How was your race today?
 

After a week of rain, it was great to get a break today. The weather was perfect for the Ward's Ferry road race in the Sierra Foothills. I was in the combined 4/5 race. I met Vinokurtov at the start, and was waiting for his "attack! attack!":)
The course was 4 rolling loops totalling 45 miles. There were no big climbs, just lots of little grinders. On the second lap, a few of my teammates took the lead a few times to try to pick up the pace a bit. I couldn't tell if we were thinning the pack at all. On the 3rd lap I took the lead on a twisty downhill section and Vinokurtov and I tried to break away, but I guess that was a bad idea, because as soon as we hit the next incline the whole pack was back together. The rolling hills were taking their toll on me as well as everyone else and we were down to 9 on the final lap. I tried to break free on just about every little climb, but the climbs were just too short for me, and the 9 of us were together with 1K of up, down, up to go. It was going to come down to a sprint :(
I went up the penultimate short climb on the wheel of the leader, and as we started the final descent I was sitting in 3rd in our small pack, at the bottom of the hill was the deceptively long 200M cimb to the finish, and I started my sprint a bit too early. I passed guys, then guys passed me as I ran out of gas in the last 50M and came across in 3rd. Vinokurtov was having a hard time on the final climbs (sorry :o ) and I think he ended up 9th.

Only 6 days 'till my next race, and I get to do 2 next weekend!

How about the rest of you?
Any race reports from this weekend?

CAT 4/5, 25 lap crit on a 1k loop in Eugene OR. Up to 16 mph winds, partly cloudy, no rain. This is my second race. It'll be a while yet before I can finish with the pack. I'm pretty slow. But I'll get there. And I wasn't last this time!

That's the gist of it. Full story here.

I decided to do a circuit (1.7 miles: 1st half all down hill; 2nd half all up hill; not too steep) race in preparation for a race this coming Fri. No 55+ and no 45+ either, so I rode with the 35+ 4's. I felt pretty good throughout the race. Since I didn't have any teammates and everyone else were all a bunch of yougsters, I didn't feel like I should do any work.

The pace was moderate for the most part. Things picked up on the last lap and I was too far back in the pack to be in the mix at the finish. Ended up 27th out of ~70 starters. I think I was the first 55+ guy across the line. I was probably the last 55+ guy over the line, too, come to think of it!

One of your teammates was in the race too, Pizzaman. I think he ended up in 5th place.

SteveE

52km race through the hills yesterday. Attacked straight away, broke the bunch up and then broke away with a couple of climbers (I'm more of a sprinter)
Stayed with them 'till the last 2km. Dropped one with 1km to go and rode the other off my wheel in the last 200m.

Track Omnium at ADT in Los Angeles.

The Polish national team showed up-- they're training with Eddie B. down in San Diego and come up to ADT to train. They're racing at Worlds in Bordeaux in a couple weeks, and had the biggest team there anyway, so they spanked us all pretty hard, but it's still pretty fun to race with those guys.

Hey Bigsky....I was at that crit too in the 4/5 field. Nice ride report. That was a steep headwind. Keep working on your intervals and it'll get better.

9th it was. Would have had a nice view of the finish if I hadn't gone cross-eyed.

That final lap was like a poker game where everyone had four of a kind, nobody's going to bow out. See you and raise you, see you and raise you. The accellerations got harder, the pace kept kicking up, and it felt like a group of 4/5's on their way to 1/2/3 in a short time (which it pretty much was).

The last 1km had two nasty little kickers, first was around 12-14% at the top, second was the 200m to the finish at 10% or so. Pizza Man pulled the elastic so tight on that first pitch I swear my chamois was doubling as a helmet cover. There's something just plain wrong having to work your way down the cassette to keep pace on a hill like that.

I was on a wheel at the bottom of the finish hill when I found the BBQ I was smelling was, in fact, my legs. We were minutes ahead of everybody else, so I soft pedalled the last 100m across the line.

BTW, kudo's to Pizza's team that rode like...a team.

WINDY. It never got going too fast because of the killer wind. A relatively low average speed of 26mph.

Thant's the problem with these 4/5 races...no team tactics. ;)

Hey nice ride you guys, so which one of you are going to win the Sea Slaughter?

I'm racing, but I honestly don't see myself winning. If I got a top 10 I'd be very happy.

cr@p. :mad:

HEY, I wouldn't say "minutes behind" Vinokurov -- maybe 40 seconds or so. ;)

I fell off the back on the big climb and had the main group in eyesight for last half of lap 4. Still, nothing doing with my legs. Looking forward to Sea Otter.

Great race all.

#10

Had a great race. 22 laps (1 mile course) in the Criterium de Bethel CT. 15 of us off the front from about the 6th lap. I almost got dropped in the last lap and finished with 10 guys in front of me, but had a lot of fun.

My bad...remember the part about being cross-eyed? Hard to see with all the smoke from my legs ;)

Good luck at See Slaughter. I have a feeling that it's going to be hard and fast. What race/class are you riding?

Hey Vino -

No trouble -- just ribbing you. You guys rode great. I knew I smelled bbq at the end...

As a proud member of Team Pizzaman, I'll be doing my best to help him out in the 30+ 4's at Sea Slaughter.

Protect! Protect!

Pretty good one yesterday, did the last race in the Johnny Cake Lane Series. Was a 6 lap race, mostly flat with an easy 100-150ft hill each lap, about 42 miles. I'm getting tons better at moving around in the pack and am starting to feel comfortable refueling, and was hanging fine with the peloton until it started pouring and I let myself drop back and pulled out at the end of the 4th lap. I don't have good luck riding in the rain as those of you who read my race reports last year know, so I figured I'd play it safe and not kill myself this early in the year. :p Race #1 I came in around 30th in a mixed 4-5 field, so at the least top 15 out of the 5's, and Race #2 I pulled out one lap in due to having to rest my legs all week due to tendonitis.

Next race is the Battenkill Roubaix in 2 weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it!

Two words: Crash Five. I can't hit 10 races soon enough...

I didn't go down...but lots of other folks did. I nearly went down on the RR a couple times due to some sketchy riding in a very tight peloton.

6th out of a 50 man field in Saturday's Crit. I made the mistake of making a solo break agaisnt a team heavy field a little too early on in the race, and ended up too gassed to hold onto my position on the uphill sprint. Three crashes that I saw/heard on the Crit, guys flying into the bushes, guys summersaulting over medians...bad stuff. Decent pace at 23.5 avg, but a little slow for the 12 mile distance.

Pack finish on the Sunday RR - in the final sprint some considerate individual managed to stick their front wheel into my rear wheel, snapping off a spoke. I just kinda rolled it in with the pack after that near stack-up. 23 average, 39 mile course, lots of rolling hills, nothing that broke up the pack for long. There was one very heavy team again, that managed to control the race pretty well, and bring back in the breaks.

14th Overall Omni, and I didn't participate in the sprints on Friday night.

Pic from Saturday's Crit, I got lucky, this is the only pic posted on the Race's (Rock Hill Bicycle Club) of the 5Crit (I'm in the Red, White and Blue kit):
http://i2.tinypic.com/swfszp.jpg