trekking_TW

Race: Sea Otter Amateur RR (my first race)
Cat: Masters men 30+ Cat5

My plan was to stay near the front on climbs then hold onto someone's wheel on the descents... I'm not quite in race condition and not a very good climber. When we reached the wall to start the first lap I was in the front 1/4 and slowly drifted back and held on near the back 1/4 of the pack as we came into the rolling hills in Fort Ord. Here the pack was starting to accelerate so a quick shift into the big ring and..... well, my front derailluer wouldn't shift so I shifted the rear and tried to hold onto the pack. Needless to say, a 39/12 combination on gradual descents just wasn't enough. My legs could only handle so much at a cadence of 128! There were 4 other riders who helped form a pace-line with me that lasted until the wall to start lap 2. I managed to pass a couple other riders up the hill but was eventually caught on the backside of the course. I did manage to shift into my big chain-ring two times, which felt like a turbo-booster kicked on, but once I started the climb I had to shift down into the 39 ring and remain there the rest of the race.

Laps two and three were half solo and half mixed in with another age group, probably Masters 40+ 5's. The last lap was all solo until that final 2.5 mile climb that was much more difficult than expected. I managed to pass 3 riders up this climb to the finish, only because I couldn't go much slower without coming to a stop.

Overall, I enjoyed the Sea Otter Classic with all of it's vendors and demo's. This was my first time to the Sea Otter Classic and all of the mountain bike events started to rekindle my enjoyment of my MTB days. I probably picked a difficult race to be my first RR but I was ready for the challenge. The race was disappointing to me because of the mechanical problem, but ended up being a fun course despite the problems. I wish I could estimate how much time I lost because of the mechanical, but I guess I'll find out when I do this race next year!

OC Roadie

Trekking TW,
Congrats on your first road race, sorry to hear about the mechanical.
Vinokurtov, what a bummer, I hope you heal up soon. During the road race, I was thinking to myself, that "this would be a terrible surface to go down on, kind of like a cheese grader". I stuck one of the potholes pretty good, and it rotated my bars a good cm+ forward.

So here's a quick rundown of my races.

Friday: Ciruit Race Mens Cat 4/30+
Our race started at 2:00pm. At about 1:15pm, I ditched my family and hit the trainer for about 30 minutes and then headed for the start line. For some reason I was extra nervous about this race, I was surprised to see that we had a pretty small field, only about 40 guys. The course starts off with climb that begins with a section of about 6%, stairsteps up and hits a short section of ~10% before descending the "corkscrew". The corkscrew itself wasn't as technical as I had imagined, but the left hand turn afterwards was sketchy if you didn't have a good line. Next is a short, big ring climb that had a pretty good headwind blowing at it. This sections is followed by a downhil 180 degree turn that puts you in the tailwind. This where on the first lap, I made my way to the front. Three guys had gone off the front and I decided to bridge and go with it, we made it partway up the climb of the second lap, and it was over , I had blown up and gone off the back . I know it was stupid to go with a break so early in the race, but you never know what's going to stick, and you don't really have much time for rational thinking. I rode most of the rest of the race solo, fighting the wind. My highlights were watching my 4 year old son cheering me on with the most ridiculous moves I've ever seen. Somewhere towards the end of our race someone went down on the corkscrew, it didn't look good, as an ambulance was clearing the wreckage. I ended up with somewhere around 32nd place. It started to rain as we left the track, too bad for the next races. It was really cool to ride on Laguna Seca, the pavement was perfect and all of the turns are banked nicely.

Saturday: Road Race Mens Cat 4/30+
On Saturday our race started at noon, I was much more relaxed, as I had gotten rid of the jitters the day before. The weather was perfect, sunny and in the 60's, without a much wind. I caught the end of the Women's Pro/Elite Circuit Race and was excited to see my local girl, Dotsie Bausch take 3rd, whilte her sprinter, Tina Pic took the win. After the women's race finished, the Cat 4's were called to the line, we had larger field than the day before, but I was still surprised that it wasn't larger, I'm guessing we had around 50. The first few miles were neutral, the racing started towards the bottom of Barloy Canyon Rd. The course was great, with the exception of a stretch of potholes on the backside. Our group was to do 5 of the 10 mile laps and then do the climb back up Barloy Canyon Rd to a hilltop finish. The course includes one "wall", which is pretty close to the start of each lap. The first time up the wall we shed about 7 or guys from the back, it was obvious that this was where the selections would occur. The rest of the course is pretty much rolling, not much flat, but nothing too steep either. For the first 3 laps, I just sat in the middle of the pack, a couple of times I drifted back, but didn't have any problems getting back in. The pack would shrink a little bit each time we hit the wall, it would keep going hard until the feed zone, and then seemed to let up to a moderate pace until we'd hit wall again. Towards the end of our 4th lap I started to realize that I may be in trouble, I was starting to feel the efforts of the day and knew that I was going to have trouble going up the wall for the last time. As we started the last lap, our lead group of ~30 split into two as we climbed, I fell off the back of the second group with a couple of others. I watched helplessly as the lead group rode away, by the time I was approaching the Fort, they probably had ~2 minutes on me. I was stuck solo for a couple of miles and then found someone to work with. We traded pulls for about 10 minutes, and I had to sit up for a bit, I was worked. On the climb to the finish, I managed to catch a couple of guys from my group and finsihed 34th. Looking back, I wish I would've dug deeper to stay connected on the last lap. Of course, it's easy to think that now I had a great time on a great/challenging course.

Overall, I had a great time at Sea Otter, and hope to be back next year, stronger and smarter

SteveE

OC Roadie -

Who was the animal that finished nearly 11 minutes ahead of everyone else? Or was it some schnook that skipped a lap?

SteveE

SteveE

Masters 55+ Amateur Circuit Race

I signed up for this because I thought it'd be blast riding on the Laguna Seca track and descending the Corkscrew. When we got there the weather was great – lots of sunshine, temperatures in the mid-60's, and not much wind. As start time approached, the clouds started to move in, the temperatures started to drop (At least it felt like it.), and just before we went off it started to rain. My plan was too hang on as long as I could and try to use this as training for the Wente RR coming up in a couple of weeks.

I was hoping that the race would start with a civilized pace and I was hopeful as I tucked in behind one of my teammates. Those hopes were soon dashed - as a pack of riders picked up the pace as we began to enter the first turn going into the up-hill stretch. So much for getting the 1st lap as a warm-up! I stayed in pretty good position going up the climb, managing to stay with the lead group, and plunged down the other side into the Corkscrew. At the bottom, I was about 4th. There's a straightaway leading into a sharp left-hand turn. Because of the rain this turn was very slick and the lead rider started to slide sideways instead of making the turn. He managed to stay upright but I think he went off the course. The next stretch in front of the grandstands was into the wind and I let myself get gapped slightly from the lead group. A couple of us tried to latch back on but we were too far back and as we went up the climb I counted at least 18 riders in front of me.

The descent on the Corkscrew didn't feel dangerous at all and I was able to take a good line down the hill and catch a couple of riders. They were taking the corners wide around the outside, while I was able to maintain my speed by taking an inside line through the corners. Each time I got to the left-hander, I slowed down and made sure that I didn't slide out.

Since I felt confident on the rest of the course, I figured I would enjoy the descent as many times as I could in my 50 minutes. I had one nervous moment when I was trying to chase down a couple of riders in front of me. I had my head down trying to be as aero as possible when I noticed the white line at the edge of the track and realized that there was no pavement beyond it! I didn't have much choice but to ride off the track and hope the dirt wasn't too soft. Thankfully, it was solid and I managed to ride back onto the track without further excitement.

For the remainder of the race several of us rode together. On the last lap I suggested to the guy I was riding with that we should to take it easy up the hill and just go and sprint for the line. Leading up to the finish line he took the lead, with me glued to his wheel, and tried several times to shake me by getting me into the wind but I stuck to his wheel. A couple of hundred meters from the finish, I shifted a couple of gears higher and punched it to the line. I figured I had a good training ride and finished no better than around 20th.

It was only later that I found out several riders had crashed on the slick pavement, others pulled out thinking it was too dangerous, and some stopped one lap early due to confusion between the motorcycle ref and the announcers, and that I managed to snag 9th place.

Mark Caldwell of Team Spine won in a 3-up sprint, 4:48 ahead of me in a 50-minute race!

Vinokurtov

Same guy that beat PizzaMan in the circuit race...man I hope he just turned 30

SteveE

Sorry, pal, but you're outta' luck. According to USA Cycling, Matt Benko's racing age is 39.

Vinokurtov

Dang it. At least I've got a grace period before he hits the 45's.

Pizza Man

Yes, it's guite amazing that he broke away from the pack with about 300 meters to go and passed me with 100 meters to go and ended up beating me by nearly 11 minutes
I know I was going slow that last 100, but I was really surprised that it took me and everyone right behind me that long.

But you know it has to be right because the Sea Otter results were flawless.

Vinokurtov

There's an AV guy who was getting congratulatory calls and Emails after the race. He thought folks were ribbing him because he got dropped early and often and finished at the back of the race. Turns out they had him as second.

11 minutes in 100 meters? That's what I call a sprint.

OTB

Matt is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And obviously a talented bike racer. If you're ever in Santa Barbara, you should visit one of his two restaurants (Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch) and you can have a delicious lunch/dinner under an authentic, Lance-signed yellow jersey!

djbowen1

Can anyone race in the cat4 or 5 at Sea Otter?

2Rodies

Yep the amature race is open....you can count me in for next year!!!!

Pizza Man

I agree, we talked for a while after the RR as we were waiting for the awards.
As nice as he is, he was the last person I wanted to see when I thought I had the race won and looked back with about 150M to go. He had caught me in the final 200M of the circuit race the day before. He closed a 20M gap I had on him so fast it made my head spin. I'm glad that he'll be 40 next year so I'll have a chance in the 30+.

Wilchemy

And in the Pro race it was Aussies 1, 2 and 3!! Good work fellas!

SteveE

No. If you're a 5, you can't race as a 4. If you're a 4, you can't race 5's. And if you're Pro, 1, 2, or 3, 'ya can't race the aforementioned categories either.

SteveE

Yeah, he's a good friend of mine. I felt bad for him.

Vinokurtov

I think the only thing worse would have been to finish 2nd and get credited for 62nd.

Really, getting shelled off that field wasn't any disgrace, it was damn fast.

Vinokurtov

I'm not

Pizza, you racing Nevada City? After Wente that will be a nice slow pace in the Masters 1/2/3. I'm sure your coach will cut you some slack during the race

Pizza Man

I'd like to race Nevada City. That's not until mid June, right?
I can't find a course description, but I've heard that it has a pretty good hill.
Do you know if the hill is bigger than the one in the Cat's Hill Crit?

Vinokurtov

Here's the course and website with map:

https://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=116890

(elevation is down)

https://www.ncclassic.com/maps.html

I understand it's damn steep (20+%), 300 feet per lap at 1.1 miles per lap. Probably comparable to Cat's Hill. There's also a fast technical downhill bit.

Pizza Man

Looks like my kind of race!
I have a 25% hill a few blocks from home that I like to do repeats on.

Vinokurtov

It shows. I'm just a bit big to be snappy on the really steep stuff. Anything below 11-12 I do OK.

Just checked weather for Clobberopolis. 37-52 degrees with a chance of rain AND snow.

Can barely wait to put on some tights.