A Message to Triathletes

Sigh, so I am out riding at Island Lake park and a triathlete passes me. Since my goal for the night was an easy ride I kept a nice steady pace, no racing him. It just so happens my pace kept me 100 to 200 meters behind him.  Well then I decide to do a few intervals.  Once again my goal was just to loosen my legs up to race this weekend. My first interval I never caught him, but my second interval was a steady 6 min medium effort. Well I end up passing him.  I look back and can see he is trying really hard to stay with me. A few minutes later at the end of my interval he tries to follow me through a 90 bend I took at over 25 mph.  I hear an awful noise...carbon meeting road.  He had blown the corner and laid the bike down skidding off the road into a ditch breaking the fork and top tube of his Cervelo P2.  I kind of feel like an ass now, then again it was his fault for trying to follow me.    I turned around though to make sure he was ok and offer help. I feel like I indirectly caused him to crash by pushing him harder then he should have been going.  I guess I should have stopped for a few minutes to make sure I had a clear road to do my intervals.

So my questions are, why do people treat training like a competition and why do triathletes have this grudge against roadies?  I mean I would never take unnecessary risks training just to keep up with someone.  There is no shame in getting passed training, not every ride is a race. Oh well...

Racing the Pave of Fenton and Flint

Saturday July 24th I raced in the Maillot Jaune road race in Fenton, MI.  On tap for the day was 53 miles, or 4 laps at just over 13 miles.  For a change the weather was cool and wet, it even rained during the race.  While the weather was great, my body wasn't feeling so hot.  Monday I had hurt my knee, it was still swollen and healing. The course featured several nice climbs, so it suited me well. The first lap of the race went off in a very lazy fashion.  Nobody really wanted to take a run off the front, given the conditions and the length of the race.

The second lap things got a little more boring, our field was passed by two other fields.  In the process one person slipped off the front.  I didn't notice and I think most the field didn't notice.  Instead of chasing the guy we all decided to just let him go.  He was from Kentucky and supposedly very strong.   I was in no shape to help set up a chase, my goal for the day was just to make it to the finish.  So I just sat in the field doing anything to not make my knee swell.  Nothing much happened on the next few laps besides a few small accidents caused by pedestrians in town.  For the most part the pact made it to the final climb all intact.  A few attacks were quickly launched and I was quickly falling off the back.  Accelerations on a climb were just something I couldn't handle this day.  I stayed my tempo and made it to the top within arms reach of the pack.  So I quickly latched back on and now it was an easy downhill to the finish line.  Going around the final corner I was still in the back of the pack, this was okay though because I quickly began my slingshot move towards the front.  I think I topped out near 44 MPH in my sprint for the line.  However I dipped out of the draft to quick and burnt up a little, but I still got 9th.  I lost 8th place by a fraction of a tire width, a real photo finish.  All and all it was a good day given my expectations going into the day.

Maillot Jaune Full Results

Sunday July 25th I was off to Flint, MI to race Le Champion Pave.  I have to admit I was a little concerned with racing in Flint.  Its not really known as a very nice place.  In fact, its about as scary as Detroit.   However though the race was to be put on in dead center downtown running through the University of Michigan Flint campus and down the bricks of Flints main street.  It was a longer circuit for a criterium, but the only thing that mattered was the bricks.  They are a beast of there own to race on.  Luckily carbon dampens the bone jarring vibrations some.  When I arrived downtown I was quiet surprised to find the city deserted.  It really is almost a snap shot from another decade.  There were a few spectators, but beyond that an empty town.  However I have to say I enjoyed the setup, I hope this race just gets bigger and bigger in the future.

My fields crit was scheduled for 50 minutes plus a lap. The race started out hard,  as usual with a race like this everyone wanted to attack where it hurts.   That being on the stretch of bricks.  I kind of knew at the start I lacked the explosiveness to do good in a sprint finish, the legs hadn't fully recovered from racing the day before.  So when the attacks started and the field was being lazy with bringing them back, I quickly went to the front to do some pace work.   I wanted to make sure no breaks got free this day.  I even enjoyed a few turns at hammering the pace through the bricks.  I'm not sure how to pin it, but it brings a smile to your face to just hammer it, then look back at the suffering you had caused. For the day it was mission accomplished for me, no breakaways succeeded and everyone was grouped for a bunch sprint finish.   So I sat up and let my rested teammate contest the sprint in which he ended up with 6th.  All and all it was a solid weekend of racing for me.  My strength really surprised me in Flint, I had great power endurance.  Fenton also gave me a lot of confidence for the races to come.  It hopefully should make for a very interesting last month of the season.

 Le Champion Pave Full Results

Catching Up!

So, the past few weekends having been action packed.  I still have a lot of catching up to do.

July 10th I raced in the USAC NRC Meijer Grand Cycling Classic.  Being part of the National Racing Calendar series meant the field would be tough.   To make matters worse the race was held on the bricks of downtown Grand Rapids.  The most challenging part of the weekend though was I would have to compete with the Category 2 field.  For me this race was going to be a huge test.  Could I hang with the Cat 2's, and could I handle the brutal heat and humidity that this year Michigan summer is dishing out.   Lining up at the start I knew I wouldn't have much of a shot after I saw the quality of the riders in the field.  So my motive of the day was survival.  The field was 83 riders, not the biggest I have been in.  The race started out in a fury, the pace quickly went up to around 28 MPH average.  I felt good for the first few laps so I tried to move my way up the field.  Big mistake...I put my heart rate to high.  The pace never slacked and my heart rate never went down.  So after 30 minutes of racing I pulled the plug and left the pack.  I had been red lining over 190 bpm for over 10 minutes.  While I didn't finish I learned a fair amount.  Next year I will be ready.

July 11th I raced in the Terry Reisch Memorial Charity Road Race.  Recovering from the heat stroke I suffered the day before I was ready to go again.  I wasn't to excited that this day would be even warmer, and the race would be much...much longer.  Since this was a charity race in the middle of nowhere the field was small.  The course was a 4 mile loop that we would race 8 laps.  It had a few short hills that would suit me well.  The race started very relaxed and lazy, nobody was to thrilled to race in the heat.  

On the end of the second lap two riders attacked.   I was feeling fairly good so I decided to bridge the gap and make it a 4 man break.  However, the pack wasn't going to let this break go and we were quickly brought in.  Shortly after that 4 more riders went off the front.  This is when the race got frustrating, none of the other teams would share the load of chasing the breakaway.  So 3 men were doing the work of chasing 4,  if you do the math its easy to tell who would win.  I was one of those 3, after a half hour of hell I gave up.  I was spent and starting to suffer heat stroke.  The rest of the race I spent recovering unhappy.  On the final lap I wanted to let my anger go, so the last 3 miles of the race I decided to go to the front of the pack again and drive the pace.  I didn't care where I would finish, I just wanted to make people hurt since they were all to lazy to help bring back the break.   So I just sat on the front and pounded the pedals, in the end I gave my teammate a very good lead out that snagged him second in the field sprint.  So even though the race sucked, I was happy with being in a break shortly.  Then putting on the hurt at the end.

 Terry Reisch Full Results

 July 17th I raced in the BTR Criterium.  Held on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo this was a home race for a few of my teammates.  Luckily for me I was on vacation in Sawyer, MI on the west side of the state so the drive to the race was short.  Once again though the heat and humidity was nuts.  The race was slated for 70 minutes on a short circuit.  The heat has not been treating me well so my goal was survival.  For a change the pace was fast and the group stayed bunched.  My day was eventful though, about half way through the race I hit a crack in a corner and about crashed when my wheel skipped.  Later in that same corner I would drop a chain.  Despite all that I was still sitting comfortable in the pack.  However lady luck just wasn't with me, and with two laps to go my rear tire went flat.  Turns out my valve stem developed a slow leak, my guess is when I hit the crack it got knocked loose.   Anyways since there was only two laps to go I couldn't take a free lap and rejoin the race.  Two flats in less then a month is horrible luck.

 BTR Full Results