Racing - 2014 Ris Van Bethel

The second race of the Bethel Spring Series p/b Outdoor Sports Center went better for me than the first week. Previously I started cramping less than halfway into the race - I don't know if it was the cold, the Sweep Day before, the loading the trailer the day before Sweep Day, or what, but I was pretty much a wreck by the time the race started. I used my sprint to get out of the way and fortunately did a decent job at that - no one ran into me and I didn't run into anyone.

The second week went smoother. I did do some hard labor the night before, moving stuff between trailers, but nothing like chopping ice for hours on end.

The promoting part went a bit smoother, too, with the crew now used to the procedures and such. We were short two people but the race still ran smoothly, so that's a testament to the folks that work it.

Last week someone took a picture of me and I looked positively massive, and not in a good way. My jacket, which I typically buy thinking, "Oh, man, I'm never going to get under 180 pounds", looks massive on me. This week I decided that if I could I'd wear a long sleeve jersey and a wind vest.

Of course it was pretty cold and pretty windy. I didn't wear knickers, so that means it was under 40 degrees by a lot. I even wore my heavy tights, with windproof front panels, due to the wind. The jacket seemed more and more appealing.

When I rummaged through my bag I remembered an old trick I used to use before we had such things as "team jackets". I'd wear my jersey as a top layer, a long sleeve black base layer as my second top layer, and a rain jacket as my third top layer.

With this technique the world would see my jersey and long sleeve base layer but no baggy windproof stuff.

So with the wind gusting enough that I tried to anchor the finish line tent a few times I decided to do the rain jacket trick. I wore a LS base layer (then put the bib tight bibs over the base layer), the rain jacket, a LS team jersey, and a team vest. I pinned the number to the vest, stuck my phone (for Strava) and a marshal radio in there, and decided that would work.

Before the start. Marshal radio in my pocket.

Way fewer than 18-20 pins.

I also had regular socks, regular shoes, booties, my favorite winter gloves (discontinued Canari gloves), a neck tube thing, a head tube thing, and my untaped/un-winterized helmet. Last week my head got a "chill headache" because my head was so cold. This week I wore a much heavier head covering and it felt better. I want to tape all my vents but I forgot to do it. Maybe next week.

For a warm up I did a lap I think, maybe two, but definitely one. It's super unusual for me to get on the bike before the field is lined up so I reveled in the freedom of rolling around the course.

When I got to the finishing hill someone pointed ahead of me.

"They already started, you need to chase! Go! Go! Go!"

I panicked for a moment but then realized no one else was saying anything. Then some kind soul murmured to me that the officials had made the field do one lap. I turned around and here they were.

Neutral lap done.

When the race started no one moved. Actually, as I learned later, one guy moved, no one else did, and that one guy ended up in a break for a few laps. Not knowing any of this I just thought that, wow, this was going to be a tough race.

Strung out.

Then it bunched up a bit - everyone came back. The early season races are like this. The guys with legs try to break everyone because they know that they have legs. "Everyone" tries to hang on because they all know that the Legs guys are putting down a good 20-30% more power if you can hang onto their wheels, and hopefully even those Without Legs can do a 30% weaker effort for a bit.

The leads to a flurry of attacks, a split, then a desperate chase. When it comes together it pauses, bunches up, and then it happens again.

Then, as the weeks go by, those Without Legs gain a few percent and suddenly holding 30% less isn't that hard. This means every move gets chased, every break gets chased, all the time. No pauses between efforts, it's just go, go, go. This means it's strung out for virtually the whole race.

Bunched up. It would go fast, slow, fast, slow.

After a few failed breaks the field paused to collect its breath. This only encourages those with legs to give it just one more go.

Really strung out.

The later attacks really hurt. The riders with Legs know that they can break the field, they just have to do a little bit more, dig just a bit deeper. The field knows that if they can hold on just a little bit more, dig just a little bit deeper, that the Legs guys will blow themselves up. It's a bluff game and the first one to blink loses.

Bell lap.

Well the field lost this week. A four man break was up the road, containing some strong break type riders (obviously). A fifth guy bridged, injected some power into the break, and then won the race even though he dropped his chain before the line.

Of course for me all that is sort of abstract. I'm not a break type rider, except when it's really weird, and my focus is always going to be the field sprint. With virtually all the places up the road the sprint became a bit weird. No early attacks, no punchy moves with half a lap to go, so the field sort of rolled into the last bit of the lap together, not going super fast.

Normally in this kind of situation I really enjoy things but this time I made one mistake after another. I can't say it cost me anything because I have no idea what would have happened but I knew even as I made my choices that I should have done the "other thing".

Backstretch, first mistake.

It's totally clear to my right, like there's no one there.

My first mistake was at about 400-500 meters to go. I had a choice of sliding up the right side or to hang out to the left. I knew there was ice and such on the right and I didn't want to encourage others to follow me. Therefore I stayed left. And as I did I thought, "I should go right, I should go right!"

And I didn't.

Didn't go for the gap right away, distracted at this point.

If I'd slid up the right side - and based on the relatively low speeds I definitely could have - I'd have been about 3 riders in front of where I was, maybe even four. I was behind the orange, behind the yellow/red, and behind my teammate Esteban (black with the yellow/orange stripe across his shorts).

Instead I was pretty far back.

At this point I could have moved forward but for some reason I didn't. I didn't feel gassed. I think I was thinking of where I could have been instead of thinking of how to improve my position.

"Coming through!"

Now committing to the gap.

Of course when the gap simply didn't close I snapped out of my daze and decided to go. A guy was on my left, moving in a bit, so I yelled "Coming through!" and went through. In retrospect I can't believe I said that but I did so, yeah.

The field starting the sprint. Not me.

Now I found myself with a possible gap in front of me. It'd be tight but if I committed and the other riders didn't move I'd be okay. In this situation it's just too careless to commit 100% without taking into account the other riders' actions.

Fortunately for everyone I didn't try and barrel through.

Boxed in, pause.

Well both riders moved just a touch. Only a bowling ball would fit through that gap now so I had to ease, stop pedaling, and wait.

Open, decided go chance it and go left.

The FGX racer, Etsu, accelerated up the right side so I followed. I stayed a bit to the left for some reason, whereas normally I like going to the right. I already had that feeling of regret, like I should have overlapped to the right. I know the left gets bunched up, I know the left can stall, yet I went left.

Yet another bad choice.

Problem was it was crowded left.

Guys were flying up the left side and so the guys there were moving a bit to the right. I ended up directly behind Esteban, riders to both sides. If I'd gone right when I was behind Etsu I'd have been able to go for the line. Instead I had to wait again.

Another pause as I'm in the tactically weak position.

Technically I suppose I could have really pushed here, but for a sprint that at best would get 6th it simply wasn't worth it. I knew both the riders to my right and left as well as other riders not visible in the frame but riders I knew were directly to my right and over to the left.

Therefore I eased again.

At the line pretty much everyone beat me.

Finally I got to do a couple pedal strokes. I instinctively did a throw at the line but I got beaten by everyone next to me.

Everyone.

All six guys.

By a lot.

I look back at the clip and if I'd made the move up the right side when I first balked I'd have been in a position to almost lead out the sprint. I have no idea how I would have done - the wind was a bit strong from the left - but I definitely wouldn't have had to ease so many times in the sprint.

As it was my max power was about 1100 watts and my 20 second power was 650 watts. Normally at Bethel I can hit 1200 watts and sustain about 1000-1100 watts for about 18-19 seconds. This leads to a 20 second power of about 900+ watts. 650 watts means I barely sprinted since I went just over a typical effort of just climbing the hill, 400-500 watts, not sprinting it, 800-900 watts.

Bike after the race.

Bike worked fine, the rider wasn't as smart as he should have been.

The bike worked great again, which is good. Due to limited space I haven't been bringing my spare bike or even spare race wheels. I have no wheels in the pits so it's just the bike. If anything fails on it, at least right now, my race ends.

Next week I hope to be a bit further up in the field. I'll try and follow my instincts instead of thinking and rethinking each move as I make them. For equipment I want to try and bring a second set of race wheels and I'd like to tape over all the forward and upward facing vents on my helmet.

Bethel Spring Series p/b Outdoor Sports Center - 2014 Ris Van Bethel Results

Results here.

2010 Bethel Spring Series - Ris Van Bethel

Ah, the second race. I had a lot of opening thoughts for this report, but, unfortunately, most of them escaped in the post-race haze.

I started the day without the splitting headache from the prior two days, but still with some chills, some weakness, acid buildup in my legs. Sick? I don't know. Stressed? Yeah, kind of, but not terribly so.

The weather, so cooperative the week prior, didn't help any. It was bad. Outside, people endured windy conditions, with some sudden downpours interrupting an otherwise gentle misty rain, and a bitter, biting cold. Inside it wasn't so bad.

Definitely a hard day for racing though, definitely.

But, with the team making a huge, huge appearance, I had to put on a brave face.

I had a lot of team support. Among the motors in support I knew pretty well SOC, Tarbox, MM, Drew, Lance (not that one, the other one - our Lance), TJ, plus a couple new to me guys... We even had our illustrious team founder in our presence too.

As a note, I should point out that I think I was the only one that drove in alone. Well, SOC also arrived kinda solo, with Mrs. SOC for company. Everyone else came in style in a huge land yacht of a hauler, a team vehicle, kinda sorta. I hope that sometime soon I can hitch a ride in the team boat, so to speak. Part of racing as a team is the whole hanging out before/after, talking smack, figuring out a plan for the race. I miss out on that with Bethel because I get there on my own and have my hands full throughout the day.

Anyway, as far as promoting, I kept bugging poor Arianna about the money - I realized that our fixed costs for the race are pretty high, and I didn't bring enough money to cover them. Meaning, without paying the town, the portapotties, and other "non-immediate" costs, the race costs a certain amount of money, and if the weather was so bad that only a few people showed up, I'd be short money. I mentally readied myself to make a trip to the ATM machine. I was pretty stressed about that but at the end of the day Arianna had everything under control.

Phew.

With the huge worry sidelined a bit, with volunteer marshals relieving a huge mental weight off my head, I set about prepping for my race.

And, like last week, I fell miserably behind in my prep. My warm-up consisted of, once again, riding my bike from registration to the start line. Last week it wasn't a big deal. This week, in the wet, with almost no riding over the last six days, it hurt me a bit.

According to the SRM, it took 13 seconds of riding. So when I say I got a short warm up, that's about what it is - 13 seconds.

I lacked a lot of pre-race snacks, drank 1/3 as much coffee, had no electrolyte drink, no pizza, and pinned my numbers on my jersey instead of my rain jacket. Lots of dumb, unthinking mistakes, mistakes made while thinking of other things.

But, my mental greyness, about the same color as the sky, brightened up considerably when I saw the boys at the line. They looked fresh and eager, willing to work their hearts out for me.

I saw no Leader's jersey lined up. I was a bit surprised, but there is life outside of bike racing, even if we're talking about the fourth most important race in the world, the Bethel Spring Series (after the Tour, Giro, Worlds, and maybe PR).

Ahem.

Anyway, the official also asked if the leader was here, and when no one responded, the team guys all looked at each other. No Adler guy, who admittedly looked pretty strong last week. We didn't know the second place guy from last week so he got to hide in his anonymity if he was there.

But no Leader... that changed things. Today would be gravy - any points earned would be points gained. All we had to do was keep the field together and get points for the sprint. Our original plan had a lot of "If the Leader does this, we do that" kind of stuff. With no Leader, it was just a huge free for all, and we'd just get what points we could.

The first move went at the start, and from then till the finish it was game on. Over and over riders would launch off the front, and over and over the Expo boys went scampering after them.

Then, if the pace eased, the boys would hit the front, trying to stretch things out.

Our goal - to keep the field together, to leverage my sprint, gain whatever points possible.

The first lap gave me a shocker of a discovery - my brakes didn't work. I have my yellow pads somewhere but I figured I'd give the Koolstop regular pads a chance in the rain on wet carbon rims. On my other wheels regular pads worked fine, so I figured the same for these wheels and these pads. (Of course, I didn't really consider I was changing both variables at once, a bad move when experimenting with a two variable equation.)

Well, the first time I touched the brakes nothing happened. I grabbed a lot of lever, started veering to the side, and only when the riders in front started going again did I manage to not crash into someone.

I figured I'd be safe about five feet behind whoever I was following, but, over the course of the next hour, I had a few close calls. I started figuring out how hard I could reach out to keep from falling, or where I could jump a curb to get into the grass.

Note to self: Yellow Swiss Stops in the rain.

I started wondering how I'd fare in the tight riding in the last few laps of the race. Normally I'm fine in tight quarters but not today.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

I kept racing on.

The wind played funny with us, hitting us head on and hard on the hill, but disappearing everywhere else. This made all the flatter sections much faster and the hill much slower.

Yeah, accordion effect.

I'd promised to be up there at the beginning, then again towards the end. But I kinda sorta failed big time at marking anything, seeing as I was sitting near the back of the field, and I struggled through the race.

At some point SOC came up to me to see how I was feeling.

I told him I felt good, which was, at some level, true.

My heart rate seemed artificially low, so low that I checked my strap to make sure it was making good contact with my chest. 120s bpm during a Bethel? Not right.

But, how I felt?

I felt pretty bad.

I figured it would pass. My legs were loading up right away, I was getting cold (stupid rain jacket mistake), my fingers weren't comfy, and I wasn't feeling peppy.

I'd promised the boys to be up front by 5 to go, but when I saw 5 to go, I looked up at the front of the field, looked down at my legs, and the two didn't want to go together.

"Ah, heck, the boys are doing fine up there. I'll wait till 3 to go."

At three to go I glanced up. Glanced down.

"Maybe I'll move up at 2 to go."

Coming up on 2 to go I realized that I was leaving things a bit late. I saw the boys going backwards in the field, struggling to maintain position, wondering what happened to me. So, on the hill, I moved up kinda sorta aggressively. The boys were cooked from their efforts and the images of Expo riders started evaporating from the front.

Later someone said it was actually kind of comical on that lap - we were doing a reverse leadout up the hill. Me first, then my leadout guy, then his guy, and so on and so forth. A show of team alliance, but a little topsy turvy.

I was okay with that. They'd done their work. I needed to do mine. I felt the responsibility tilting my way. This is what we had planned on, this is what I asked of the team. It was my job now.

I figured I'd ease up to the front bit with half a lap to go, in the less windy sections. But, on the hill, instead of the impassable wall I expected, one side opened up beautifully. I took advantage, taking some wind, trading that little match burn willingly for 30 places.

I rolled up to the front and started moving laterally at whoever sat on the three man Bethel train at the front.

It was Bryan.

Not the Brian from last week, another one. And, yes, this Bryan is one of the good guys too. He started racing a while back, when he was probably barely in high school, and he's kept his passion for racing alive for many, many years. I watched him race away from me in one New England Crit Championships, the 1-2-3 race, which he won by a proverbial mile.

I yelled at him last year, but it was just a desperate thing, not because he was doing anything wrong.

Anyway, he's a good guy. And because he's a good guy, I reversed my lateral move, moving away from, trying to let him in. He moved the other way too. Then he eased up a bit, letting me in, winning this battle of politeness.

I forget exactly what he said, but it went something like this.

"Don't let them lose you. This is your sprint."

I tucked in, now one more responsibility on my shoulders. My teammates' hard work for the last hour, and Bryan's position. If I had problems now I'd cause him serious problems, and I didn't want to do that.

First problem: I had to get closer to the next wheel than my five foot comfort zone, so I closed it down to about a foot.

Uncomfortable. Uneasy. I automatically cataloged ways out if he braked suddenly.

I thought of my careful chiding of new riders who don't follow close enough. Here I was, nervous at a foot.

Yikes.

We rounded the first turn and I hoped that the leadout wouldn't falter. Two guys, a full lap to go, it seemed a bit iffy.

The sprinter guy, third in the train, looked down and around. I expected him to say something to his guys but he didn't say anything I could hear.

But my fears on the leadout came to fruition. The first guy peeled off almost immediately. Then he tried to get back into second slot, obviously fatigued from some hard efforts. The guy in the lead pulled down the backstretch, but the scene seemed hauntingly familiar to last week's race, when SOC tried to do a 2 or 3 lap leadout.

We made it to the backstretch, to the end of it really. I started hearing some commotion behind me, a lot of yelling, "Right! Right! Right!".

I knew we were barely one lane away from the curb, leaving about 18 inches of pavement for the brave-hearted. I thought about closing the gap, sealing the hole, and leaving the "Right! Right! Right!" guys to their fate.

But then, looking at the slowing front, knowing I could hop on a train squeezing by my right, and knowing that anyone that would move such a train would be a good rider, I left the gap open.

I waited.

One, two, thr....

And sure enough, three guys blew by my right side, like the really blew by. Bryan was second wheel, so he'd figured on the "must be a good rider if he's squeezing by" bit too.

I checked my five, nothing, and I went right with them, squeezing through the hole on the right. Big effort. The Bethel sprinter in front of me went left, and the final act of the race started to unfold.

I hit the last curve sitting pretty, coasting, pedaling, whatever, staying on the wheel, looking for the jump. I'd totally forgotten about my five foot gap thing.

The sprint unfolded in slow motion. Bryan jumped first, going straight up the middle. The guy behind him went a bit left. I decided that Bryan went early and followed the left guy, the guy in white.

I realized I had a lot of gas left in my legs and I started going right, accelerating. And as I did I realized I was doing it wrong. Weight too far forward, too low a gear, no torque to the pedals, all bad, all wrong.

I realized that Bryan was out of range but I wanted the next place. The guy in white I could manage but the rider on the left wouldn't slow down.

I lunged at the line, threw my bike quick, but failed.

Third place.

The boys were happy, they'd kept the race together. They'd met their goal.

I hadn't met mine. And therefore I wasn't as happy. But third place in a race with the overall leader absent, that was acceptable. I'd take the pity prize. Bryan would actually lead me, but that was okay. I'd be just as proud of Bryan winning the Series.

But then someone told me that the overall leader had beat me at the line.

What?!

There was no Leader in the race. No Yellow Jersey. No acknowledgment at the line. But he was in the race? And he beat me in the sprint?

I felt my stomach sinking. All that work by the boys for what we thought were bonus points, all for naught?

Sure enough, the overall leader had been in the race. He had been the Bethel sprinter in the leadout.

If he'd been some guy from Maine or Virginia or some other far away place, I could understand him not knowing about the jersey, I could understand not wearing it. But racing for the home town shop, with their huge emphasis on doing well at the Series... no.

I told him (mistakenly, as I now verified) that it says on the site and the flyer that the leader has to wear the jersey. But it doesn't. Somewhere, somehow, I left it off. So that's my mistake.

I definitely thought about it at the beginning of the next race. I'd gotten pretty cold by then, and after a few laps I realized I didn't want to race. My hands were freezing cold, my heart rate low, so I started making repeated efforts to move up, to surge on the hill, to move to the front. After just a couple laps, a few efforts, I was feeling pretty cooked, but my hands were still so cold I could bare squeeze the useless brake levers.

I decided I'd pull out. I'd just moved up, we were going up the hill, and I looked, signaled, and moved to the left curb. Then, as we got to the finish, I signaled a left turn.

"Oh, come on man, stay in."

I turned left anyway. I was done.

Looking at the data, I raced pretty hard in the 3-4 race. I did two 1125 watt jumps from the bell to the sprint (one to move up, the other to respond to the surge), then a 1250 watt jump for the sprint. I was way slower in the sprint, 5 mph, but I suppose I could attribute that to the headwind. So I could be somewhat satisfied with my final lap efforts.

Whatever. I went inside and focused on my race tasks, updating the results page, tried to gather my thoughts for packing up.

To their credit the boys were happy. They'd executed their side of the plan really well. Lance, upgrading from Cat 5s, pointed out something after the race.

"It was harder than I thought. Cat 5s to Cat 3-4s, that's kind of a big jump."

Oh yeah, that's true. Essentially going up two categories in one race.

And pulling it off. Because he was out there hammering, stringing out the field, putting the hurt on a bunch of Cat 3s and 4s.

They all left after the race and with some post race pizza from Frank's, we didn't do the Sycamore jaunt. I finally got to get some of the pizza, and I sat with Frank talked a bit. We talked about how the day went, and then, tired, I headed home.

I thought about the race on the drive home. With my world stomping 92 horsepower car, I had plenty of time to think, especially on the long uphills.

The race went well. People showed up, regardless of the weather, regardless of the intraweb rumors. Most of the NY/NJ folks didn't show, but that was understandable, with all the downed trees, powerlines, and whatnot.

The races went pretty cleanly, no serious crashes, no stack ups.

Traffic seemed manageable, with no serious problems.

So the day was successful.

I got home, unpacked the car into the garage, then started moving stuff from the garage into the house.

When I opened the door to the house Bella was standing there, as usual. And as soon as I moved a bin into the doorway she bolted. As usual.

I looked at my dirty bike in the garage. It had done well, regardless of any faults belonging to the "nut that holds the seat down" as I like putting it (you know, the rider). I left it in the garage for now, I'd clean it later.

A couple trips later the missus came down the stairs.

"I gotta lighten up," I said to her.

"What?"

"I gotta lighten up over this race thing. It's been bugging me, but, in the end, it's just a bike race."

I relayed to her some of what happened during the day.

She said the perfect thing.

"So you want to go out for dinner? Little City burgers?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

We left, carefully closing the door so the cats wouldn't get out. I left the lights on so the garage and driveway would be lit when we got back. And we went out and had some burgers.

Bethel Spring Series 2009 - Ris Van Bethel

The alarm went off in the pitch dark, a low moaning alarm (we were at my dad's and we don't "know" this alarm). I had a flash of "I'm never doing this again". I guess it was the combination of daylight savings, being just plain tired from yesterday, and the daunting vision of 12 or 14 hours of stressful "I'm responsible" work.

Luckily for my sense of responsibility, the flash went away after I closed my eyes for about 30 seconds.

After loading up the van with some minor stuff, I tried to start the van (the dome light went on so I had juice). Two short attempts later (and maybe one low strained "whir"), I was backing up my red car to jump the van.

After stressing about this for a while, I'm convinced the battery just happened to give up the ghost. Many years ago the battery came out of my green car when I decided to replace the battery "just in case". Then a couple years later, the morning of a Bethel (of course), the normal enormous battery in the van was dead (courtesy yours truly leaving on some light). The only battery around? The green car battery.

Then, because I don't use the van too much, I never took that really old battery out of the van. And Sunday morning I paid the price.

Of course there's always a benefit to things, the way I look at things. And this was a perfect time to learn left foot braking on an automatic. See, if I revved the engine, it wouldn't stall because the alternator is working. But if I let it slow to an idle then it would die. So I left foot braked, popped it into neutral every time I had to stop or go down a hill more than a few seconds, and constantly had my foot tapping the gas pedal (no tach so I had to hear and feel the engine revving).

My traditional backing out of the driveway took a few muddy ruts for the worse, and my first few slows were more like panic stops in the middle of the road. But by the time I got to the race course, safe and sound, I felt pretty good about my newly learned technique.

That's when I looked around and saw all that sand.

One local swears up and down that the town doesn't plow - they just spread sand. And although we got a lot of snow last week (on Monday, after the canceled race, not Sunday like the forecast said), we didn't get that much snow. But there was a lot of sand. Lots.

With a full crew of helpers, we set up, with the missus and the stepping-away co-promoter lending two additional experienced hands, we got things under way. I took up my traditional duties as street sweeper, using the Echo powerbroom, a regular broom, and a wheeled leaf blower.

For the next 2-2 1/2 hours I swept and blew and swept and blew. To the others' credit I didn't get too many radio calls - everyone handled things fine at the start/finish and registration. I didn't realize this but we had no cop this week as no one volunteered for our particular job. Other than that things went well.

At some point someone did radio me, and to my horror I couldn't even depress the talk button on the radio. I'd become so focused on sweeping I had no idea what my body was doing, and I was absolutely and totally exhausted. I decided to trudge back up to the registration area and take a break, but I saw so much sand I had to leave again, this time mainly using the wheeled blower (which I don't have to carry).

I managed to catch up with a few folks, talk to others, and generally didn't do much until just before my race. Then, in full panic mode, I dressed and got ready, just in time to ride my bike to the start line.

With no warm up, an optimistic short sleeve jersey, shorts, and a wind vest, I suddenly felt cold, kind of hungry, and really tired. I sat at the back of the field and tried to figure out if my legs were okay, if they were bad, or what. I couldn't feel them load up ("bad") but they weren't responding to my every whim ("not good").

I did weigh the bike before I tossed it in the van. 19 pounds fully loaded as I rode it in California. With the carbon clinchers, 16 pounds. And with the tubulars, maybe 15 and change. The bike definitely felt more lively, more tossable, and I liked waggling the rear of the bike climbing out of the saddle.

The 175 cranks, too, made a difference. I felt like I had these really long levers that let me drive big gears up the hill. I usually find myself unwilling to shift down, thinking I was already in the 23T, but then I look and I'm in the 15T or something. So I looked down, and yeah, I was in the 15T or something. I could sit and spin in the 21T or 23T, but the spinning got uncomfortable as I got tired so I'd stand and push more.

I had a few teammates in the race, quite a few actually, and though I'd spoken to a couple of them, we really didn't have a plan per se. One guy, who led me out for a field sprint win last year, made it clear he was doing the race for training and would be willing to lead out the sprint. Another guy, ostensibly working for me but typically much stronger than I am, also made it clear he was working for me.

Of course there are the "friends in the field" too, long time friends whose loyalties lay with friendship, not with teams or such in a race not important to their team sponsors. I didn't talk with any of them but I did manage a hello or two.

I forgot how many laps we were to cover, and after not looking for as long as possible, I looked, praying we'd see a nice low number.

15.

Not that low. Not 22 for sure, but not the 7 I thought I'd see.

I groveled more, counting each lap, sitting at the back, sometimes momentarily sliding off the back on the hill. No warm-up, not enough rest, too early to rise, and lots of physical effort equals a not-very-energetic me.

At 10 to go a one time supreme rival rode up to me and asked if I wanted to tag along when he went to the front. Since I was seriously contemplating dropping out, I politely declined. I also knew he was strong enough to move up on the outside in any wind in virtually any field, and I wasn't strong enough to follow such a move, and I didn't want to get sawed off the back trying to follow someone in the wind.

He nonchalantly rolled up to the front of the field.

At 7 to go I was dangling off the back, a long time friend nearby. Sporting my old Carpe Diem Racing colors, he had already done the M40 race, and he entered this race to get some miles in and, I suppose, to give me one effort.

He goes back a long way. He worked (really hard too) the first 5 or so years of Bethel, volunteering his van to lug various big things to and from the race. He showed up every year, no complaints, volunteering a long day without a touch of complaint, for many, many years. He told me one year, apologetic, that he just couldn't do it anymore, and for the next few years, as I lugged all that stuff around, I was amazed that he did it for so long.

He's one of those good guys, one of the guys that makes amateur grassroots racing possible. If everyone did 10% of what he did, we'd have a plethora of races to choose from.

I digress...

He drifted across my front wheel ever so slightly, looked to see where I was, and touched the pedals just a bit harder. He told me long ago that no matter how bad I looked, no matter how bad I felt, all I had to do was to get towards the end of a race and I'd perk up, finding immense reserves of energy from who knows where. So here he was, trying to dig into that untapped reserve.

He found it.

I moved up to his wheel, and without a single word, not even a glance at me (just at my front wheel), he slowly ramped up the speed, knowing my fatal weaknesses, understanding what I needed to get to the front, but that he'd have to balance effort and results to get me there.

He moved up the side, always aware of my need to find shelter, leaving too much room to his side so I could slide up to his right pedal, finding shelter from the vicious wind while still moving up on the outside. He never drilled it, nor did he ever change pace or line suddenly. He just rolled along, calmly, just fast enough to bring me into 20th or 25th position, and then, finding a little pocket of open shelter in the field, he rode next to it, making a little box for me to fill.

I rolled into the box, he sat on the windward side of me, and as we climbed the hill and away from the wind, I murmured to him.

"Thanks."
"No problem."

Now it was 6 to go and I had been gifted position without using up my reserves. I felt obligated to fulfill my part of the bargain, to fight for the race.

Though small breaks had been going off all day, and sometimes even threatening groups rolled up the road, nothing seemed to stick. I couldn't do anything about them anyway, but everytime someone rolled off without a teammate, I prayed that they'd come back.

And they did.

I learned something on those few laps, metering my energy so preciously. With the stiff headwind on the backstretch, the field would bunch up there, but it would surge on the hill, and if would string out on the first straight. If I made efforts at the right time, I could situate myself in the same spot every time we hit Turn 1, holding my position without hitting too much wind.

The laps counted down.

At 2 to go (well, at 1.5 laps to go because we were on the backstretch) my legs threatened to betray all my efforts. I contemplated sitting up and quitting the race because I had no idea how I'd be able to sprint feeling this bad. But about 100 meters later I figured I better just finish the fricken race.

A few moments later my teammate rolled up to me.

"Aki, this is my finishline?"

We were just passing my favored jump point.

"Yeah."

He surged away, on a mission. My legs deflated. Wait. Wait for me. Wait for... hm. I'll have to find him. 30 guys passed me. Hard to find someone that's 30 guys away.

We crested the hill, specatators cheering, screaming, my legs screaming, at least a bazillion guys in front of me. I reinforced my faith in the backstretch headwind. It would sap the strength of all the eager sprinters, zapping their legs. Only the strongest would make it to the front as the course turned away from the wind, and I figured the first three would win the race. I figured the rest of the field would be collectively blowing, having been in the wind too long to maintain their forward position, and there'd be a huge exchange of position as fresh legs in poor field position went flying past the excellently positioned tired legs.

We hit the backstretch and I was towards the right side of the field. The left side surged. I thought about my headwind theory again, and hoped even more that I was right. I managed to move a little, I'm sure, but my brain didn't save this bit of the race too well.

As we started the right bends to the bottom of the hill, I had almost given up. With 25 or so racers in front of me, a wide field, and no surges or holes, it looked pretty dismal.

Then the Red Sea parted.

Guys on the left (windward side) went left, guys on the right went right, and a big lane opened up in front of me.

Without even thinking I was shifting and jumping into the gap, flying through guys slowed either by wind (left side) or by overzealous moving up and boxing in (right side).

I examined my SRM data and I actually coasted for 4 seconds (!) as we rounded the bend at the bottom of the hill. I don't remember this but I must have had to slow to avoid rear ending the guys spread across the front.

I do remember watching one guy lead it out strongly, with two guys on his wheel. "1, 2, 3..." I thought, "let's see what happens when this gaggle of riders breaks up a bit.

I jumped when I had the chance, went through that gaggle of riders, and passed the one target I had in my sights (he was leading out the remanants of the field on the left side). Then I exploded. The three guys in front were untouchable and the guy to my left was also blown and not about to come back to me, and with no motivation to sprint, I didn't. My SRM data told me that I actually slowed during the whole sprint, that my jump merely maintained speed, and as I tired I slowed. I did a fake bike throw at the line, really a stretching of my legs, and sat down hard.

Well now.

What a turn around.

I started and promptly dropped out of the P123 race, my hands shaking, my brain working in molasses, cold sweat, bonk, everything all at once. I sat perfectly still in a chair - any movement caused air to move across my skin, but if I sat still I felt warmer.

I never saw my friend after the race, the one who brought me up, but I'm sure he knew what happened in the race. To be honest I saw very few people afterwards because I was totally cooked, but it'd been worth it.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was a blur. Another van jump (this time the missus disconnected the cables), another left foot brake practice drive (to my dad's) which included two curb strikes and about four curb rubs due to my deteriorated mental state. A nice dinner at a diner. A long drive home in the red car, paced by the missus. Posting results online. A 90 minute talk with a long time friend and former teammate.

Then trying to get to sleep. It was about 2:30 AM before I fell asleep inadvertently while reading about the Tour and letting various cats snuggle up to me, the missus waking me up at some odd hour like 5 AM or something to bring me back to bed.

Next week, another race.

Oh, and happy birthday to my sis. Happy Birthday!

Bethel Spring Series - Ris Van Bethel, March 11, 2007

Compared to last week, things were a lot more chaotic from a promoter's point of view. First there was the Daylight Savings thing and the earlier "spring ahead" date. I didn't think this was a problem until we got to the course and it was still pitch-black outside. When a guy is holding his release form in front of the van headlight so he can see it, you know it's pretty dark out. The sun made a magical appearance just as our registration crew got under way, so ultimately it worked out.

For registration anyway.

The heavy fog started to cool and sink to the ground (I'm no weatherman but that's what appeared to happen). The frozen ground. The frozen pavement. What was a nice but damp surface at 6:45 AM became a sheet of black ice by 8:00 AM. Incredibly people were still riding around and no one crashed. People did say their back tires were slipping. One rider remarked "I know I'm strong but I'm not that strong!" Well, when I went to check things out, I could barely walk on the road, it was that icy. We promptly shut down the course.

I bought a really cool flamethrower thing just for an occasion like this. I was eager to try it out. And after searching for a while realized I left the proprietary hose at home. No cool flamethrower.

Bring in three leafblowers. If you park them on ice, it'll melt and dry the ice in about five minutes. Then you have a 6 inch by 6 inch patch of nice pavement, surrounded by ice.

We realized it might take a while to clear a couple hundred yards of black ice.

Next try - send some of the CT Coast Cycling crew went to buy some salt. They bought 400 pounds of salt. I did give them $100 and told them to spend it all. They stopped at $84, luckily for me. We spread 120 pounds of salt in the two big icy spots (i.e. the shaded parts of the course) and presto, ice went away. And yes, they gave me the change.

Just to be safe, we put cones in the vicinity of the icy spots so riders wouldn't want to ride there.

So, an hour and a half late, the very understanding and patient Cat 5's went off.

We had already seen a lot of traffic in the park due to a gymnastics competition held at a building at the bottom of the hill. In other words, where the sprint starts. We gave them priority but we still had to wait for open spots on the course (i.e. after the pack went by) to let them in. The traffic was very understanding considering they're driving their kids to a competition where they are judged on individual performance in front of everyone else.

It might be like doing stints on a wattage trainer, one at a time, in front of all the racers and spectators, and being judged publicly on your performance. Nerve-wracking. Not conducive towards polite traffic manners. Ultimately there were probably 100+ families driving in and out of the course and things went smoothly.

And finally there was exciting racing as usual. The 5's (there was one race) raced hard and ended in a field sprint. The 4's were very animated and there was a two man break, one dropped, a solo bridge (so now two men up front), a solo chase attempt, and finally the finish where the two man break won and the field swallowed up the solo chase attempt and finished as a whole.

But in the Masters race there was a pretty bad crash in the final sprint. It seems someone basically fell on another guy, the guy saved him by staying upright, but when the original someone recovered and suddenly unloaded the good Samaritan's shoulder, the good Samaritan went down. A third rider went down over said Samaritan, appeared to have landed on his eye/face based on the destroyed lens (amateur CSI - Crash Scene Investigator - here), and unfortunately a fourth rider hit the third rider hard somewhere (but not in his face as the poor guy originally thought).

That third rider, as you can imagine, was hurt pretty bad.

Obviously not a good thing. The officer was down there quickly, EMT's and some other peoples (not sure of titles) were there, and ultimately the downed rider was backboarded, loaded on an ambulance, and carted to the hospital.

One positive thing that I saw was that all the racers, regardless of their "race face attitude", were extremely conscious of clearing the road as soon as they knew what was happening. This reminded me that the racing community bands together when "real" things happen. They might argue about someone holding their line or closing the door in the sprint or pulling in a break but when it comes to real life, they stick together and look out for each other.

With everyone's thoughts subdued a bit, the race I focus on, the 3-4's, lined up. I was wearing my helmet cam again, had just eaten a mega-calorie muffin and coffee courtesy of Matt and Kate, and topped off with a couple of Power Gels and a swig of water.

My promoter's cap was off after a very chaotic morning. And my racer's cap was on. Literally. And from a racer's point of view, things were good.

That missing fairy godmother made her appearance today, waved her wand, and things were very bright. I felt very feisty. I really didn't warm up - after riding for about 2 minutes the crash occurred, I rode down the hill to the crash site, back up, and then a lap. But then those that know me know that today's warm up is typical for me - it would not affect the race.

Earlier I talked to the mushy Giant guy (from last week) today and he apologized up and down for putting a psychological brake on my bike. But I was really, really sick then and this week I was less sick (almost not sick). Lo and behold my really mushy bike suddenly hummed and quivered like a finely tuned race bike just aching to go fast.

Okay, I admit I did put an extra 50 (!) psi in each tire.

The tires sung up the hill and I found myself moving up at will (on the hill). I didn't think I'd drink too much and remembering how tossing my bottle helped last week, I tossed it this week too. I didn't wait till two to go though. I tossed it a bit earlier. Like after about 10 minutes of racing.

The temperature started to drop, the wind picked up, and then suddenly my mouth was parched and my legs were getting crampy. I started having serious problems applying power while seated so I had to stand whenever I needed to make efforts.

The rosy picture appeared to fade a bit. That fairy godmother stuff wears out pretty quickly sometimes.

The topper was that I watched eight guys ride up the road. And I was right there when they went. I kept thinking, "Oh, this looks dangerous" and figured I'd try and do a hard bridge to get across to them.

A hard bridge (my term) is the only kind of bridge I can do. It involves going flat out for a minute or less. If I'm not on by then I have a serious chance of not being able to hang on when the field catches me. A hard bridge attempt is not to be taken lightly. I've only executed this once successfully at Bethel, a few years ago. And the field promptly brought everyone back.

So everything had to be perfect. Attack as soon as we hit the non-wind section, drop the proverbial hammer, try and do most of the bridging in that section, and then try and hang on for dear life in the wind till I get there. I'd have to be in a particular position, feel totally right, and be psyched to do it.

So I'm thinking about this and suddenly the sprinter who slayed all in the field sprint last week rocketed up the side and away into the distance. A lap later he was still struggling to bridge but he was almost there. And then he was in there and disappearing up the road.

I really had to get up there.

Every lap, something wasn't right for my hard bridge. And every lap the chances of a successful bridge looked smaller and smaller. Positioning in the field, legs a bit tweaked when I'm in position, waited a bit too long in the non-wind section (due to being blocked in as the field spreads out when there's less wind), and finally, after three or four laps of this nonsense, a spectator yelled out.

"This is the last lap you can bridge!"

No kidding. I thought I was a lap late already. And it took me a lap to finally follow what seemed to be a good wheel. He blew, I pulled through (no warp speed attack though - I think I already realized the inevitable), and when I decided there was no way I was going to make it, I sat up for the field.

The break had already gained 25 or 30 seconds.

A long time friendly competitor rode up to me and said "That's it, race over." And I agreed. We were going pretty hard but the gap remained constant. There were a lot of blocking teammates and it just didn't seem possible to bring them back.

The only thing that kept a flicker of hope alive was the steady gap - it never increased.

Coming up on the lap cards (after the timed section of the race), some of the big teams that missed the break decided they'd do something about it. One rider in particular rallied his team and two other teams, and about ten strong riders found their way to the front and started to hammer.

Suddenly, I felt like I was in the Tour, following a huge chase by Lampre, Lotto, and Milram. The sprinter's teams had come to the front and wanted to settle things once and for all. The field was totally strung out - what a sight to see! The break resisted for a lap or two but then the gap began to tumble. I thought, wow, we might catch them. But it'll be really close. I was thinking we may catch them at the bottom of the hill on the last lap, with about 150 meters to go.

At two to go, the field had closed to 7 seconds. Theoretically a strong counter could close the gap solo. In fact, if my legs were feeling great, I would have contemplated such a move. And quickly discarded it because the break would get caught and I'd have just spent my sprint money. It didn't help that the pace was 28 mph on the windy backstretch, the field was totally strung out, and my legs were feeling not too great.

At one to go, the field was still back by 5 or so seconds. A field sprint would easily swarm the break. But the field was so strung out that in reality the gap was still probably 10 seconds back to me. The elastic was stretching and started to fray up front.

One team did some monster pulls there and I started to psych myself up for the sprint. Inexplicably, while doing this, I totally zoned and let about five riders past me - I guess I was focusing on drawing together all my reserves for this one final effort.

Suddenly, at about 300 meters to go, the front five or ten racers launched their sprint in a bid to catch the break. The guys right behind eased and bunched up. Yours truly was right behind them.

Oops.

Brakes. Wait for the wind to die down a bit - I learned a long time ago that a couple seconds in the wind will eat up magnitudes more seconds of sprinting later. And when the field rounded the curve at the bottom of the hill and the wind started to relax, I launched.

It was nowhere as pitiful as last week's sprint but I lacked the snap I had to have to do something special. It was, unfortunately for me, a lackluster sprint.

Incredibly, the front sprinters (I think) caught the break halfway up the hill. My guess was wrong by 75 meters. One team totally rocked and got a lot of places.

Me, I was content to follow whoever was in front of me right up to the line. Eighth at the line, and I'd consider it virtually a field sprint.

Ends up I followed the guy in the picture from one of my first posts. No dramatic bike throw this time. I simply sat down as I crossed the line.

I put a vest on and started the Pro-1-2-3 race. A lap or two in I peeled off. Suddenly I didn't feel good and I didn't want to gap off whoever was behind me. I watched the race with the officer working the race. A guy who'd been racing at Bethel since he was something like 15 years old rocked the field. Rite-Aid pro and all. Rode away from them on the last lap. And there were a lot of good racers behind him.

We packed up with a lot of friendly racers' help. When the van was full, we did a "drive-by" of the course and picked up whatever was there. This week there were lots of gel wrappers - last week just one. And then drove home.

Only one unfinished thing to do.

After I got home, I called the "third guy" at home. He's there, recovering. He whacked his head hard enough not to remember too much. He didn't know I was there. He didn't know what happened. He didn't remember hitting anything. He recalled seeing the one lens which probably saved his eye - he landed on his face at just-before-sprint speed. He remembered kicking the dirt with his heels - and he was laying on the pavement with his heels on the dirt when I left him with the EMT's and policemen. Other than a bit of memory, he listed his losses as a right/rear shifter, the glasses, and one other thing (I recall his seat looking kind of tattered).

He was okay enough to reminisce about doing sprints at SUNY Purchase 15 years ago. He laughed and said that with all the close calls there, he should have had the instincts to avoid whatever happened at the race. I guess it happens to the best of us. Anyway, he sounded pretty chipper all considering.

Hey he was laughing. It probably hurt his head to laugh. But he laughed anyway.

So all is well.