailleur and dropped like three minutes fixing it. It was really bad. Even I would only wish a, say, 1-minute handicap on him.
There was one sketchy mud chute on the backside of the course that I crushed on lap two to get back into the "group" I was riding with of Chris Hamlin, Noah Tautfest and Synjen Morocco. Some spectators were audibly pleased with the shredding, so for all of five seconds I was enjoying myself.
Then Synjen started riding away from everyone by pedaling hard in deep mud, and I stopped having fun.
Also, I had lost both of my handlebar plugs at this point since 'cross is crazy like that.
SO. The setup. I come into the mud chute on lap three and I'm thinking "I AM GOING TO SHRED THIS SO HARD SOMEONE WILL TELL ADAM CRAIG ABOUT IT." Unfortunately, I am not as good as Adam Craig so when I attempted to increase the previous lap's radness by 25% I instead increased my over-the-bars-ness by 100%.
FORTUNATELY instead of going over the bars all the way I was able to catch the end of my handlebars in my groin. UNFORTUNATELY the bare metal that had been exposed by my loss of end-plug caused the bar to cut straight through my skinsuit and into my groin about 2 inches away from one of my favorite body parts.
I bounced back up from the crash, because RACING!, but thenn I realized how there was now a giant hole in the crotch of my skinsuit and a stinging, mud-filled abrasion to go with it, and I DNF'ed as fast as possible.
Then I wandered around showing people the gnarly gash in my skinsuit and my almost-balls, which was the highlight of my day, in retrospect.
Here is a picture that Kris Dobie took of me before my wardrobe malfunction.
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| REAL CYCLOCROSS HOORAY |
cyclocross × Race Report
This race is the perfect thing to cool off my cross fever. I hadn't raced in 5 weeks (FIVE! WEEKS!) and just like everyone else I was on the verge of melting due to the excitement of 'cross season. So let's drive 3.5 hours to race a grass hillclimb! Bike racing, guys!
Thus ends my commentary on the Day 1 course. Shut up and pedal, Colin! Er, blog. Like you do.
My greatest failure was leaving the SD card for my GoPro at home, but bringing the rest of the camera. They told us we had 60 seconds to start, I turned the camera on, and it was like... beep beep beep you're an idiot. So if you were hoping for sick 'cross vids, it's gonna be another week. Although watching some footage from last year might do in a pinch.
The reason I hadn't raced for a month is because I was frolicking around the western half of the country with Christin. As you might know, the western half of this country is at "elevation" and thus I had actually been "doping" while I was out there. My only hope was that the surplus of red blood cells in my body would make up for the utter lack of intensity training I had been doing while everyone else was getting an erroneous DNF at Quad cross.
#zing
ANYWAY, eventually we had to race bikes, and even though Day 1 wasn't a UCI race all the fast-but-not-pro guys were there and I was scared. We took off up the frustratingly-long-hill to start the race and everything was cool right until we had to turn a tiny bit -- then everyone bunched up on the inside, Donny Green went into the groove in the middle of the course, and then Donny Green exploded. This was not good for Donny or anyone behind him, but since I was next to him... I was totally ok with that. Because there are no friends when you have a number on.
That is all I remember from lap one. I just rode around telling myself not to freak out and go super-anaerobic, which is actually pretty tough on lap one of a cross race. All in all I thought it went pretty well, in that I didn't want to drop out at the end of lap one.
Instead, I latched onto the back of a HEFTY group 'o dudes being lead by one Wayne Bray. Do you remember Wayne Bray? Because I sure talk about him a lot around here. Good news, guys, this year he has even more watts than last year and I got to ride in his group on a course with lots of climbing! It was so fun*!
The hefty group had nine or so guys and there was lots of drafting, so I was pretty sheltered from the LUDICROUS SPEED when we weren't climbing. Of course, on the 50% of the course that was uphill, I was getting punched in the face (along with everyone else in the group, I think) by Wayne's quads. It didn't take long before I realized that I was not going to be able to do this for another [ungodly number on the lap cards] laps.
Luckily there were also a bunch of U23s in DA GROUP and they also were having trouble taking a punch right to their just-out-of-high-school faces. Two Canadian kids (WELCOME TO AMERICA!!) and Jeff Bahnson (PAYBACK FOR WHEN YOU BEAT ME WHEN YOU WERE 15!!) were the first to fall off the back.
Of course since I was riding on the back like an idiot/softie, I got to chase back on when les enfants suddenly quit holding the wheel in front of them. Which I deserved. "Chasing back on" mainly happened on the downhills, since "riding as hard as I can just to not lose ground to Wayne" was happening on the uphills.
Now, if you're chasing on the downhills and chasing on the uphills, where are you resting? NOWHERE. And how does Colin do when he can't rest? BADLY. Eventually Evan Huff came off, taking me with him, and my legs were a-ok with that.
So then I rode around with Evan (who works at BikeReg with me!) and by "with" I mean "behind." I took a dollar prime and told him about it, which was pretty good psychological warfare if I do say so myself. He got angry and attacked me, but no one attacks me successfully on the downhill! So I clung like a barnacle. As usual. Welcome to cross season race reports.
Finally we got the bell and lil' Jesse Keough** and Sweens were actually quite close ahead of Evan and me. I figured after 3 laps of looking at Evan's butt I would make myself useful and take a pull (ON THE CLIMB, EVEN!). As soon as I was in front of Evan, he overlapped wheels with me in the groove and then crashed, because apparently I don't pull hard enough on climbs. This further soured him on riding with me, and he will probably not be getting me free coffee at work anytime soon.
But, but, there was real live KEOUGH in front of me and one should never take the opportunity to race a KEOUGH lightly. Sweens realized that I was coming for Jesse with all the old-man-wattage I could muster and wisely fled the scene.
I caught Jesse on the downhill before the barriers before the finish, and attacked him right after the barriers, because you don't go to the line with a Keough even if you fancy yourself a good sprinter, like I do. Fortunately he didn't respond, because about 5 seconds after my attack (and 30 seconds before the finish line) I was like "wow, this is ENTIRELY UNSUSTAINABLE." So I slowed down and held the gap for 16th overall.
I regret to note that this still put me 7 seconds behind my #1 frenemy Kevin. Which stinks.
But hey, cross is back!
*fun not valid in Alaska or Hawaii
**not actually that little anymore
Thus ends my commentary on the Day 1 course. Shut up and pedal, Colin! Er, blog. Like you do.
My greatest failure was leaving the SD card for my GoPro at home, but bringing the rest of the camera. They told us we had 60 seconds to start, I turned the camera on, and it was like... beep beep beep you're an idiot. So if you were hoping for sick 'cross vids, it's gonna be another week. Although watching some footage from last year might do in a pinch.
The reason I hadn't raced for a month is because I was frolicking around the western half of the country with Christin. As you might know, the western half of this country is at "elevation" and thus I had actually been "doping" while I was out there. My only hope was that the surplus of red blood cells in my body would make up for the utter lack of intensity training I had been doing while everyone else was getting an erroneous DNF at Quad cross.
#zing
ANYWAY, eventually we had to race bikes, and even though Day 1 wasn't a UCI race all the fast-but-not-pro guys were there and I was scared. We took off up the frustratingly-long-hill to start the race and everything was cool right until we had to turn a tiny bit -- then everyone bunched up on the inside, Donny Green went into the groove in the middle of the course, and then Donny Green exploded. This was not good for Donny or anyone behind him, but since I was next to him... I was totally ok with that. Because there are no friends when you have a number on.
That is all I remember from lap one. I just rode around telling myself not to freak out and go super-anaerobic, which is actually pretty tough on lap one of a cross race. All in all I thought it went pretty well, in that I didn't want to drop out at the end of lap one.
Instead, I latched onto the back of a HEFTY group 'o dudes being lead by one Wayne Bray. Do you remember Wayne Bray? Because I sure talk about him a lot around here. Good news, guys, this year he has even more watts than last year and I got to ride in his group on a course with lots of climbing! It was so fun*!
The hefty group had nine or so guys and there was lots of drafting, so I was pretty sheltered from the LUDICROUS SPEED when we weren't climbing. Of course, on the 50% of the course that was uphill, I was getting punched in the face (along with everyone else in the group, I think) by Wayne's quads. It didn't take long before I realized that I was not going to be able to do this for another [ungodly number on the lap cards] laps.
Luckily there were also a bunch of U23s in DA GROUP and they also were having trouble taking a punch right to their just-out-of-high-school faces. Two Canadian kids (WELCOME TO AMERICA!!) and Jeff Bahnson (PAYBACK FOR WHEN YOU BEAT ME WHEN YOU WERE 15!!) were the first to fall off the back.
Of course since I was riding on the back like an idiot/softie, I got to chase back on when les enfants suddenly quit holding the wheel in front of them. Which I deserved. "Chasing back on" mainly happened on the downhills, since "riding as hard as I can just to not lose ground to Wayne" was happening on the uphills.
Now, if you're chasing on the downhills and chasing on the uphills, where are you resting? NOWHERE. And how does Colin do when he can't rest? BADLY. Eventually Evan Huff came off, taking me with him, and my legs were a-ok with that.
So then I rode around with Evan (who works at BikeReg with me!) and by "with" I mean "behind." I took a dollar prime and told him about it, which was pretty good psychological warfare if I do say so myself. He got angry and attacked me, but no one attacks me successfully on the downhill! So I clung like a barnacle. As usual. Welcome to cross season race reports.
Finally we got the bell and lil' Jesse Keough** and Sweens were actually quite close ahead of Evan and me. I figured after 3 laps of looking at Evan's butt I would make myself useful and take a pull (ON THE CLIMB, EVEN!). As soon as I was in front of Evan, he overlapped wheels with me in the groove and then crashed, because apparently I don't pull hard enough on climbs. This further soured him on riding with me, and he will probably not be getting me free coffee at work anytime soon.
But, but, there was real live KEOUGH in front of me and one should never take the opportunity to race a KEOUGH lightly. Sweens realized that I was coming for Jesse with all the old-man-wattage I could muster and wisely fled the scene.
I caught Jesse on the downhill before the barriers before the finish, and attacked him right after the barriers, because you don't go to the line with a Keough even if you fancy yourself a good sprinter, like I do. Fortunately he didn't respond, because about 5 seconds after my attack (and 30 seconds before the finish line) I was like "wow, this is ENTIRELY UNSUSTAINABLE." So I slowed down and held the gap for 16th overall.
I regret to note that this still put me 7 seconds behind my #1 frenemy Kevin. Which stinks.
But hey, cross is back!
*fun not valid in Alaska or Hawaii
**not actually that little anymore
MTB × Race Report
The 24 Hours of Great Glen is a special race for me, because it's the perfect blend of stupidawesomesilly that gets me excited any time of the year. In the last 8 years, I've raced it 6 times and crewed it once. I have also been on the second place team for two years in a row now. Which is annoying, to say the least.
This year there were terrifying rumors of a super-pro-team showing up and crushing us... but sadly they turned out to be false. The alleged super-pro roster was actually so terrifying that it probably wouldn't have even been a race... but now we'll never know.
ANYWAY. We were the only pro team there, so my standard prerace anxiety was focused on the incredible shame we would feel if THE PRO TEAM got beat by any other team. That's pretty much as #notpro as it gets, right?
I have actually been feeling straight-up terrible since the Beverly Crit, but I was so JACKED UP to race the bikes that I almost convinced Mike to let me do the Le Mans start. Somehow he talked me out of it, and proceeded to crush lap one and give us a 1-minute lead. So far, so good.
I ended up fourth in the rotation, which meant I didn't even get to pedal until 2pm. I had TWO HOURS to work myself up... as if the fact that I took the entire week off anyway wasn't enough. My legs and lungs were unsure about trying hard, but my brain had already blocked them off entirely and was about to WIN ALL THE THINGS.
So I started my lap and almost certainly set the record for "fastest time to the top of the first climb." I was going first-lap-of-a-cross-race fast, without the drafting or coasting that makes first-lap-of-a-cross-race not kill you. About five minutes in, my lungs finally got a word in with my brain: YOU ARE GOING TO KILL US.
The rest of the lap was so, so sad. I had six HOURS total to race and I was pretty much blown six MINUTES into it. I limped around for the rest of the lap and clocked a 37:40, which sounds pretty good -- except that Kevin ('effing KEVIN!) had just posted a 35:22.
Lap two was ridden with significantly less fervor and yet was somehow faster. 37:26. Unfortunately, this was as fast as I was going to go for the whole event. And it was now 5pm, and even though we were already half a lap up I was already counting down the hours until I could stop racing. Which were a lot.
Sometime around 9pm we lapped second place, which confirmed my theory that WE GOT THIS, but did not cause any slowing down. Not when there was fastest-night-lap bragging rights on the line. Kevin ('effing KEVIN!!) led off with a 38:52 and I went out determined to beat him.
Night laps are super awesome because everything feels like warp speed because you can't see. I was DEFINITELY on a 25-minute lap pace, until I hit one of the punchy climbs and decided to stand up and DRILL IT. My trust $5 rear skewer decided to pop out of the dropout yet again (uh, not the first, second or third time this has happened this season) and the wheel jammed firmly into the frame at 15 mph or so as I ground to a halt. What's that smell? Burnt rubber.
In addition to creating a nifty wobble in my rim, I also bent the crap out of my disc rotor in this incident and rode the rest of the lap with it going KUH-SHUCK incessantly.
Needless to say this was not the fastest night lap. Luckily doctuhjay was just wrapping up a 12-hour 2-man adventure and was like, I hate my bike right now so you can definitely take a wheel of it!
Thanks Jay. Promise I didn't kill your wheel.. although not for lack of trying/riding style.
My next lap out started at 12:30 and midway through I came down with a nasty case of NIGHT EUPHORIA. Forgetting how much I wanted to be done for a few moments, I suddenly loved bikes, lights, darkness and fast laps. Things seemed to be going quite well, and I decided about halfway through that this would be my all-in attempt at fastest night lap.
I rode balls-to-the-effin-wall for the rest of the lap and still only managed a 39:46. Kevin, I hate you. And then Mike clocked a 39:33 directly after me, so I didn't even have fastest-post-midnight-night-lap.
Greg, you are my only friend.
It turns out that was the final effort my body had in it. Back at camp I was a wreck. I've never had problems staying up during these things and I was COMATOSE at 2am. Dragged myself back out for a 42-minute bonk lap, came back, ate and ate and ate and then passed out yet again at 5am.
I got up and did a morning lap that felt really quite decent.. only to come back and find out that I had done the slowest lap of my 4-man-team career at Great Glen. My body was DONE.
Luckily at this point we were two laps up on everyone and the rest of the team was solid. Remember how last year I joked about Greg being a zombie? Guess this year was my turn.
At 11:15 it started pouring rain, and we had the race in the bag, but quitting early ain't PRO at all. I rallied for a final lap, giving up 36 on the day at 9 laps apiece and the overall win.
As always, Great Glen was about hanging out with everyone as much as racing. We had an awesome crew to stay with -- Crank the Zank's 5-man team, Ian and Harris's 2-man 12 hour team, and Christin doing support, aka "just keet putting food in front of me."
It should be noted that when she went to sleep at 2am, I immediately forgot to eat as I had become a domesticated animal after 14 hours of having actual support at a 24 hour race.
Meanwhile the Union Velo guys somehow got fifth overall as a pair, which just hurts my brain to think about. I can't even blame it on old man power since one of them was younger than me.
The MRC expert team kept it TIGHT and pulled off second overall, which seemed pretty damn good to me for a bunch of old guys that I never see at mountain bike races. Wait, was that backhanded compliment? I dunno. They were movin'.
Lauren effing Kling murdered the women's field and much of the men's field. Again. She stopped at 6am because she had over double the laps of the second-place woman. I am not jealous of the fact that she rode a bike for 18 hours, but I respect the sheeeeeit out of that accomplishment.
Now that I finally was on the winning team at Great Glen (I can't even begin to pretend that I'm the reason we won), I'm not sure what to do next year. 24 solo? Duo? SKIP IT ENTIRELY?
Just kidding, I like riding fast and in the dark, I'll almost certainly see you there for #7.
This year there were terrifying rumors of a super-pro-team showing up and crushing us... but sadly they turned out to be false. The alleged super-pro roster was actually so terrifying that it probably wouldn't have even been a race... but now we'll never know.
ANYWAY. We were the only pro team there, so my standard prerace anxiety was focused on the incredible shame we would feel if THE PRO TEAM got beat by any other team. That's pretty much as #notpro as it gets, right?
I have actually been feeling straight-up terrible since the Beverly Crit, but I was so JACKED UP to race the bikes that I almost convinced Mike to let me do the Le Mans start. Somehow he talked me out of it, and proceeded to crush lap one and give us a 1-minute lead. So far, so good.
I ended up fourth in the rotation, which meant I didn't even get to pedal until 2pm. I had TWO HOURS to work myself up... as if the fact that I took the entire week off anyway wasn't enough. My legs and lungs were unsure about trying hard, but my brain had already blocked them off entirely and was about to WIN ALL THE THINGS.
So I started my lap and almost certainly set the record for "fastest time to the top of the first climb." I was going first-lap-of-a-cross-race fast, without the drafting or coasting that makes first-lap-of-a-cross-race not kill you. About five minutes in, my lungs finally got a word in with my brain: YOU ARE GOING TO KILL US.
The rest of the lap was so, so sad. I had six HOURS total to race and I was pretty much blown six MINUTES into it. I limped around for the rest of the lap and clocked a 37:40, which sounds pretty good -- except that Kevin ('effing KEVIN!) had just posted a 35:22.
Lap two was ridden with significantly less fervor and yet was somehow faster. 37:26. Unfortunately, this was as fast as I was going to go for the whole event. And it was now 5pm, and even though we were already half a lap up I was already counting down the hours until I could stop racing. Which were a lot.
Sometime around 9pm we lapped second place, which confirmed my theory that WE GOT THIS, but did not cause any slowing down. Not when there was fastest-night-lap bragging rights on the line. Kevin ('effing KEVIN!!) led off with a 38:52 and I went out determined to beat him.
Night laps are super awesome because everything feels like warp speed because you can't see. I was DEFINITELY on a 25-minute lap pace, until I hit one of the punchy climbs and decided to stand up and DRILL IT. My trust $5 rear skewer decided to pop out of the dropout yet again (uh, not the first, second or third time this has happened this season) and the wheel jammed firmly into the frame at 15 mph or so as I ground to a halt. What's that smell? Burnt rubber.
In addition to creating a nifty wobble in my rim, I also bent the crap out of my disc rotor in this incident and rode the rest of the lap with it going KUH-SHUCK incessantly.
Needless to say this was not the fastest night lap. Luckily doctuhjay was just wrapping up a 12-hour 2-man adventure and was like, I hate my bike right now so you can definitely take a wheel of it!
Thanks Jay. Promise I didn't kill your wheel.. although not for lack of trying/riding style.
My next lap out started at 12:30 and midway through I came down with a nasty case of NIGHT EUPHORIA. Forgetting how much I wanted to be done for a few moments, I suddenly loved bikes, lights, darkness and fast laps. Things seemed to be going quite well, and I decided about halfway through that this would be my all-in attempt at fastest night lap.
I rode balls-to-the-effin-wall for the rest of the lap and still only managed a 39:46. Kevin, I hate you. And then Mike clocked a 39:33 directly after me, so I didn't even have fastest-post-midnight-night-lap.
Greg, you are my only friend.
It turns out that was the final effort my body had in it. Back at camp I was a wreck. I've never had problems staying up during these things and I was COMATOSE at 2am. Dragged myself back out for a 42-minute bonk lap, came back, ate and ate and ate and then passed out yet again at 5am.
I got up and did a morning lap that felt really quite decent.. only to come back and find out that I had done the slowest lap of my 4-man-team career at Great Glen. My body was DONE.
Luckily at this point we were two laps up on everyone and the rest of the team was solid. Remember how last year I joked about Greg being a zombie? Guess this year was my turn.
At 11:15 it started pouring rain, and we had the race in the bag, but quitting early ain't PRO at all. I rallied for a final lap, giving up 36 on the day at 9 laps apiece and the overall win.
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| How many eyes are open in this picture? Zero? It should be noted that I was sleeping in the grass next to the tent about 60 seconds before this picture. |
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| It's pretty cool how you can give me a beer and instagr.am a photo and suddenly it looks like I didn't want to die at the end of the race. |
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| I look a lot radder if you pan the camera with me. |
It should be noted that when she went to sleep at 2am, I immediately forgot to eat as I had become a domesticated animal after 14 hours of having actual support at a 24 hour race.
Meanwhile the Union Velo guys somehow got fifth overall as a pair, which just hurts my brain to think about. I can't even blame it on old man power since one of them was younger than me.
The MRC expert team kept it TIGHT and pulled off second overall, which seemed pretty damn good to me for a bunch of old guys that I never see at mountain bike races. Wait, was that backhanded compliment? I dunno. They were movin'.
Lauren effing Kling murdered the women's field and much of the men's field. Again. She stopped at 6am because she had over double the laps of the second-place woman. I am not jealous of the fact that she rode a bike for 18 hours, but I respect the sheeeeeit out of that accomplishment.
Now that I finally was on the winning team at Great Glen (I can't even begin to pretend that I'm the reason we won), I'm not sure what to do next year. 24 solo? Duo? SKIP IT ENTIRELY?
Just kidding, I like riding fast and in the dark, I'll almost certainly see you there for #7.
Race Report
I did this race last year and it was tons of fun and I got third. Thus I was SUPERSTOKED to do it this year.
In related news, last year I was a Cat 4 in the 4/5 race. This year I am a Cat 3 in the 1/2/3 race. This time around was a little...different.
I don't really do anything above threshold until 'cross season (except for intervals... yeah, I'm gonna do some intervals soon, I swear) so my little mountain biker muscle cells were CONFUSED when the race started. SPRINT! TURN! Coast... coast... coastcoastcoast oh god why are we not pedaling? SPRINT! SPRINTSPRINTSPRINT sweet jesus why are we still accelerating??
Repeat that for 60 minutes and you have my view of the race.
I got a SICK clip-in off the start with my new Speedplays, probably because they feel just like MTB pedals, and got right up into 20-25 wheel. Which seemed like a good place to be, except that we went LUDICROUS SPEED from the gun and we were single-file all the way back to 25th or whatever. Or maybe two abreast? Hell if I know, I'm a mountain biker, but the point is that 25th wheel was nowhere near as sheltered as it usually is. So we rode 29mph for 20 minutes and I ate far more wind just staying in my position than I wanted to, and it started to seem very possible that I could not do this for an hour.
So while I am riding 99% to stay on a wheel, the guys at the front are launching attacks because they are GOOD BIKE RIDERS instead of FAST-TWITCHERS WHO CAN FAKE IT like me. Finally an attack stuck and seven guys got up the road, including the big teams. We slowed down to doing 28 mph laps.
And 2/3rds of what was left of the field was so, so happy to be off the rivet for a second that there was no chance of a serious chase being taken up. I personally spent my extra 1mph of rest trying to breathe deeply enough to get the tangled mess that was my stomach to open up again (did I mention I haven't been doing intervals?) and might've even taken my first drink since the race started.
We rode around until about eight to go, and then guys started racing for 8th place and it got fast again. Unfortunately, my goal all along was "just finish," so I responded to this pressure by sliding right to the back of the pack. "Dude, we're gonna finish, that's all you said we had to do" whined my legs (and lungs, and stomach). The danger of low expectations.
That said, I did rally enough to hold the wheel on the final lap, so I picked up a bunch of junk places as other people quit trying hard. Suckers!
Results!
A week late, just like I promised!
Actually there is no race report at all. It was pouring rain, I had no legs, and was on pace for three hours of racing. I recognized that flogging myself and my bike for 3 hours to get last place was not conducive to what I really care about (smashing Great Glen the following weekend), so I dropped out with zero remorse.
Jay Mueller properly epic-ified my experience with this picture, which is really the reason I decided to post anything at all.
Actually there is no race report at all. It was pouring rain, I had no legs, and was on pace for three hours of racing. I recognized that flogging myself and my bike for 3 hours to get last place was not conducive to what I really care about (smashing Great Glen the following weekend), so I dropped out with zero remorse.
Jay Mueller properly epic-ified my experience with this picture, which is really the reason I decided to post anything at all.
"Heyyyyy, that sucked"
