Race report part 2 - Tall Chief Road Race

 Although this story is about what went down on Sunday, I'm still trying to come to terms with what happened on Saturday. I guess I've pretty much decided after doing a ton of research, talking to people in the know, and doing as many 30 second, 1 minute, and 2 minute intervals as I could stand, that the issue is a dehydration problem. Hopefully it will not be an issue again.

Another top notch packing job. 4 bikes, extra wheels, and 4 dudes.

Anyway, on to Sunday. We chose to drive to and from the races both days. The latest weather forecast I had seen the day before was temps up to the mid 60's and rain all night but tapering off around sunrise. We left OKC about 5:45 AM, which actually felt like 4:45 because this was also the first day of daylight savings.
It rained on us most of the way to Skiatook, but when we got there, it had pretty much stopped and looked like it was going to clear up.

Clothing wise, I decided on shorts-no knee or leg warmers, a light base, wind vest under the jersey, arm warmers, my windstopper cap, and 2 pairs of light to medium temp gloves. I think the first 2/3's of the first lap, I felt fine. Somewhere after that it started raining. Then it started pouring and I'm pretty sure the temperature dropped some as well.

Before I get to all that, there was some race action going on. Around 20-30 minutes into the race, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I guess some guys crossed wheels in the middle of the field and a bunch of guys went down. I had to slow way down to get through it and I noticed Rob got caught up in it. I thought about stopping to help him back to the group, but I thought it would be smarter to have at least 1 guy in the main group as Jeremy and Brian were behind the wreck as well. It was actually a little harder to bridge up to the main group than I thought it was going to be. There was a group of 4 strong riders and myself rotating for 10-15 minutes before we caught on.

I kept looking back to see if Rob and his group was back there, but I never saw them. There was a pretty good climb around the halfway point of each lap that I was struggling with a little. I got gaped off the main group for a bit, but caught back on without too much effort. I think we lost a few a few guys each time we hit that hill. It was tough because there was a tailwind as soon as you got to the top, so if you were winded, it was tough to recover with minimal draftability.

Somehow a few miles later Rob managed to catch back on with a couple of other guys. He was bleeding pretty good from a nasty cut on his knuckle, and decided to just sit on for a while as he had burned a ton of matches getting back on. I remember last year the big hill climbing up the dam at the start of each lap seemed to break up the field quite a bit, but due to the wind direction, it wasn't much of an issue this year. The hill at the far south end around the 10 mile point seemed to be much more of a field splitting obstacle.

As we got into the 2nd lap of 3, I started to really get cold. I tried to ride harder and get into a couple of moves here and there mainly just to try to get warm. You would start to feel ok at the tops of the climbs, but there were long sections of fast downhills that would freeze you back down. When we were getting close to finishing our 2nd lap, I was seriously starting to think about quitting. I was looking for Rob to see if he was thinking the same thing when I noticed the field had gotten pretty small. Maybe 17 guys or so.

Also ex-team mate and current rival team rider Brady Schmiedeberg rolled off the front and had quietly established quite a time gap. There was pretty much no way I was going to quit at this point, but I must admit, That last lap was one of the most miserable 1 hours I've ever spent on a bike. I can only think of 1 other time that I was that cold. As we were getting close to the hill that was giving me issues, I thought it would be a good idea to try to establish a little time over the field so I wouldn't get dropped, but it didn't really work out like I wanted. Steve Tilford drilled it pretty hard and the group got pretty strung out. I wasn't going too bad, but my fingers were so cold I couldn't shift.

Basically I got dropped and chased the rest of the way. The group caught Brady with 3 miles to go and Rob ended up pulling out a 4th. He thought he could have won it, but his fingers weren't working either. I guess this was a common problem that day. Jacob White rode pretty smart and ended up winning both days.

All in all, a pretty disappointing weekend for me, but I felt pretty good and I think overall the team is going ok, At least a lot better than last year at this time.

Power file from the last 5 minutes of Saturday's race.

This is my power file from Saturday. It makes it more disappointing watching my video of the last 15 minutes of the race because this is a good effort, but less that what I'm capable of.

Water intake tracker.

I'm trying to drink at least 4-20 oz bottles of water daily at work. I take one of these decals off to keep track of where I'm at. It's tough to drink at work because I get so busy I just forget. I've been pretty consistent all week, and I'm not sure if it's a placebo effect or what, but it seems to be making a difference.

Salt Creek crit and Tall Chief road race part 1

Something kind of funny when you pre-register for a USA cycling event is the performance predictor. It's basically a program that predicts how you will finish in a race based on your rankings and the quality of the field. Of the 30 something guys that were registered, I think I was predicted to finish 18th on Saturday and 20th on Sunday.

Anyway, the weekend was definitely a tale of 2 totally different races. At least weather wise. Originally it looked like a chance of rain for the weekend. Then a high chance on Sat., but clear on Sunday. Then it reversed. In the end Saturday couldn't have been nicer. Kinda cool at the start, but getting up to the upper 70's by the finish.

The racing on Saturday went mostly how I thought it would. The Tulsa Tough guys had 8 or 9 guys, so I knew they would try to get a break a way with a bunch of their guys established early. Matt Ankney took off a couple of laps in and stayed away solo most of the race, but I think in general, their team was marked by just about everybody in the race, so in the end it came down to a field sprint.

Rob and I both had our cameras on. Rob's was rear facing and you can see the 1 1/2 hour race from his veiw point Here

My video is in 2 segments. The video quality is kind of trippy. I'm not sure if it was due to my cable smacking up against the camera, or the SD card may be messed up. Anyway, the first 45 minutes of the race from my camera is Here

This is the last 15 minutes from my camera:

It's still pretty hard for me to watch this. I couldn't have been in a more perfect position going into the last 300 meters. I'm not sure what my problem is. I think it may be a combination of dehydration and allergies, but at the 200 meter mark when I should have punched it and sling shot up into a top 3 or 4 spot, but instead I quit pedaling because I had some flem or gel residue or something caught in my throat. I tried to rinse it down the last couple of laps with water and clear my throat/spit, but none of it worked. Meanwhile, I was in an epic battle trying to get a good position to sprint. My legs felt great and I wasn't too winded, junk was clogging up my throat and I just couldn't breathe once we started going really hard.

I've talked to a few people about it. Possibly a sports induced athsma issue? I'm going to try a few things differently as far as eating before a race as well as drinking more water before and during.

So basically, I gave up a pretty for sure top 5 for a 14th place finish.

Sunday was a totally different animal.  I will post that story ASAP

Ready to go racing again

Well, the second race weekend of the season, with many more to follow, goes off tomorrow. The annual Salt creek crit is on Sat and the Tall Chief road race is on Sunday. We've got a full squad of cat 2's going so I'm pretty stoked about that.
The only downfall I can think of is that there is a good chance of rain both days. I kind of like actually racing in the rain, but it seems really hard on the drive train department. You tend to pick up all kinds of noises on your bike after it dries out after a good rain ride.

Everybody on the team seems to be going pretty good right now. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but our weekly training rides have progressively gotten pretty hard. I'm pretty interested to see how we go against all the best guys from around here. Anyhow, I'm going to try to race with my camera on if the weather is not too wet.

I'll post a race report hopefully with video footage ASAP

The Mineral Wells Stage Race 2012

I guess it's time to finish this race report up since it happened over a week ago.....

After having a couple of days to digest the MWSR 2012, I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. It was definitely epic, but on a different level than last year. If you need a re-cap of last years race you can find it here. Anyway, we had a pretty big crew from the team this year. I don't know all the details of the other guys. This is mainly my take on what happened in the cat 2 races. First thing first. I've been trying super hard not to get sick since early last week. Everybody in my house has been really sick as have several folks at work. I got a flu shot a few months back, so I wonder if that helped? Not sure, but I haven't felt good the past several days. I noticed last Tuesday I tried to do some intervals and my HR to power seemed a lot higher than normal so I took it a lot easier last week. I'm not making excuses as I don't think it altered my racing much if any, but it sure added to the misery of the first day's weather.

4 bikes + extra wheels + all our gear

I carpooled to the race with Rob. We outdid our packing job from the Tulsa Tough last year by getting all our stuff in his wagon. I think every time we had to unpack and re-pack, we got better and more efficient than the time before.

Mostly unpacked at our hotel

We took off Friday evening to Mineral Wells. The weather forecast had been gradually getting worse as the week went along. I brought a couple extra rain tires and switched them out before we went to bed. It pretty much rained all night and all day Saturday. For some strange reason, I actually like racing crits in the rain, but not necessarily when it's 48 degrees and windy. Looking back, I think this is the first race that I didn't really warm up for. I'm talking every race all weekend. Unless you had a trainer in a covered area, it was all but impossible.

Rob and I rolled around for about 10 minutes before the start of our crit. We were in a good spot near the start/finish line before our race started, but decided to gamble and take 1 practice lap to check out the course. Sure enough, by the time we got back around, there was a full crowd around the start line, so we were starting in the worst possible position for a rainy crit. Rob had his video camera on his bike. His race was a little different than mine. I moved up as quick as possible knowing the race would break up and probably half the guys would get pulled, and sure enough 2/3's of the original 60 riders got pulled.
I got into the main group of 20-25 riders in a couple of laps. It is much easier riding in the group once you're there.

Rob made it look easy getting back to the group, but it's REALLY hard to succesfully do it this way unless you're pretty strong. Anyway, there were a few crashes here and there. Rob got caught up in one, but got back in the mix after getting his bike issues sorted out. I felt pretty good the whole race. I tried to get into a couple of moves, but it seemed like the final selection of guys was content to just stay together and ride it out. I made the fatal error of getting shuffled too far to the back a little too close to the end of the race. I was trying to move up for the finish of the race, and over cooked the last corner and crashed with 3 laps to go. Pretty big bummer because Rob was right behind me and I killed both of our chances for some good results in the first stage. Rob ended up 19th and I got 20th.

Here is Robs video of about 10 minutes of the rainy crit:

The second stage TT was only a couple hours after the crit, so we rushed back to the hotel and got the bikes ready. Luckily, I had some tegaderm in my bag and got my road rash dealt with. Tegaderm is a crit racers best friend when you go down.

The TT went ok for me. Not what I wanted for sure. The conditions were pretty harsh. It felt like someone was spraying me in the face with an ice cold pressure washer on the downhills, as it was a good headwind and raining really hard. Semi tough to see where you were going at times, but everybody had to deal with it.

The weather on Sunday was better. Still pretty cool, but not bad. Definitely would not have been fun if it rained all day again. The road race was pretty uneventful. It wasn't too windy, so I was pretty sure the race would end up in a field sprint, and I guess it pretty much did. Well, at least for 2nd place. Caleb Fuchs seems to be at a different level than the rest of thr cat 2's. He basically got a flat with about 7 miles to go, got on a team mates bike, caught the group that was trying to capitalize on his mishap, kept on going and soloed in for the win and overall 1st in the GC.

Rob had his camera on and got the last 30 minutes of the race. You can see that version HERE.

The last 4 minute version is here:

I ended up 7th in the road race and Rob got 14th. Our decent results in the RR were enough to move Rob into 7th in the GC and I got 15th.

Road Race results

I had a pretty sweet number

I'm looking forward to the next race (at least for me). The Salt Creek criterium and the Tall Chief RR the 2nd weekend in March. We should have our full team in attendance and ready to rumble.

Day 31 done

Well, I guess I did it. 31 days in a row. I realize some of the posts were a little weak, but hey, this was a time consuming task. Oddly enough, I've still got a few more posts that I'm working on. I've definitely gotten into the  habit of taking down ideas right after I think of them, so that should help to keep this updated on a more regular basis. There's also something else I'm working on. If everything works out I'll be sure to give all the details.

I need to get my TT bike ready and get a few rides on it. The first race of the season is only a little over 2 weeks away. I'm pretty excited to use my video camera to record a few races. That will add a nice element to just giving a description of what went down.

I'm probably going to take a few days off posting on here due to the fact that I've got to get caught up on a few things. I've been downloading all my power data, but I haven't had a lot of time to analyze the last month very much. I'm still working on some different things training wise this year. I'm a little over 2 months in, but I'm still not realizing the benefits just yet. Well, a little bit, but not what I'm hoping for. I should know for sure in the next  2-6 weeks.

My buddy and team mate Rob Bell was telling me the other day he may try to do the daily blog challenge for a month. February is a leap year this year, but still, it's only 29 days. There's a link to his blog page on the right side of the screen on my blog list.

How to commute by bicycle and survive

There's this illustration that's been going around on facebook. It makes a lot of sense and everything on this illustration is correct. Still, people find many reasons not to ride a bicycle let alone commute daily on one.

Some of the things I think keep people from commuting by bicycle or just riding in general is fear of traffic, fear of crashing, fear of what other people will think of them, being stinky etc. etc.
All of these fears are justafyable, but with some patience and a little experience, they're easy to overcome. When it comes to riding in traffic, it's probably best to start in a group setting. At some point, if you're going to commute by bicycle, you're going to be doing some or all of your riding solo. I've been doing it for many years now, and a few things I can tell you to make things easier are:

• If you're going to be riding the same route daily, as in work and back, check out possible routes on Google maps or explore a few routes to find a good one. I have a couple routes that I use that are both pretty low key and safe.
• Be aware of your surroundings all the time. Make eye contact with drivers that may pull out in front of you and always be alert and ready for them to do something stupid.
• This kind of goes along with the last one, but assume you're invisible. Be ready to take evasive manuvers.
• Always ride with the traffic.
• Don't blast through stop signs and red lights.
• Be assertive when riding on busy streets. You have just as much right to be on them as the cars.
• Get some good lights if you're going to ride in the dark.
• If you don't know basic bicycle mainenence, learn. You will get a flat at some point. Carry spare tubes, tools etc. on the bicycle. Obviously a cell phone also if your bike is beyond roadside repair and you need a ride.
• No shower? Baby wipes work really well.

Really, the bottom line is if you're considering commuting by bicycle, you just have to commit and do it. All you really need is a bicycle and a positive attitude. I still drive to work about 5% of the time if I have plans or the weather is really bad. I would say I save between $15-$20 every week on gas alone though. I also get 1/2 to 1/3 of my training miles by riding to work, and it's always more fun to get faster than ride in a car.

Product Review: Cannondale Caad 10 Frameset

Working in the bike industry for almost 3 decades now, I've pretty much ridden every brand and model of bicycle around. It may have been a short test ride checking out a repair, but I think I always make a mental note as to how a bike feels. Especially if it's one I've never ridden before. In some ways, you can group most bikes together depending on the frame material. Most lightweight steel frames are pretty similar. They have a nice road "feel", but torsionally, they're generally pretty flexible. Titanium frames are about the same except lighter and more wimbly. I think titanium is a good material for a CX bike. Nice and plush over rough surfaces and you don't really need the torsional stiffness as you do for say cornering in crits. For road bikes, I think titanium has run it's course. It would be too tough to engineer a better ride quality and keep it as light as aluminum or carbon fiber.

Speaking of carbon fiber, it seems to be the number one choice for high performance bikes these days. The thing is, not all carbon fiber bikes are created equal. The person who feels their $200.00 Chinese non-brand E-bay special is just as good as a $4000.00 Cervelo R5 has no clue of the engineering, materials, and R&D work involved. Most will argue that the cost difference is marketing and advertising, and it is some, but this is just a small percentage. Just because a bike is "carbon fiber" does not guarantee it's going to be light and strong, have good torsional rigidity and a sooth ride. Some of the cheap carbon bikes are as flexible as titanium in the wrong places, and ride like a harsh aluminum frame over bumps.

Aluminum was probably the first alternative to the steel frame. The first generation aluminum frames may have been a little lighter than steel, but the ride was pretty horrible for the most part. They were plenty stiff, but way too stiff in all the wrong places as well. The ride quality eventually improved to the point of most race bikes in the mid 90's to mid 2000's were aluminum. I remember the first time I rode a full carbon fiber bike around 2004, it rode SO much better than any aluminum bike, and I knew I had to have one.

I never thought I would go back to an aluminum frame until I rode a Cannondale Caad 10. Our race team decided to go with the Caad 10 frameset early last year, and my opinion up to this point is- I'm sold on it.

Our team race bikes

The Caad 10 frame is the same weight as the Storck carbon fiber frames we were on before, with equal ride quality, but less than half the cost. As far as torsional stiffness goes, they're as stiff as any bike available. Weight wise, I would put them around the same as a mid -priced carbon frame. The flat seat and chain stays give the bike a very nice all day ride. I got 7+ hours on mine the other day with no complaints. There are definitely bikes out there that ride better and are lighter, but not much and those will set you back $2000 - $8000 more than a Caad 10.

Last year, there were a few other teams out there rolling on these. I'm sure you're going too see a lot more in 2012. All and all, probably the best bike for the privateer racer on a budget or race team without 6 figure sponsorship funding. I would even go as far as saying this is the best aluminum frame ever made to date!