Helmet Cam - April 13, 2014 Zwiedzanie Bethel, Field Sprint

The last of the Outdoor Sports Center Bethel Spring Series clips from 2014, and the last of the Series since it is done at Bethel.

The venue at Bethel had become too busy over the last few years, after the land was re-zoned for retail use in late 2009. Although the town of Bethel fully supported having the Series, I felt it would be unsafe for the larger fields to share the roads with heavy and steady vehicular traffic. The continued development, introducing new businesses at other points of the course, seems to have reinforced my decision.

Going into this final race I was still hoping for some kind of miracle but I'd basically resigned myself to this being my last race in a Bethel Spring Series. I'd started thinking about a July 4th race here, to pay homage to the memorial and the history of the races while not stepping on any retail stores' toes, but on April 13th I really wasn't talking about it much.

However I was doing some informal surveys to see what the racers thought of a move up to New Britain or other points slightly north, ultimately asking for help publicly in October 2014. Ultimately this all came to fruition when we secured two venues, New Britain and Rentschler Field, for the 2015 Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series).

With that, here's the final clip from Bethel. I had a feeling it would be it and I hoped to win the race. When a break went up the road I briefly contemplated trying to bridge but the reality was that I'd barely trained and I'd be fortunate just to hang in the field. I felt super motivated for the sprint though, sort of a desperation I haven't felt since 2005.

Here's the clip.

Enjoy!

Tactics - Strava Playback

So the other day on bike forums someone mentioned that Strava lets you playback rides and such. I saw something about this but it didn't seem relevant to me. Meaning I almost never ride with anyone else and the majority of my training rides are indoors on a trainer, so Strava is more a public training diary than anything else.

Then someone said that he "watched" the playback of a race and saw someone stop for a lap and then jump back in, saying it was sort of funny to see it right there in "real life" if you will.

This made the "playback" feature seem a bit more interesting to me because I'm always curious about analyzing race tactics after the fact. Rehashing a race fascinates me because I have some solid data, like my power and heart rate numbers, my "perceived effort" memories, and a better understanding of what was happening around me.

I went to look for the "playback" feature on my Strava pages but couldn't find anything. Google rescued me - it's not really a "feature" yet, it's sort of in testing.

So this is how you do it.

First you need to go the Strava Laboratory.

The Strava Labs screen.

From there click on Activity Playback. This brings you to the Flyby Page.

The Flyby page, with a box up at the top right for putting in a URL.

Based on the name and the notes it seems that Strava put this in place so that if someone rides by you ("fly by") you can look for your activity and any Strava riders near you. I suppose that you could use this to learn about and follow a local rider, see if the rider that blew by you turned off and stopped, stuff like that.

For me, though, since no one rides past me while I'm on the trainer, my interest sits in recreating a race.

To look up an activity you need to go to one of your activities and copy the URL.

For my sake I'm going to use the last Bethel, the Zwiedzanie Bethel. The URL for my activity is
http://app.strava.com/activities/129982402

Copy/paste the URL/address from your actual activity.

I copy/paste that into the activity field in the Flyby Page.

My activity copy pasted into the Flyby box.

This brings up my activity plus a list of riders that were at the same location that day. Each name has three columns. The first is the green "C", for correlation. The higher this number the more likely the rider actually rode with you. For a race if the C is too low then the rider probably did a different category race. As a rule I find that anything over 50% is pretty good, it means they usually rode with me.

The second column is the purple "S", for spatial. This means the rider rode the same roads as you did. Obviously if they did a crit on the same course then the S will be high. I ignore this for race reviews since everyone does the same course, at least the ones I race.

The third column is the red "D", for distance. This just tells you how far the particular person rode. This is a sanity check since some riders will do a couple races or warm up for an hour or get shelled in a few minutes. I tend to ignore this also, but I think it would make sense if you were, say, checking to make sure riders completed a required loop (like in a road race, time trial, or gran fondo). It would help catch out those that sit out a few laps or do a shortcut.

Finally you can hover over each name to get the title of their ride. For the Bethel race I did the Cat 3-4 race so anything with some reference to that gets picked. Those that say M45 or P123 etc get skipped.

For me, then, I check off all the riders whose C value is over 50%, seeing if their activity title matches the Cat 3-4 race. A lot of people put non descriptive titles so it's hard to tell (like "Bethel race"). Obviously I recognize a few names so I make sure to get them checked off.

Then I hit play and see if it makes sense.

Each rider shows up with their avatar/picture in a circle. If you selected one that wasn't racing (or whatever) you can hover over the circle, get their name, and uncheck them from the list.

So during the race you can see things develop.

It also plays in fast forward so it's not an agonizingly slow thing. In fact you need to use the arrow buttons next to the play button to advance a frame at a time, else it's virtually impossible to watch detailed bits of playback.

Tip: the elapsed time seems to adjust automatically so you can sort of ignore it. For example I turn on Strava on my phone pretty early so that it's on when I go to the line. After I turned on Strava I took some podium pictures and such so there's a lot of time where I'm not moving at all, hence the weird time at the start of the race.

Start of the race.

If you do the same event as my example you'll see everyone lined up and waiting as I take some podium pictures. I hustle to the line and we start immediately.

The break develops.

In this particular race a massive break of 14 riders went clear. Since not everyone has Strava it's not clear but it would be cool to see a fully-Strava-equiped field in replay mode.

Field sprint at end of race.

In the field sprint we come close to catching those off the back of the break. I'm leading the charge up the hill and there are some break guys that are already at their cars. Others are blowing up at the line and barely moving.

So that's my short tutorial on Strava Flyby, the playback feature available on Strava.

Racing - 2014 Zwiedzanie Bethel

The last race for the 2014 Bethel Spring Series p/b Outdoor Sports Center, the 2014 Zwiedzanie Bethel. I felt some pressure to do well - a couple people told me I needed to win this race "for old times sake". I wanted to do well but realistically I wasn't sure how I'd ride.

The prior week, spent driving back and forth all over the place, meant that I managed to ride 20 minutes between last Sunday's race and this Sunday. It was just enough to work up a sweat, not much more, and I hoped that I wouldn't cramp during the race. See, if I don't ride much before a race then I start cramping almost immediately. If I do an hour the day before the race I'm fine. Less than that, or with no riding for 5 or 6 days, and I'm in cramp city from the start.

The other thing was food. I realized after some trainer rides this winter that I actually ride harder when I'm hungry. Higher wattage, higher energy, higher heart rate. I inadvertently tested this during the Series when I did a few races after having had plenty to eat and others where I started the races almost bonking.

Incredibly I felt and raced much better when I started it almost bonking. For Bethel it meant eating my normal breakfast at 6:15 - 8:00 AM (two egg sandwiches and some coffee) and then not eating until just before the start of my race at 1:00 or 1:30 PM. Normally a break like that would mean disaster for me but somehow it seemed to work this year.

Therefore I didn't eat anything until about 1:25 PM, when I ate two pieces of a croissant thing that someone had at registration. After that it was all I could do to dress, take pictures of some podium stuff, and get to the line.

Earlier I'd pinned my number, pumped up the tires on the Stinger 6s (they seem to work better for me than the Stinger 7/9 set up at Bethel), and basically saved getting dressed for last.

Of course when I went to zip up my jersey the zipper broke. So after some frantic pulling and tugging I realized I just needed to re-pin the jersey.

With that, and an emergency gel in my pocket, we started the race.

For today I had two helpers, SOC and Joel. Joel's been at the races every week because he's been working them. He arrives either at the same time as me or, at least twice, earlier than me. He also stands outside and marshals, moves stuff around, clears the course, stuff like that, so he's definitely working during the six hours before the race. Nonetheless he's been gamely trying to help me do well in the races.

SOC hasn't been able to make it due to work and family obligations, but he actually not only sacrificed all that he also sacrificed a 5K run that he'd registered to do on this day. He showed up to offer his support of the race series and me and also to test his racing legs.

Fortunately the weather turned out quite nice, with warmer temperatures such that most of us were in shorts and short sleeves.

SOC in action in his first race of the year.

The racing seemed pretty aggressive even though the Series lead was pretty wrapped up. Sixcycle showed up in force, their first and second places not under any real threat. They still worked super hard to try and get moves off the front and such.

Mike M, a strong 4, upgraded to 3 earlier in the week and this was his first 3-4 race. He wanted to put a show on and repeatedly drilled it. Although no one wanted to work with him his repeated forcing of the pace meant that eventually he dragged himself and another THIRTEEN riders clear of the field.

Wow.

The break forms.

At first the break seemed doomed, hanging out just in front of the field. Lap after lap they didn't move, the field tried here and there to bridge, and a few guys would make it up here and there.

A second group catches them, now the break is about 10 riders.

Eventually the break started to gain momentum. With every successful bridge there was another rider or three unwilling to work. More and more of the solo riders started to worry, forcing the pace. Some of them got clear and joined the break, others exhausted themselves and recovered in the group.

A final few take off, leaving the field behind.

Both Joel and SOC worked hard to try and bring the break back but without any coordinated effort they couldn't do much against the raging Mike M up the road.

At first I was a bit disappointed because I wasn't feeling that bad. I realized, though, that I'd been suffering pretty hard until the break went, and that if it was all together there'd be a lot of guys attacking the field.

Also, although I didn't feel it appropriate to win the race unless I deserved it, I felt it was okay to target the field sprint. After all that's my calling, the field sprint, whether it's for the win or for, in this case, 15th place.

With that in mind I steeled myself for the admittedly meaningless field sprint.

Joel finds me after the bell.

Joel had tried to help me a different week by going up the road, but he blew pretty quickly and shot backward just before the jockeying for the jump began. At such a time to be stranded in the front would have been worse than anything else.

He looked for me with a couple laps to go, I followed him around, but after the bell he really looked back, made sure I was there, did some telepathy to tell me he was really leading me out, and we set off.

On Joel's wheel.

With the other week's last lap in mind I followed Joel. I should have been easier to move up on the backstretch with a tailwind but I was afraid of hitting the front too quickly. In a headwind sprint I melt pretty quickly so I wanted to save myself for as long as possible.

Joel moves left with about 400m to go.

You can see the guy on the red bike look over. He jumps immediately.

When Joel moved left I made a critical error. I felt afraid that his big move to the side would blow him up so I stayed put. If he went and blew then he'd string out the field and I could ride off of the knowledge of "what would happen". Knowing the field will be strung out is pretty key information, since sometimes the field suddenly sits up as everyone up front realizes that whoever leads out the sprint is going to get absolutely annihilated before the line.

Of course this week things turned out differently and Joel made it quite far. I didn't know that so I played the "let Joel string out the field and I'll work off of that" bit.

I lose the wheel, it's a bit tight so I don't go.

Note the red bike guy is on Joel's wheel now.

With Joel rocketing up the left side I had to try and play the surfing game just right. I didn't want to lead out the sprint. My ideal sprint, with the wind so hard from the right, would have been to jump hard on the left curb and go to the line. This meant being sheltered left going into the sprint, but the left wasn't great just before it. I had to chose one way or another and I didn't know exactly how things would play out.

Therefore I had to let it just happen.

I go right trying to find a gap.

Joel was going so fast he opened a gap between his little group and us. I started to worry that he might lead out the sprint winner from the front. To the right a couple guys started to go, realizing that the sprint was leaving them behind. I tagged along, to the right for shelter.

Of course this meant that I'd be on the right in the sprint, which would put me…

In the wind.

Joel leading out the sprint.

If only I'd followed him.

I could feel the wind pounding me from the right, just zapping my legs. I stayed seated and low, trying to move up as far as possible before jumping. I didn't want to stand any earlier than necessary because as soon as I stood my sprint timer would start ticking down.

On the other hand since I was directly in the wind there'd be little advantage to me jumping later. I wasn't getting shelter. I was in a really weak position in the sprint so I just had to do my sprint and hope it would be enough to get me to the line first.

Seated, trying to save my standing jump for the final.

I was still seated at this point, still trying to delay my sprint. It seemed the other guys were starting to fade. Joel, incredibly, still leads the field at this point.

Now I jump!

The closer I got to the line the better I felt about my being able to sprint to it. When I started to draw even with the guys up front, including Joel (his red/black glove is still up front in the picture above), I knew I could go to the line.

So I jumped.

Hard.

Just after the line.

I accelerated in a pretty big gear for the wind and ground the pedals around until I got to the line. Like the other week no one else followed me to the line. I think the wind had zapped everyone's legs, and, honestly, the riders with the most power in their legs were probably up the road.

Nonetheless I felt satisfied with my race. I didn't place well per se, 15th, but I won the field sprint.

I stopped almost immediately so that I could get on with my promoter duties, but I could quickly review how the race went.

I didn't get shelled.

My 20 minutes over the week was enough to keep my legs from cramping.

I didn't bonk.

The sun was out.

It was a great day.

Promoting - 2014 Zwiedzanie Bethel

Ah, where to start.

It seemed like just yesterday that I was worried about whether or not the Series would even go on. I gambled a few thousand dollars (in insurance, numbers, and permits) that it would, then gambled many more thousands that it would go on for at least a few years (trailer, new generator). The stress really got to me, with my riding hours down, my back hurting, and generally being tired all the time.

The Series did eventually kick off, the racing happened, and I even got to race my bike. Surprisingly I could race okay after the first couple weeks. My back pain leveled out at "tolerable but be careful" levels, my whole body soreness (from sweeping and chopping and shoveling the course) went away, and the staff, virtually all new, settled into a nice, well oiled unit.

Before I knew it the last week of the Series approached us. Usually the last week means a lot of extra work so I tried to do what I could to get things done earlier. My normal first stop included picking up the release forms from Staples on Friday.

My assistant picking up the release forms.

It took 15 minutes to get going, about 30 minutes less than usual.

I dropped the releases off, along with the numbers and start lists, with Veronica, who would organize them into the pre-reg notebooks that we all know so well.

The big things for me this week, literally in some cases, was to bring the podiums down (big wood boxes), the trophies (big boxes that don't stack well), and the t-shirts (big boxes).

Although I had to make a trip to Bethel on Friday I got it done, dropping off the podiums, trophies, and t-shirts. Junior was a bit wigged out since he was with me for about 4.5 hours of driving that day.

Saturday the 12th was the CCAP Breakaway Benefit ride. I'd registered for it, raised money for it, but I wasn't sure if I could ride. I had this fantasy that I could pull Junior along in a single-kid trailer. When I realized that even 25 miles would be tough with 40-50 pounds of trailer+kid I started thinking I'd just pull Junior around in the parking lot or maybe a surrounding road or two.

Of course in the frenetic weeks I never even got the trailer down from its hook in the garage.

I lowered my goal to making it to the start at 7 AM. The start was only about 45 minutes from the house so 7 AM seemed realistic.

In the morning things just didn't work out. I thought for a brief time that I could make the 8:20 AM ride start time, when the Expo guys would be starting.

Finally I realized that, oh, I really should go to the bank (to withdraw $2000 in additional prize money in addition to the $1500 I normally had), and they open at 9, so I'll head down after that.

Things with Junior take a while so I didn't get to the bank until 10. Since he likes to run laps around the building and such it was a bit tough even to leave in 15 minutes, and a touch after 11 I finally got to the CCAP tent.

Junior loved it, running around for the next FOUR hours.

One of the rider's daughters was out exploring.

Junior was fascinated with her bike.

Trotting with purpose.

Dancing.

I've seen these birds a lot in the last week or three.

I didn't bring any bike or anything, I figured I'd just hang out with whoever was done riding and such. I managed to catch up with a few people I know from the races, saw a couple of my teammates, and we called it a day. Junior started to melt down at about 3 PM so we headed out. I'd drop him off at home - the Missus would be done with work by then - head back to the CCAP spot for the dinner, then drive to my dad's for the evening.

I managed to do 20 minutes on the bike at home, just a short spin up and down the condo complex roads, then dressed ("business casual") and headed back. Although I had my camera I didn't take any shots of the dinner, I just basked in the atmosphere. I'll have to do a separate post on CCAP as it's such a significant thing. Suffice it to say that I didn't head out until after 9:30 PM, and the nav system told me I had about 1:20 of driving ahead of me.

And here I was, still needing to do some registration work before tomorrow.

I got to the house pretty late, ate some (more) food as I really hadn't had much at the CCAP dinner, and decided to call it a night.

6:15 AM trailer selfie.

I kept meaning to take a trailer selfie shot in the dark with all the lights but by the last week of the Series it was too light when I got to the venue. I should have taken the 30-60 seconds to take the picture in the first week of Daylight Savings but I didn't.

6:17 AM, give or take, the beginning of the day.

I'd already coned off the truck on the backstretch and now we had to set up the registration area and the finish line area. I generally helped with the trailer, the rest of the crew helped with the Turn One and finish line areas.

6:30 AM, ready for business.

John is leveling the trailer. Note podiums in the background at the left.

I think that picture was from a bit later than 6:30 AM since we normally have Cat 5s ready and waiting by then. This might have been around 8 AM, after the clinic started and there was a short breather period for everyone in registration.

John R is the guy that's been at Turn One this year. He's helped out in the past but not to this extent. He marshaled the finish line intersection last year, the "crossover" if you will, and I knew that he'd be great at Turn One. He sacrificed his opportunity to race in order to make the Series work, and his efforts made the results incredible.

His backup, and usually stationed at the bottom of the hill, was Jeff C, and between the two of them they'd run the marshaling group. Derek was one of the full time marshals as was Joel. Both did other work too, in setting up and breaking down, but without the consistent marshaling from those two things would have been much less predictable.

Junior race.

Derek C is in the front gesturing, tall guy on the white bike, CCAP kit. He's one of the new guys and has worked out great. I first noticed him last year when he make a huge effort to make sure his teammate won the Junior race. Over the winter I asked his folks if he could work, if they could work, and so it was that the Series gained a whole family, Jeff, Veronica, and Derek. Derek spent each week working the whole day, from setting up to breaking down, marshaling until just before the P123s, and racing P123s. It was really great to have him and his family on board.

Hanging out at the trailer midday. Erin is standing at the window.

The "registration girls", as I call them, worked well once again. All experienced hands at the whole thing, they accepted the extra things I needed them to do in good spirits. This year we wrote checks for everything, I had a CCAP donation bottle out, we sold t-shirts… all sorts of extras. Erin, Delany, Amanda, and Veronica (in order of when they started helping out) worked out great, and I've only heard nice comments about the "registration girls".

One of my goals with the trailer was that it would become a focal point for riders in terms of hanging out and such. With Outdoor Sports Center's tent, CCAP's bake sale, and the results on the end, it sort of ended up like that. The traffic on the road, both bike and car, meant it wasn't an ideal spot for hanging out, but it worked.

Speaking of t-shirts...

Front

Rear

Luckily for all of you these t-shirts are still available! $10, let me know if you want one. S, M, L, XL, they run about true to size (Gilden t-shirts). As my brother asked…

"So how'd the t-shirts go?"
"Go?"
"Well, did you make money?"
"No. Lost a lot, actually."
"Yeah. We never made money on t-shirts either."
"Yeah."
(pause)
"I think the money is in making the t-shirts, not selling them. It's like the gold rush - the people who made money sold the picks and axes. The people looking for gold had to buy the tools but that didn't mean they found any gold."

Back to the regularly scheduled program…

Finish line set up.

This year was Mike's first year at the camera (back to the camera, blue shirt). He did an excellent job so that was a huge stress relief for me. I was super nervous the first week, making him do two practice "finish line clips" on the Cat 5s. I even asked him how he unlocked the screen saver on the laptop, since that would really screw things up if he couldn't use the laptop. He pointed at the manual his predecessor Jonathan wrote.

"The password is in the instructions."

Oh.

Mike and Meg, the officials, did their usual exemplary job. As a promoter I can request specific officials. There are a lot of reasons that I ask for Mike and Meg, but the main one is this: if I'm racing at a race I'd want them officiating the race. That's what it boils down to, that as a racer I'd want them officiating my race.

As a promoter I stress about three things - crashes, course marshals, registration, and the finish line camera. With the full crew in place I didn't have to worry about pretty much anything. You can tell because I took a lot of pictures during this Series, something that I can't do if I'm busy doing "promoter stuff".

My favorite podium shot, pretty much of all time.

Sixcycle guys, hamming it up. They won the Cat 3-4 overall in both team and individual.

We did podium shots on the last week, which you can see here on the Bethel Spring Series site. We also raffled away a roof rack with two bike mounts, courtesy Outdoor Sports Center and Thule. Fittingly one of the women racers who marshaled regularly ended up winning the roof rack.

5:40 PM, the end of the day, all packed up and ready to go.

Unlike other weeks I had to get everything into the trailer and Expedition for the trip home. Joel helped load the trailer properly, although I think I vetoed one of his ideas and that ended up making the trailer a bit less stable. Nonetheless I made the drive home, only a wiggle here and there on the road.

What I unloaded that night at about 9 PM, taking almost an hour to unload.

Normally I don't unload a lot the last day of Bethel but I wanted to empty out the trailer in preparation for the interior finishing. Therefore I tried to empty out the trailer before I drove home from the storage bay. Except for a few totes everything ended up in the garage, and by the next day everything was in the bay.

I worked hard to get the results up that evening. I wanted to do that for the race but when I woke up on the keyboard I realized that it wasn't going to happen. I got the individual GC up but had to do the team and high school stuff the next day.

Well earned cup of coffee in a Sixcycle gift mug.

I have to comment on the Sixcycle guys. I don't know any of them, heck I didn't even realize that one drove a green pickup until the end of the Series. But they've been super nice, super polite, at least off the bike (on the bike they just rip your legs off). One of them called me "sir" which was really great. They brought me a few gifts on the last week, a mug (same mug as Carpe Diem Racing so I know what it cost etc, but the thought is what counts) and a couple t-shirts (I know about them too, sort of). The kicker is that these were almost the only actual gifts someone gave me for the Series. Yes, for Junior, people gave us so much I could barely fit them in the car, but for me, for the race… not so much. So thank you to the Sixcycle guys and good luck in the rest of the season.

So that ends the 2014 Bethel Spring Series p/b Outdoor Sports Center. After a bit of decompression, some work on the trailer, and prep for some of the other events coming up, I'll revisit the whole "where will the Spring Series be in 2015?" question.

For now, though, a nice cup of coffee.

Thanks everyone for coming to and supporting the races. I hope to see you all next year at the WhereverItsGoingToBe Spring Series.