Sunday, April 29, 2007

Deer Trail RR

The course today featured some long flat roads potential for huge cross winds. The winds never really came. But.. a bike race being a bike race it was still hard. The early break went away pretty fast and I tried to bridge, I left it a bit to late and found my self in the middle nowhere… in the race and… in general. Dear Trail is a tiny town. They don’t get much smaller. Any who, I sat up and waited to for the pack after 5 minutes of killing myself. We did the attack each other stop. Then one or two teams would work for a bit. Stop, attack. Repeat. After the first section of the course we barreled back through town and out onto the second sector with was much hillier. I was feeling good as the as we hit the first long drag hard, the pack slowed I kept the pace going shooting of the front. Again I had a nice gap but the little wind that was kicking up made for hard work and the pack was chasseing again. I slotted in and the big boys started to fire. After a few more miles things were getting pretty strung out. I marked the strong guys and then came around a gap and up to a nice move started by Jon Tarkington. The Vitamin Cottage rider has a reputation for being very crafty and yeah, strong too. We were away. 3 of us. And soon 5. This is it I thought. We made another u-turn to begin that last hilly out and back. As we picked up the early break I accelerated over a steep little rise trying to drop the early breakers and take the strong guys to the line. But no one wanted any of that. Now I had 3 V. C. team mates to deal with a 4 or 5 others sitting on. It wasn’t long before the vitamin guys were putting on the pressure and after a few attacks I rolled through the front and Jon was gone. I couldn’t cover and he was away. With the early guys sitting on or hanging on rather after there 70 miles of hard work. With the other vitamin guys sitting on things were getting tricky. I road, hard. 2 or 3 others were taking pulls as well. With Jon dangling out front we were attacked again by the rested legs of his teammate. He made the junction quickly and now we were all looking stupid, or just out manned and out smarted? I can’t figure out which. We barreled into the line and my legs had nothing as the sprint opened up I could barley hold the wheel and ended up 6th.
A solid effort and I was pleased with my result despite the tactics being agents me. Lessons were learned and the last bit of fine tuning for the Gila complete. Next week will be interesting. Stay tuned.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Haystack Time Trial

The TT on this day was a fast course but still a heavy one. A few rolling hills around the half way point and a long barely uphill 3 mill drag to the finish line proved to make this a deceivingly hard course. I road the course a few times the other day once steady and easy and the other with some 5’ intervals. I figured even if the conditions were real good, no wind. It would be hard for me to go faster than 26 MPH average.
Come race day I was excited to test myself. This week I had started to cut back my over all training time and no more tempo, threshold, “hard work” kinda training. It is full gas or recovery ride from here to Gila. After getting the lady out the door for a ride and talking to a client I was now running late. Actually really late. No car drive out there I was going to have to ride. So a hasty warm up/ need to get there fast 40 minute ride. I signed in, pined the number through on the borrowed Zipps and rolled over to the start. An official looked up at me” Eric?” yes sir. I said almost before he finished getting out my name. “1 minute”
Ohh I thought. “No more warm up” I said. “Ahh warm up is over rated” said official number 2.
I pulled off the arm warmers and put my front wheel on the line clipped in and tock a deep breath. “Ok”, I thought, “not much wind maybe a little from the south which will make the last half of the course long, slow and tough. Don’t go out to hard there is that little climb 1 mile in take it easy, especially since my warm had basically one 30 second hard effort. My wheels are on right… right. I looked down at my skewers. “GO!” the official yelled.
I got into my rhythm fast and calmed my self down. First turn and I really cooked it. There was a teammate there helping out with the race and had the cheering going when I was 200m away. I really slammed that corner. Love my Bianchi. Accelerating a bit to hard maybe I was now on the really fast section of the course I worked up to my 53-12 and eased back a bit. It was my biggest gear and you really needed the 11 at least. That is when mister Baker, cyclocross wizard and climbing God ripped by me. At only 30 seconds back I figured he would pass me but not this soon. Its ok I said to my self. Stick to the plan. I turned south got into a nice rhythm, but I could feel my lack of warm up and more so the lack of stretching as my hamstrings started to remind me that I don’t stretch enough as it is. I hit the long roller that marked about half way and I started to push into the red zone. Looking at my speed I was doing pretty well. Baker was far up the road now bit I tried to focus on my race. Another right hand turn and I had 3 miles to go. I pushed into the wind and heavy road. The speed came down but the pain went sky high. I’m not sure on exact wind conditions but I was holding the same speed I did 2 days earlier on the same piece of road. But this effort was much longer. Ok so Baker passed me but he I going pretty good here, I could tell. I pushed more, a hard right then a quick left. Sharp 90 degree turns, I never got out of my aero bars. LOVE THAT BIKE! Out of the saddle now trying to accelerate, Or just trying. My legs started to feel like led, I pushed more. My clock said 28:something. The vision blurred. “holly crap!” I thought. I figured there would be now way I could break 30’ I hammered up the short incline to the finish. 30:50 I was right, but still a solid effort. I looked back and saw a 5280 rider not far behind. Damb! I know they’re a pro team but there juniors too! In the end Baker won. And beat me by around 2:30. pretty serious time gap and the young lad behind me who is that guy I asked the winner afterwards. Ohh that’s “little Phinney, he’s got good jeans.” Jeans? I thought, what the fu*% are you… just then I saw him talking to Davis Phinney. His dad. “ohhhh, yeah good Genes…
I came in mid pack, still trying to figure out who the others are that beat me and what category they are so I can see where I stand. All in all a good effort and afterwards I felt great! Better than before. Then I did the Team TT with mister Baker and 2 of his teammates. I won’t get into the specifics but it was very, very painful. We held of the all pro team the best we could. They beat us by about 30-40 sec. a good effort I thought by us mere mortal non pros.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Fallcon cycling Road Race

Co, springs is a beautiful place it real is. The air force base is propped up on a hill just below the fount range. Pic on my main page.
The race course today featured the 1987 worlds road race course, kinda cool. It was a 12 mile loop which was basically one long climb with a tail wind. It platued out and rolled hard 3-4 times before a fast down hill right into the short, big ring finishing climb. then down more with a heavy cross wind, right hand turn into a 20 mph head wind, for a few miles and back to the long climb.
The field was still pretty stacked despite yesterday fun. The first lap was steady and the climb, I think, tock allot of people by surprise. Even though we had a tail wing the climb dragged on and got steeper towards the top. Through in a little cross wind at the top with some hard small ring rollers and you got a tough climb. the attacks started on the second lap and the climb was all out. 1/3 of the field was dropped if not more lap 3 (out of 5) a slipstream guy and a Einstein’s rider moved away. I look at Stefano (from Toyota United) and shock my head in unison with his. There were 2 slip stream guys in the field still and 6 or so riders form the Einstein’s team. not a good situation for any one else. I tried to slip away on the head wind section once or twice but it was no good. with the bagel boys chasseing everything down I had to the climbing power of the young guy from Toyota United. For the next 2 laps Stefano showed the field why he is a pro. That boy can climb! he shattered the field the first time, I got back on. The next time he tock a few riders with him clear. And the field was blown apart. I was now in the 3rd group? I think? The break which was then caught and dropped. Stefano’s group, another group with some strong men from Einstein’s and my group. 1 and a half laps to go we rolled pretty well. At this point I was really feeling the effort. I hung tough the last time up the climb but right as I was going to put in an big effort over the top I dropped my chain! Douuuh! My big effort was chasseing back to my group of 7 or so. Caught them all but 3 which contained Chuck Coyle. Rider from Successful Living and 12 hour old winner of the 07 Boulder Roubaix.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Boulder Roubaix

Leave it up to me to make an incredibly hard race as hard as possible. 75 miles or so. 8 point something mile loops. With 2-3 miles or so of easy pavement. The rest… dirt roads, short sharp climbs, downhill 90 degree turns, false flats and as always… the pro’s.
After a few laps of racing things got gripy. I was closing gaps and after 3-5 minutes of all out riding it settled down a bit but 1/3 of the field was dropped. As we approached the same spot 1 lap later I knew “it” was going to happen now, “the” break of the day going to go. sure enough I started to dig in riding the 25-30 mph pace on the bumpy, packed dirt road. Then, a gap that was getting hard to close down. My self and Allen Krugoff crushed it but found our self’s in no-mans land fast and loosing ground to the leaders. My teammate Max had been in an early break and was hanging on but must have been really suffering now.
After a few minutes of chase our “main group settled down and then really slowed down. I accelerated a few times only to be chased. Finally they let me go. and I was off. With 30+ miles to go I wasn’t sure what I was doing but I knew I didn’t want to ride with a group that had given up. 10-12 miles alone was starting wear on me but I was fueling well and had already gotten a few from Lindsay. The best feed girl in the biz!! Then a saw the chasers I had a big gap now on the pack but being alone of this course it could get closed by an angry pack fast. It was only 3 riders. When they caught me the change of pace hurt but they let me sit on for 2 minutes until we reached the pavement. There I started pulling through and we made time on our chasers if there were any.
Towards the finish I was basically just putting on a show. A show of how to pedal with out actually pushing on the pedals! I was done. Allen accelerated on the final climb with 1 km to go almost making it but no go. Allen tock one other rider from out group to the line while myself and the other road a slow but all out effort to the line.
In the end 14th place was mine. I was pleased with the number of pro’s and not making “the move” I felt that it was a good effort. Now I had to get ready for the hills of CO springs tomorrow…

Monday, April 02, 2007

Koppenburg RR

I have to say that the racing in the Boulder area is hard core! Pro riders aside. The first 3 RR of the yr have lots of dirt roads. And the wind is enough make a Belgian pay attention.
OK the Koppenburg RR. A short 45 miles or so but serious pain was laid down by the 15 or so pros that showed up. I got to the line late and was in back. The guy in front of me stumbled on his clip in and bamb. The field is single file on the dirt in a 20 MPH cross, head wind. The first 5+ miles was like that. Up the climb the first time was rough. I was caught back and then chasing. Back on the field slowed briefly, a minute, then back to the dirt for round two. The cross wind at the top of the climb was fierce. Single file in the dirt, back wheel fish tailing in the soft stuff at the side of the road. This time I was back again, we were dropped and chased back on. It tock a bit longer this time. See a patterned forming…
Lap 3 was the same.
4th time around, I think, was a bit slower and I recovered all right. Better than I thought I would for being in and out of sickness this week. That time up the climb was the best I had felt. Ohh yeah the climb is only 200 meters long but dirt, rutted and 17%. I was middle of the pack. Over the top and again single file. In the gutter and this time the pace was wicked! It didn’t let up, I started to crack and drift back. One guy came by then nothing. “that’s it I thought!” what the?!? I turned around almost pissed off. Everyone else was gone. I settled into a nice rhythm, well maybe nice isn’t the word, but you know what I mean. I actually felt Ok I was just so out of position and couldn’t get into position and I paid, dearly. I kept riding and after 5 miles or so 5 riders came up behind me. In it were 2 cat 1’s who are rather crafty and strong. Ok I thought just keep riding. I saw more and more riders riding home, and at the side of the road? Ok maybe I’m not doing that bad? Then we caught the main group. “wow” this is interesting” I thought. We went real slow but the climb was coming. move to the front I thought. Bamb! Crash. Moniger and a Kodak gallery guy went down. I did the tripod hop as gracefully as possible as I ran into the guy in front of me. Still up right I clipped in and… nothing left, just nothing in the legs. 25 miles of all out riding on dirt roads with more wind that Florida in hurricane season was to much. I came of the back fast. Upon finding the top of the climb I found a new set of riders to share the wind with and this time the 3 groups in front of us did seem to add up to much. So I road. Just trading pulls. We were going pretty slow but I couldn’t go any faster alone. Last lap, I was thinking I would get dropped on the hill but didn’t at the top me and Joe T. from Vitamin cottage and I were left from our group. We rode steady and strong to the finish and hit the line in 30 and 31st place. We didn’t really sprint but rather just tried to look strong for the crowd. I slipped in behind him figuring I wouldn’t challenge him after the push he gave me when my front derailleur acted up. And I probably couldn’t have taken him any way.
So… there you go. I have been a bit sick this week, yes. Just some congestion and soar throat so I was unsure how I would go. I felt better than I thought I would but tactically, my positioning was the worst it has ever been in a race. so… ride and learn, ride and learn.