Just the Tip in Ricola Twilight

So I finally got a result! I was inches from getting the 3rd step on the podium but a few things went wrong that resulted in my 4th. Truth is that my 4th place is great for me and all, but it didnt get me any attention and I'm going to need to do better to get any press.

This photo clearly shows me in 3rd.... camera must me wrong :(

Wednesdays race was blisteringly hot, like the kind of hot that when you get sweat in your eyes it feels like you sprayed lemon juice in them. I would ride around to warm up then have to drink a ton of water, but so much that I would immediately have to pee. This is a big problem with crit racing because you want to make sure that you are completely hydrated for the race, but you dont want to drink to close to the time of the event because there will be no chance to pee during the race (like you can in road races) because it is just way to fast.

The race got off to a slow start. There were a bunch of delays for cars being parked on the coarse, but even once we got rolling the race was still pretty tame for a while. Everyone was really limited by the heat. It made me feel like someone just put a bunch of weights on my bike. I could still go really deep, but the results seemed to be a lot less that the perception of the effort.

I spent the race just slowly surfing around the field. Sometimes I would drift to far back and have to make a big effort to get back in a safe position, but for the most part I didn't do much during the race. The team was pretty sure that the race would end in a field sprint, so they felt good about having me sit in, but we made sure to have a couple guys working the race to make sure we didnt miss any thing.

Sadly, we still did miss the break that seemed like it was going to stay away. A couple guys worked to chase it back to a small gap and I tried to jump across to the break of 5 when the gap was brought down to about 5 seconds, but I just wasn't able to make it. Right when I got caught a group of three attacked and they were able to make it to the group.

Now the break had 8 guys in it and that totally changed the dynamic of the group and guys started sitting on in the break away, which quickly lead to the breaks demise. With 3 laps to go Neil and I hooked up in the front of the field and I told him to stick with me through the sprint.

I thought we had great position. I came out of the corner 5-6 wheel and I thought for certain the sprint was to long so that 2 of the guys would get shelled out of the sprint and then all I would have to do is come around 3-4 guys (which I'm confident could have been done) but the guys on the front managed to maintain their speed all the way to about 200 meters to go, so now I was having to sprint from 5-6 position.

I knew that I couldn't win at that point because it was just to much of a gap to close on the lead guys, but I quickly realized that I was quickly catching the 3rd rider. I swear I got the Bissel rider on the line but the camera doesn't lie and where the camera was he had a tired width on me. DAMNIT!

What I took from this race is that A) I'm going good enough to contest these NRC crits and B) that my sprint is way better than I think and I should hit out way earlier.

My previous theory on sprinting was to constantly accelerate through the finish line, but since then Ive been corrected and I guess the correct way to sprint is to go early enough that you are on the cusp of starting to slow down right when you pass the line. I will use this new information to recalculate my sprint for Somerville. Should be helpful seeing as the sprint is like 500 meters long.

Here is a link to a write up about the race. There is a pretty cool video of the sprint. http://baskingridge.patch.com/articles/video-world-class-riders-speed-through-basking-ridge-in-base-camp-international-race#c

Road Rash Sucks

Most people who haven't personally experienced crashing on a bicycle are still able to imagine how potentially painful crashing can be, but if you can't, imagine what it would be like to jump out your car window naked. That is exactly what crashing on a bicycle feels like, trust me, I have done both.

One of the 5 crashes I endured at Downers Grove last season

Surprisingly, in most cases the initial injures are not that painful. The real pain does not set in until several days after when the road rash starts to heal.

I'm writing this post to bring gravity to the magnitude of pain one faces when recovering from road rash. There is nothing sweet about the "raspberries" that liter the skin of cyclists after a crash. I always manage to get road rash right on places that bare weight when walking, sleeping, wearing cloths, and or everything. These puss spewing injuries hurt like a bastard all that time.

Clearly this post is motivated by the good sized scrape that I acquired at Wilmington. That sucker has forced me to sleep on my left side all night because every time I move I am woken up by the shooting pain that fills my body.

Picture of my puss filled hip

My crash was actually not bad at all, it could have been a million times worse. I just wanted to make a point to anyone who hasn't crashed on a bike. Even though the rider usually gets back up and continues racing after they crash, they are going to be dealing with an ever increasingly painful injury that will last for weeks to come.

On that note, its time to go get dressed for Ricola Twilight... dont worry, I've been knocking on wood since I started this post. I'll be good.

Getting Back to the Game

Man, it has been such a long time since I have last written a post. I want to apologize to the loyal select few who have chosen to read read my blog over the past few months, I've been kinda lazy. Well, there is more to it than just being lazy.

Speed week was a total wash for me personally, and even though I do not speak as a representative for the team, I am pretty sure that as a team we did not live up to every ones expectations. Last season Speed week was my first team race, and our team absolutely crushed the competition, it was really hard for me to deal with having such high expectations for myself and then going to the race and not performing. Clearly there were unforeseen obstacles that limited my performance, but that aside, people only care about results.

I choose to wait a while to write a post about speed week because I am determined to keep my blog from becoming an arena for me to make excuses for under performance, and all I had until now were excuses.

Every race at speedweek had a video summery made that can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/USACrits2010 . Id say that they are a little biased against us as I dont think we were ever mentioned in any of the videos, but that is kind of a representation of how the week went. I am preferential to the Athens Video as it does give some mention to the epic chase that our team put on after missing the winning move....

In the end I came out of speedweek with 2nd in the U25 classification, 7th in the Sandy Springs Crit, and 11th overall in the Series. All of these results were far from what I had expected, but there is not enough time to dwell on my shortcoming. I needed pick myself back up and get ready for the next showdown.

After speedweek I had 3 weeks of solid training before my next race in Wilmington Delaware. This was one of the most lonely 20 days of training I have ever done because all but 2 of the rides I did were solo. I did 725 miles by myself in the past 3 weeks, and it totally sucked! I am pretty sure that I now hate the new White Panda - Versus Mixtape, because I listened to it about a hundred times. Dont get me wrong, the tape is awesome and you should download it now (link included!) I'm just sick of it

BJ Basham from Peaks Cycling Group is my coach and he has really put the hammer down on me to work on my 1 to 5 minute power since the California trip, and the extended training block that I just went through really gave him the opportunity to beat me up with intervals without much rest.

Forgive me if this sounds stupid, but training actually works. When you have a coach who can identify your weaknesses and can keep you working on them, you get better. I haven't had that direction before and especially now that I have a power meter it is awesome to be able to see how quickly my body can adapt to handle the types of training I am doing. Makes me feel very confident that with BJ's direction, I can get really really fast.

The one thing that know one seems to be able to help me with is how to win a big race. I feel like I am strong enough now to contest these big races, but for some reason shit always goes wrong.

Wilmington Grand Prix NRC Crit was two days ago and I had more crap happen to me that ruined my chance of contesting the finish. For the first time this season our team races well. I say "well" because for the first time we races like how we did last season, and last season we killed it every day. As we team we stopped waiting for other teams to dictate the race and we went for it from the first lap and initiated almost every breakaway on the day. Sadly, in the races most decisiveness moments it started to rain. Our team had three guys in the top 5 who all ate shit on the down hill because the pavement turned to glass the instant it got wet. I was won of them. Right before I crashed I was preparing to attack because I knew that the rain would cause the field to hesitate some, and the field was already exhausted from the previous hour of hard racing. Anyways, I ate shit along with two other teammates and almost immediately after 2 riders attacked and got away and stayed away until the finish. After getting back into the race I already had lost the race.

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Cycling news captured a photos of my teammate Will Hoffarth falling in the same stretch that so many of us had fallen the previous lap.

I not bitching/making excuses for not performing because I clearly didnt adjust my riding style quick enough to avoid crashing once the pavement got wet. Tons of guys didnt crash... so they were all doing something right. However, I am still really really bummed that my results dont represent the race that I raced. I need to finish the job and get it done.

Luckily I have a ton of races in the next few weeks and if I have the legs now, Ill likely still be fast in these upcoming races. Wednesday we are racing in Basking Ridge NJ, and on Memorial day we are racing in Somerville NJ. Then we are driving back to Winston-Salem for the night and Will Neil and myself are leaving for our All-Star trip to Tulsa Oklahoma for 3 days of Crit racing, competing for a prize purse of over a hundred thousand dollars! Great timing to be coming into some fitness.