Oklahoma Grand Prix CX series

WARNING: This post went way long due to me slacking and just adding stuff as the series went along.

The cyclocross season so far has gone ok. After 7 of 8 races in the Oklahoma grand prix series, I'm leading with a 19 point lead I think. Anyhow, I remember when the road season was almost over, I was really pumped up to get the cross season going and maybe a little tired of road racing. I guess in a way it's come full circle again, cause I'm getting exited to start preparing for the 2012 road season.
So, a quick review of what went down the first 7 races -

The OC criss cross
This race was put on by Team Undiscovered, the road team I'm on. The course was totally different than last year. The course was pretty long with some good technical sections. I remember it being pretty warm and Coatney helping with the scoring. She got a pretty wicked sunburn. I didn't get a good start. Bryan Duvall had about 15-20 seconds on me most of the race. I started to catch him with 3 laps to go, so I drilled it pretty good with 2 laps to go, but it wasn't enough. I think he had some in reserve because as soon as I got close, he surged to hold me off the last lap.

I ended up 2nd at the OC criss cross race.

Villain CX at Will Rogers park

The next race in the series was at the park where we have our Wed. night practices. The course was physically pretty hard. Lots of short, steep power climbs that took their toll after several laps. I led the first lap, but Will Gault took over on the second lap and I had nothing to counter with. I had a good gap on 3rd place, so I just put it in cruise mode and went as hard as needed.

2nd race, another 2nd place

PG-13 Race at the park

Getting ready to start race #3

The 3rd race in the series was another warm one. The race location is only a couple of miles from my house, which is nice. It's good being able to spend minimal time driving to a race and being able to enjoy a couple of beers afterwards knowing you just live down the road. I was able to record this race on my camera. Once again, I got the holeshot only to be passed by Will Gault soon after. I blew up pretty good trying to stay with Will. I had a good gap on 3rd (Carter Johnston), but he caught me before I could recover. Carter and I had a pretty epic battle, but I got him in the end, and ended up with another 2nd. At this point, I had a 7 point lead in the series. Here is the video footage of the race:

 Race #4  Showdown at sundown - Broken Arrow OK
My road teamate Judson and I took off Friday afternoon to drive to the Tulsa area to start a 3 race weekend. The Showdown at sundown race is pretty cool. By far the longest lap of any CX race I've ever done. The course is located on a golf driving range. Super sweet and lit up real nice for night racing. The weather was cold and windy for a change. As far as the race went, I made an error from the start in trying to stay on Will Gault's wheel. I blew up again, and by the time I recovered, the nice gap I had over the rest of the field quickly disappeared. I settled in with a group of 4 guys, some in the 40-49 race, some in the 50+ race and the single speed race that were all going on at the same time. Anyhow, I ended up 4th in my age group. I wasn't too happy with the result and knew I could have done better if I rode within my fitness limits.

Judson took this picture of me early in the showdown at sundown race.

The next day was the ruts and guts CX race. The course was in the same location as last year, but had been changed up quite a bit. As was the case last year, the course was pretty technical. More like a mountain bike course than a CX course. I didn't mind cause I like the hard courses. I filmed this race, but only got the first half of the race. I crashed and my camera came undone. I couldn't get it hooked back on the bars, so I just turned it off and put it in my pocket.

Run up at ruts and guts.  Photo by Nicki Smith

Going up the steep section out of the woods. Photo by Judson Copeland

I finally had to use my pit bike after I got a flat with about 3 laps to go. I ended up 3rd on the day which I was ok with. I felt like I rode within myself, and other than a couple of minor mistakes, I rode the race as best as possible.

This is the first part of the Ruts N' Guts race unil I crashed on a dismount and my camera fell off.

The 6th race in the series was at the Kids Lake park near my house. I don't have any photos or video of the race, but the quick breakdown is:  It was very cold. My seat broke on the first lap and I decided to just ride it out. I ended up getting 3rd. The reason I didn't just swap bikes during the race was I couldn't get my flat Challenge tire to hold air, so I glued the Vittoria tire on just a couple of hours before the race. I had the freshly glued wheel on the pit bike. Anyhow, I was pretty beat up and tired after doing 3 CX races 3 days straight! Luckily there was a two week break until the next race.

The 7th race in the series was another PG-13 race at the old YMCA park a couple miles down the road from my house. I have a couple of pictures that I'll post up later. Anyway, the course was pretty sweet, and the weather was very cyclocrossish. 40-50 degreesF with on and off rain. The race for me ended up being pretty epic. We had a LeMans style start. I got the holeshot again and went probably a bit too hard, because before the first lap was over, I had gone a little anaerobic and lost one position then another after sliding out.

I worked my way back into 2nd, and was gaining on first, when I got caught up with a lapped cat 4 rider and knocked my brake arm under my rim. I thought it was worse than it actually was, and as I was running back to the pits to swap bikes, I decided to fix it instead. I got things working, but by this point, I was in 5th place.

There was only 15 or so minutes left in the race and the course was starting to get a little sloppy from the rain. I just stayed with it and eventually worked my way back up to 2nd.

I was pretty happy with the result all things considered. So after the 5th race, my points lead was down to 1 point over Will Gault, however, he didn't show for the 6th and 7th races, so I basically have the series locked up with a 19 point lead.

The last race of the series is the state championship race. It was originally going to be at the Will Rogers park, but got cancelled at the last minute and moved to Tulsa. Due to some time issues and having the series locked up, I'm going to do the pro1/2 race instead of the masters race. I'll be off to Tulsa in a bit with my buddy Judson. Hopefully I'll post the results quicker.

New Toys

It's been a long while since I've updated this. I got my new team CX bike. Basically it's just the money I got from selling my old road bike and most of the parts on the new bike are just borrowed from my cannondale.

I still have the redline together for the most part and it's currently being used as my pit bike.



Van Dessel gin and trombones - commuter set up

I've been doing all my commuting on the new bike. I've got heavy wheels with heavy reflective commuter tires on it right now

I got the new bike built up the night before the first CX race of the season. The bike worked well with no issues. I've got a couple of races and a few practice races on the bike so far.

The other new toy is a video camera that mounts to the handle bars. So far I think I have 3 practice sessions recorded and a lap at the bluff creek trails. The SD card the camera came with only records for 30 minutes, but Coatney found me a 8 GB SD card on Amazon that should be good for an hour and a half.

This is a video from Oct 5th. I'm planning on getting the next few races recorded. I've added a link to my videos on youtube in the upper right corner just below the header picture.

I've got the state road race and 2 CX races that I'm working on doing a race report on here. I guess I'm still trying to digest that last road race.....but I'll post the story soon.

September race reports

So far, September has been a pretty hectic month race wise. The Friday following the Hotter 'n hell, there was a criterium in Enid. Kind of weird that this was the first time this season that we finally had the core of our cat 1/2 team racing together. The course was a pretty short figure 8 style. The payout was pretty good, but due to the Gateway cup races going on at the same time, the overall turnout was pretty low.



A quick team meeting before the race

The race started pretty well with Jeremy and Rob getting in a good 2 man break, but it eventually died out. We're trying to get back into some kind of groove racing together as a team. Overall the race went ok. We had 4 guys in the money, but I think things definitely could have gone better. 


Enid Friday night race action - Photo by Biff Stephens

The following Wednesday, it was finally time for something I've been thinking about and looking forward to for a while now....Cyclocross practice night!!!



Hammering the hills in the big ring! - Photo by Marty Buchanan

This is the 2nd year that Chris Duroy has been hosting these cross practice events...and they're awesome!!!
Basically Chris maps out a different challenging course each week, and we do a practice race starting at 30 minutes and gradually getting longer as the races go week to week.

The following weekend we went to Arkansas for a couple of crits, and returned to do a circuit race at Lake Draper on Sunday. Jeremy, Brian and I did the 35+ masters race 1st on Saturday. The race went well for us with Jeremy getting 2nd, and I got 3rd. Brian is getting his speed back after being out all year recovering from his broken femur back in February. I think he finished 9th.

We had us 3 plus Rob and Judson for the pro 123 race later in the day. The thing with this race is it features a hyped up crowd pleaser pass the hat prime lap 40 minutes into the race. Last year it was $430.00. This year it was a little more. So basically, this race was 2 races in 1. Rob had his camera on. This is the first 43or so minutes of the race. The big prime lap starts around the 39:55 mark.

We had a little mis-communication, but it all worked out and I got the big prime. I was pretty blown afterwards. Rob almost stayed off till the end, but got caught in the end and got 6th. Judson took 2nd in the cat 3/4 race. All in all a good day for the team.

The weather all week was nice as it finally cooled off a little, and it continued into Sunday. The field for the pro 1/2 race wasn't huge, but there were quite a few fast guys there.



Trying to stay with Chad Cagle on the north side climb - Photo by Biff Stephens

It was just Rob and I in this race. The race itself was pretty animated with lots of attacks from the start. Rob and I were a little tired from the previous days race, but I think we were holding our own pretty well. About 35 miles in of the 69 miles total, I got another flat. The wheel truck wouldn't motor pace me back up, so I just tempo rode the rest of the race solo. Rob stayed in the mix and got 7th.

I believe all the racing is really helping to get the legs ready for the quickly approaching cyclocross season. The state championship road race is on the 24th, and then the cross season officially starts on October 1st. There is a pretty sweet race series going on this year. Lots of fun racing coming up.

Hotter 'N Hell race weekend

After many years of riding and racing bikes, one event I've never done was the infamous Hotter 'N Hell 100. That is until this year. The Hotter 'nHell 100 (HHH) is the biggest bike rally around this region with this year being the 30th anniversary. There are also several USA Cycling sanctioned events all weekend as well. Our race (pro 1-2) was actually shortened to 90 miles. Maybe due to the excessive heat this year?  I'm not sure, but in doing 100+ miles every Saturday morning in July and part of August, a quick 90 didn't seem like it would be a big deal. Another thing I always wanted to do was the Friday night criterium. It's a pro 1-2 race only and I had heard talk for many years about how big the crowds watching the race and so on.

Brandon and I took off work early on Friday so I could do the big crit. On our drive down to Wichita Falls, we started to get a little sleepy, so we stopped at a Luv's and chugged a couple of caffeinated energy drinks. It definitely helped, but it really started kicking in just as we arrived at the convention center where the race venue and expo-registration-packet pick up-and anything HHH was located. I thought I was going to freak out for a minute with my heavy caffeine buzz and the thousands of people packed into the convention center. The weather was hot. REALLY hot like in 107 or so when we arrived. I had about 45 minutes to get my number pinned and warm up. I drank a couple big bottles riding around, and put 2 frozen bottles on my bike just before we started.

Once we got going on the crit, in some ways it was exactly how I thought it would be, but in a few other ways, there were things I didn't expect. What I expected was the race to be fast, flat, and hot with a lot of spectators. What I didn't expect was how inconsistent the strength levels of the other riders seemed to be. I guess it could have been more of a heat issue than a fitness issue, but a lot of guys started popping after only about 20 minutes. My initial strategy was, since the streets were wide and pretty flat, and the fact that there were around 100 riders in the field, I would sit in and survive the heat and have something in the end as the race was 75 minutes long. The first 30%of the race seemed pretty easy. It was really fast, but sitting in and just riding along seemed pretty easy.

I really expected the race to stay together for the most part, but around half way through, it got really fast. Every time I glanced down at my speedometer, we were consistently doing between 27 and 31 MPH. The field got pretty strung out, and when I knew it was time to move up, it was a little too late. A gap opened up about 15 riders ahead of me, and that was pretty much all it took. I made it to 40 minutes and I was off the back. Just before I got dropped, I thought we must be really flying because it felt like I was still spinning a high cadence in my hardest gear, but my shifter was actually stuck in the 15. I didn't really notice it until I stopped going hard and my shifter wouldn't do anything. I pulled into the Sram pit and they were actually going to let me use one of the spare bikes and get a free lap, but I declined because I didn't think it would be right. I think I got dropped more from being out of position and fitness than mechanical problems.

Anyhow, Jose (the Sram mechanic) gave me a brand new shifter. We decided to call it a night and go hit up some Johnny Carino's. We've been lucky in that most towns have a Carino's as they sponsor our team and have really good food! One of our team mates Wayne lives in Wichita Falls and was nice enough to let us stay at his house. Getting a hotel in this town is pretty much impossible when the HHH circus comes to town.

The field for the road race on Saturday was bigger than Friday. We rolled out at 6:35 AM just as the sun was coming up. I sat in for the first 10 or 15 miles and tried to drift towards the front when I could, but I was still a little mad from Friday night's mistake in addition to I was getting a little board just sitting in. I also had a headache. It didn't really bother me when I had to focus on something or go moderately hard, but it was bad when I was just rolling along. I decided to go to the front and try to get into one of the moves that seemed to constantly be going off. Sure enough, there were constant waves of 4 to 8 riders at a time that would attack. For a while I was jumping on every other wave that took off.

It actually didn't seem much harder than sitting in and definitely took my mind off the headache. I got into 2 separate moves that were away for a little while. One I knew wasn't going to survive unless some key team guys bridged up and another that maybe could have made it...or probably not, but being in the mix is a lot more fun then just sitting in all day. Anyway, around 35 miles to go it started to get a lot hotter so I decided to be a little more conservative and stay towards the front, but conserve energy. There was a pretty good surge at the second feed zone and it seemed like after that, only 40-50% of the riders that started were left.

At 25 miles to go, disaster struck again as I got a flat tire. I looked back, but the wheel vehicle was nowhere in sight. I lost a lot of ground and after a few minutes I saw the Sram car. I pulled my wheel off and got a quick wheel change. I guess another guy flatted as well because he came by just as I was getting back on my bike.  The Sram guy did a good job motor pacing us back up, but as we got to about 100 yards, he suddenly took off to help someone else. I basically just rode the rest of the way in solo. I was pretty bummed because I was feeling pretty good and it would have been my fastest 90 miles for sure. We were averaging between 27 and 28 MPH up until the point where I got a flat.

There is a ton of races coming up. mainly crits and road races, then it's straight into CYCLOCROSS!

My favorite shop tools

A question I seem to get asked a lot at work is: "What's your favorite tool?"
Honestly, that's a tough question. I love tools. I like working with all my tools, and I really like getting new tools. If I had to narrow it down though, I guess this could be my top 6:

Phil Wood spoke machine

 The Phil Wood machine is probably my favorite tool in the shop. It cuts and threads a spoke to any size in 1 rotation of the crank. A pretty expensive tool, but saves a ton of time and money in not having to order special length spokes or stock a bunch of different sizes.

Enduro BB30 bearing press/remover

 The first few times I messed with BB30 systems I didn't really like them. I thought the ease if installation and general maintenance wasn't worth the weight savings or performance benefits over a standard external bearing system. That is until I used the Enduro BB30 tool. It makes bearing installation and removal super easy and smooth.

Park modified 5mm T-handle hex

 Nothing fancy here, but by far the tool I use the most every day. I bet you could dis-assemble a modern day bike about 75% with this tool alone. I've modified this one by cutting the ball end off the long end and cutting the plastic back about 1/4" on the short end to allow it to get into Shimano rear derailleurs, recessed front brake nuts, ETC.

Shaved down short end

 The modified Park 5 mill in action on a Shimano derailleur. I wish Park would make a version like this.

Grease gun

I've been using this thing forever. It's at least 15 years old and I've used it at 3 different shops I've worked at. I don't use it as much anymore because most bearings are the sealed type and usually get replaced as opposed to being overhauled. It still comes in handy for putting grease in tight spots so you don't have to get your hands greasy and speedplay pedals. Maybe I should fill it with that carbon paste stuff since that's what gets used the most nowadays.

Park 1" wrench with friends

Probably the second most used tool I use daily. I use it all the time for pulling/installing cassettes and it has great leverage for removing tight bottom brackets.

Park truing stand with finished custom wheel

It seems like in a lot of bike shops, wheel building has become a lost art. With so many pre-built wheel sets available today, not a lot of shops still do custom wheel builds. I'm fortunate to work in a shop that builds quite a few. That's good because I really enjoy the entire process. The good old standard park truing stand is another tool I love to use.

Bottecchia project part 1

I've been looking for a cheep frame to build up into fixed gear bike to get some miles on this winter. I sold my last fixed gear bike a couple of years ago, and kind of wanted to build a new one for a while now.
Anyway, I've been looking at frames on Ebay and Craigslist and such, and I guess the whole fixie fashion fad is still going strong because old steel bike frames are pretty pricey these days.

I have an old late 60's model Bottecchia frame thats been hanging in my garage for years. It was a customers from a bike shop I used to work at. He brought it in to be repaired but the bike had a pretty good front end inpact as the frame was cracked and the forks were bent in. After we informed him of the damage, he said to just throw the bike away. I thought the bike was too cool, so I saved it from the dumpster and it's been hanging around ever since. The frame is way too big for me, so I always had an idea that I could somehow cut the broken part off and reuse the main frame.

 This is the frameset. Nothing too fancy. I think this frame is a mid-level quality bike at best, but it's still a cool old frame.

 Front end damage. The frame is designed around 27" wheels, and I'm going to use 700c wheels, so I'll have to re-engineer the BB height a little.

 New chrome moly head tube (for 1 1/8 steerer fork) and dropouts. So far this is the only stuff I've had to buy.

 The frame cut down. The chain and seat stays need some more trimming to match the dropouts, and the top and down tubes need to be notched to fit the head tube.

I cut out about 35mm to shorten the frame to a 56cm seat tube length. I'll get the frame welded up in part 2.

Record miles and record heat July

So the big miles goal for July went well. The goal was 1300 miles and I ended up with a hair over. So in addition to the highest mileage personally in one month, this summer gave us the hottest ever recorded month in Oklahoma City history!

HOT STUFF

The goal for August is to take advantage of this block of miles and try to raise my FTP to an all time high (or at least as high as possible) and start preparing for the upcoming cyclocross season!

Hopefully the weather will cool down.

Firehill practice crit videos and big miles July progress

If you haven't seen these videos yet, and have the time, here they are. They were filmed by my team mate Rob with a camera mounted on his bars. Each segment is about 15 minutes long. There's some pretty crazy looking clouds that were around, but we never got rained on.

This is the start. Just a lot of attacking. Evan runs over Biff on the left side aroung the 11:40 point.

Second part. Rob attacked and got away with Evan (DNA). I bridged up later with Andy (DNA) and Dave (OKC Velo).

The end didn't go quite like I wanted. I wasn't in a good position to jump when Evan took off at the end. I wasn't sure how the race was going to go because I hadn't done any high intensity for some time prior to the race, but I was good to be able to stay in and race.

The big miles July goal is going well. So far I've got 1100 miles in, and still have a week left.

My 2011 training plan progress and what I'm trying differently this year

I actually started this post a few months ago, and I think the 2011 plan has changed at least twice since then. Anyway, here's the rundown of what I've done and what I'm looking to do the rest of the year.

Since I wasn't planning on doing the Joe Martin stage race this year, I decided to try to cut back on the overall weekly time early in the season. I've been using the Training Peaks WKO software since 2008 and had a pretty good idea of what amount of training stress is required to ride say for example 18 hours or 300 miles in a week.
A lot of folks have been doing more of a "less volume - higher intensity" training model with good results, so I thought I would give it a try this season.
Another thing I wanted to try was more on the bike specific exercises and less crosstraining, lifting weights, etc. One thing I experimented with, and I'm definatley going to do again this winter, is riding an overgeared single speed mountain bike. The Bluff Creek trail is only about 4 miles from my house. Single track riding is way more fun than lifting weights.

So after getting through the main part of the road season, in a nutshell the results were good and not so good. I felt like I went really well Feburary through April and just so-so through June. My race results were ok, actually my best racing with the cat 2's, but my power numbers never really matched what they were the last 2 years. I think the more consistant results are due to just gaining race experience and getting better at using what I have in a more efficient manner.  In looking back at all the data I've accumulated, the one common denominator for the best fitness, for me anyway, is lots of miles.
 
I took a couple of weeks off after the Tulsa Tough, and decided it was time to make a serious deposit to the mileage bank in July. My co-worker/team mate/commuter buddy Brandon is doing the Leadville 100 in August, so we're both going for record miles in July. The goal is at least 1300 miles. So far it's going well. We're both ahead of scheadule. I've got almost 900 miles in so far, and still have 12 days left.
 
The last Wed night crit was last week. Pretty decent turnout. The weather cooled off a little that evening which was nice. I didn't think I would do very well because I haven't done any high intensity riding in a month and my legs were pretty tired from the big miles, but it went ok. I got 2nd. Maybe could have won if I would have been smarter on the last lap.
My team mate Rob Bell had a camera mounted on his bars and has the entire race on video. It's 45 minutes long broken up into 3 parts. I'll try to get a link up here in the next couple days.

The goal for August is to try and raise my FTP to as high as possible, and then start fine tuning for the cyclocross season in September. There's a few late season road races mixed in around the same time, hopefully I'll be going pretty good by then.

Fast Times at Tulsa Tough 2011

 We left Oklahoma City bound for Tulsa around 3:30 Friday afternoon. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me back pedal to Wednesday. A couple of weeks before the Tulsa Tough, I heard that my buddy Dominik Roels was going to be in town to do the Wednesday night after work crit and then the Tulsa Tough.
Dominik was a foreign exchange student here in OKC for a couple of years around 6 or 7 years ago. He went on to race 3 years on the Milram Protour squad before taking a hiatus this season to basically travel the world.
Anyhow, the rumor was correct as he was at our local practice crit on Wednesday night. I guess a lot of guys felt the practice crit was too close to the Tulsa Tough, because the turnout was pretty low compared to the past 2 races. I think there were only 11 or 12 riders in the A group, 6 of which were Team Undiscovered, so we felt like if we couldn't control the race and get the top 3 spots, something was wrong.
After about 20 minutes into the 45 minute race, it was down to 4 riders - 2 of my team mates Rob and Brandon, Dominik, and myself. Dominik isn't in pro level shape right now, but the dude just kept coming back after our non-stop attacks. I think somewhere around 5 laps to go, Rob got away, followed shortly after by Brandon. I thought Dominik was pretty much done and attacked him with 2 laps to go and opened up about a 5 second gap. I tried to bridge to Rob and Brandon, but couldn't quite get there before the terminator came back again surging past me and almost catching Rob and Brandon. In the end, we got 1st, 2nd, and 4th.

Hanging out after the race was over, Dominik was looking for a ride to the Tulsa Tough. I was going up with Rob, and it was kind of an experiment to see if we could get 3 people, 3 bikes, spare wheels and all our gear  inside Rob's Wagon .

1 full vehicle -  Double click any photo to enlarge

It was a tight squeeze, but we did it. No external racks required. It was a fun trip to Tulsa as Rob and I asked a ton of questions about all things bike racing and discussed all kinds of things like what it's like to do a grand tour, how many pro's really dope, preferred bike equipment and so on.
Rob and I had also been talking about last years race and how when we watched the race videos, you barely got a glimpse of us. We didn't seem to be active whatsoever and we were looking to change that. We got to the Blue Dome venue in time to register and get a couple laps in before the cat 3's started. Dominik got registered without any problems. He would be racing the cat 1-2 races with Rob and I all weekend.

We were fortunate again this year to stay with Brian and Carol's friend Ann. Ann lives just a couple of blocks away from the riverside course, so it was only a 2 or 3 mile ride at most to any of the race sites.

So Friday night, the pro women were finishing up and it was finally time for us to race. There's kind of a race before the race to get to the start line in a good position. I secured a decent starting spot on the second row, and within a few minutes, we were racing.  I stayed in a good position around the top 15 or so for the first six corners. I got a good momentum run going down the long downhill backstretch, and found myself in 1st coming out of the last corner!



2nd lap glory on Friday night - Photo by Biff Stephens

 Luckily my buddy Biff got some really cool shots. The effort didn't seem too hard, so I just stayed on the front for a couple of laps.


Still on the front - Friday night - Photo by Biff Stephens

 If you notice the sky in the pictures, the weird look is not a photo effect. Before we started racing, it kind of looked like a big storm might be headed our way. I tried to stay in a decent position throughout the race, I'd say I was usually somewhere between 20th and 50th. I remember watching the lap counter and at 12 laps to go, I thought to myself "when it gets to the single digits, I need to start moving into a good position". The next time I checked it, what I thought would be 9 laps to go turned into 5 laps to go. I guess the race officials shortened the race 5 laps as a big storm was indeed headed our way. It was a pretty crazy scramble at that point, as everybody wanted to move up.
I cant remember if it was 2 or 3 laps to go when it started pouring. I got caught up in the first crash I saw happen. I didn't go down, but I pretty much came to a stop. The rest of the race was total chaos as bikes and bodies were laying all over the course in piles. I finished the race somewhat cautious ending up 28th.

Rob, Dominik and I went for ride Saturday morning on the river trail. Pretty nice. We discussed a plan for the 3 of us to work together. As it turned out, the plan pretty much went out the window as it started raining again shortly after we started racing. A bunch of guys crashed and in the end, most guys quit or got pulled. Only 38 of the over 100 starters finished. The course was a big challenge the whole race because it didn't rain everywhere. The race split in half with a group of about 20 up the road and a chase group of 18 or so that I was in. Eventually with 6 laps to go, we caught the lead group and it was all back together.
With 2 laps to go, I had moved up into the top 15, but coming into the last corner to start the last lap, the guy in front of me got chopped and hit his brakes pretty hard. I got into him and the guy behind me and lost a ton of positions. The race payed 20 deep and I finished 24th. My best finish in the 1/2's at this race, but I really wanted to finish in the money.


About 15 minutes in on Saturday - Big rain drops - Photo by Steve Stewart

Sunday I wanted to try to survive the whole race. Historically, I've never made it further than about halfway at this course. The cry baby hill section is pretty wild to ride through...Good motivation also.





Cry baby hill action - Sunday - Photo by Steve Stewart

 That's me in the middle of the photo #254. Although it didn't seem as hot this year, there were more water hoses shooting mist across the road which was nice.





Cry baby hill - Photo by Andrew Willis

 I was feeling pretty good Sunday. I was just sitting in for the most part trying to save as much energy as possible. Around 20 minutes in, I felt like I was drifting too far back, so I put a pretty hard dig in and got up towards the front. With nobody directly in front of me, I was able to go up the hill as hard as I wanted, which was probably a little too hard because I was on the ropes for the next 20 minutes. I made it to 9 laps to go before I got dropped. Rob was able to stay in the whole race and got 34th.
My cat 3 team mates did well with Brandon getting 9th, 4th, and 4th and Ryan got 14th on Sat and 12th on Sunday. It shouldn't be long before they're racing in the 1/2's.

The weekend overall was one of the funnest race weekends I've had. I learned a lot just following Dominik a few times and seeing how much different his general lines were than mine. I also got some new insight on tire pressure.

It's nice this year to start my summer break and still be motivated to ride a lot and race. I guess that's what happens when you don't try to hit every race possible. I'm already planning out my late road/cyclocross season. I think I'm going to go for a new mileage record this July as well.

May

I guess some good motivation came in May in that we finally got our new team bikes. Cannondale Caad 10's

The bikes ride really nice. Super stiff, but pretty comfortable on longer rides. I like the way they corner a lot. Anyhow, we also got our 2011 kits in mid April, so the total package is complete.

There were a couple of weeks after the racing in April and the races that would start in May, so I wanted to get a good block of riding in to try to get ready for the Tulsa Tough in June. It seemed like the weather changed overnight from needing arm and knee warmers to super hot!

The first event in May was the last of the OKC Velo TT series races. The conditions were not great with it being cold and windy. I ran my slowest time of the three races, but so did everyone else. I ended up with 2nd for the day and 3rd overall in the series.

The following weekend was the state championship team time trial on Saturday and the state criterium championship on Sunday. Rob, Andy and I formed a team and drove up to Hominy Saturday morning to give it a go. We felt like we had a pretty good plan, but once we were actually underway, it got a little sloppy. We ended up getting 3rd overall. The bummer was that we were only 2 seconds behind 2nd place, but we beat 4th place by 10 seconds. We're already planning on doing it again next year. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first year for a state team time trial. It was much more fun than doing the individual 40K state time trial for sure!

Sunday was the state criterium in Sand Springs. Same course as last year...pretty fun, but not as hot.
Jeremy decided to come out of retirement, and race with Rob, Shawn, and me. As we were warming up, we came up with a plan of marking 3 riders we thought would do well, and pretty much just shadow them. It was comical the first 2 laps of the race. The plan got thrown out the window pretty quickly as the Tulsa Tough riders were attacking from the start.

The race was 75 minutes long. I made it for 1 hour before I got dropped from the main field. I guess it's better than last years result, but still pretty disappointing.

The following Wednesday was the after work crit at the Edmond fire training center. The course layout this time was really fun. It was windy and the big hill was left out, so with the challenging corners, it was more of a true crit course. There were probably 25-30 high quality riders in the cat 123 A-race. Brandon and I were the only guys on the team who were able to make it out, and we were looking for a little redemption from the first race. The race started fast and pretty much stayed that way the whole time. In the photo above, this is the initial break that got things started. I had to kill it to bridge up to Brandon and the other 2 riders. Eventually the break grew to 7 riders.

There were a couple of awesome photographers taking pictures. I really like this one. In the end, the race went well for us. I got 2nd and Brandon got 4th. If I would have jumped a few seconds sooner, I'm pretty sure I would have won, but 2nd was good.
The last weekend in May was the Texas state criteriums. There was actually 4 days of racing due to Memorial day, but Rob and I decided to go down and do the Sunday and Monday races.

The weather was hot and the courses were the same both days. Sunday we went clockwise and Monday we went counterclockwise. Sunday was the skill based Texas state championships. There were about 80 or 90 cat 2's in our race. The course basically circled a small college facility. It was actually shaped kind of like a big circle with a little corner cut out, in other words, not very technical. The cat 2 race was 75 minutes long. With the weather being hot and all, it seemed like once we hit the 1 hour point and the lap counter showed 5 laps to go, guys just started popping left and right. Long story short, Rob and I got caught behind 1 too many gaps and found ourselves chasing the last 3 laps what was left of the main field. I think I ended up 27th.

Monday was the age based race. I think there were around 65 riders or so. It was basically 40-49 year olds with Texas state jerseys awarded to 40-44 and 45-49 age groups. There was quite a variety of rider abilities in the race. Most of the race went really well for me. I got in a good break early on. It started out as 4 riders and grew to about 12 riders, then shrunk back down to 6 riders. The break, however, was never really organized. There were a lot of rival teams represented with more than 1 rider from each team, so there was non stop surging and attacking.

We had lapped a lot of the field and were 45 seconds or so ahead of the main field. At 2 laps to go, I put in too hard of an effort on one of my pulls, somebody attacked and I didn't have the legs to jump back on. I thought I could still finish in a money spot as the race payed 7 deep, but the main field caught me with about 300 meters to go. I think I got 20 something place and 11th in my age category. Not what I was hoping for race wise, but some good speed building work to prepare for the Tulsa Tough.

April



It's been a long time since I've updated this, but I'll go ahead and start with what went down in April. Historically, it seems like April is usually the month I tend to peak around. I always want to make it more around May or June, but I guess it depends on how you start the year out training load wise. I definitely did some things differently this year and had some different goals and plans, all of which I'll get into in a different post, but it seemed like I peaked this year in March.



April training plan

 

I guess the first event in April was the Redbud. I thought I was going to have to peel off at some point in the ride to make it to my daughters soccer game, so I rode the ride super aggressive and burned as many matches as possible early on. I ended up riding the whole deal, but I was pretty smoked at the end. It came down to about 10 guys or so, and about all I was able to do was limp in after the last surge to the finish.

The Wednesday crit series has changed a bit and is now called the "Wednesday after work criterium ". They are now held the second Wed. of each month April through August. Anyway, the first race went ok. Not great, but ok I guess. The plan was to sit in for a while and let our cat 3's cover all the early attacks, but the race was only 30 minutes long, so it started super fast and if you weren't active right off the start, you were off the back.

Around 10 or 15 minutes in, Rob and I got into a break with 2 other riders. I was sure it was going to stick, and pretty much put all of my eggs in one basket effort wise. Long story short, the break got caught, and Brady attacked at the right moment and held it for the solo win. Rob got 2nd, I got 4th, and Brandon got 7th. I think there may have been 8 or 9 riders left on the lead lap. A pretty good sized group started, maybe 25 or 30 riders.

The Matrix criteriums in Dallas Tx. were on the 16th and 17th. I went down with Brandon and Lindsey. Pretty fun trip.

Nice weather at the Matrix crits in Dallas

Last year I did the second day only, which I thought was a mistake because it took 15-20 minutes of racing to get used to the speed and fast cornering. The race course is the same both days. Kind of short, mostly flat, 8 corners, and semi narrow roads. The competition in the Pro 1-2 category is pretty tough at this event. I would go as far as saying it's the hardest racing I've ever done. Last year I was only able to last 60 minutes of the 90 minute race before I got pulled from dropping too far off the back.

This year, I barely got registered because the 80 rider cutoff was full by Wednesday! I think I was number 75 or something. Anyhow, the first day went ok. A group of riders broke off early, so it seemed like the main field went a hair slower than normal. I lasted longer than last year making it all the way until the group I was in got pulled with 2 laps to go. I got 51st place Saturday.



Saturday results



Sunday on paper looked better, but only because most of the field got dropped pretty quick. Like as in 10 or 15 minutes. I got a good starting spot in the front row and managed to stay up in the top 20 for a few laps, but the race stayed together for quite a while making it really fast. I got pulled after only about 30 minutes, but I got 35th.



Sunday results

 I was hoping for better results, but the race experience was good getting deeper into the crit season.

The following Saturday was race #2 of the 3 OKC Velo TT series races. I guess the race conditions were fair. Aaron Smathers tweaked my bike fit, and the bike felt a lot better. It's hard to tell this year to last how things compare because the course is a little different, but I ran my fastest time on the current course of 17:02

The weird part about trying to compare is my speed is good and at an all time high (a little over 28mph), but my power output is 5-10% lower than my best runs in the last couple years.

OKC Velo TT #2

There was one last race at the end of the month, but I decided to skip it. There was a lot of racing in May with 4 criteriums and 2 time trials.

NWA Spring Classic 2011

It was another early morning road trip for our small group to Prairie Grove Arkansas for the 2011 NWA Road Race. Rob, Judson. Tony, Alex, and myself met up at our normal meeting spot and sponsor Schlegel Bicycles, and were on the road shortly after 5:00 AM Sunday morning. We took a little different route than the normal one. I-40 to Salisaw, then north all the way to HWY 62 all the way to the race . Pretty scenic curvy, hilly roads. Shawn drove up the day before and would be racing in the 1/2's with Rob and I.

I realized my first major error of the day when we first stepped out of the car. It was cold. Really COLD. I had plenty of clothing, but being as warm as it was last weekend, I decided to shave my beard off and buzz my hair. Looks like I cut it about a week and a half too early. Anyway, this was maybe the coldest weather I've ever raced in. I've definitely ridden in much colder weather, but racing in it is a different story. Normally, you want to dress lighter than normal if you're racing cause you're going so hard and it typically warms up as you go along as well. My legs, feet, and head were all good, but my hands and upper core never really got warm all day. I think the temperature may have actually gotten colder throughout the day. Upper 30's I think.
The weather didn't really affect my race performance, it just made things really uncomfortable.

Our race was 72 miles. The course was a 24 mile loop that we would be doing 3 laps on. I really like this course. I guess it's the 4th time I've done this race. Kind of a big rectangular shape with some nice rolling hills, some long straight open country road type sections where the wind can be a factor, some winding roads through big trees, and a good climb about 5-6 miles from the finish. The wind was not too bad, so the gutter racing was there, but not enough to cause any serious damage. There were 33 guys in our race. A lot of individual riders, we had 3, Soundpony had 4, Tulsa tough had 4, BOT had 4 riders I think, and Mercy had 8.

The first lap, I thought we rode pretty smart for the most part. There was usually 1 or 2 of us near the front keeping a good eye on things. I got into a couple of early moves with Jacob Lasley from Soundpony. Around 12 miles in he started attacking like crazy. I went with him the first 3 times I think. There was one point where 5 of us broke off, and I thought it was going to stick, but no go. He took off again, and I was there but I let it go. Maybe a bad move not going with him? Maybe not, but it took a while for the field to bring him back this time. Everything was back together. I could see the big hill up ahead, when some guys wanted to take a pee break. Everyone slowed down, and some guys were already stopped.

It was kind of like in a Nascar race where everyone is coming in for a pit stop, but at the last second, one guy fakes everybody out and goes back onto the track to get position on everyone. That's pretty much what happened as Jacob kept rolling. He didn't attack, but he didn't slow down like everyone else did, so he established a nice little gap going into the hill for the first time. When we got over the hill, I found myself towards the back of a hard chasing field. I think at that point Rob and Shawn were towards the back as well. I remember thinking I had burned quite a few matches already, and that I should just sit on and recover for a bit. Looking back, that kind of thinking can cost you a good result, and in the end it did.

I could see that the field was slowly pulling Jacob back. The next thing I know, I see a couple of guys trying to bridge. That's the problem with not having anyone where the action is. If you're not there, you can't react. The 2 riders were Evan Bybee riding solo for DNA and Jay Blankenship for Tulsa Tough. They bridged up and took off from there. Early on I wasn't too concerned. They were kind of dangling 20 seconds up the road for a long time, plus I figured the Mercy guys would start working, or at least working harder than they were. By the time we were a lap and a half in, the gap had gone up to a minute. Rob asked if we should start working. I figured it was still no big deal and if it got over 1:30 or so, we would start.

I went up to the front to see what the situation was, and it was not good. Jason Waddell was in total control of the race tempo, and the Mercy guys had pretty much given up. I rolled through a few times to try to encourage the group to keep on it, but it didn't help much. Somewhere around this point, I heard the time gap was up to 2 minutes. I found Rob and we decided it was time to start working. This was just before we hit the big hill the second time. As was the case last time up, I got shuffled to the back. For the remainder of the second lap, Rob stayed on the front and just drilled it. He single handedly shrunk the gap from 2:00 to 1:15, but, it quickly became apparent that Rob would not be getting any help. If anything, all the guys who had a rider up the road and were blocking-sitting on, were sitting pretty out of the wind, and all the potential allies were struggling in the gutter.

I weaseled my way up to the front and told Rob to shut it down. I figured at that point we could either race for 4th or give it to someone else. Going into the last lap, the field had gotten smaller. Maybe 20 guys left. There were a few moves that we tried to get into, but nothing was sticking. I'm not exactly sure how Rob was feeling, but another possible bad move on my part was asking Rob to hang back on the big hill to help me stay connected to the group. I knew the race would be from the top of the climb to the finish line, and sure enough, the fresh guys killed it. I think if Rob went up the hill at his own pace, he may have been more in the mix.

Anyway, there's a ton of woulda, coulda, shoulda type things that happened in this race. The field split up into 4 groups or so in the end, and Rob and I spent the remainder of the race bridging from one group to the next. In the end I got 15th, Rob got 19th, and Shawn got 30th. Not quite what we were looking for, but we did get a lot of work in and learned some new lessons in the process. I'm looking forward to some of the upcoming events were we'll get a chance to ride with some of the newer guys on the team, as there are tons of things coming up. Sorry no pictures this time. My teamate and buddy Tony has our race finish as well as the cat 3 finish on his blog http://joetoprocycling.com/video-clips-from-the-finish-line-nwa-spring-classic-2011/