Tour de Gaslight

This past weekend I raced in my first Tour de Gaslight State Criterium Championship.  Since the season is winding down this race was a kind of a welcoming sign,  soon I will be able to sit around and watch college football.  The season has been long and hard, but I have learned a lot about racing and myself. Leading up to this race my training had been giving me some good feedback, so I was ready.   However this race was going to come down to a sprint, my weakness.  So I knew my goal for the day was 100% breakaway all or nothing, that was my shot.

The warm summer had yielded to some cooler days, so that was to my advantage.  The circuit was near a mile long around Gaslight Village and East Grand Rapids High School.  The course was flat and somewhat technical with a sharp left hander after a long back stretch leading into a head wind.  Positioning into that corner was key for the finish. This circuit was set up to be fast.  Unlike many races prior, today I made and effort to line up on the front row.  I wanted to get and early jump and position myself on the front.

We were maybe a little to tightly packed on the line, I was sure someone was going to hook handlebars and wreck.  However the start was clean and I took off as planned quickly slotting in line at the front.  At the end of the first lap there was a small push by three to get off the front of the pack.  I didn't want this to happen so I drove the pace of the pack to bridge the gap back.  However though, that also meant I was leading the pack into the first corner at speed for my first time.  I horribly miss gauged the corner and nearly went wide into the curb.  After the gap was closed I decided to relax a little and wait for my chance at a break.   At around 15 minutes into the 50 minute race the bell was rung for the first prime prize lap.   This is generally a good time to make a move so I got myself ready.  Sure enough as we went to the line 3 guys had driven away from the pack, so I quickly jumped the gap and joined them.

We were a strong group of four, I thought for sure we had a chance at being that break.  The one that got away for the race.  We stayed off the front for 3 laps I believe, but the pack was having nothing of us getting away.  I think they saw the danger and strength of us four and they worked hard to bring us back in.   Once caught I decided I best relax for a bit.  I had been on or off the front far to much, a better strategy would have been to save energy for the inevitable sprint.   That didn't mean things were easy though, fending for position in the pack is cut throat.  At one point I was run wide up onto a curb and another time bumped elbows with a fellow rider.   After the curb incident I moved to the back of the pack, mostly cause I wasn't sure if I had cut my tire or not when the carbon rim hit the concrete.  Luckily I hadn't, but not being able to trust your tire for a few laps makes things very interesting.  As time ran out, I knew my chances were feeble.  I had played my cards, and the field ate me up.  All that was left was to give it what I had and try to fight with the sprinters.  I only got 29th out of 42.  I wasn't let down by the day though.  I knew my strategy was break,  I tried and failed.  Some days the breakaway works, but not on a day were the race pace averages near 26.5 miles per hour.

Gaslight Full Results

Time Trial Weekend

Saturday was the makeup date for the 4k State track time trial.  Unlike the previous weekend the forecast was clear and there would be nothing to stop the event.  I had thought the 3k sucked and was already hard enough,  the 4k wasn't going to be much better.  I am still not much of a track rider, my peddle stroke is not smooth enough to be fast on a fixed gear bike.  I think this winter I will have to buy a used track bike to do velodrome workouts next year.  Maybe try a few scratch races. The benefits from track workouts can greatly increase your sprinting speed, and peddling speed in general.  The track will make you a faster bike racer, just take Mark Cavendish for example. 

Since the velodrome is 200 meters around I would be doing 20 laps today.  The main goal is to keep the bike on or below the black line, to ensure you are doing the shortest route possible.  This is the one thing I am actually good at on the track.  The hardest part about doing these events is I am using a borrowed bike.  All setup is done at the track and it always tends to be different from one day to the next.  Also your gearing selection is very limited.  For today's event I was using at 48/15 T combination.  If I build a track bike I am going to put a crank bigger then 48T on it.

Maybe the hardest part of this time trial is the standing start.  In a regular TT you can start in a easier gear and slowly shift up.  On the track you are stuck spinning the big gear.  The first lap can cost you tons of time if you have a slow start.  So when you stat the first few peddle strokes require a ton of muscle.   After that you can settle down and get into a rhythm.  20 laps is a long time.  My run wasn't to bad,  my lap times stayed fairly consistent.  The problem was I just wasn't fast enough.  I finished 7th/8 in category.   The funny thing is I can do a 20k time trail with a faster average speed then a 4k on the track.  Hopefully after some more track work next year I can master this skill.

State Track Results @ Bloomer

Sunday was the big event for me.  The Hines Park Time Trial.  Two years ago I had raced my first bike racing event here.  Seems like a long time ago but since then I have had a lot of fun.  I have also been able to push my fitness to new levels.   The race is a 20k out and back race against the clock.  Seams easy right?  Well Hines runs East to West and has a bad habit of being a wind tunnel.  Time trials hurt, and to add insult to injury this race starts heading East with the tailwind.  So, the last 6 miles can be summed up by how much pain your able to withstand. 

Luckily my start time was 8:47 am, meaning I could race in the cool morning air for a change.  My previous times were 34:49 and 30:13 last year.  My training had indicated that I was on fitness to run around 29 minutes flat, so I was hoping I could break into the upper 28's.  Being the engineer I am I had my splits planned out on how fast I needed to reach the turnaround to meet my goal.  However there was one small glitch in my plans, the wind was light and not heavy.  On a bike your biggest enemy is air resistance.  This force increases exponentially once you reach speeds over 20 mph.  So bike position becomes everything.  I had worked a lot on my aero position and felt confident that I could slice through the head wind.

Back to the race though, so how is a light wind bad?  Even with a light wind at your back it still feels like a headwind because your going so fast.  Also it would mean my pace estimates were are worthless.  So I started out smashing my pedals turning them over at an average rate of 95 rpm.  Everything felt awful, my speed wasn't what it should have been and I was falling off pace.  So I just kept gunning it.  I reached the turn around point well off my mark.  In fact it caused me to panic some because I didn't want to miss my goal.

First off I will say biking into a head or cross wind is never fun, there is no coasting.  You have to constantly maintain momentum and just power through it.  That's were the pain element factors in,  as the lactic acid builds the legs just burn and hurt.  Cause of the wind I had started to hard, I was actually ahead of my pace based on the wind.  Halfway through the return trip the pain finally caught up with me.  To make matters worse I hit a pothole and almost crashed.  Its at this point a sane person gives up, there is no point in deliberately making your body hurt.  However I just kept turning over those pedals at 95 rpm.  I think the grimace on my face showed it all coming down the finish chute.  However I stopped the clock at 29:02 and some change.  Right on pace after all, funny how that works out.  My time was good enough to grab me 6th/15 in category and 31st overall.  Not to bad considering I do not have a real time trial bike and rear disc wheel.  Those items alone could make me more aerodynamic and save me an extra 10-90 seconds over this distance.  Next year I will have to break into the 28's.

Hines Park TT Full Results

Milford Criterium

The Milford Criterium was one of the events I was really looking forward to this year, I had missed it the previous year because I was camping in Oregon.  I had spent the previous day at the velodrome for the State events.  I showed up too late for the 200m and then the 4k got rained out.  So I spent 5 hours at the track to get a little over an hour of practice.  That aside I was still feeling good to race.  Other then the Hines TT and Kensington Valley road race this is the closest thing to a home race I have out here.

The course was set in downtown Milford with a loop that was near 1 mile.  This course however was somewhat technical with lots of elevation change.  The hardest part was the near 120° corner that lead into an uphill segment to the finish line.  Throughout the day this corner had been the scene of many wrecks.   Including a few in my race. In fact all the photographers seamed to congregate in this corner to capture the crashes.

My race was scheduled for 50 minutes.  I had heard in the parking lot before the race that several teams were going to hammer the pace at the start.  Mostly to try and weed out some sprinters and drop them off the back.   The rumor was true because as soon as we started the pace was harsh.  I had a bit of a slow start, but I settled in and started to work my way from the back to mid pack.  Eventually I was going to go to the front, but as I got nestled in the middle of the pack my rear tire started to feel really funny.  Due to this I went to the back of the pack to look at it.  Riders agreed it looked low.  So I went in the pits to change my rear wheel. 

In most circumstances they will give you a free lap to rejoin the race and be on the lead lap.  Such as a crash or some sort of mechanical.  The referee quickly looked over my wheel and denied my free lap.  The tires pressure was not low enough.  After the race I found a cut in the center of the tread, the sealant I put in though sealed it before it went flat.  Anyhow I rejoined the pack, a lap down.  Since I was no longer in contention I just sat on the back and rode out the rest of the time.  The rest of the race though was filled with several attacks.  Eventually 4 riders slipped off the front to stay clear to the end.  The harsh pace had took its toll on the field, also given the lack of teamwork by the field the gap was never closed.

Overall the race was a bit of a big letdown for me.  Not only had I had a bad day, but almost everyone of my team had.  One of my teammates crashed and hurt his shoulder badly.  However I did the right thing changing my tire, its to bad the referee didn't side with my decision to change tires for precautionary reasons.  Oh well, that's racing.

Milford Full Results