OKC Velo TT series #1 & NW Arkansas Road Race

The week leading up to this weekend was productive in some ways and not so productive in others. I had been scrounging up parts and pieces to build up the TT frankenbike, but there were a few crucial components that were missing. Also some of the parts I originally planned to use became unavailable so I had to find substitutes. Bottom line, I wasted a lot of riding time getting the bike together.

Training wise the week started out great. I had some good hard training rides Tuesday and Wednesday, but Wed. I woke up in the middle of the night and was positive that I was getting sick. My allergies have been really bad all week. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's one or the other. I didn't ride at all on Thursday or Friday due to getting the TT bike together and feeling like crap.

The first of 3 time trials was Sat. at lake Overholser. I was feeling a lot better and was excited to get to try out the TT bike. I'm not sure why, but the bike feels like junk warming up on the trainer, but felt good on the road. My choice of wheels was not the smartest due to the windy conditions. I ran a 80mm flashpoint on the front and my powertap wheel on the rear with no aero assistance. The flashpoint wheel was WAY too deep and ended up being a major handful in the crosswinds. I'm going to make a few changes in my stem length and seat position plus try to fabricate a wheel cover for the rear for my next run. I ended up 3rd in the 123's running a 18:58
I REALLY wanted to get a better time, but for a baseline test on a super windy day I'll take it and get faster from there.

So later in the day, the weather got worse as our 8 man Team Undiscovered crew loaded up and headed out to Arkansas for the NWA Classic road race. We opted to go on Sat. and spend the night rather than leave OKC at 4:45 AM like we did at Hells Kitchen.

This is on the race course about a mile from the big hill. It was a cold and windy start, but ended up getting a little sunny and warming up some. The wind on the other hand stayed strong all day.

There is so much to learn racing in the 1/2's. I learn about twice as much in each race compared to racing in the 3's. I felt pretty good all day, but all it takes is one minor error or being in the wrong position and you're off the back chasing to try and get back on. That's what happened to me this time. I think I finished 20something.

So, that's 5 races so far this month.I'm looking forward to having the next weekend off from racing and traveling. I'm also pretty motivated to improve my 1 to 4 minute power which seems to be the biggest weakness right now. The April race series starts in a week and a half with a local crit also in 3 weeks.

Frankenbike comes alive!

I got the beast finished just in time. Everything works well and is functional. I rode around the neighborhood for a bit when I got finished. It doesn't feel quite as natural as the Cervelo did last year when I first jumped on it, but I think with a little tweaking, the bike should work great. I lowered the stem a bit after I saw this photo. It felt a little high as well.

I may swap the stem for one that angles downward even more as the headtube is pretty tall on the bike. Hopefully the wind won't be too vicious tomorrow.

Frankenbike project

I'm trying to piece a TT bike together for the time trial at Lake Overholser this Saturday. Not quite sure it's going to happen due to I didn't allow enough time to get all the parts together. It's definitely a weird mix of random parts. Some mine, some borrowed, some good parts off wrecked bikes, blemished frame, Etc. It should go pretty good with some fast wheels. I'm gonna run my stock powertap wheel first for a baseline test. The goal is to get into the 17's at the Overholser course. The summer race series TT's will be out there also, so plenty of opportunities to get my times dialed in.

Hells Kitchen Road Race

It was an early morning start to Arkansas today. Some of the team opted to race in Texas while Judson and my old teammate Brady decided to get some gnarly hill work in at the Hells Kitchen race. At first we contemplated driving to Tulsa Saturday night and driving the rest of the way this morning, but decided to just bite the bullet and do it all at one time today. We left OKC at 4:45 AM (3:45 is what it felt like with daylight savings) so that meant getting up at what felt like 2:30, chugging as much coffee as possible, loading my bike and then off to the meeting point.

As usual the turnout was pretty good. Probably 30 something riders in the pro 1/2 field. We would be doing 4 laps of the 20.3 mile course today instead of the normal 3. Plenty of quality riders. Tilford's team had all their strong guys. Several of the collegiate teams on spring break had plenty of unknown (in these parts) riders, as well as Mercy, Tulsa Tough, and Panther. I knew going in the day was going to be tough. Mainly because I've historically never done better than average at best as a cat 3 here. I figured worst case it would be a good training race cause I would never ride this distance super hard if I was at home, plus I figured it would be good preparation for the Joe Martin stage race in May.

Road racing in the 1/2's is a lot different than the 3's. The average speeds aren't much different, but in general, most cat 3 races are moderately fast paced. Pro 1/2 road races are mostly ridiculously slow until they go ridiculously fast with a little bit of moderately fast riding mixed in. The Pro 1/2 race started very slow for the first 20 minutes. The whole field even took a pee break at one point. It stayed that way until we hit the Hells Kitchen climb (1.2 miles @16% grade in some spots). I got up the climb towards the back of the field, got gaped a little and chased back on. A few guys were behind me. Some got back on, some didn't.

The guys up front were really getting up the climb fast. On the second time up, I knew I had to do something different or I was in big trouble. I tried to get further up in the group to start the climb, but it didn't help enough. The top 10 or so guys really punched it this time up and blew the field apart. The cat 3 field passed us a few miles before the climb, so we caught them just as they were hitting it. The two groups ended up mixed together and strung out at this point. I bridged to a guy, then two riders caught us, till we had a nice mixed little chase group. We caught what I thought what was left of the 1/2 field, but it turned out to be the 3 field. I saw the 1/2 field up the road, so I took off solo and started chasing.

I caught a couple of guys here and there but not the 1/2 field. By the time I got to the climb the 3rd time, I was blown and I just kind of crawled up it. I thought about just riding the 4th lap to get the miles in, but Judson and Brady were already finished and I didn't want to make them wait around an extra hour just so I could ride another 20 miles. I DNFed at the start of the 4th lap and actually almost reconsidered because people were saying the 1/2 field was down to 5 riders with the rest(another 5-10) strung out all over, but I was pretty much done anyway at this point.

So at this stage of the season, I'm feeling pretty good. I haven't really done a lot of 2-4 minute high intensity work, which I feel like my weakness is right now. Time to bring some more intensity to the program. I just finished my 3rd base period, so the build period was scheduled anyway. Tons of racing coming soon!

Salty Cow Race Extravaganza

This years racing season came up really quick. Maybe because the last cyclocross race was not so long ago? Maybe all the epic adventure winter storm rides that seemed to break up the boring winter season? Probably a combination of both. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago in anticipating the rapidly upcoming season, I wondered realistically how our team was going to do.

I knew we had all put a lot of work in over the winter, but experience and race tactic wise, I thought we were still pretty much rookies. I figured at best we would get beat up pretty good early this year, learn as we raced and try to improve as the year went along.

The last weekend in February, Brian Parks and Rob Bell went up to do the froze toes race in Missouri. The pro 1/2 field was pretty big with some high quality riders. Long story short, Rob got in the race winning break finishing 5th. I figured after that race Robs confidence was pretty high as well as I think it gave the rest of the team a confidence boost, which I think helped in the Salty cow race.

So day 1 was the Cow Skin Road Race. About a 5.5 mile circuit with a long gradual climb and a shorter steep windy climb. We had been discussing our race strategy all week and we knew the competition was going to be tough. Sure enough the field was stacked with the fastest guys in this region and then some. We thought about marking riders and after thinking about it, there were more break a way threats than guys on our team. We figured Rob was our best chance on this course, so we tried to cover as many early attacks as possible and keep Rob fresh.

The teams represented were the Park Place dealership team (Ankney, Cagle,Waddel) The Tradewind Energy team (Tilford, Jensen) plus the Tulsa Tough team which had about 8-10 guys. Tyson had a few guys as well. We kind of made it a team goal to try to get a top 10 finish. The weather was nice- no knee warmers needed.


Things started off semi quick with attacks happening the first time up the big hill and through the new twisty section they added this year. I remember coming up to the last right hand corner going into the start/finish straight and I jumped on Steve Tilfords wheel just as he was attacking. Being the first lap and I hadn't taken that corner yet, it was pretty scary railing it like that the first time. The next 2 laps are a painful blur.
By the time we were starting our 4th lap I was hanging by a thread. I saw that a break had gotten up the road and all I could think of was that we blew it. I couldn't quite see who was in the break and as I was looking around I didn't see Rob anywhere. I found Jeremy and asked if Rob was in the break. When he said "yeah he's up there", I instantly felt 10 times better.

The pace slowed down a little because all the teams had a guy in the break except Tulsa Tough. Somewhere around lap 6 or 7 ( we did 12 total) the field started chasing and it got real painful again. The original break was Rob, Waddel,Cagle, and Jensen. Once we got within about 50 yards, Tilford and Ankney leapfrogged to the break. At this point I thought were just going to work Rob over and attack him out of the break, but Rob is strong and rode very smart. Things got a little strange in that teamates Cagle and Ankney got into each other and gapped off

So with only a couple laps to go, the lead break was down to 4. Jensen and Tilford eventually got away taking 1 and 2 and Rob ended up 4th behind Waddel.


I got dropped from the main field with about 3 laps to go. I just TTed it the rest of the way thinking I was the last guy in our race, but right after I finished, a group of about 6 guys finished about 20 seconds behind me. Jeremy got 13th and I got 19th. A great start so far! I must admit that I was a little jealous of Rob getting in the break and wondered what it was like and such. Little did I know I would get my chance the next day.

My co-worker buddy Andy Chasteen annihilated the cat 4 class with a solo break a lap and a half out for the win.

Our Super Sweet Storck team race bikes....

Sunday day 2 was the Salt Creek criterium. Driving out to the race, my legs were very tired. In addition to a hard race the day before, this was the last day of probably my hardest 3 week training block ever. So as we were warming up, we noticed a few new riders had shown up. The most note able being Jelly Belly pro Brad Huff. We figured Jeremy had a good shot today as this course suited him better

This race was kind of strange in the end, but basically started with a series of attacks that didn't stick. A bad freak crash on the 1st or 2nd lap gave Chad Cagle several free laps for some reason. Anyway, Jeremy got in a break about 30 minutes in. I thought it might stick for a while and I noticed Tilford about to try to jump and leapfrog up to the break, I was in the perfect position to go with him, so I did. When we caught on I thought great we have 2 guys in this! It wasn't to be as the break hesitated too long .
Sometime after this, I calculated we had about 35-40 minutes left. I had been just sitting in for a bit trying to save myself and just started to feel really good. An attack had just come back together and everyone was slowing down a little as we were going backwards towards the start/finish line. I had momentum going down the hill carrying me to the front. I knew there was a good chance the next break could be the one since it was getting late in the race. The opportunity was there so I took it.

I guess I thought a few guys would have come with me, but after about 20 seconds I looked down at my shadow and nobody was on my wheel. I glanced back and I had established a pretty solid time gap. I knew the chances of me getting caught were about 99.9%, but as I came through the finish line the next time through, we had 5 laps to go. I figured best case, a small group would chase me down, I jump in and get in the mix. It's nice to be in that situation with a power meter because you know what your threshold is and all you have to do is just keep it a little below that number. So another lap later, I see some riders coming and they are kind of strung out which tells me they're drilling it. As they get closer, I jumped to match their speed and got on.

The situation at this point is a 12 man break with 3 1/2 laps to go. This is when the race got very painful. The teams that had multiple riders in the break were attacking over and over. I got dropped a few times but clawed my way back in. It's very motivating not wanting to let your teamates down getting dropped this late in the game. In the end the break split in two and the second group got strung out in the last 2 KM. I sprinted a Tulsa Tough rider for 9th, however it ended up being 10th cause the guy who got all the free laps got moved up to 1st.

All in all, the weekend went much better than I expected it would. I think everyone on the team feels like we're definitely headed in the right direction and our confidence is good going into the season.

Part 2: What I learned in 2009 and 2010 goals

I was thinking about this the other day and believe it or not, 2010 will be my 30th year of racing bicycles in one form or another. I started racing BMX in 1980 and did that until 1999. I actually road raced for 1 season in1984 with CRRC, but my passion for BMX took over. In looking back I wish I would have stuck with road racing, but then who knows, I probably wouldn't be doing in now. I dabbled in mountain bike racing from 1986 or so till maybe 2003 getting more serious towards the end. I got a road bike in 2001 to supplement my mountain bike riding and training. It worked very well and I got a lot faster on the mountain bike.

It got to a point where I started to enjoy road riding again and the racing seemed to suit me better, so thats my current direction to this day. So back to the 2010 racing season. My first race for the season is a couple days away. In preparing for this year and what kind of training plan I'm going to follow, I always like to look back on previous years training diaries and power data to determine what worked and what didn't work so well.

I guess for the most part I've been following the basic periodization model training plan since that first year I road raced in 1984. I think the only thing really different is the day to day intensity. Back then there wasn't a lot of electronic training computers like there are now, so you just kind of did everything by feel. It's funny how each year the basic model has stayed the same, but the training philosophy has changed. I guess in some ways you could say it's come full circle.

Last year was kind of strange in that I set 3 main goals: Get my FTP to around 300 watts- Upgrade to a cat 2- Get more consistent finishes. I thought it would take longer, but it seemed to all happen by mid April last year. Well, the finishes weren't as good once I upgraded, but it was better overall than 2008 when my results were either really good or really bad. The point is, I seemed to lose a lot of my motivation once I accomplished everything I set out to do.

This year I made some new goals that are obtainable, but tougher and should take longer. My biggest race this year is going to be the Joe Martin stage race, so I started the training year planning to do more volume. I like how you can discuss how many hours a week you plan on riding with other riders, and somehow only the longest single week hours gets across and then gets exaggerated and that info gets passed along to someone else, and next thing you know you're riding 30 hours a week!

Anyhow, so far this year everything has gone mostly as planned training wise. It's definitely been tougher with the weather being like it has for the past 3 months so I had to improvise some here and there. All of my new equipment seems to be working well and I'm looking forward to testing it out this weekend.