Redlandssssss

I think I may have gone too hard in the prologue. Well, I should rephrase. I went too hard given the slow ass time that I put down. Even slow would have been alright, but I was almost ten seconds slower than last year. I'm trying to tell myself it was the wind or something, but Ben Day had no problem beating his winning time from last year by 3 seconds. Whammy.

But yeah, too hard. We all saddled up for the Beaumont RR today. That pain train left the station at around 10am. The only problem was everyone else looked like they were on a pleasure cruise. They changed the course from last year, taking out a big section of the flats and rollers and adding another KOM loop right from the gun. If they were hoping to make the course more selective they failed pretty badly. Its not the course that makes that race, its the wind. And though last years gusts would have had Dorthy talking to the Tin Man, this year was disappointingly calm.

I should probably be thanking my lucky stars. My legs were terrible today. Awful. Wretched. Horrendous. I can't recall the last time they felt this bad. Its a pretty frightening feeling to have a bad day like that as a cyclist. I mean, I spend a goodly chunk of my time training to be fit and fast for races. Being forced to fight my legs for 105 miles today just made me feel... well... helpless. I was stuck. There's no magic potion or voodoo dance that can bring the legs around when they're that bad. You just have to buckle down and try to stick it out to fight another day.

If it had been blowing like last year I wouldn't have made it one lap. But make it I did. Not in any kind of style, mind you, and certainly not with the front group, but I made it. I lost contact the last time up the climb. Same as last year. Ughh. I tried to get Adam in position going into it, but I don't think I did much besides tire myself out.

The team did well. We missed the early break and with it a shot at the KOM and Sprinter's jerseys, but everyone was sharp all day and 5 out of 8 finished in the front group. It would have been 7 of 8, but for 2 poorly timed mechanicals.

So yeah, I survived. My awesome host housing found us a student from massage school and I'm feeling much better than I did a few hours ago, when I just wanted to amputate the damn things and have done with it. The crit tomorrow is going to be insanity. 186 riders on a 9 turn, crazy-technical, arrowhead-shaped course. Madness. Madness. We'll just have to see.

On a lighter note, Ronnie Lenzi is a whiz when it comes to taking photos and she has some of the best images of cycling that I've ever seen. She's so good, in fact, that she somehow took this photo of me suffering slowly up the SDSR HCTT, and made it look as though I were enjoying some kind of forward momentum. She's the best.

Lastly, I have to give a shout-out to two very fine ladies I'm proud to call my friends. Jazzy "The Hurricane" Hurikino and "Righteous" Rae Brownsberger are down here racing for Third Pillar and they are tearing it up! They're both young up and comers, and they're down here duking it out with probably the most stacked women's peloton in US racing. They both crushed their way into the front group in the RR today (with Jazzy mixing it up in the finish) and both are holding onto some pretty respectable GC positions. Basically, they're hitters. Remember those names.


For those of you interested in full results Velo News seems to get them before the officials do.

Things That Make Me Smile

I'm saving all my energy up for the coming showdown at Redlands so I'm not going to write a long post. Instead I'm going to offer up a few little happy things from the last few days.

1. Awesome host housing. Debbie and Barry (and Bailey!) not only welcomed us into their home for San Dimas, they wowed us with some awesome home-cooked meals. Phil mentioned that he had missed out on corned beef and cabbage this St. Patty's day, and D&B went out of their way to make it for us one night. And cookies. And a huge taco feast. In fact, I'm not entirely sure they weren't trying to sabotage my hill-climbing ability.

2. Awesome host housing, part 2. For Redlands five of us are kicking it with Kylie and Mike, two insane, tough-as-nails Ironman triathletes and altogether awesome people. They have two sweet doggies, and I don't want to brag, but those ladies just could not keep their hands (paws) or tongues off of me. What can I say? Must be the mustache!

3. "If I win this race we're going to Red Lobster!" -Vincent Owens, while reconnoitering the HCTT. I hope he gets a win soon, cause I've got a hankering for champagne and cheddar bay biscuits.

4.  Joe from Davis Wheelworks. I'd love to say more about Joe here, but the truth is I barely know the guy, which makes what he did that much more spectacular. Joe owns Davis Wheelworks and from what I can gather he is single-handedly responsible for invigorating the cycling scene in Davis. He puts on the local Wednesday night time trial that has grown from a small gathering to a weekly fixture that attracts over a hundred riders. He runs a totally killer shop, stocked to ceiling with amazing bikes and run by knowledgeable staff. More than all of that though, Joe seems to have a soft spot for struggling, up and coming cyclists. I finally got my sweet new TT rig but I was a total loss as to how to put the thing together. Joe took it upon himself to help me and Adam build our bikes. Not only that, but he did it last minute at the drop of a hat. We literally dropped 3 bikes off at 10pm and they were expertly built and ready to go before the shop opened the next morning. I'm totally blown away by Joe's kindness, and I can tell you exactly what shop I'll be going to for as long as I'm within 100 miles of Davis. The only problem now is that I have no idea how to repay him. You can check out Davis Wheelworks on facebook and twitter.

5. Evan "The Wolf" Huffman. Evan may be the youngster on the team, but he is all man. During the San Dimas RR he grew hungry from his exertions. Not having any race food at hand he leaned down and snatched a hapless squirrel that happened to be darting across the course. And then he feasted:

Look at him! Its like he enjoyed it or something. Savage!

6. Good teammates. It makes all the difference in the world riding with great guys, and these guys are great. They're funny as hell, bright, savvy, and best of all they can throw down on the bike. I think anyone can get on a team with a bunch of strong guys, but when you spend just about every waking moment with people for long stretches of time you'd best get along with them well. Luckily I do. I couldn't be happier traveling, shit-talking and wrecking house with anyone else. I can't wait to see how Redlands goes.

Hail to the King

Our very own Adam Switters came out and crushed the SDSR RR yesterday. He attacked early in the race and rolled solo until he was joined by Nathan O’neil and some other crushers. Despite the talent he was riding against he managed to grit his teeth and muscle himself up the climb enough times to take the KOM jersey. With just the crit left that gives him a virtual lock on the KOM competition. This race has over 155 riders from all of the big pro teams in the US and one from Australia. I cannot begin to explain how impressive it is for him to have won the KOM. Switters, you are a hero.

Adam’s race must have been an advanced course in suffering, but how did it all go for the rest of us back in the field? The course itself is a real mother. Each lap is only 7 miles long and its filled with rolling terrain, tight turns, steep descents, coned sections, bad pavement and more road furniture than you can shake a stick at. At a few points in the course all 160 riders got funneled down from 3 lanes to one to get through a park ranger shack or a traffic island. The KOM comes just over a mile from the finish. After a long descent and one lane dam crossing, the course shoots through a narrow gate before making a hard right left chicane into the base of the climb. Hitting the climb on the front is of paramount importance. If you can carry some speed and give yourself room to drift back its not too terrible. If you’re tail-gunning though, you come to almost a complete stop and then have to sprint up the climb full gas to maintain contact. The climb itself is only 2 minutes long, but its steep and hard and you have to hit it 12 times. Ouch.

I’ve been feeling the beginnings of sickness coming on so I decided to take the race pretty easy. I spent the first couple of laps trying to find the best lines and the rest of the race just trying to conserve energy, stay loose, and keep hydrated. At one point I saw Bahati on the climb and decided to start taking my cues from him. He would position himself as far up in the group as he could going into the climb and then ride a very civilized pace up it letting people come around him as they pleased. I was just cruising and conserving from most of the race, but some highlights included a guy stacking it onto a haybaled traffic island, coming to a complete stop and having to unclip on the hill, and seeing Chris Baldwin almost wrap himself around a signpost in a wide open stretch of the course.

With three to go we caught Switters and the break on the top of the climb and things started to get hectic. The peloton split into two groups and while Phil and I were up the road the rest of the guys dropped back to make sure Swit-diggity made the time cut and got the Jersey. The penultimate time up the climb I got stuck in my big ring for the first part and was last wheel and dangling when I finally got it to shift. Yikes!

The race came down to the final time up the climb. I moved into good, but not great, position and hit it as hard as I could. The group split in two and I was the last guy to make it over the top with the front group. We ripped the descent at reckless speeds and then started hammering the flat run-in to the finish. 5 guys had slipped off the front on the climb, but no one was digging deep to catch them. Sitting last wheel was not an option so I made a move to get on Ken Hanson’s wheel. I lost him when he slipped through a tight gap and it was all downhill form there. Instead of manning up and just hitting it (which might actually have worked with the strong tailwind and narrowing finish) I tried again and again to find a good wheel and ended up boxed in and shut down. Looking at the file for the race I can see that I had to hit the brakes 3 times in the final 500 meters. They say if you want to win a sprint you can’t ever touch the brakes. I limped in for 13^th place. I’d like to say that I’m happy that I had the legs to be there, but in reality I’m pretty pissed at myself for missing such a golden opportunity. I was tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about what I might have done differently, but you don’t get any do-overs. Luckily it’s a long season and with a bit of luck I should have more chances to make it happen. Big props again to Switters for a gutsy ride. This is far and away the best result for Yahoo! Cycling thus far and I think it’s a harbinger of results to come.

Just finished spinning the legs on a coffee ride now were prepping for our 3:00 crit. I may get another chance sooner than I’d thought.

Madera and Such

Finished up the Madera Stage Race last weekend, and she was a doozy. Its four stages: a hill climb TT, a flat TT, a crit and a RR. I wasn't made to go uphill, so the GC is usually out for me. I did manage to take more than 40 seconds off of last years time in a half hour TT, which is good, but it still left me over 3 minutes off the leader. Ouch. Phil said he had bad legs, but finished in tenth and Vinny was in 7th. Nice rides by both.

Our fearless leader figured that with two strong guys in the top ten unless I felt fantastic I should soft-pedal the flat TT and save it for the crit and RR. Vinny rode a great race and held on to his GC spot, but poor Phil, who according to his time splits was riding to a win over BJM flatted with a third of the race to go. Lame! But we made up for it in the crit.

When we showed up to the crit that afternoon we saw a staggering sight. The wind was blowing hard enough to cause a selection in the Cat 3 crit! For those of you not familiar with cycling seeing a Cat 3 race split apart is like watching an eagle snag a fish out of lake; you're pretty sure it happens, but you almost never see it, and when you do it is awesome! We knew we were in for a good crit.

BJM hit it hard from the line just to swing his dick, and luckily Briggs was on it. They got reeled in, but the pace stayed high and attacks kept coming. Finally Bosch got a gap with BJM and Rob Britton (Bissell) and they looked to be pulling away. I saw my chance and jumped across the gap. Once I got up there we started working pretty well and the gap was growing. We managed to work well enough to stay away for almost the whole race.

Back in the field it was absolute chaos. CalGiant had missed the break so they lined up their whole team and guttered the field. In the break we kept passing riders who had been popped from the group behind and were getting lapped. There were a few people that we blew past that really put a smile on my face. There were some intermediate time bonuses in the crit and we wanted to get Bosch 8 seconds to move him into 10th place on the GC. Unfortunately Rob Britton kept sprinting around him to take them to secure his already solid third place in GC. I asked them to give Bosch one, but they said, "hey, this is a race. We're going to go for it."

So when BJM looked  at me with 4 to go and said, "Rob wins or we stop working." I wasn't inclined to just give them the win. This was a tough call for me. Thinking that we had 2 guys in a group of four and were guaranteed a podium spot with two pros it was pretty tempting to take the deal. But shit, like he said this was a bike race. I told him I meant no offense, but we should race for it. So I stopped working. Britton attacked and Bosch went with him, but I waited for Ben. He told me he knew how to play chicken and he could do it all day. We shadowed each other as Rob and Bosch rode away and the field bore down on us. He took off down the finishing straight with 3 to go and I tried to jump with him but was late. It took me almost a full lap to get back up to them, but when I did we all sat up and stopped working.

We came back to the field with 2 to go. Charlie Avis of the Trek team took a flyer as we got caught. he had a decent gap, but it looked like he was coming back before the finish. With one to go Phil yelled and asked me what I needed, but it was a bit chaotic and I didn't see a leadout figuring into the finale. So I followed a surge and moved towards the front. Phil also followed a surge forward, but sensing a hesitation he shot out in a solo move with 3/4s of a lap to go and went straight past Avis and kept hammering towards the line. I slotted in around 10th wheel as people began to chase and found a clean line down the long finishing straight and hit it. I saw nothing but white Yahoo! kit in front of me and in those fractions of a second in a sprint when time slows down I thought, hey, I could just coast in because its only teammates in front of me, oh wait, if I'm gaining on them then whoevers behind me could be gaining too. So I drove to the line and finished right behind Phil who held us all off for the win. I was second with Bosch 3rd and Briggs 5th.

I'm proud of myself for not playing it safe and laying it on the line. You've got to be in it to win it. I think that was one of hte best races the YCT has had thus far.

Unfortunately we screwed the pooch a little bit in the RR the next day. Filip rode like and animal and hung tough in the winning break all day waiting for reinforcements that never appeared. We missed the second break of the day and just sort of rolled it in. Uggh. We ended with 3 riders in the top 10 on GC, but no one on the podium. Oh well. We're still figuring it out and I think we learn a ton every race.

I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything ready for two weeks on the road. I leave tomorrow for the San Dimas Stage Race and then stay in southern California for the Redlands Bicycle Classic. These are the first big races of the year and we'll be going head to head with full pro fields. I can't say the courses suit me that well, but if I see an opportunity 'm not going to hesitate. Now its time to pack my bags before a long day of making sweet, sweet automobile love to I-5.

Podium Cafe VDS

I've tried to extrapolate the number of my acquaintances who might be playing this game based on the friends and family I've talked to. My best estimate at this time is zero. Come on people! You totally blew it! I know I didn't give you a ton of time to think through all the great reasons to play and then still sign up, but really. It would only have taken a few minutes.

Oh well, maybe its for the best. You'd have all probably been heartbroken by the fact that at this point I would have been absolutely dominating you all. That's right. Read it and weep. Herd of Mammoths is currently tied for 8th place out of 444 teams. Booyah!

Okay, that has a lot to do with the fact that I have a team full of classics riders because those are the people I relate to. As soon as real stage racing starts I'll be dropped waaaaaaay down to the bottom of the standings. But until that happens I'm going to bask in the sunny glow of fantasy cycling dominance. This is that sweet feeling I thought you all might get by playing. I feel like a winner even though I haven't made a single pedalstroke to earn these results. Awesome.

In other news, I'm kicking around the idea of trying to do a fantasy cycling league for NorCal racers and races. I'm not sure if its going to happen yet, but if it does I'm going to expect slightly better participation rates.

If by chance you did actually sign up for the Podium Cafe VDS please leave a comment and let me know your team name. You'll probably be one of 3 and get a prize just for signing up.

Snelling, a Revelation

The Snelling Road Race was this past weekend. I wrote a race report for the YCT website, so instead of repeating myself I'll focus here on my favorite part of the race: the last five miles wherein I flog myself in search of glory, come heartbreakingly close, and fall short.

I had a rocky December/January and have been far, far behind in my training to the point where I've been doing exclusively base training and no, repeat zero, intensity. Snelling was my first chance to race hard and I had no idea how the legs would respond.

The field of 120 spent most of the race smashing each other up with attacks, chasing down moves, and trying to keep things moving without tiring out. After about 70 miles I was the lone Yahooligan in a group of 8 after my teammate Evan tragically flatted out of the front group. This group was stacked. The cast included Gerlach, Holloway, Sayers, Kilun,  and Talansky (all pros or former pros), Jesse Moore (local phenom) and some guy I didn't recognize. A quick shoutout here to my coach Judd who decided to race the P/1/2s after flatting out of the masters race that morning. He muscled his way into our group and rolled it like a champ until things exploded all over the road. The guy is something else.

With about 6 miles to go people started dropping bombs. One guy would rip off some massive attack, get a gap and the rest of us would be forced to jump in response to close it down or call a bluff and wait for someone else to close it. There were many attacks. I was hurting after 70 miles of hard racing and unsure about how much I had left in the tank. Then Talansky hit out hard, and as we hesitated he started pulling away. Gerlach, with his uncanny ability to read a race, jumped at the perfect time, making the bridge move look simultaneously effortless for him and impossible for the rest of us.

Talansky and Gerlach linked up and started pulling away as the rest of us looked around. One person would jump, but as soon as he saw another rider on his wheel he would sit up, not wanting to drag someone else to the winning move. Sayers went. Kilun went. Kilun again. Then Holloway took off like he'd been shot out of a cannon and after a moment of hesitation he was slowly making his way across to the two up front. Again we attacked, covered and sat calling each others bluffs. The front two were well up the road at this point and Holloway, too, had a good gap and looked to be gaining. I was really hurting by now, but I figured I could either bluff my way into a sprint for 4th place, or throw down, try to bridge and at least go out in a blaze of glory.

So I hit it as hard as I could. When I looked back I had a little gap so I put my head down and rode as hard as I could trying to catch the three up the road. Honestly, I didn't think I had a chance in hell. I was suffering like a dog over the last couple of rollers. I pedaled through the last flooded section and as the streams of water hit my felt it felt like someone had put on the E-brake. And then somehow I was closing it down. I think the front two must have slowed up when Holloway got across, not wanting to drag the reputable sprinter to the line. Whatever happened, I made it up to them with maybe a mile and a half to go.

The four of us did two rotations to keep things moving, and then Talansky hit it hard while I was on the front. We jumped and caught him. I don't think he liked his odds in the sprint and I can't blame him. He made one more move into the last corner before the 400 meter uphill sprint. I was looking for Gerlach's wheel, afraid I wouldn't be able to stay with Holloway's kick. Gerlach went, Holloway took his wheel and I slotted in behind him as he came around Gerlach. I left it as late as I could knowing I didn't have much left for an uphill sprint, and perhaps I left it too late. I tried to come around Holloway with maybe 150 meters to go, but I just couldn't quite get him.

 From left: Holloway, Gerlach, the Mammoth (photo from Yahoo! Cycling Team)

Man! I love that kind of racing. I love when the final group self-selects through repeated savage attacks. I love the mental strains of cat and mouse tactics at the end of a long, hard day. And I love a sprint finish where I can turn it all loose and know I didn't hold anything back.

I also love winning, which is one important thing missing from this race. That said, I'm beyond excited about what this performance means for the rest of the season. I've had one solid month of base training with no intensity at all, and I was right there in it, just inches from snatching a sprint win from a bunch of pros and a guy who recently returned from riding 6 day track events in Europe. I understand this was Snelling, not Tour of the Battenkill, but if I can continue training diligently, stay focused and optimistic, and keep improving this could shape up to be one hell of a season.

One last note having to do with attitudes in the pack. I appreciate that psychology plays a huge role in bike racing. Heck, its one of the reasons I love to race. You can't just be strong, you have to be smart too, and sometimes that means getting people to do things they don't want to do if its to your benefit. But there's a line somewhere, and I think people crossed it on Saturday. Instead of calling anyone out, I'll say instead that I'm incredibly impressed with how Chad Gerlach races his bike. He's strong as shit, and he's been doing this stuff long enough to have a great feel for how a race is going to play out. He doesn't need to whine, or scream or spit on people. He races hard, and he races straight up. What's more, he actually seems to be enjoying himself. I don't know the guy off the bike, but in a race he's a talented and honest competitor and I'd be happy to line up with him any day. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the peloton.