Life - The Thought

As you might have guessed I've experienced, and am experiencing, among other things, a sort of young adult renaissance. Back in my late teens and early 20s, basically my high school and college years, I went through a period of musical exploration. Although I started listening to classic rock (the only station that our super primitive radio would pull in), I quickly turned to what because "alternative music" or "new wave".

I still enjoy that music.

Which I think is normal, I don't think we keep exploring music genres, do we? I can't stand certain music, never could, and other types of music I've always enjoyed.

When I was a kid we upgraded our house stereo to something with multiple speakers in each speaker box. Per my mom it lived in the kitchen so we could hear music all the time, for our own intonation/etc, because we all played musical instruments. I'd commandeer it when I could and listen to WXCI, the West CONN station. It was the only alternative rock station in a huge area. There was one on Long Island for a bit (at 92.7), but WXCI was it for a bit. I'm sure they played stuff other than alternative rock but I don't remember it.

Back then we couldn't just Google a song or listen to clips on YouTube or whatnot. You had to hear the song, ID the band and the song (hopefully the DJ would actually say the band and song after it played, instead of before), then get to a record store and search it for said band and song. David Bowie alluded to this in a 1999 interview I only saw after he died. This whole process was pretty involved and required a pretty good amount of commitment. As he says, rock and roll had a "call to arms kind of feeling to it".

For us "record store" meant Johnny's in Darien, CT, the only place that offered non-mainstream albums. They sold t-shirts, albums (and later CDs), pins, Vans sneakers, everything. You'd know you were there when you saw the checkered VW Bug parked across the street. Honestly, though, we rarely bought stuff, we mainly looked to see what we might be able to buy.

In the meantime the only way to collect music was to record songs off the radio.

In order to capture songs I'd set up something like a butterfly trap, or, if you will, a shotgun. I'd put in long tapes, 120 minute ones, and just record whatever played on the radio for the next two hours. Then I'd review it, see if there were any good songs, copy them off onto another tape, then record over the 120 minute tape with another 2 hours of whatever.

I also spent a lot of time hitting "Record" just as one song ended, hoping to catch all of the next song. If I didn't want the song (I had it already, I didn't like it, etc) then I'd stop and carefully rewind the tape with my finger to get it "just right".

A well done tape was a work of art.

If the 120 minute tapes were a shotgun approach, the "Sit and Record" method was more like a sniper. I'd sit by the radio and record targeted songs, whether they were songs already announced ("and after the break the new Adam Ant song!") or I was doing the "hit record as the last song ended" thing).

The "Sit and Record" method resulted in higher quality recordings. This was because I recorded over just a short portion of tape (the beginning of songs, if I didn't want to keep it I'd rewind and record over it) but otherwise the recordings were on virgin material. Therefore I used better tapes for my sniper sessions. Typically the best quality tapes were available only up to 90 minutes long instead of the 120 minute long junk tapes.

Gathering songs from the motley assortment of tapes, I'd create mix tapes.

As technology advanced I started taping off of albums, and, as CDs started making their appearance, off of CDs. Most of this was so I could play the music in the car because us poor bike racers generally had just cassette players for them. Although CD adapters were neat, portable CD players skipped regularly when you hit a bump and such. If you were lucky enough to carpool with someone you could assign that someone to hold the CD player up in the air, their arms acting as suspension. If they got tired and the CD player hit something and skipped you'd shoot them a dirty look. The arm would go back up and you'd keep going.

Or you could place the CD player on a folded up jacket or something. Problem was if you took an exit fast or did some other higher-G maneuver. The CD player would end up on the floor on the passenger side or, worse, between the passenger seat and the door. Then you'd have to go to radio or see if you really did get all the tapes out of the glovebox.

Jeepers. The things we used to do.

Through the last few weeks one thing popped up in my personal radar - this one song I had on tape. It was on one of my scrap tapes, a 15 minute long tape originally meant for saving computer files off of our TRS-80 Model III.

Our TRS-80.

Hard to take a picture of it in the basement so poor quality but it's there.

I should try and boot it up. I don't even know if I need a floppy disc to do that.

You see, back then, there were really no hard drives for computers, and the ultra slow/simple TRS-80 was a solid $2000-3000. There were reel to reel tapes for computers and, if you were super advanced, there were these things called "floppy discs". The cheap version of a reel to reel was the cassette tape, whether for music or for data, and therefore those ubiquitous cassette tapes got recruited for computer use.

Our TRS-80 Model III came with a cassette player "storage solution". We had two tapes for it, a 15 minute tape and an 8 minute tape.

When we upgraded to floppy drives it freed up the cassette player and two near-useless tapes. 15 minutes? It would barely hold a few songs. The 8 minute tape I think got tossed.

The 15 minute tape (it was green, the 8 minute was orange or something) became my scrap tape, where I'd hold songs temporarily to record onto another tape. The 120 minute tapes were also scrap tapes. Generally speaking the 120s were so thin and so long that they'd regularly jam in the tape deck. The idea was to use them to gather stuff then transfer the good songs to a more durable tape.

The good tapes were 90 minutes long, durable enough for car play, reliable, not prone to tangling up inside a tape player. Typically they had upgraded material, either High Bias tape or Metal Bias tape. They were the carbon and titanium of the tape world. High Bias was good but Metal was the schnizzle, one step below CDs.

Sort of.

I recorded the best stuff on Metal, and we had two tape decks that were Metal compatible (and had Dolby noise reduction, which is what Dolby did before whatever they do now, like doing the sound for the new Star Wars movie).

One song I had on my 15 minute scrap tape was one that had lyrics that included stuff like:

Shalala sing a simple song
But in my mind everything is wrong
I (wish?) the words just to feel at ease
But tension builds to be released... 

I'm looking in my mirror now
See the face I have to shave 

There was something super compelling about the song. Yeah, it had some of the normal elements of new wave music, with synth drum stuff, a Euro accent (but not English… the accent really drew me in), bass stuff…

The problem was I had no idea who performed the song or what it was called.

I first recorded the song about 30 years ago, maybe a year or two beyond that. I listened to that 15 minute tape regularly throughout college, and I transferred the song onto some of my mix tapes. The cheap, 15 minute, originally-meant-for-computer, not High Bias, not Metal Bias tape became my master tape for this song. Poor quality recording dubbed onto other tapes. It's like a copy of a fax of a copy of a fax, if you know what I mean.

Fast forward about 15-20 years.

Now there was something called the internet. MP3s. You can buy music online without buying anything physical. Yada yada yada.

Every now and then I'd Google some of the lyrics of the song. No success. When my SoCal host told me about Shazam (an app that identifies music - just hold your phone up to the music and let Shazam listen to it for a bit) I downloaded the app specifically to check this song.

To get the tape to play I had to have a tape player and something to push sound to speakers (amp or receiver which contains an amp). I had a tape deck but my stereo/amp was dead. I put a cable into the tape deck headset jack ("out") and the other end into a laptop mic jack ("in") and recorded onto the laptop.

Problem was I had no way of hearing what I was recording.

I was limited to 60 seconds because after that I had to pay for whatever application.

With no idea of output level, no idea of input level, the recording sounded horrible. When I played it for Shazam the app told me, predictably, that it couldn't identify the song. Of course not, it was a horrible recording.

I liked the song so much I'd regularly listen to those 60 distorted seconds while on the trainer.

Fast forward another few years.

With Facebook a FB friend that rides happens to have been a WXCI DJ back in the day, and a few times he offered to ID the song (anything from the 80s). I never got around to putting anything up, and, recently, sitting at my laptop, I just videotaped the keyboard while I played that 60 second recording of the song and posted it for him.

He ID'ed the song immediately.

The Thought. "Every Single Day".

He even linked to the YouTube clip below. I clicked, listened, and I was in shock. It was the song.

It took 30-odd years but I finally knew who did the "See the face I have to shave" song.

I realized why I like the accent - it's a Dutch band and I have some affinity to the Dutch accent after spending much of my childhood in Holland. I associate Dutch accents with women, not men, so that sort of put a twist on that, it's probably why I didn't recognize the accent.

I've mentioned before how music really tugs at me. What I didn't realize was that even music I didn't know I was missing would tug at me.

I listened to a slew of The Thought songs in one sitting and I had this weird feeling that many of them sounded familiar. Slowly I realized that I'd heard and liked many of these songs but never captured them on my 120 minute shotgun tapes or my sniper "sit by the stereo and hit record+play when the song ends" sessions.

The Thought, "Rise and Fall", has a drum intro that reminded me of Powell and Perralta's Bones Brigades 2 "Future Primitive" bridge song as I thought of it (go to 34:45 of the video). I remember thinking the two were similar, but I didn't know the "other" song. It was The Thought.

"Secrets of the Heart". I had no idea they did this song, and, honestly, I forgot about this song until I heard it.

"Eight Miles High". Did I hear their version or some other cover? I don't know.

"Out of Oblivion". I don't know what to call them, the harmonics? Another one that resonated with me, and it still does.

The songs remind me of XTC, which is maybe why I liked XTC.

Finally, the tie in to cycling.

"Tension builds to be released."

Sounds like one thing, of course, but for me it perfectly describes a sprinter's race. The tension builds until it's just unbearable in the bell lap, then, finally, the sprinter launches his sprint.

Glorious.

Anyway, if you're in the area and you drop by, chances are that you'll hear The Thought playing.

Epilogue

I had lunch with an old friend recently. A familiar song came on, something I hadn't heard for years and years. I couldn't place it, neither could she. So she pulled out her phone and said, "Let me Shazam it."

I immediately thought of the only song I'd Shazam'ed. I wondered how this would go.

It came back with XTC. "Mayor of Simplteton".

And so it was.

Racing - Throwing Your Bike (Pictures)

I wrote a post a while back about throwing your bike, meaning doing a bike throw at the finish of a sprint. I know that I'm somewhat obsessive about bike throws, even doing bike throws when I'm well clear of the field.

However, my livelihood doesn't depend on it. I still do them, just because I want to do the best I can with what I have. I do bike throws because I don't want to leave something to chance.

My bike throw from April 12, 2015.

It's a very minor one, I thought I was clear so I threw the bike out of habit.

I'm not way over the back wheel.

This is a pretty poor bike throw, I've gained maybe 6-12 inches forward travel on the bike. My head would normally be over the bars, or even in front of them in an all out sprint, not behind them. If I had to really reach I could have gotten another 6 inches of reach I think.

The picture below shows just how safe I was playing that finish.

That's me up ahead, the speck below the red and white tent awnings.

Like I said, I threw the bike just to be safe.

And today, July 5th, 2016, in the Tour, I think that Direct Energie's Coquard had the sprint in the bag. He simply could not finish it off with a good bike throw.

Bryan Coquard's finish in Stage 4 of the 2016 Tour de France.

Picture from BH Bikes USA, Facebook.

The significant thing here is that Coquard is sitting on his saddle.

This means he did not do a bike throw at the finish.

Remember that you're classified as finishing when your bike breaks the plane of the finish line. I think if the bike is crashing then it's not necessarily the front tire, but in a normal sprint you're looking to put the front tire to the line before anyone else. That's key because it means that you're not as concerned about your head, your torso, etc. It's the front tire of the bike.

The way a bike throw works is the rider moves momentum/inertia from one part of the bike/rider unit to another. Since the rider, even a skinny Tour racer, is heavier than their bike, a racer can shove themselves backward on the bike to move the bike forward. If you shove the bike forward relative to your body you will momentarily slow your body. In return your bike will accelerate.

Say you weigh 160 lbs. Your bike weighs 16 lbs. If you move your body back one inch, your bike will move forward 10 inches. This means that if you move your bike forward, relative to your body, just an inch or two, you'll gain half a wheel in the sprint.

Okay, that's not totally accurate. There's wind resistance, there's friction, and there's the fact that part of your body is moving with the bike (your hands, feet, some of your arms, most of your legs). Plus there's the whole "how long are your arms" question - if you can't reach further forward then your bike isn't going forward any more.

The reality is that if you move your hips back about 8-10 inches you'll realistically get your bike forward maybe 12-18 inches. It's not ten to one ration between yours and your bike's movement, it's more like three to two. Still, though a foot is significant if you're losing the sprint by a an inch.

The wrong way to do a bike throw is to simply straighten your arms. You don't move your body relative to the bike so the bike doesn't leap forward. This is what Coquard did at the end of Stage 4.

The right way to do a bike throw is to extend your arms as you drop your pelvis behind your saddle. By pushing your pelvis behind your saddle you're moving the most mass possible as far back as possible.

This thrusts the bike forward.

This is the bike throw that basically started the blog.

Once I realized I could sprint on the bike I started looking at how to optimize my sprint. I learned about bike throws, figured out the physics thing (thanks to school), and from then on I was doing bike throws all the time. Easy ride? Throw my bike to whatever shadow was in front of me. Waiting in the parking lot for a group ride? Bike throws to empty parking spot lines. Group ride? Bike throw at town line sprint.

Races?

Bike throws for sure.

Over the course of 30-odd seasons I don't think it'd be unrealistic to say that I've done maybe 10,000 bike throws. If I did 300 a year that would be about 10,000. I probably had single days where I did 50 or 75 or even 100 bike throws. I even had bike throw mishaps, like when I went out on a ride on my Aerolite equipped bike with slippers on instead of cycling shoes.

For a long time I never thought I'd really use a bike throw because I seemed to get shelled all the time. Eventually though I started sprinting, started placing, and started doing bike throws for real.

I did get an interesting place in the Tour of Michigan due to a bike throw. We were sprinting curb to curb, about 10 riders across. I was stuck in the second row. The first row was somehow, magically, sprinting at basically the exact same speed, within a foot or two of one another.

The second row was soft pedaling, waiting for someone to blow, waiting for that gap to open to allow them to surge past that blowing up front row and win the race.

The gap never happened.

At the line I thrust my bike forward as far as I could. My front wheel ended up at or past some of the front row riders' pedals and cranks. I thought I might lose my wheel to those spokes.

There were 10 riders in the first row of sprinters. I got 11th in the race.

Fast forward about 11-13 years. I was one point behind Morgan in the overall in the Bethel Spring Series. I had to beat him in the sprint, and get top 7, to win the Series overall. As a sprinter I was definitely one step behind Morgan. He could beat me straight up; I was close only because he skipped a race, I think because it was raining and he'd used himself up in the Masters race.

Coming into the sprint I followed Bethel Cycle's four man leadout train. They had two sprinters, Stephen G and Bryan H. Both of them would win the Series overall in other years - they are both very good riders. I sat on their wheels, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

I jumped very late, trusting in my jump to give me the best chance against Morgan. We sprinted at similar speeds (he a bit faster) but in the jump I possibly had an edge.

I sprinted towards the finish. I'd jumped hard I thought I had it made. I was debating if I should raise my hands or not. Then, just before the line, to my right, I sensed something.

I looked.

To my horror it was Morgan. He'd gotten boxed in going into the sprint (when one or both of the Bethel sprinters blew up), had to back out of that spot, and was now closing with a fury. He was sprinting noticeably faster than me. I had to get to the line before he passed me for good.

I did a couple more pedal strokes and desperately threw my bike at the line. I threw the bike so hard I lost my grip on one side of the bar, causing me to veer crazily toward the left curb.

But, in all that, I'd done a good bike throw. I'd won the race, and with it, the Series.

You can see here that I'm only slightly ahead of Morgan.

I'm rapidly slowing in the sprint at this point. It's hard to see in the pictures but in the video you can see that I'm not going as fast as Morgan.

However I'm already getting into the bike throw at this point.

As my body extends back my bike moves forward.

I'm trading my body's position to gain bike movement.

At this point I'm going to win the race. I'm deep into my bike throw, I'm still not fully extended, but my front wheel is already ahead of Morgan's wheel.

I'm still extending, trying to get my hips down.

At this point I'm still getting further back on the bike. My head is coming down really hard, hard enough to hit my helmet to my stem. I can feel the saddle in my stomach and I'm hoping that I don't fall back into my own rear wheel.

The finish.

I'm fully extended and on the edge of losing control. The saddle is firmly in my stomach and I have marginal control over the bike.

However, if you look at Morgan, you can see he's really only raised himself up out of the saddle. If he'd thrown the bike forward it would have been a closer race. I always compare head position relative to the line - my head is forward of Morgan's so I think I'd still have won. However it would have been much, much closer.

His hips are basically in the same place as mine, and if he had a similar torso length as me, I think his head would have been about even with mine. It would have been even a closer race.

Bike throws are quick. In pictures they look nice and neat, but in reality it's a little spurt and that's that.

The bike throw for the 2005 Bethel Spring Series (go to just before 6 minutes into the clip for real time, 7 minutes in for slow motion):

Coquard, in the sprint for Stage 4 today in the Tour, didn't move his bike forward relative to his body. If he had done so he realistically would have taken the stage.

The last kilometer, courtesy the Tour (no commentary):

 I did notice that virtually no one threw their bikes at the line, even Kittel. It might have been that the uphill drag was particularly tough. However that's even more the reason to throw the bike, because if only one rider throws his bike...

For all us normal racers the bike throw is an easy skill to practice, you can do it all ride long on easy rides, you can do it warming up for races or group rides, you can even do bike throws when you're testing riding your bike (or someone else's bike). It's a skill that you should master and use. You never know when it'll come in handy.

Racing - Sprinting By The (Power) Numbers

This is related to my jump/sprint numbers from the other night.

Me getting led out at the now defunct SUNY Purchase Tuesday Night Sprints, probably 1991 or so.

My good friend and former teammate sent me a link to this interesting sprinting article: "The Profile Of A Sprint" from The Science of Sport website. It's a great article, opening with one of those bike cams mounted on a couple pros' bikes (on the Giant team). Go ahead, watch it, I'll wait.

Clip from above linked article.

Okay, so that was exciting, right? Really chaotic, and, frankly, it's really difficult for me to tell when the rider should jump. I guess that's why they have markers every 100 meters for the last kilometer (or more), because if I were in such a sprint I'd have one eyeball on them and another on the riders around me.

I'll sort of follow along their article and inject some of my own thoughts.

Sprint Length

First, they state that a pro sprint typically lasts about 10-15 seconds at the end of typically flatter (and therefore less selective) stages, allowing for a large number of riders to arrive at the finish together. I'd want to add here that for at least the Tour de France, the Champs Elysee stage seems to end up being a much longer sprint. One winter I studied a number of stage sprints while on the trainer and found that most sprints were short, like 10-13 pedal revs in the wind. This is well under 10 seconds in the wind.

A notable exception? The Champs consistently seemed to be 20 revs or so, or almost twice that of a "regular" stage. Not having every sprinted on the Champs I can't tell you exactly why this is the case, but I'm guessing it has to do with the wind (tailwind?), the slight down hill nature of the finish, and the fact that it's a super prestigious stage for a sprinter to win so they'll go a bit earlier.

Good Sprinters are Good Sprinters

What's really interesting is that in the Grand Tours from 2008 to 2011 there were 79 field sprints. 54 of those sprints were won by 5 riders. 19 others accounted for the remaining 25 sprints. This means that there were really just 5 really effective sprinters for those years. That's a very, very, very small number.

Power Numbers

Now for some nitty gritty - wattage and speed. What's incredible is that the power numbers aren't out of this world. For the six sprinters studied the average peak power was about 1250w, a number that even I can hit.

Sustained power, for the average 13 second sprint, was about 1020w. Again, this is a totally attainable number by a number of riders, me included.

My "good" sprints have been about 1250w peak with the best sprint being a sustained 1100w effort for 18 or 19 seconds. Typically my peak will be about that, like 1250w, but depending on the sprint my sustained effort is usually shorter and usually is in the 1050w range.

Top speed averaged about 41 mph. That's fast but not outlandishly fast.

Basically even the best pros are sprinting at numbers you might see in a Cat 3 race.

Of course there's a huge difference between the pros and a Cat 3. Cat 3s aren't racing for 3-6 hours before the sprint, they don't have a massively fast (and tough) final hour, and they typically don't have to hold 30+ mph before they get into the sprint.

Thoughts

I think that the numbers only tell part of the story. Obviously hitting the numbers counts. But reaching the end of the race in good position, with as much in reserve as possible, is critical. I'm sure there are much stronger sprinters out there that don't get the job done regularly, and there are weaker sprinters out there doing super well. Race craft counts for a lot, but it's good to know what sort of numbers the big boys are hitting. At least it's a point of reference.

Racing - August 18, 2013 Bob Beals M35+ Race Report

I'm going out of order here so I'll have to figure out how I'll deal with that. I haven't written a race report since forever, and in the meantime I've not only done a race but I've even worked one. Then I got sick and yada yada yada and now here I am.

So Sunday August 18th was the Bob Beals New England Masters Championships. They're usually at around this time of year and it's usually a solid group of racers, experienced and savvy. Last year I had a blast doing the race, even though I didn't do that well.

This year I expected worse. In my race on August 10th I lasted all of 9 minutes. I'd worked some crazy hours that weekend, then dealt with a sick Junior and taking care of some stuff for my family. I myself got sick and started rapidly consuming our stock of Dayquil just to get through the day.

Coming up to the weekend I felt pretty pessimistic. I was so pessimistic that I even let my teammates talk me into doing the M35+ race, not the (typically slower) M45+ race. My pessimistic thought process went something like, "Well, if I'm going to get shelled in 10 minutes in a race, I might as well line up with some teammates."

With that in mind the Missus, Junior, and I headed down to the Rhode Island shore, to one of the stalwart course of the area, Ninigret Park. A figure eight loop it's flat, sits on a former WW2 airfield, and, over 30 years ago, it was where I finished my first race.

On this day I'd line up with my regular teammate and friend, SOC, just like last year. However we would be joining a trio of leg breaking strongmen - Dave, Todd, and Stan. Dave typically attacks until he drops, doing fun stuff until his legs go. He's managed to win races doing this so it's not like he just blows himself up, sometimes his efforts take him to the line first. Dave is a Cat 2 so normally we don't race together.

Todd is another confirmed legbreaker, with some very good rides to his credit. He's mainly a 'cross racer, and a Masters National Champ at that, so in crits he does them "just for training". He's either a Cat 1 or Cat 2 so, again, normally we don't race together.

If only I could go so well "in training".

Stan would be our wild card. A superbly aggressive racer, Stan has won sprints but prefers to get into breaks. He won the Plainville Cat 3-4 Series this spring and has been on a roll this year. We've raced a few times but I've been usually off the back so, yeah, whatever.

With teammates like these SOC and I would be (happily) relegated to domestique duty.

Before the races, during our warm up, we got together a few times. For me, as someone with 10 minutes expectation in my head, I didn't mind what they discussed because I wouldn't be there at the end. The progression of thought made me smile though - you could sense the collective excitement grow as time went on.

First it was the, "Okay, guys, we're just here to race. We don't want to dictate the race. We'll let the other guys attack, we'll follow, and if something works out then it works out."

Five minutes later it changed a bit. "Hey, I think what we'll do is we should be able to get a couple of us off the front. Dave and Todd will be the leaders, Stan will be the wild card, and you and SOC cover."

Then just before the start we got together one more time. "Okay, guys, we're going to try and get Dave, Todd, and Stan in a break. You and SOC cover the field, help get us away. If we miss a move then we need to ride hard to bring it back, steady, not a lap then blow. Got it?"

You can see the progression from "We're just racing" to "Okay we're going to deliver a knockout blow."

We lined up, got our final instructions from the chief ref, and we were off. Crits start either slow or fast and today it was slow. I immediately moved to the front so I could participate in my 10 minutes of racing. Look, if I'm going to get shelled, I at least want to get in an effort or two. So to the front it was, totally unlike my normal tactic when I race for myself.

From left, in red/black Expo kit, Dave, Todd, and Stan.

Dave was most alert of the trio of leaders and he responded to a few digs right away. Todd hung around in the vicinity, following any secondary moves, and Stan sat a few wheels back, watching and waiting. SOC was getting his legs warmed up so he sat back for a bit.

"What just happened?"

Early in the race I moved up the right side just before someone way over on the left did something. The field swerved to their right, toward me. A guy I just passed, in an orange kit, ended up getting something in his front wheel, probably a skewer or a derailleur. His wheel almost totally disintegrated, he somehow managed to roll his bike to the grass.

Against all the "rules" we all looked to see what happened - that's the picture above. Normally if something happens you keep your eyes forward because you don't want to be part of a secondary crash - it's like the rubber necking crash on the other side of the highway from the "actual" crash. In this field though I guess everyone felt comfortable looking.

The consensus after the incident is that the disintegrating-front-wheel guy did an awesome job staying upright. No one else got caught up in the incident and the race went on normally.

Legs are breaking!

Note single file and the gaps. You have to imagine the pain.

About a third of the way into the race our trio started doing some damage to the field. Stan had countered after a flurry of failed attacks. Taking advantage of the field taking a collective breath, he launched on his own. He can do that too, not like me and my one lap escapades.

After a lap or so a couple guys went after him. Then, with the three clear, Dave followed a move then counterattacked when the rider in front eased. Todd had followed other racers so he was in the select group on Dave's wheel. Suddenly seven more riders were going clear.

All of the Expo leaders were in the break.

SOC and I went to the front to cover moves.

Break is to the right of the picture, they've just exited the backside right turn.

SOC was much more active than me. The move that pulled the seven chasers clear really hurt me and I was struggling just to stay on wheels. Once the break got away and the immediate chasers all eased I moved to the front to see if I could help.

Ultimately SOC did much of the marking until the break had a good half lap on us. I marked a move or two but that was it. After that I hid in the field, tried to do one more lap, one more lap, one more lap.

The break is to our left, half a lap up.

The nightmare is that we have three in the break of ten and they work too hard and don't do well. I tried to see what was happening in the break when we passed each other on the two main straights (front and back straight). I felt a bit worried when I kept seeing non-Expo riders riding away from the group, Expo guys chasing hard. The non-Expo guys realized the threat our trio held so they tried to break the group into smaller pieces.

Once the break got half a lap ahead SOC did a one lap pull, to be nice to the others. I don't think it helped make them feel better but one rider did comment that "we're finally in a good rhythm" when SOC did that pull. SOC wasn't about to tell him that his plan from there forward was to sit at the back with me and wait for the finish.

When I heard 7 to go I realized that, okay, I may have a chance at finishing this race. I didn't feel absolutely stressed, no cramps, no weirdness, no emptiness in my legs. A glimmer of hope lit up inside of me.

At 5 to go I thought it a possibility.

At 2 to go I knew I'd make it. Now I had to deal with positioning and all that - the good stuff in a crit.

Shovel, to my right, finds me inside 2 to go.

We're both a few seconds behind the front of the field.

As we came around to the back straight I noticed someone on my right. I looked and looked again - it was Shovel. He rolled up, looked over, caught my eye, and started rolling hard.

I got on his wheel.

Just before we got the bell I chose to go right when the group scattered a bit. Shovel, overlapped to the left, was stuck out there. I felt the right/middle to be a better spot so I went there, and I hoped that Shovel would be back.

Shovel, now with half a lap to go, finds me again.

He didn't disappoint me. He found me in the same spot on the course and this time didn't even bother looking. He rolled by, glanced to make sure I was there, and kept going.

Dead Zone - Shovel starts to go.

When we got into the Dead Zone, the bit of course totally obscured by trees and bushes, he pushed a bit harder, getting into his Cane Creek mass-start legal aero bars.

I followed.

Final two-part bend ahead.

White speck about to go out of view is Kyle, who was away for a couple laps.

I didn't see Kyle at this point - I didn't know anyone was ahead of the field except the break. I did know that I always get nervous, expecting to be swamped, and so I decided I'd jump as early as I dared.

Just as we rounded the first part of the two part final bend I glanced back, saw the left was clear, and jump hard.

Arg!

My HR was 172 when I jumped - I had no idea it was so high. I prefer jumping at under 165 bpm.

Overgeared, pedals turning in slow motion, I looked up and thought, "Wow, I went waaaaay too early". I looked down, tried to see if anyone was about to blast around me, and saw no one. I looked up again. The finish line didn't look any closer. Down. No one coming around. Up. Jeepers the finish is still so far away. And is that Kyle in front of me?

I eased just before the line because I didn't see anyone sprinting so I thought maybe I was committing a faux pas. I saw Kyle too, looking intently to make sure it was him - Specialized jersey, bike, the white or silver helmet. Yes, it was Kyle. He'd been in the field so he must have made a big move at least a lap ago, maybe two laps or more before the finish.

On our cool down lap Dave rolled by SOC and me. He gave a thumbs up, and Stan later confirmed that Dave had won the race. This made SOC and me smile because, really, that's the way we'd hoped it would work out.

Thumbs up. Yes!

Shovel's leadout got me the field sprint, if you count Kyle as being a chaser off the front for a couple laps. That was enough to get me second, and, 

Here's a view from Mrs SOC:

(Video from SOC)

Ends up I was 12th in the race - 10 rider break, Kyle, then me. SOC, who totally sat up going into the sprint ("nothing to sprint for") finished 44th officially. He grinned when he learned that I got 12th - he'd been a few wheels behind me and he'd killed me in most of the sprints we've done on our own. I think next time he'll be sprinting.

Overall a good day. Going in with zero expectations, hoping to last more than 10 minutes, and winning the field sprint (I'm going to say Kyle was a chase/break rider)... it was all good.

As a bonus I had Strava'ed the race. I saw something about second best time on the final sprint, a segment in Strava. When clicked through to the segment I saw my rank as 4th.

4th?

Ends up that last year, in my surprise good-sprint where I had to sprint early and then passed a bunch of the field, was a 12 second sprint, 41.7 mph Strava says. Three riders have done that same sprint in 11 seconds. In this race I did the final sprint in 14 seconds, the second fastest time I've done it.

That was a nice thing to see. Of course now I want to do a 10 second sprint. Haha. We'll see.

Sprinting - How Did I Do?

Meaning "How did you do", not how did I (me, the writer) do.

All too often you'll start home after a race wondering if you did all you could do. I'm writing from a sprinter's point of view, so for me "doing all I can do" means if I sprinted well. Obviously if I win I did well, but my concern isn't as much with winning as it is with maximizing my available resources.

It's true that winning is great, and I speak as someone that doesn't win that often. Many riders don't realize that I've never (never!) won a Sunday race during the summer. In fact, in recent memory, I don't think I won a training race during the summer. Once May hits I have a zero hit rate for wins until September rolls around (and my first and last win in a September was, get this, in 1985, in my first Senior Men's Cat 4 race; until then I'd been racing only Juniors).

So, yes, wins are great.

But winning isn't everything.

I know, I know, get off that high horse. Seriously, though, winning isn't the end all. If I raced for wins, I'm sure I would have quit a long time ago. It took me three years for my first win, and until then I seriously had about zero chance of getting a top 3. Consider entering a race as a regular age racer (18+), and your competition includes a George Hincapie or a Frank McCormack. An honest, no BS assessment of the situation would conclude that, yeah, you have absolutely no chance of winning.

(And for the life of me I can't remember the movie where I got that "no BS assessment" quote from so, please, help me out.)

At any rate, racing for me is doing as well as I can. That means that first I want to be involved. Next I want to finish. Finally I think about a place. The last bit is obvious so I'll discuss the first two bit more in depth.

Involved means doing stuff like getting into a break so my teammates don't have to chase. Or pulling a teammate (or just the field in general so that a teammate can benefit).

Finishing is simple - I'd like to get to the finish of a race. Sometimes I can't get that involved because I'm too focused on finishing.

When I balance the two I realize that being involved (and consequently dropping out) is better than just plain old finishing (and not being involved at all). Consider a ProTour domestique in a one day race where he pulls like mad to keep a break within sight, drops out of the race after 150k at the front, then learns later that his team's sprinter won the day. That's better than sitting in, the long break making it, and the team's sprinter winning the field sprint for 5th.

This assumes that I'm in the race to race. Sometimes I'll enter a race more for training than racing - any time I race twice in a day the second race is for training. If I haven't been training much at home then races become training (and, honestly, for 2012, that'll be my modus operandi).

When training by racing it becomes important to finish the race. Getting in a few extra laps helps too - to wit, the last race I did I got shelled only a few laps in. Since I hadn't ridden much this whole year I kept going, by myself, until I got lapped by the field. Normally, for Cat 3s and above, I don't recommend this (if you can't stay in a race you probably have no business time trialing behind it), but when the race is the only hard ride you'll do in a month or two, then by all means go to it.

On a great day, when I'm racing to race, I may consider "deluxe" actions, like if I bridged to a break (i.e. did I make it or did I explode before I got there), or, perhaps, if I could stay on while we went up a big hill and get to the finish unexpectedly (like at the Whaling City Cyclone).

But all this is just a prelude, a long winded one.

When I finally sprint for the line, I often find it hard to judge if I left anything out on the course. I mean, okay, it's easy to say I sprinted well if I won the sprint, but did I sprint as well as I could have? Often not, and although winning one sprint without sprinting to my max may be nice, it hurts me when I need to really dig in a closer race and end up walking away disappointed.

If I sprint I want to sprint 100%. I don't want to just ride to the line, I want to have a perfectly timed sprint, one that empties the tank but lets me get to the line as fast as possible. Being first is nice, but knowing I did the best sprint possible is great too.

If I got beat while doing my best sprint then I can't complain about being beat. If I get beat because I had a crappy sprint... well, I'll be bad company on the way home.

My own tests on if I sprinted well...

1. If I finish close to the front, within a couple places of winning, or, if it's really tight, within 10 or 15 feet of the winner, I try and remember to see what happens after the sprint. I involuntarily coast, primarily due to throwing my bike at the line. Here's the test: If I coast past the winner in the next 50 meters I could have won. I should have gone earlier because I had more speed at the line.

2. If I finish close to the front (just like #1 above) but racer coast past me after the line, I've done the best sprint possible. I may have been slowing at the line but I got there before they did. This is satisfactory for me because I sprinted to the best of my ability, even if I didn't win.

3. If I am nowhere near the front, like more than 5-10 places or 20-30 feet from the front, then I really didn't belong in that sprint. With the new USAC points system in place, riders could chase points all over the place by sprinting in for a 10th or 15th or something. Honestly, though, if you're not in upgrade points range (top 6 in most crits), it's not worth sprinting. Fine, I understand sprinting for 10th if a 9 rider break has already won the race, but in a field sprint it's hard to justify sprinting for lower places, except in big money races (20 places typically).

I'm not saying I don't sprint from pretty far back because I have, and in the past few years I've done as well as getting second. I do disagree with sprinting for 50th place. If I'm 10th in a field sprint then either I blew in the sprint or I'm flying past people after a very late jump. But in general if I think I won't be around for the top 6 then I won't sprint. If I'm sprinting then I have something in the tank.

That's a final note. At the 2012 Mystic Velo Crit, M45+, I sat up in the last lap because I didn't trust my legs not to cramp in the sprint. Rather than contesting a sprint and risking a massive cramp, I sat up and played it safe. After the race I thought that maybe I should have done something, anything, but I don't regret sitting up. I've miscalculated my resilience or been surprised with a massive cramp and it's bad, bad news.

That day I deemed a partial success. I rode more that day than I have on any day in the prior month, both in time and miles. I time trialed a bit on my own and found that, yes, I stink at time trialing. I also realized that even with no miles on my legs I felt okay for shorter efforts (to wit: I had the fastest lap in the race where I got shelled). Endurance is a different matter.

Hopefully later this season I'll have one of those sprints where I'll be coasting after the line, no one ahead of me, then guys coast past. A good sprint, one that maximizes what ability I had that day, that hour.

One of those ideal sprints.

Helmet Cam - May 31, 2011 @TuesdayTheRent

This is the video taken from the helmet cam from the report here. At some point I realized I didn't have use of my big ring, but, being in the midst of some action, I decided it was just a slipped cable or something.

Later I really tried to shift into the big ring, hoping that if the cable had slipped it'd have slipped just a little. No luck. By the end of the race I could feel the cable head poking out of the lever - the cable had no tension on it. Ends up I broke a cable housing stop, making "while I race" repairs virtually impossible.

What all that means is that I raced a lot of the race in the 39T ring, with an 11-23 cassette in back. I only used the 11T and 12T, and the 12T was pretty light for the pace. This is the equivalent of a 53x15 and 53x16, for those of you Juniors and those who know about gearing.

Curiously enough, when reviewing the clip to find where I lost the big ring, I noticed that my pedaling action smoothed out significantly once I had to spin. It was tough to find that spot - I don't look obviously at the cranks when I first discover the problem since I thought such an action would alert others to my problem and encourage them to attack. I also thought that it was temporary and that it'd be okay in a lap or two. That wasn't the case, of course.

But the lesson here - forced to use easier gears, I relearned how to pedal more smoothly.

Enjoy.

Helmet Cam - 2011 Criterium de Bethel P123s

Finally, a helmet cam.

I missed on a lot of footage at the 2011 Outdoor Sports Center Bethel Spring Series, with all sorts of non-helmet-cam related stress distracting me from the simpler parts of racing.

I also struggled to race well, and, frankly, races where either I get shelled or the clip just ends mid-race are boring to watch.

I had one race worth "clipping" though, the Criterium de Bethel. It took place a long, long time ago, April 3.

Here it is. Enjoy.

Racing - June 7, 2011 @TuesdayTheRent

Tuesday evening rolled around, accompanied by pretty intense heat (90 deg F).

Time to go race the Rent.

I got out of work okay, my poison ivy bothering me enough that I'll go see a doctor Wednesday. I worried about my fuel situation - I didn't really eat that well during the day. Just four slim sandwiches and one much-fatter egg sandwich, and barely a cup of coffee.

To try and compensate for this lack of my regular fuel (typically pasta and other carbs), I had a "sweet" (a breakfast pastry) and some leaded Coke on the way to the race. The sugar and caffeine blast, really the first of the day, revved up my body and put me into racing mode.

Going for me in the fuel area was my 7 days of improvement, and I say that kind of facetiously. The way I described this concept to a fellow racer was as follows:

"When you train, you break down your body, you get fatigued, you deplete your stores, you damage muscle tissue. Then you rest and recover. Your body rebuilds itself, overcompensating for some of the damage. It's not the training that makes you stronger, it's the rebuilding, the recovery."

Based on that relatively sound principle, it follows that I would be very good tonight - I had 7 days of improvement in my body, 7 days of recovery, 7 days of fueling.

In other words I hadn't ridden my bike since last Tuesday's race.

The most significant thing that happened at that last week's race was my front derailleur "issue". At some point in the race I suddenly lost the ability to put the chain on the big ring. Since my shifter seemed appropriately impotent, I figured I broke a cable.

Monday evening, last night, I finally checked the bike. I realized I couldn't fix the problem quickly (I was tired, itchy, and hot, so I really wanted to just get it done) so did the next best thing - I adjusted the front derailleur and locked it over the big ring.

A minute later I stepped back and took in my newly-modded 53T-only bike.

Awesome.

Not a problem, really, as I don't train much on hills, and in a flat crit the only time I'd be in the small ring would be during the warm-up. I'll fix the bike later this week, probably in time for Saturday's Nutmeg State Games.

The Missus pinned my number before we left. She used the "Carpe Diem Racing" on the side panel in a slightly different way reference-point-wise, with the end result that my number ended up almost on my belly. Teammate Cliff commented later that at this rate I'd end up with my number square on my stomach by the end of the Rent series. My typical frantic "didn't leave work early enough and we're almost late" mode probably distracted her as I ran around the house collecting bits I wanted for the race (cam and SRM downstairs, HR belt upstairs, halo here, cap there, gloves there, etc).

Once at the Rent I got my new-favorite CamelBak Podium Chill (and it's younger brother Ice - I bought two of those last week from Expo team sponsor Manchester Cycle) bottles and went to warm up. I had to get my legs moving because I usually feel horrible coming off of any prolonged period of rest, more than a few days of non-riding.

Of course my plans got derailled before I even got to the warm up loop, located next to the course. A fellow promoter, also warming up, rolled by just as I got there, and we started chatting.

While barely pedaling.

We exchanged quite a bit of talk about promoting races, about the difficulties of planning events. Personally I take the easy way out, choosing to promote an easier event, ones that I enjoy doing personally. He's a bit more ambitious, promoting events that challenge the racer, that he rarely races, and for that I admire him. His promoting, I think, is way more stressful than mine.

As we rolled around I saw the usual suspects around. CCNS, a team consisting of the strongest individuals, but handicapped a bit by always-overwhelming marking by the others. Even a Hincapie can be neutralized by locals, as happened once at the Naugatuck Crit. Aiden, their fearless leader, showed up with Ron and Dave. They naturally rose to the top of the threat list. Their only "weakness", if you will, is that they actually train in these races, and may not necessarily be out to win. For them it's just as successful to demolish a field as it is to win, and, in fact, I would guess they'd rather blow apart a field and get 5th than sit in and win.

Berlin Bikes/Best Cleaners also had a strong presence, with a surprise appearance by Bryan H, along with the usual crown Jeff M, Kevin Y, and Scott G. Although individually they may not be able to match the CCNS boys (with all respect intended for the BB/BC boys), they work extremely well together as a team. They'd be next on the threat list, one step down from CCNS.

Expo Wheelmen, the team whose kit I wear, had a strong showing too. Although individually the racers may not be at CCNS's level (we have no Cat 1s for example, and they have a few), there were two very strong motors toeing the line - Cliff, he of the leadout, and Todd, another super strong Cat 3, one that joined Expo just this year. Both have backgrounds in mountain bike racing, and both could stick with a break driven by, typically, the CCNS boys. We had other guys too, Lance, Joe T and Jon T (Expo TT guys), a couple others. We missed two big riders, our fearless leader David and my good friend SOC.

I felt pretty confident that Cliff or Todd could pull off a good race. Cliff made it into breaks twice before, getting worked over in one week (and ignominiously shelled from said break), making up for it the following week by getting second. Todd has worked super hard during the races and had the non-luck to miss the breaks. His TT times at the Expo TT series reveals his strength though - it's just a matter of time.

Finally the host team's guys were there, wearing their CVC kits. They include the irrepressible Max, who's been the most consistent at the Rent this year, and a slew of his teammates. Missing was the fast one who usually wears a Dewalts pair of shorts, the shorts from a team from Southern California somewhere.

As Max has won at least one or two races here already, and they'd be on "home turf", they ranked up there on the threat list, parallel to CCNS.

With high temps I worried about withering in the heat. The Missus dumped virtually a full bottle of ice water on me just before the start, one of the two Chill bottles I brought. I had on my bike one Chill and one Ice (the latter being twice as effective insulating water as the Chill) - those two bottles would be my bottles for the race. I brought one of each to test the insulation properties of each model.

I worried a bit about battery life (wasn't sure if I charged the Contour1080HD enough) so waited till the last moment to turn on the camera. Of course by the time it booted up, a process that takes a few seconds, the first attack was hitting turn one.

Who was attacking?

CCNS.

A huge move, designed to blow apart a field that may have eased up on the warm up due to the high temperatures.

The field, watching two of the three CCNS riders rolling up the road, responded desperately, and in a couple laps the strung out group had reconnected, with everyone breathing hard and trying to pretend they weren't.

Expo had a few guys contributing to the chase, as did Berlin Bikes. A couple individuals, notably Tim U, had made some efforts too. I admit that I played at the front only during these opening salvos, putting myself deep in the hurt locker, but trying to get my legs revved up for the efforts to come.

As soon as the field regrouped Tim launched again, fearless. CCNS launched a bridge move, others followed, and it was back together.

Rinse and repeat.

Groups would get a small gap, struggle to hold it, and a flurry of counters would condemn the move. With a larger than normal field, racers had time to recover while others made moves. I always think that for me a larger field in a flatter course makes for an easier race, at least until the field hits about 80-90 racers. There's more shelter, more fresh legs to chase, and a much higher chance of a field sprint.

At the Rent, with typical fields numbering 30 or so, 15 or 20 minutes of consistent attacking and chasing will collectively blow up the field. At that point the stronger riders can get away permanently, finalizing the race long before the sprint.

Tonight, with a larger field (I'm guessing 45 racers?), there were enough racers and enough fitness to shut down even the big efforts by CCNS.

As it came down to the final 5 laps, the field had somehow stuck together. All the attacking had just dulled the field, not shattered it, and now, in the last 5 laps, everyone was even more attentive.

I chose to sit at the back. I could have moved up a bit and then fought for position, but that takes a lot of energy, both physical and mental, and here, now, it wasn't appropriate. Although not bothered by close quarters riding, it can get overly exciting, and I prefer to get my adrenaline from getting psyched up, not from being worried about crashing.

The front part of the group constantly stretched as those who wanted to slim the odds tried to go off the front. Even if you're a decent sprinter, if you only have to beat four or five others, it's a better bet than if you have to beat 40 others to win.

Todd and Cliff were most active from Expo; all the CCNS guys seeemed to have a go; CVC always had at least one rider in the move; and then a bunch of really strong individuals worked the role of the Joker, either leading chases or pulling away breaks that the teams felt obligated to restrain.

End result?

As we hit the bell a group of about five had coalesced just in front of the field, holding a tenuous couple second lead. With the field strung out behind, that meant it was a bit further than that back to me.

I thought I left it a bit late, especially with the second and backstretches having wind. I moved up hard once around Turn One, then jumped as Kevin Y went to catch up with his two man leadout train, Jeff M and Bryan H (the overall winner of the Cat 3-4 OSC Bethel Spring Series).

But seeing the gap to the break, and knowing that the break riders would start sprinting shortly, I figured that I had to go early. I'd gone from before the last turn last week, when I was stuck using a 39x11 as my top gear, and I had legs to get me pretty much to the line.

So, as Kevin latched back onto his runaway leadout train, I went hard up the left side. I missed my turn-in point, worried about Jeff to my outside, and ended up easing a bit as I apexed the turn.

Then, a big jump, to try and catch the break.

Ed A, a former teammate back in my collegiate days, launched hard out of the break. I went to the outside to avoid all the tight riding on the inside, going around the break as we headed to the line.

Todd B had made the break and he went immediately after Ed. I slotted in behind him, becoming a "spacer" if you will.

I knew that the other racers would be on my wheel, waiting for me to jump. If I held off just a moment when Todd went, he could get a few extra feet on the others. Plus, with me on his wheel, the next rider back would be at least six or seven feet behind his back wheel anyways, giving them a handicap before they even jumped.

If Todd suddenly sat up (i.e. if I were in his spot, having been in a break, then having to jump, I'd probably blow up before getting to the line), then I'd be in position to jump again, try and get an Expo jersey across the line first.

In this way I'd be his "backup".

Todd went as we hit the last curve, Ed's speed bleeding off rapidly.

I hesitated, keeping the inside closed, with Ed to my front left (front inside), me taking up the second lane from the inside. Anyone who wanted to go after Todd would have to go to the third lane, around the outside.

Out of the corner of my eyes I could see that Todd was going well, with Max coming around me, getting up to Todd's wheel, but without the speed he needed to pass Todd.

Todd would win.

Therefore I sat up.

All good, or so I thought. Someone, on the cool down laps, mentioned that I was "aggressive" in moving up. Based on tone of voice and gestures, I gathered he wasn't admiring me, and, at some level, he was criticizing me.

I could understand his attitude towards what he considered aggressive riding. Personally I hold back a bit here at the Rent. It's not the Worlds, even though I call it half-jokingly the "Tuesday Night Worlds" a lot. It's a race for training, for practice, for trying out new things. I, nor anyone else, needs contact or pushing or shoving or wheel chopping or anything else that you may see at a more "serious" race.

(In fact, my philosophy is that such riding doesn't belong in any race for Cat 3s down, and probably not even for Cat 2s down. I can see that stuff happening in the P12s but I don't think it's necessarily correct - in my opinion, dangerous riding is merely a stop gap measure to overcome poor tactics.)

For me the Rent is all about low key fun. It's like a formalized group ride, with a finish, no traffic, and similar minded riders.

Although I understand that other rider's comment, I considered most of my moves, in the final lap, to be on the up and up. I think my last turn misjudgment could use some criticism (I am plenty able of self-criticism, and I've replayed that turn dozens of times in my head already), where I wasn't sure I was clear of the leadout train and therefore had to take an extremely early apex, through the manhole cover, and worried briefly about making it through the turn.

The rest of it, though, seems hard to protest. No contact with any other riders, passing others with plenty of margin, going into the wind if necessary, using clear lanes only... I find it hard to find problems with what I did.

I even asked the guys most affected by my last turn business, the Berlin Bikes guys. They were okay with it, and, trust me, they'd be the first ones to say, "Look, just between you and us, that was really sketchy."

They didn't though - they appreciated the fact that I didn't move back out into Jeff, that I cleared the corner fine.

On the other hand they did seem disappointed that I didn't have faith in their leadout. They thought they'd be able to sweep up the break in the sprint, unrolling their leadout to launch either Bryan or Kevin to the line first. In the heat of the moment I thought that going early would be better, so I did. I knew that the break would sprint amongst themselves, and there'd be at least one or two pairs of legs ready to battle to the line.

As it turns out two guys from the break did battle for the line, taking first and second.

Luckily I have a clip of the race, so I'll be posting that, but I hope that the other guy understands once he sees the clip.

And, of course, there's always next week. See you all there.

Racing - May 31, 2011 @TuesdayTheRent

"You need to race like this more."

The above was the Missus's astute observation after a decent showing on a day with no expectations.

I last left off with a car full of bike racing stuff, two tired bodies (me and the Missus), and both of us with a long day of work after the holiday.

For me work totally killed me, with no time to eat, little time to drink (I had half a liter of seltzer water and about three sips of a coffee), and about the same amount of time to eat (egg sandwich for second breakfast, a plain burger for lunch).

The temperatures hit about 90 degrees, and my half-indoor and half-outdoor job meant some heavy lugging outside with periods of cooler temperature indoor work. I felt pretty parched after yesterday's scorching day, combined with the lack of water today.

With hydration and fuel a worry, and with literally 20 minutes or so to get ready after leaving work half an hour early (with the boss's "Good luck!"), I drank some leaded Coke, had a fruit smoothie, and prepped a couple bottles of water.

The Missus drove while I changed, pinned on my number (51, same as last week), and basically got ready for the race.

We got to the venue with plenty of time. With the temperature dropping rapidly, the heat would be less an issue, although the fact that I was drinking water meant I was still pretty dehydrated.

As promised last week, this week the race instructions were explicitly clear - if the field got lapped, the field couldn't interfere with the break's sprint. However, if you had a teammate in the break, it was okay to help them out. And if the field was unto its own, it could sprint.

For me that meant that either I'd need to make the break or try and keep the field together. When teammate Cliff rocketed after the first break, my duty turned to marking moves and hoping that Cliff stayed in the break.

A few guys were missing from the race after a series of hard races down in New Jersey (including the Tour of Somerville). With some horsepower missing, and some others with relatively fresh legs, the break went down the road.

Eventually they lapped us, and Cliff and a couple others went clear again.

At some point, although I'm not sure when, the front derailleur shifted into the small ring. I'd automatically shifted up in the rear, not realizing that I was in just the 39T ring.

It was a bit later than I realized that, no, we weren't flying along in the 53x11. I was just stuck in my biggest gear, a 39x11, confirmed when I tried to move my now useless left gear shifter.

I did some quick math. The 53x15 was my Junior gear limit, about 95 inches. You could get a similar but slightly lower gear using the 42x12, about 94 inches. I thought of doing this to lighten up my bike, using just one chainring, one much-smaller ring, and using a 12T freewheel instead of the 15-21. I liked the way the 53 looked, though, and decided to stay with the big chainring.

The 39x11, with the 39 the modern day equivalent to the 42, is about the same as the 42x12.

This meant that I was racing with my old Junior gear limit, the gears I used when I was 15, 16, and 17 years old, the ages where I cut my teeth on racing.

When I thought of it that way it didn't seem that bad. Plus, as I realized after a bit, it seemed that I was okay with those gears in this race. I had to spin a bit more but since I'd lost the 53 for a while before I realized it (I just shifted the rear derailleur automatically), I was already kind of attuned to spinning more.

Unfortunately I never registered a single reading on the SRM, else I could have figured out where my cadence suddenly picked up, but suffice it to say that I was in the 39 for a while.

I thought about telling my teammates to ignore me as I couldn't go as fast, but with my legs okay, I decided to shut up for a while.

During this time the break lapped us, took off again, another bunch of guys got away, and I didn't realize much of any of this. I spent too much energy focusing on my lack of gears, gear equivalencies, and trying to determine how this changed my race.

The latter part seemed pretty straight forward, once I experienced the various straights with the knowledge that I only had my 39. First off, in the headwind second straight, nothing changed since we didn't go that fast. Ditto the cross-headwind third straight. The sprint would be difficult, seeing as it was a tailwind for the final bit, with a slight crosswind from the left. The main straight would be a bit fast too, at least in my mind.

Since I had no top end, I had to use my jump to get up to speed quickly, then pray I could hold the pace as necessary.

I needed to see how I reacted with the lower gears, so I spent some time tailing the really fast guy from the August 31, 2010 Rent clip. I think he didn't appreciate it, but at the time I was exploring my speed possibilities in the 39T, and he was a good rider to follow. He didn't make half hearted moves - he either waits for something or goes pretty hard.

When he went pretty hard I have to admit that my legs felt pretty uncomfortable in that lower gear. Otherwise, though, I felt okay. I could accelerate nicely with the low gears, and my legs felt okay.

My experiment done, I decided I'd go with whatever the next move was. Instead, he moved over a bit harder than necessary while letting a gap go, a signal for me to go past him. I obliged and closed the gap.

As the laps wound down I decided that although I felt okay just cruising around in the group, it stressed me to try and go fast. I figured I'd make a last gasp move to use up my legs, then drop out when the speed hit the ceiling.

I watched two guys go away, with a bit of mixing up just behind. This would be my last gasp move - I went for it, hunkered down in the drops, and spun that 39x11 as fast as I could. Although the chain caught once on the chainring (with a short 39 cm chainstay the chainline is a bit sharper than on a bike with a 40.5 cm chainstay), I could get the gear rolling pretty well. I could jump well too, as I was in a tiny gear, letting me rev up the speed quickly. Tons of leverage means fast acceleration.

I caught the two guys, sat on, and prepared to eject myself out of the race. Surprisingly, within a couple hundred meters, I'd recovered. As guys rolled by I integrated back into the field.

Hm.

This was like last year. Move. Recover. Move again. Recover again. Legs going well, beyond expectations.

I stayed in.

The laps wound down. With no lapped riders in our group, I figured we'd be sprinting. When one guy put three teammates in front of him, I knew we'd be sprinting. I waited to move up, judging whether or not I could use the 39T ring safely - with 2 laps to go, I decided it'd be okay to sprint on it.

I had to go early and try and catch everyone off guard. I also had to use the last corner to try and get some distance between me and the next guy. If I waited, I'd probably top out my gear, unable to pedal faster. Going earlier would give me the luxury of spinning just a little bit slower.

As we hit the bell I tried to give my spot to a Navy guy, but he didn't seem inclined to take it. I let a slight gap go to give him room, encouraging him to take it, but he didn't move over. Before the gap got too big I closed it up again.

We approached the last turn, me sitting just behind this one guy, who in turn sat behind his last leadout rider. The guy barked out a few words, trying to direct his leadout man, trying to control the traffic behind him.

We entered the third straight, and I rode a bit to the left (inside), waiting to go. I waited for the inevitable surge, but none came.

Just before we got to the last turn I knew I had to go. With maybe 20 meters left I jumped hard in the little gear. I flew through the turn, trying to get some distance between me and the next guy. I figured they'd be hot on my heels, and as soon as I could pedal I drilled it. This was like the track, where I'd sprint in a 50x15, accelerating out of the saddle and then sitting and spinning the gear as fast as possible to the line.

I started around the final bend, my legs fatiguing quickly, my speed bleeding off at an alarming rate. I checked back to see if anyone was there, but instead of the guy I expected, I saw Kevin Y, a friendly rival who'd been in the same Somerville race as me the day before.

He'd left a big gap to close, though, and I pedaled as necessary to the line. I made a fist, triumphant in my little gear race. Fine, I sprinted in the third group, but still, the sprinters almost always contest a sprint. It's in their blood, it's why they race, and I managed to outfox whoever sprinted from that group.

Kevin ruefully admitted being caught off guard when I went so early, then had a mechanical bobble when he tried to jump out of the turn. The long pause necessary to fix things killed any chance of him catching me, although I think he did follow me to the line. I suspect that on a different day I'd have been swamped at the line - he's beaten me decisively when I had all my gears. My change in tactics threw him off.

I rolled around the course, happy with my ride. I'd kill my mechanic, of course, for screwing up my bike, but if I did that I wouldn't be around to race it (since, I should point out, I'm my own mechanic).

When I felt the cable end sticking out of my brake lever, I knew that the cable had broken. I don't think I false-economied the build in February, and a three month old cable shouldn't fail. Regardless, my cable broke and will be replaced.

Still, though, the incident taught me a few things. I can spin more than I thought. I can use smaller gears than I thought. I can adapt to new circumstances and make the best of any unexpected handicaps. And I can go from before the last turn at the Rent, at least if it's a tailwind.

I rolled up to the Missus. She'd noticed that I rode pretty well, considering the lack of food, a slight lack of rest, and the busy day I had.

Yet I still had legs. No cramps. Not a twinge of soreness, although standing up after each race did get a creak out of me. But no tenderness, none at all.

A pleasant fatigue, a deep thirst, and some heavy eyes. It feels like summer now.

And as the Missus put it:

"You need to race like this more."