Matrix crit pictures Dallas TX

Tons of racing going on with no time to do any race reports...

Photos courtesy of my buddy Andy Chasteen

Redbud, Cors #2, and the Exfuse crit

The Redbud is not a real race (although it thinks it is) so I'll keep it short. Rob , Jeremy and me participated, rode hard, broke up the field to bits, had fun, kept riding, and I for one was sore for 2 days afterwards. Good race simulation workout.

The CORS event #2 was time trial at Overholser. The same course as the OKC Velo TT series thats currently going on. I made a couple of major changes to the frankenbike. Aaron Smathers was gratious enough get my fit dialed in on the bike, and I must admit, it feels 10X better (thanks Aaron!). I've been working on a rear wheel disc cover modification, but after working on it for the 2 days prior to the event, all I had to show for it was some torn up hands. The weather conditions were much better than the last TT, so I basically used the same wheel configuration- Flashpoint 80mm front-Powertap with 32 hole open pro rear.

Once again the race went well for our team. Jeremy was able to borrow a bike and got 1st. Rob and I both took a minute off our last times to get 2nd and 3rd. We all set new personal best times. It was 1 of my goals this season to break into the 17's on this course and I got it with a 17:53. Hopefully I can get my wheel covers finished or borrow a disc for the next TT.

The Exfuse crit ended up being one of the strangest races I've ever done. The race course is on a housing addition loop out on 122nd and N.Eastern, but with no houses built yet. Around 8/10 of a mile loop with 2 good climbs. It pretty much rained the entire race. Park Place had 3 riders there: Cagle, Waddel, and Rempel. We had 4 with Jeremy, Rob, Parks and me. There were 3 or 4 Tulsa wheelmen plus some other strong local and regional riders. I think there were 16 starters altogether.

The race started off very well. Somehow Rob, Jeremy and I got in a 5 man break with Waddel and Rempel. At first the teams just kept attacking each other back and forth, which was working at first to distance ourselves from the rest of the field. Somewhere around 15 minutes in, we had a HUGH gap on the rest of the field. We let Jeremy roll away with Justin Rempel and I thought Waddel would not be ok with that and chase them down, but it ended up being Rob, Waddel and I in a second breakaway group. In hindsight, Rob and I should have kept the pressure on as waddel just sat on. We had such a large time gap that we assumed we had a top 5 in the bag. I knew Waddel was trying to slow our group down to allow Chad Cagle to leap frog up into our group. Sure enough, I see 2 guys chasing and closing fast.

Rob and I started to go hard again trading pulls each lap, but it wasn't enough as Cagle ended up catching us. The next several laps were rough as Rob and I took an old fashioned beating. The kind where they hit us a lot more than we hit them. Somehow we managed to survive all their attacks and even throw in a few of our own but, that type of riding is not efficient and even though we had lapped several riders, Jeremy and Justin managed to catch us with 2 laps to go.

I'm not sure if everyone knew exactly what was going on, but 3 riders left from the main field jumped on Jeremy and Justin and got a free ride back to our group. So with 2 laps to go, there's 2 riders a lap ahead of everyone and 7 guys left to fight it out over 3rd through 9th. To say I was furious at this point would be an understatement. How could we have blown a guaranteed 3 riders in the top 5? Instead of keeping cool and missing out on an opportunity to go heads up with 2 of the best sprinters around, I let emotion take over and punched it chasing an attack just as we were starting the last lap. All that accomplished was a nice lead out for the sprinters and the lucky tag along riders.

Still despite everything, we had a good race, we made money, we learned a lot, and had a good time in the process. For some strange reason, I really like racing in the rain. It's easy to place the blame on others but, the 3 of us were equally responsible for not finishing as well as we could have. Sometimes you have to make mistakes in order to learn how to do it a better way.

I guess its time to reset my FTP. I set a new 60 minute personal power record and my intensity factor for the 1 hour was 1.1 something. 2 more TTs this week and a crit on Sunday in Dallas.

CORS firehill crit #1 and a recovery week

I'm experimenting with a slightly different way of recovering this week. My average month is the typical 3 weeks on with 1 recovery week. The typical average TSS numbers for an "on" week for me this season have been in the 750-930 range, where as a typical "recovery" week has been in the 350-400 TSS range. I've noticed that in general I feel pretty bad through the recovery week. Kind of like going along full throttle and letting it off too abruptly and getting way out of a good rhythm.
Anyway, what I'm going to try thats different is shoot for my typical TSS number for a recovery week, but substitute some intensity for volume. So far I think it's working well. I'm feeling better than I usually do at this point in the week but, time will tell.

This week also had the first CORS (Central Oklahoma Race Series) event of the year. The race was a criterium at the Firehill venue. I guess winter decided to return for the afternoon because it got really cold and windy. Andy and I took off work at 5:30 and battled the traffic up to Edmond. I'm not sure if they were starting early or we were running late, but we registered as soon as we got there, pinned on our numbers, got on the bikes as we had "kitted up" at the shop,and what I thought to get was a 15-20 minute warm up. I started into my first warm up lap and as I was climbing the hill the first time, the officials started staging up the race start. I guess a 3-4 minute warm up is better than nothing.

Going into this race I have to admit I felt a little under pressure as a team. When we formed our cat2 group, our goal was to establish a strong team of cat 2's from the Oklahoma City area to compete with the other strong regional cat 1/2 teams from around here. The only problem is, it instantly puts a target on your back with the other up and coming teams to try to prove themselves. So far this year I think we've done a pretty good job getting ourselves established and having some respectable results.

Anyway, the race went well for us. The goal was for a win and as many of the top points spots as possible. So we accomplished that with getting the top 3 positions. In hindsight, I think we could have accomplished the same thing in a more efficient manner, probably even lapping the field, but I think over all we did an excellent job and got this series started on the right track.

The next race is a time trial on Wednesday at Overholser. The infamous Red Bud is also this weekend.

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!