Today was the Naugatuck Criterium, the Donovan-Ruhlman Memorial. I've written about the Ruhlman bit, and I've raced here, somewhat unsuccessfully, before.
When things get fuzzy in my memory, I try and go to backup sources, like articles or videos. And since my mind got fuzzy today at the Naugatuck Crit, I'd want to go to the video tape... except an official I hadn't seen before didn't allow me to start with the helmet cam.
No archive. No backup.
Therefore my fuzzy minded recollection is about what you're going to get.
The day started pretty early, after a short night out with friends and a cumulative fatigue that sent us to bed early. I got up, fiddled with our DSL stuff for a while, gave up, used the Verizon Wireless Broadband card (it's awesome, what can I say?), and poked around a bit on the Internet.
The missus joined me and we went to Versus to watch the Tour - today would be the day, I thought, and I wanted to see at least part of it. I'm tired of explaining to people that, no, they don't race all out every day, but they really save it for only a few days.
But not really, because even an easy day is a hard day.
Sort of.
It's confusing, I know, and I want to go to work on Monday and say, "Now the race has started."
We got worried for a bit as the coverage seemed to never load, but then we realized, oh, hey, it's not 7:30 yet (or was it 7:40?). And that's when it starts.
The clock ticked over the one minute and suddenly, hey, presto, we had some "highlights". Then we went to the live feed. Shaky, 15 frames per second or so, but it certainly beat the spoilers put out by CyclingNew's live feed (the victim of what has to be the worst site redesign ever, and which I only read now after I've exhausted Velonews and BikeForums, both of which contain spoilers too).
Anyway, we sat glued to the screen towards the end as Contador somewhat predictably smashed all others. I was surprised at Armstrong's difficulties, but having been shelled many times, I could finally empathize with his feelings. I like to point out that although I've never seen Armstrong climb in anger, neither has a lot of other really, really good pros. Maybe 20 riders a year experience his climbing first hand - the rest aren't around to see it, even if they're in the same race.
After the main riders trickled across the line, I hurried downstairs and hopped on the trainer. Loosen my legs after 3 days of nothing which helped me recover from 4 really hard days (1 hr race, 2 hrs tandem ride at essentially race pace, 1.5 hours of which half was racing, and then 3 hours of which 0.5 was racing).
I figured 20 minutes was good, so hopped off after that. Had lunch (prepped by the missus), drank a protein shake with crushed ice (my new favorite lunch drink), packed the car, and split.
We got to the race okay, I changed, rode around a bit, and set up the helmet cam.
We were about to take the line when an official pointed to my pocket.
"I'm not going to let you race with that."
"What?", meaning, "What do you mean by 'that'?"
"The radio in your pocket."
"It's not a radio." When asked questions by authority type figures, answer just the question.
"It doesn't matter, you can't race with that."
"What's the rule you're referring to?"
"The course has a lot of potholes. You can't race with loose equipment."
I pondered this. The official was right, there's a rule against loose equipment on a race bike - no pumps, saddle bags, stuff like that. And, although I may have jammed 4 PowerBars in my pocket to make the same lump (and it would have weighed more than the battery pack in question), my camcorder was kinda heavy and not secured.
Okay, fine, what if I pinned it in place? It would have been secure, right?
Being a promoter, I know what it's like when dealing with rider-official conflicts, and the last thing I wanted to do was to create additional stress for the promoter.
"Okay", I agreed. I turned to SOC, my warm-up partner. "I gotta go ditch the cam."
I received some empathetic support from other racers (along the lines of, "What is this? That's crazy"), but I pointed out loose equipment is technically illegal.
And I went and ditched the helmet cam.
The race has a short bit of straight before the first turn, a 90 degree left with crosswalks and manhole covers. A nightmare in the rain, a non-issue on the sunny, bright day we had today.
A short downhill with a dropped right shoulder (before a now-really tall curb), littered with various manhole covers, sewer grates, and more crosswalks. Wind from the left.
Left turn, three manhole covers, onto a narrower, quieter road. Overgrown bushes stuck out pretty far from the shoulder, with riders frequently wading through them at full speed.
A short lump at the middle of the backstretch, worth 4 or 5 pedal strokes, a brief left bend, then a slightly more substantial rise, say 10 to 15 pedal strokes in a overly big gear. Wind from in front or to one side, but basically really windy.
Hard left, way more than 90 degrees, but one that you could pedal through, leading back onto the main straight. A long haul to the line which lay about 50 feet past the banner.
I had mentally committed to working for SOC in this race. I knew that the double rise on the backstretch would kill my legs, and I thought that it'd be hard for me to pull out a sprint after being at the limit for half a lap.
Incredibly, for about 5 laps, I sat near the front, in the top 15 or so. On a course with a hairpin turn and a strung out rest-of-the-course, this race actually followed the "ride in the top third" rule.
Of course, when my legs went, so did my top third position.
I realized I would run out of water when we passed 17 to go (we started at 28), and I already had basically nothing left. I started getting deep into my domestique role, trying to save myself for one huge effort at the end of the race. I saved a splash of water and a sip of RockStar for the last two laps, and pretty much use little fluid from then on.
I started riding a bit erratically, at least in my opinion. I had a couple moments of inattentiveness, requiring me to jerk the bars to avoid running into someone. I cornered a bit wide (like 2 feet, not 5 feet) regularly, trying to buy myself room if someone to my inside slid out. The wider line really helped in the second turn, because the line allowed me to miss all three manhole covers and it set me up nicely for the run up to the little bump.
I also hit a perfectly edged hole so hard my bars moved a touch, and one of my bar plugs went flying. Yikes.
And, finally, I had a massive moment. At least I want it to be a massive moment. Coming out of the last turn on some lap between "I have fluids" and "I don't have fluids", I took a slightly wider line than the guy in front of me, all while overlapped by a good 4 or 5 inches. What can I say, my Sphere is pretty small.
I slammed my front tire into his rear.
I'm not sure what I did, because whatever training I did with touching wheels came back to me instinctively, and I just rode through it.
In fact, I didn't holler, no one else hollered, and the guy I hit looked down a bit puzzled, like "My bike just wiggled... do I have a flat?"
After looking around for a moment, he decided his bike was fine, and he went on his merry way. Therefore it wasn't a massive moment, but when someone asks me if touching tires is serious, I have to say that it is. If that's the case, my massive non-moment has to be, by definition, a massive moment.
Anyway, with about 4 laps to go, I saw SOC standing besides Mrs. SOC, the missus, and a whole lot of other people (spectators).
When the sprinter is not in the race, the leadout man has to... re-adjust.
I tried to get into the sprinting mentality, moving up aggressively with 2 to go, getting to the front at the bell. Then, on the backstretch, as my energy meter petered away to nothing, guys were going all over the place. My legs were not happy, and I decided I really didn't want to go into that pain cave.
When I came out of the last turn, I didn't sprint. A few guys, friends and teammates alike, thought they had a good wheel, but unfortunately the wheel didn't go like normal. They sprinted around me, and I soft-pedaled to the line.
I stopped at our little spot, grabbed a bottle of ice water from the cooler, and sat near a cautiously curious boy, alternately drinking some of the water and pouring it over my head.
SOC, Mrs SOC, and the missus came over. SOC had a non-mechanical, i.e. a bike problem which is not considered a part failure, and therefore did not qualify for a free lap. At least he didn't roll a tire - instead, he hit the same pothole I did and this caused his brake to rub.
All that talk, not much action. A beautiful day too, not like the last time we went and it was pouring rain. Well, I kept wiping water and sweat from my face, but, hey, it wasn't rain.
We were sitting there when the missus perked up.
"I think they're calling you."
"Me?"
I vaguely heard my name. Crap, I thought. I wonder if I did something totally bad on the last lap. I didn't think I did, but hey, you never know.
I got my helmet (it wouldn't be good to ride over and get fined for not having my helmet), hopped on the bike, and rode over to the start/finish area. I almost grabbed my headband and gloves, but I figured my soaked head would overwhelm the headband, and my hands were nice and cool without the gloves.
The announcer said that someone wanted me there. Ends up it was the Connecticut State Rep from way back when I was a Junior, 25 years ago. She was an integral part of the Laurel Bicycle Club, the club that Paul Ruhlman raced for way back when.
And this race was named in part after Paul Ruhlman.
Paul's mom was there for the start of the P123 race. Rob Lattanzi, a kid from that generation and now a Masters racer, spoke a few words about Paul before the race got under way.
Afterwards I walked over to Mrs. Ruhlman, leaving my bike leaned up against something nearby. She'd found the post I did about Paul (her neice did, actually, but she learned about it eventually). I guess she wanted to meet me, to share some memories about Paul.
I was wearing my mirrored sunglasses which I consider to be "impolite glasses" because they hide those windows to your soul, your eyes, and I usually avoid wearing them if I'm talking with someone. But I didn't know I was going to be talking to anyone so I had them.
I did what I could - I took them off.
And we started talking.
She told me that he'd try and help everyone with their bike riding, even walking up hills with friends who couldn't ride quite as hard as he could.
She detailed to me about exactly what happened. It was a little different than what I heard but no less tragic.
At some point we finished talking. I could see the memories in her eyes, and I felt that it would be best to let her think in private. We said our good-byes and I walked back to my bike.
I had to wipe my eyes on the way.
I could tell you it was just ice water and sweat, but I'd be lying.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Life - Banning Bikes On Select CO Roads?
Apparently some folks in Colorado want to ban bikes from certain roads (selected at the locality's discretion, if I understand correctly).
A guy who knows the ins and outs of law and who I met at Interbike posted about it here.
A guy who knows the ins and outs of law and who I met at Interbike posted about it here.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Dateline: 20:48, 15 July, 2009
Yet another Mass Pike Rest Stop post.
This time, on the way to the track, I decided to risk all and go through without stopping (in a previous Dateline I explain that I stop to keep my average speed down). We'll see what happens. As it is, I got in the mail the EZPass statement, the first one with the tolls for the Mass Pike. And sure enough, the statement includes all the actual times. I'll have to figure out exactly how far it is, and therefore how fast I've been driving.
On second thought, maybe I won't.
Whatever, I rushed through because I had spent a lot of the day doing errand type stuff, things like trying to catch two kittens (negatory), clear a gutter (negatory, but I was soaked afterwards), wash the van (check, but didn't do the roof - I need a taller stepladder), eat (two protein shakes, some Chicken Picata from last night, and... um... oh, two hotdogs for breakfast), and, um, I think that's it. Well, pack the car. Drive the van around. Some other stuff.
I didn't change after my last venture into the shop's crawl space, so I'm wearing a shirt I normally reserve for private use - family, PJs, or scrounging around in a crawl space. It's an IT shirt that I got from ThinkGeek:
Yeah, it's a little obnoxious when in a non-IT environment.
I like this shirt for really just one reason. I mean, yeah, it reminds me that I did IT once, and I have some cursory knowledge of such things, but the other is my sister. She asked me what "root" meant, and I explained that it's the default superuser or admin on Linux servers. So if you're root, you're bad.
Like good bad, not bad bad.
Anyway, my sister digested this info, tilting her head, then perked up.
"If you're root, I must be a leaf or something."
So I can't help but think of my sister when I wear this shirt.
For everyone else, though, it's kind of obnoxious. Like I'm a gaming freak or something. People say hi, their eyes travel down my shirt, and then they look at me... differently.
But I digress. (And I just thought, holy smokes, this is going to be a long post... I better type quickly.)
Mass Pike, didn't stop. Yeah.
The reason I didn't stop is I wanted to get some warm-up in before the races launched at 6:15, and it takes me a good 15 or 20 minutes to get on the bike. So I drove all the way to the track, stopped and got gas ($2.69 for 93 octane - at home it's $2.69 for Regular), hit the john, and bought some PowerBar with protein, and a Gatorade (because I used a whole can of Gatorade mix in about a week). With that, off to the track.
I...
Before I go on, I should explain that I'm a rank novice on the track. I mean, yeah, I know a bit about bike tactics, and I'm able to pedal a bike, but that's about it. I have no clue about track racing, none whatsoever. I just fumble along and try and dredge up any old memories on tips and tricks and such.
Think of me as the clueless new racer at a crit. I don't know how my bike really works, I do dumb things every now and then, and I don't even know some of the wrong things I'm doing.
So, to continue, I... pulled my bike out of the car (using the chain holder I received as a present), put in the rear wheel, and adjusted it so the chain was really loose.
See, back in the day someone told me that the looser the chain, the better. That's only half true, but I'll explain later.
I also remembered my Liquid Fence Yard Net (mosquito repellent) and my Cutter spray. I also found out the blood sucking critters don't like oily suntan oil, and since I use that instead of heat rub in the summer, I sprayed it all over my exposed skin. I sprayed the Yard Net around my car, and Cutter on my jersey and shorts.
I walked out to the track with my squishy cooler, one my dad got from his last employer. It's really convenient, holds 6 to 8 bottles, and actually keeps things cool. I had my Gatorade (half gone before I got on the bike), two bottles of ice, two Cokes, and a Rock Star.
After popping a Coke (the second to be saved for the drive home, Rock Star got vetoed - too much peeing) and leaving one bottle of ice out (I forgot water, duh), I started rolling around, warming up. My legs felt really, really stiff, due to a bunch of riding I've done. In fact, my lack of posts is partially due to the incredible fatigue I've felt from the riding. This fatigue hints at my goals for the day - to just ride. I just hoped to make the drive worthwhile.
Then...
They brought the Moto out. The Moto is a small motorcycle, a regular one, with one roller attached to the back. It's used for the Keirin, to pace the field until 1 lap to go, but it's also a great tool for doing a steady warm-up.
It made an appearance a few weeks ago, and one thing I saw the Human Derny (Kurt from CycleLoft) do is skim the roller, making it turn.
I wanted to do that too.
So, with only one guy behind the Moto, I dove down the (slight) banking and took up second spot. And after a few laps, the first guy pulled off.
The Roller beckoned.
I tried to hit it, but my natural instincts were killing me - I'd get literally half an inch from it and my legs just automatically eased. Then we'd hit a corner, so I'd back off a bit (I didn't know what would happen if I hit it in a corner). I'd make another charge at it on the next straight, come within a hair of touching it, then back off for the corner (or is it a turn? I don't know - see? Clueless new racer).
After 5 or so laps of this, I had a small audience following me around. And it's kind of fun being the first rider behind the Moto, so I started feeling bad that I was hogging the spot.
But I had to spin the Roller.
It's like the brass ring on the merry go round, or, um, well, the brass ring.
Finally, I charged up to the roller, eased forward...
And it spun!
Ha!
I pulled up the track, smiling. I think I even made a "Yeah!" fist.
So.... at some point we started racing. Scratch, then a Miss N Out, a 20 lap Points race (4 sprints), a Keirin, and an "extra" race.
The Scratch is hit or miss for me. I either hang in there until the end, then I can demolish guys in the sprint, or they go hard and I get shelled.
Tonight I got shelled.
I also tried to coast in a turn. I asked someone later if I was super sketchy, and he smiled and said no, it was okay.
I don't believe him, but I'll try not to try to coast anymore.
Anyway, I got shelled. It reminded me that I really need to work on going fast for more than 2 laps at a time. It's really, really hard for me to do that.
I almost finished the Gatorade, but I figured I'd want it for later, and so I almost finished the Coke instead. And started sucking on the ice-filled bottle, trying to drink the water slowly puddling at the bottom.
Miss N Out, where the last rider each lap gets pulled. I usually get killed in this, and that's a pity because the last few riders ease after they're left, and then they do a match sprint. And I'd be good at that.
When they started out kind of easy, and I felt reasonably comfortable, I started getting my hopes up. I gambled on staying low, on folks not going too nuts to keep alive in the race, and...
I got eliminated. Dag.
I wasn't even breathing hard.
This boded well for the next race, the Points race, because I was pretty fresh and the other guys, they were kind of annihilated.
Of course, that's all relative. They shelled me in the Scratch race like nothing, so my freshness would be worth only a little.
I rolled with the first sprint, not trying to win, but looking for the inevitable counter. So I was up there as we crossed the line, looking around, alert.
No counter.
So, instead of hiding back in the field, I decided I would train. I had ended up at the front (I accelerated up to the line so kind of rolled past everyone by the turn) so I stayed there and went not-so-fast, but it was all I could do. Three or so laps later, just before the next sprint, everyone took off.
I was off the back.
Now, along the lines of "I need to train", one thing I really need to do is to be a better pursuiter, a better time trialer. So I decided that, "You know what, I really need to train."
And, like a clueless racer, I chased.
And chased. And chased.
10 laps. At least.
I sat up a couple times, just briefly, but I got so vested in my effort that I didn't want to give up. So I kept chasing and chasing. I knew everyone would feel kind of embarrassed for me, but, hey, I'm the clueless racer so I'm going to train.
Imagine my surprise when they announced the results. Apparently I got a point in that sprint, and because I finished, I got 6th.
Yay!
Training is hard, and my 10 lap time trial after my 3 lap time trial (at the front) really cooked me. I pretty much finished off the Coke, and dug into the last bits of the Gatorade.
Then, after watching the As show us how to do it, we did the Keirin race. Scott, a good guy I met the first time I raced at NEV, pointed out that second wheel was the best wheel.
I adjusted that mentally for me. If I can jump hard, I should be okay in third. Fourth would be acceptable but not desirable. Since the positions don't change too much during the 6 laps the Moto leads, it's really the start that's critical.
See, you start from a standing start, held by, in this case, the A racers. And you accelerate up to the Moto's speed, about 18-20 mph in this case. The Moto increases the pace until it's going 28 mph (for the Bs), then releases us on the backstretch just before the bell. So it's all out for one and a half laps.
The last time I did a Keirin, the Moto went to at least 30 mph, maybe higher, and I couldn't stay below the Blue line, about 6 or 8 feet from the bottom of the track.
But with the more casual 28 mph peak speed, it seemed a lot more manageable.
My new favorite holder Brooke (she's an A racer) held me more securely than my CycleOps does, and when the Moto went by, we were off.
I didn't get a great start, I didn't dig super deep into my reserves, and I ended up only fourth wheel on the Moto. Not bad, but definitely not that good. I thought about my ProCycling Manager 2008 game, where you do the Keirin, but the biggest thing I remembered is that if I tried to move up before the sprint, I had no sprint left.
Since that's about as much experience I have in a real Keirin (I sat up in the one I did a few weeks ago), I decided I'd gamble all in the last bit after the Moto pulled off.
As the speed climbed, I started second guessing myself, but committed to the plan, I didn't budge.
The moto pulled off and we went even faster. We flew by the bell, dove into the first turn, and I started realizing that I'd have to jump super, super hard to get by three guys at this speed.
So when we hit the backstretch, I jumped super, super hard. I dug into that reserve I hadn't touched when we started, I looked for reserves in my pinky nail, I mean I totally and absolutely killed myself to get going.
I got pretty much nowhere because everyone was flying.
I hit the final turn in third spot (the guy on the Moto's wheel led out and then blew, so he was out). Scott, crafty rider he is, had been in second spot, but the guy in third was a strong rider, and he came around Scott going down the backstretch, hence my jump doing nothing but drawing me even with the third guy Sam.
I was coming up on them but didn't think I could squeeze between them, like above Scott and below Sam, so I went above Sam. Like way the heck up the track, like I was going to Siberia.
I blew by Scott (he won't mind me saying that because he came up to me after the races and told me he couldn't believe how we went around him), but I couldn't quite get Sam.
I lunged desperately at the line, trying to eek out just another inch or two, then I heard some awful grinding racket coming from the back wheel. I felt all resistance disappear from the pedals, and I heard the distinctive noise of "chain in spokes".
I looked down and yep, my chain came off.
Freakin' clueless racer. Didn't tighten his chain enough.
Another new racer asked me if I'd gone to Kurt's (the Human Derny and pro track rider) clinic on track bikes.
Obviously I didn't.
Anyway, when you tighten a track wheel, you push on the side of the chain while you turn the cranks. If the chain doesn't come off, it's tight enough, no matter how loose it feels. But if it derails, it's too loose.
Since my chain popped back on just using my fingers, my chain had been too loose.
But I got second in the Keirin. Yay!
The encore race was a Handicap race. It's where racers start based on how fit (or not) they are, the idea being that the group comes together between 2 and 1 lap to go.
I started next to the Jamis guy from my first night of racing. For the life of me I can't remember his name, but he's a good guy, out to have fun racing on the track. He's also way more track savy than me, and he's also more fit.
We were the worst of the riders fitness-wise so we started in front. We'd be the rabbits dangling in front of the wolves. After I pulled twice, he quickly realized that, well, I need to train more. I slowed down so much when I pulled that he told me to just sit on.
Guys rapidly approached from behind - they'd started only about 50-80 meters behind us, and there were a bunch of them working together to catch the two of us.
Mr Jamis pulled like a madman for two laps, bringing us to the bell lap. When I looked across the track I couldn't see the other guys because they were so close behind us, and I didn't dare risk taking the time to look back as well, because, you know, I already made so many rookie mistakes I didn't want to go down and take out everyone with me.
I just knew they were there. And my legs were achy, tight, loaded with lactic acid, and I started feeling future guilty for Mr Jamis's huge and about-to-be-wasted effort.
But when I heard the bell, my legs suddenly felt awesome. Ready to sprint. Just aching to go. Something happened, maybe adrenaline, could it be?, but whatever it was, my legs were good to go.
So we hauled butt onto the backstretch, I took a little breath, and BAM I launched. I mean I freakin' launched hard, trying to take off like the planes from the nearby airport.
And there was no one in front of me. Just me and the finish line.
I tilted my head, looked 20-30 meters in front of me, dug in with the front of the bike, tried to emulate the Human Derny as much as I could when he won the Keirin...
And I flew across the line first. By a decent margin. No bike throws or lunges necessary.
Yay!
Now the topper. They gave away martinis as prizes. Martinis! So I got a couple for the missus to try.
Yay!
What's a martini anyway? I've only seen the glasses, but I don't know what they taste like. I guess we'll find out.
This time, on the way to the track, I decided to risk all and go through without stopping (in a previous Dateline I explain that I stop to keep my average speed down). We'll see what happens. As it is, I got in the mail the EZPass statement, the first one with the tolls for the Mass Pike. And sure enough, the statement includes all the actual times. I'll have to figure out exactly how far it is, and therefore how fast I've been driving.
On second thought, maybe I won't.
Whatever, I rushed through because I had spent a lot of the day doing errand type stuff, things like trying to catch two kittens (negatory), clear a gutter (negatory, but I was soaked afterwards), wash the van (check, but didn't do the roof - I need a taller stepladder), eat (two protein shakes, some Chicken Picata from last night, and... um... oh, two hotdogs for breakfast), and, um, I think that's it. Well, pack the car. Drive the van around. Some other stuff.
I didn't change after my last venture into the shop's crawl space, so I'm wearing a shirt I normally reserve for private use - family, PJs, or scrounging around in a crawl space. It's an IT shirt that I got from ThinkGeek:
Yeah, it's a little obnoxious when in a non-IT environment.I like this shirt for really just one reason. I mean, yeah, it reminds me that I did IT once, and I have some cursory knowledge of such things, but the other is my sister. She asked me what "root" meant, and I explained that it's the default superuser or admin on Linux servers. So if you're root, you're bad.
Like good bad, not bad bad.
Anyway, my sister digested this info, tilting her head, then perked up.
"If you're root, I must be a leaf or something."
So I can't help but think of my sister when I wear this shirt.
For everyone else, though, it's kind of obnoxious. Like I'm a gaming freak or something. People say hi, their eyes travel down my shirt, and then they look at me... differently.
But I digress. (And I just thought, holy smokes, this is going to be a long post... I better type quickly.)
Mass Pike, didn't stop. Yeah.
The reason I didn't stop is I wanted to get some warm-up in before the races launched at 6:15, and it takes me a good 15 or 20 minutes to get on the bike. So I drove all the way to the track, stopped and got gas ($2.69 for 93 octane - at home it's $2.69 for Regular), hit the john, and bought some PowerBar with protein, and a Gatorade (because I used a whole can of Gatorade mix in about a week). With that, off to the track.
I...
Before I go on, I should explain that I'm a rank novice on the track. I mean, yeah, I know a bit about bike tactics, and I'm able to pedal a bike, but that's about it. I have no clue about track racing, none whatsoever. I just fumble along and try and dredge up any old memories on tips and tricks and such.
Think of me as the clueless new racer at a crit. I don't know how my bike really works, I do dumb things every now and then, and I don't even know some of the wrong things I'm doing.
So, to continue, I... pulled my bike out of the car (using the chain holder I received as a present), put in the rear wheel, and adjusted it so the chain was really loose.
See, back in the day someone told me that the looser the chain, the better. That's only half true, but I'll explain later.
I also remembered my Liquid Fence Yard Net (mosquito repellent) and my Cutter spray. I also found out the blood sucking critters don't like oily suntan oil, and since I use that instead of heat rub in the summer, I sprayed it all over my exposed skin. I sprayed the Yard Net around my car, and Cutter on my jersey and shorts.
I walked out to the track with my squishy cooler, one my dad got from his last employer. It's really convenient, holds 6 to 8 bottles, and actually keeps things cool. I had my Gatorade (half gone before I got on the bike), two bottles of ice, two Cokes, and a Rock Star.
After popping a Coke (the second to be saved for the drive home, Rock Star got vetoed - too much peeing) and leaving one bottle of ice out (I forgot water, duh), I started rolling around, warming up. My legs felt really, really stiff, due to a bunch of riding I've done. In fact, my lack of posts is partially due to the incredible fatigue I've felt from the riding. This fatigue hints at my goals for the day - to just ride. I just hoped to make the drive worthwhile.
Then...
They brought the Moto out. The Moto is a small motorcycle, a regular one, with one roller attached to the back. It's used for the Keirin, to pace the field until 1 lap to go, but it's also a great tool for doing a steady warm-up.
It made an appearance a few weeks ago, and one thing I saw the Human Derny (Kurt from CycleLoft) do is skim the roller, making it turn.
I wanted to do that too.
So, with only one guy behind the Moto, I dove down the (slight) banking and took up second spot. And after a few laps, the first guy pulled off.
The Roller beckoned.
I tried to hit it, but my natural instincts were killing me - I'd get literally half an inch from it and my legs just automatically eased. Then we'd hit a corner, so I'd back off a bit (I didn't know what would happen if I hit it in a corner). I'd make another charge at it on the next straight, come within a hair of touching it, then back off for the corner (or is it a turn? I don't know - see? Clueless new racer).
After 5 or so laps of this, I had a small audience following me around. And it's kind of fun being the first rider behind the Moto, so I started feeling bad that I was hogging the spot.
But I had to spin the Roller.
It's like the brass ring on the merry go round, or, um, well, the brass ring.
Finally, I charged up to the roller, eased forward...
And it spun!
Ha!
I pulled up the track, smiling. I think I even made a "Yeah!" fist.
So.... at some point we started racing. Scratch, then a Miss N Out, a 20 lap Points race (4 sprints), a Keirin, and an "extra" race.
The Scratch is hit or miss for me. I either hang in there until the end, then I can demolish guys in the sprint, or they go hard and I get shelled.
Tonight I got shelled.
I also tried to coast in a turn. I asked someone later if I was super sketchy, and he smiled and said no, it was okay.
I don't believe him, but I'll try not to try to coast anymore.
Anyway, I got shelled. It reminded me that I really need to work on going fast for more than 2 laps at a time. It's really, really hard for me to do that.
I almost finished the Gatorade, but I figured I'd want it for later, and so I almost finished the Coke instead. And started sucking on the ice-filled bottle, trying to drink the water slowly puddling at the bottom.
Miss N Out, where the last rider each lap gets pulled. I usually get killed in this, and that's a pity because the last few riders ease after they're left, and then they do a match sprint. And I'd be good at that.
When they started out kind of easy, and I felt reasonably comfortable, I started getting my hopes up. I gambled on staying low, on folks not going too nuts to keep alive in the race, and...
I got eliminated. Dag.
I wasn't even breathing hard.
This boded well for the next race, the Points race, because I was pretty fresh and the other guys, they were kind of annihilated.
Of course, that's all relative. They shelled me in the Scratch race like nothing, so my freshness would be worth only a little.
I rolled with the first sprint, not trying to win, but looking for the inevitable counter. So I was up there as we crossed the line, looking around, alert.
No counter.
So, instead of hiding back in the field, I decided I would train. I had ended up at the front (I accelerated up to the line so kind of rolled past everyone by the turn) so I stayed there and went not-so-fast, but it was all I could do. Three or so laps later, just before the next sprint, everyone took off.
I was off the back.
Now, along the lines of "I need to train", one thing I really need to do is to be a better pursuiter, a better time trialer. So I decided that, "You know what, I really need to train."
And, like a clueless racer, I chased.
And chased. And chased.
10 laps. At least.
I sat up a couple times, just briefly, but I got so vested in my effort that I didn't want to give up. So I kept chasing and chasing. I knew everyone would feel kind of embarrassed for me, but, hey, I'm the clueless racer so I'm going to train.
Imagine my surprise when they announced the results. Apparently I got a point in that sprint, and because I finished, I got 6th.
Yay!
Training is hard, and my 10 lap time trial after my 3 lap time trial (at the front) really cooked me. I pretty much finished off the Coke, and dug into the last bits of the Gatorade.
Then, after watching the As show us how to do it, we did the Keirin race. Scott, a good guy I met the first time I raced at NEV, pointed out that second wheel was the best wheel.
I adjusted that mentally for me. If I can jump hard, I should be okay in third. Fourth would be acceptable but not desirable. Since the positions don't change too much during the 6 laps the Moto leads, it's really the start that's critical.
See, you start from a standing start, held by, in this case, the A racers. And you accelerate up to the Moto's speed, about 18-20 mph in this case. The Moto increases the pace until it's going 28 mph (for the Bs), then releases us on the backstretch just before the bell. So it's all out for one and a half laps.
The last time I did a Keirin, the Moto went to at least 30 mph, maybe higher, and I couldn't stay below the Blue line, about 6 or 8 feet from the bottom of the track.
But with the more casual 28 mph peak speed, it seemed a lot more manageable.
My new favorite holder Brooke (she's an A racer) held me more securely than my CycleOps does, and when the Moto went by, we were off.
I didn't get a great start, I didn't dig super deep into my reserves, and I ended up only fourth wheel on the Moto. Not bad, but definitely not that good. I thought about my ProCycling Manager 2008 game, where you do the Keirin, but the biggest thing I remembered is that if I tried to move up before the sprint, I had no sprint left.
Since that's about as much experience I have in a real Keirin (I sat up in the one I did a few weeks ago), I decided I'd gamble all in the last bit after the Moto pulled off.
As the speed climbed, I started second guessing myself, but committed to the plan, I didn't budge.
The moto pulled off and we went even faster. We flew by the bell, dove into the first turn, and I started realizing that I'd have to jump super, super hard to get by three guys at this speed.
So when we hit the backstretch, I jumped super, super hard. I dug into that reserve I hadn't touched when we started, I looked for reserves in my pinky nail, I mean I totally and absolutely killed myself to get going.
I got pretty much nowhere because everyone was flying.
I hit the final turn in third spot (the guy on the Moto's wheel led out and then blew, so he was out). Scott, crafty rider he is, had been in second spot, but the guy in third was a strong rider, and he came around Scott going down the backstretch, hence my jump doing nothing but drawing me even with the third guy Sam.
I was coming up on them but didn't think I could squeeze between them, like above Scott and below Sam, so I went above Sam. Like way the heck up the track, like I was going to Siberia.
I blew by Scott (he won't mind me saying that because he came up to me after the races and told me he couldn't believe how we went around him), but I couldn't quite get Sam.
I lunged desperately at the line, trying to eek out just another inch or two, then I heard some awful grinding racket coming from the back wheel. I felt all resistance disappear from the pedals, and I heard the distinctive noise of "chain in spokes".
I looked down and yep, my chain came off.
Freakin' clueless racer. Didn't tighten his chain enough.
Another new racer asked me if I'd gone to Kurt's (the Human Derny and pro track rider) clinic on track bikes.
Obviously I didn't.
Anyway, when you tighten a track wheel, you push on the side of the chain while you turn the cranks. If the chain doesn't come off, it's tight enough, no matter how loose it feels. But if it derails, it's too loose.
Since my chain popped back on just using my fingers, my chain had been too loose.
But I got second in the Keirin. Yay!
The encore race was a Handicap race. It's where racers start based on how fit (or not) they are, the idea being that the group comes together between 2 and 1 lap to go.
I started next to the Jamis guy from my first night of racing. For the life of me I can't remember his name, but he's a good guy, out to have fun racing on the track. He's also way more track savy than me, and he's also more fit.
We were the worst of the riders fitness-wise so we started in front. We'd be the rabbits dangling in front of the wolves. After I pulled twice, he quickly realized that, well, I need to train more. I slowed down so much when I pulled that he told me to just sit on.
Guys rapidly approached from behind - they'd started only about 50-80 meters behind us, and there were a bunch of them working together to catch the two of us.
Mr Jamis pulled like a madman for two laps, bringing us to the bell lap. When I looked across the track I couldn't see the other guys because they were so close behind us, and I didn't dare risk taking the time to look back as well, because, you know, I already made so many rookie mistakes I didn't want to go down and take out everyone with me.
I just knew they were there. And my legs were achy, tight, loaded with lactic acid, and I started feeling future guilty for Mr Jamis's huge and about-to-be-wasted effort.
But when I heard the bell, my legs suddenly felt awesome. Ready to sprint. Just aching to go. Something happened, maybe adrenaline, could it be?, but whatever it was, my legs were good to go.
So we hauled butt onto the backstretch, I took a little breath, and BAM I launched. I mean I freakin' launched hard, trying to take off like the planes from the nearby airport.
And there was no one in front of me. Just me and the finish line.
I tilted my head, looked 20-30 meters in front of me, dug in with the front of the bike, tried to emulate the Human Derny as much as I could when he won the Keirin...
And I flew across the line first. By a decent margin. No bike throws or lunges necessary.
Yay!
Now the topper. They gave away martinis as prizes. Martinis! So I got a couple for the missus to try.
Yay!
What's a martini anyway? I've only seen the glasses, but I don't know what they taste like. I guess we'll find out.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Racing - New Britain Crit, July 12, 2009
A few thoughts.
First, I need to figure out how to get nervous in a race. Scare myself. Give myself a little jolt.
Second, if I try harder, I should be able to do better.
The first relates to the fact that I rarely find myself feeling nervous or excited or super-ultra motivated in a race. I thought about it, and the last time I had a truly scary moment in a race was just as I hit the pavement in the Poughkeepsie Crit some years ago.
I find myself in one comfortable situation after another. With all the years of racing in the area, at a certain somewhat mediocre level, I've seen a lot of what one may see in a normal Cat 3 crit.
Therefore, everything is familiar.
When someone swerves a lot, I just ride around them. If they bump me, I revert to my "reacting to a bump" drill/habit. I've practiced touching tires (although not recently) so when I find myself slamming into someone's rear axle, I just deal with my habit/drill of "my front tire slammed into something". Slam a pedal? Automatically do the "slammed a pedal" routine.
There's only so much you can do on a bike in a crit, and therefore only so many situations you'll encounter in a crit.
If you've encountered the common ones multiple times, well, they become "non-situations". No adrenaline rush. No metallic taste in the mouth. No nothing. Just "la dee da" and keep riding.
"I just kept riding."
Fine, I admit that I no longer find myself interested in pushing tire adhesion limits in the wet. Wet turns scare me, and I don't feel the need to prove myself in them. If I don't trust my bike, yes, I back off. I had a few bikes before that got wobbles on fast descents - I stopped going fast on descents.
And when I'm hurting because of the pace, well, it hurts.
But touching a pedal (or slamming one), having someone's skewer or pedal end up in my spokes, getting slammed in a turn, or even touching wheels, they're all "normal" now.
And so it's hard to get worked up over them.
The second thing is a bit more important. I understand, as much as anyone can, that effort is not equal to results. And, in fact, "more work" can often lead to worse results.
So, technically, I don't want to just work harder. I want to commit myself 100% to an effort and carry it out.
I felt dehydrated since yesterday, drinking loads of Gatorade (from powder) and trying to stay reasonably cool at work. But when I drank two bottles during warm up and didn't need to pee, I knew that I had severely underestimated my lack of hydration.
Therefore, after overhearing someone nearby mention something about, "I want to pee before I reabsorb everything", I hit the john. I really didn't want to "reabsorb", whether that really happens or not.
Then, loaded with three bottles (ice water bottle in my back pocket, Ice Gatorade in one cage, Coke in another), I headed for the line.
I realized as I warmed up (involving raising my HR from 108 to 121 BPM) that I really, really wanted to do a good sprint. By good I mean a sprint that uses me up, that lets me cross the line and lets me say, "Dag, that was as hard and as good as I could go." I haven't done that in a while, for a long time, and I really wanted to do a soul-draining, mind-clearing sprint.
So, when we lined up for the start, I decided I would ride smart, make efforts when necessary, and do a tire melting sprint.
That doesn't sound very different from my normal approach to a race, but I rarely consciously think things like this before a race. Especially those involving a good sprint. I just sprint when I can, but to do a longer sprint would mean taking some risks.
I also steeled myself to make extraordinary efforts mid-race if necessary, efforts I last made in a serious race perhaps 3 or 4 years ago. I've been practicing them at East Hartford, at the races @Rent, but not in a "real" race.
With a somewhat fatigued field (many of the protagonists had done at least one previous race during the day, and many would enter the P-1-2-3 race), we did a fast first 10 laps.
Then someone turned the throttle to Low.
We were going so slow I'd have sworn up and down that we were going 15 mph. I looked to verify, and the SRM told me we were going 22.5 mph.
Lies, all lies.
We crawled around the course. It had to be 15 mph. My heart rate, with my new heart rate belt, seemed comfortably low. I drank my second large bottle of iced Gatorade, drank a bottle of Coke, and started splashing some of the now-lukewarm water on my body.
I started trying to keep track of laps. Usually what happens is I see like, say, "6 to go". Then I think, "It's 6 to go. 6. We'll be seeing 5 at the line. 5 at the line. 5 at the line. 5. 5. It's 5 to go... so we'll see 4. Look for the 4. 4. 4..."
Then I'll see 5.
"What? They showed 5 twice. Will it be 4 next time? Or 3?"
See how that works? Or how it doesn't?
So, when I saw 6 to go, I kept telling myself it's 6 to go. Reminded myself (literally, on the short backstretch before the hill) that I shouldn't graduate the number to 5, that I should focus on 6.
Otherwise I end up sprinting a lap early.
I found myself engrossed with this whole numbers thing. Luckily I sat at the back (after spending a few moments near the front in the first 5 or 6 laps), so my distracted riding didn't affect anyone.
We came up on what I was sure would be 4 to go. I looked right at the official's truck (a military sand-camo-painted enormous truck that would be camoflauged only if it were sitting next to the country's largest illegal tire dump), remembered, yet again, that the lap cards were on the left.
Looked left.
2 to go.
Two to... What? Two to go? My non-drifting mental calculations had proven it'd be 4 to go, and now it's 2 to go?
And here I am dwaddling at the back, doing caveman math (and doing it poorly), not making efforts, and even finding myself drifting off the back every now and then.
I mentally hitched up my pants, grabbed the drops, and started racing the bike.
Although I don't have visual proof (I unloaded the helmet cam just before the start, thinking it was a small field, but that was before about 30 guys rolled up, frantically removing their M30 numbers), I moved up much more aggressively than I usually do. I remember thinking, as I moved up, that it would be possible to win from a tailgun position at the bell, but it would be hard. Moving up now would make things much, much easier.
To my surprise, and probably to the missus's surprise, I sat about 5th wheel as we hit the bell. Really far in front, as far as I was concerned, because 4 of those guys would explode before the sprint, but I figured I'd ride from the front and keep tabs on things, move as the moves went up the road.
I got swarmed going into the first bend, the long left one. I dropped a good 20 spots, with a few sets of matching jerseys going by, leadout men and their sprinters.
The lower pace approaching the hill allowed me to move back up towards the front, especially by favoring the sheltered right side. I rode on the edge of the grass, knowing, hoping, that I could move up just a bit more.
Then, as we approached the final turn, I got around the last few people I could. A friendly rival snuck inside of me, nabbing a prime spot, and I relented, giving him his properly earned spot.
We dove left...
And the guy to the inside of the guy to the inside swerved violently outwards. Something happened, but the reaction seemed a bit excessive. The guy to my inside had to straighten out. I eased just a touch.
Facing a curb perpendicular to him while rolling pretty fast downhill, I could see the calculations flashing in his head.
"I might be able to make the left turn... 10% success predicted, with 90% probability of flipping over the bars and wrecking my bike when I smash into that curb."
"Veer right and go into that small parking lot... 95% success predicted, with a slight chance of nicking the curb."
He veered right.
I veered left, made the turn because I'd scrubbed off a lot of speed. Then, with a good 15 or 20 riders already having passed me, I decided that I better make this sprint count.
I accelerated, numb to the gearing. For all I know it was the 17, or it could have been a 14. I just shifted when I needed to, pointed at gaps, repeated. Watched guys sprinting and wondered if I should pass to the left or right. Then, as I approached the last big mass of riders (about 6 or 8 or 10 of them), I saw some daylight on the right side.
I blasted towards it, willing everyone to keep drifting left, to try and shut that huge open door on the left side, the windward side, the only side people thought would open up.
And I flew into that delicious, sheltered, right side.
The line came up way too quickly, but I did a mandatory bike throw. I'd rate it a 6 or a 7 out of 10, definitely not a great throw. More than a half-hearted lunge though, so not horrible.
I did a cool down lap. Found myself near Kevin, the NCC rider that I seem to see at all the races. He'd killed me in a couple sprints and he's a good barometer of what I could have done (since he seems to finish ahead of me all the time).
He looked at me quizzically, grinning a big grin.
I shook my head. "I was in decent position but then a guy swerved. And I had to sprint from way back. How about you?"
He nodded, smiling. "I got in there. I was pretty far back but I went up the inside." He gestured to the left, the windward side. "I got around everyone."
Jeepers. I got around because I was sheltered. He went into the wind and did the same thing. And he was in the money.
My mind wandered a bit. I stopped when I got to the missus, and Mr Parking Lot happened to be nearby.
"You okay? Nice save, by the way. I could see you thinking about trying that left"
"Yeah, I thought about it but I didn't want to crash, so I didn't try."
I turned to the missus. "See, we were, what, like 10th? 15th? going into the last turn..."
Parking Lot interrupted.
"I was THIRD wheel!"
I digested this for a second.
Third wheel?
I was fourth wheel?
With something like 300 meters to go?
Okay, I know this Zen thing is good, but when I don't even know where I sat going into the final sprint...
Enough.
Next week.
Naugatuck Crit.
(Epilogue: Kevin got 6th, in the money. Yours truly, on the other side of the mass of riders lunging for the line, got 8th. Race paid to 7 places... Arg.)
First, I need to figure out how to get nervous in a race. Scare myself. Give myself a little jolt.
Second, if I try harder, I should be able to do better.
The first relates to the fact that I rarely find myself feeling nervous or excited or super-ultra motivated in a race. I thought about it, and the last time I had a truly scary moment in a race was just as I hit the pavement in the Poughkeepsie Crit some years ago.
I find myself in one comfortable situation after another. With all the years of racing in the area, at a certain somewhat mediocre level, I've seen a lot of what one may see in a normal Cat 3 crit.
Therefore, everything is familiar.
When someone swerves a lot, I just ride around them. If they bump me, I revert to my "reacting to a bump" drill/habit. I've practiced touching tires (although not recently) so when I find myself slamming into someone's rear axle, I just deal with my habit/drill of "my front tire slammed into something". Slam a pedal? Automatically do the "slammed a pedal" routine.
There's only so much you can do on a bike in a crit, and therefore only so many situations you'll encounter in a crit.
If you've encountered the common ones multiple times, well, they become "non-situations". No adrenaline rush. No metallic taste in the mouth. No nothing. Just "la dee da" and keep riding.
"I just kept riding."
Fine, I admit that I no longer find myself interested in pushing tire adhesion limits in the wet. Wet turns scare me, and I don't feel the need to prove myself in them. If I don't trust my bike, yes, I back off. I had a few bikes before that got wobbles on fast descents - I stopped going fast on descents.
And when I'm hurting because of the pace, well, it hurts.
But touching a pedal (or slamming one), having someone's skewer or pedal end up in my spokes, getting slammed in a turn, or even touching wheels, they're all "normal" now.
And so it's hard to get worked up over them.
The second thing is a bit more important. I understand, as much as anyone can, that effort is not equal to results. And, in fact, "more work" can often lead to worse results.
So, technically, I don't want to just work harder. I want to commit myself 100% to an effort and carry it out.
I felt dehydrated since yesterday, drinking loads of Gatorade (from powder) and trying to stay reasonably cool at work. But when I drank two bottles during warm up and didn't need to pee, I knew that I had severely underestimated my lack of hydration.
Therefore, after overhearing someone nearby mention something about, "I want to pee before I reabsorb everything", I hit the john. I really didn't want to "reabsorb", whether that really happens or not.
Then, loaded with three bottles (ice water bottle in my back pocket, Ice Gatorade in one cage, Coke in another), I headed for the line.
I realized as I warmed up (involving raising my HR from 108 to 121 BPM) that I really, really wanted to do a good sprint. By good I mean a sprint that uses me up, that lets me cross the line and lets me say, "Dag, that was as hard and as good as I could go." I haven't done that in a while, for a long time, and I really wanted to do a soul-draining, mind-clearing sprint.
So, when we lined up for the start, I decided I would ride smart, make efforts when necessary, and do a tire melting sprint.
That doesn't sound very different from my normal approach to a race, but I rarely consciously think things like this before a race. Especially those involving a good sprint. I just sprint when I can, but to do a longer sprint would mean taking some risks.
I also steeled myself to make extraordinary efforts mid-race if necessary, efforts I last made in a serious race perhaps 3 or 4 years ago. I've been practicing them at East Hartford, at the races @Rent, but not in a "real" race.
With a somewhat fatigued field (many of the protagonists had done at least one previous race during the day, and many would enter the P-1-2-3 race), we did a fast first 10 laps.
Then someone turned the throttle to Low.
We were going so slow I'd have sworn up and down that we were going 15 mph. I looked to verify, and the SRM told me we were going 22.5 mph.
Lies, all lies.
We crawled around the course. It had to be 15 mph. My heart rate, with my new heart rate belt, seemed comfortably low. I drank my second large bottle of iced Gatorade, drank a bottle of Coke, and started splashing some of the now-lukewarm water on my body.
I started trying to keep track of laps. Usually what happens is I see like, say, "6 to go". Then I think, "It's 6 to go. 6. We'll be seeing 5 at the line. 5 at the line. 5 at the line. 5. 5. It's 5 to go... so we'll see 4. Look for the 4. 4. 4..."
Then I'll see 5.
"What? They showed 5 twice. Will it be 4 next time? Or 3?"
See how that works? Or how it doesn't?
So, when I saw 6 to go, I kept telling myself it's 6 to go. Reminded myself (literally, on the short backstretch before the hill) that I shouldn't graduate the number to 5, that I should focus on 6.
Otherwise I end up sprinting a lap early.
I found myself engrossed with this whole numbers thing. Luckily I sat at the back (after spending a few moments near the front in the first 5 or 6 laps), so my distracted riding didn't affect anyone.
We came up on what I was sure would be 4 to go. I looked right at the official's truck (a military sand-camo-painted enormous truck that would be camoflauged only if it were sitting next to the country's largest illegal tire dump), remembered, yet again, that the lap cards were on the left.
Looked left.
2 to go.
Two to... What? Two to go? My non-drifting mental calculations had proven it'd be 4 to go, and now it's 2 to go?
And here I am dwaddling at the back, doing caveman math (and doing it poorly), not making efforts, and even finding myself drifting off the back every now and then.
I mentally hitched up my pants, grabbed the drops, and started racing the bike.
Although I don't have visual proof (I unloaded the helmet cam just before the start, thinking it was a small field, but that was before about 30 guys rolled up, frantically removing their M30 numbers), I moved up much more aggressively than I usually do. I remember thinking, as I moved up, that it would be possible to win from a tailgun position at the bell, but it would be hard. Moving up now would make things much, much easier.
To my surprise, and probably to the missus's surprise, I sat about 5th wheel as we hit the bell. Really far in front, as far as I was concerned, because 4 of those guys would explode before the sprint, but I figured I'd ride from the front and keep tabs on things, move as the moves went up the road.
I got swarmed going into the first bend, the long left one. I dropped a good 20 spots, with a few sets of matching jerseys going by, leadout men and their sprinters.
The lower pace approaching the hill allowed me to move back up towards the front, especially by favoring the sheltered right side. I rode on the edge of the grass, knowing, hoping, that I could move up just a bit more.
Then, as we approached the final turn, I got around the last few people I could. A friendly rival snuck inside of me, nabbing a prime spot, and I relented, giving him his properly earned spot.
We dove left...
And the guy to the inside of the guy to the inside swerved violently outwards. Something happened, but the reaction seemed a bit excessive. The guy to my inside had to straighten out. I eased just a touch.
Facing a curb perpendicular to him while rolling pretty fast downhill, I could see the calculations flashing in his head.
"I might be able to make the left turn... 10% success predicted, with 90% probability of flipping over the bars and wrecking my bike when I smash into that curb."
"Veer right and go into that small parking lot... 95% success predicted, with a slight chance of nicking the curb."
He veered right.
I veered left, made the turn because I'd scrubbed off a lot of speed. Then, with a good 15 or 20 riders already having passed me, I decided that I better make this sprint count.
I accelerated, numb to the gearing. For all I know it was the 17, or it could have been a 14. I just shifted when I needed to, pointed at gaps, repeated. Watched guys sprinting and wondered if I should pass to the left or right. Then, as I approached the last big mass of riders (about 6 or 8 or 10 of them), I saw some daylight on the right side.
I blasted towards it, willing everyone to keep drifting left, to try and shut that huge open door on the left side, the windward side, the only side people thought would open up.
And I flew into that delicious, sheltered, right side.
The line came up way too quickly, but I did a mandatory bike throw. I'd rate it a 6 or a 7 out of 10, definitely not a great throw. More than a half-hearted lunge though, so not horrible.
I did a cool down lap. Found myself near Kevin, the NCC rider that I seem to see at all the races. He'd killed me in a couple sprints and he's a good barometer of what I could have done (since he seems to finish ahead of me all the time).
He looked at me quizzically, grinning a big grin.
I shook my head. "I was in decent position but then a guy swerved. And I had to sprint from way back. How about you?"
He nodded, smiling. "I got in there. I was pretty far back but I went up the inside." He gestured to the left, the windward side. "I got around everyone."
Jeepers. I got around because I was sheltered. He went into the wind and did the same thing. And he was in the money.
My mind wandered a bit. I stopped when I got to the missus, and Mr Parking Lot happened to be nearby.
"You okay? Nice save, by the way. I could see you thinking about trying that left"
"Yeah, I thought about it but I didn't want to crash, so I didn't try."
I turned to the missus. "See, we were, what, like 10th? 15th? going into the last turn..."
Parking Lot interrupted.
"I was THIRD wheel!"
I digested this for a second.
Third wheel?
I was fourth wheel?
With something like 300 meters to go?
Okay, I know this Zen thing is good, but when I don't even know where I sat going into the final sprint...
Enough.
Next week.
Naugatuck Crit.
(Epilogue: Kevin got 6th, in the money. Yours truly, on the other side of the mass of riders lunging for the line, got 8th. Race paid to 7 places... Arg.)
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Helmet Cam - CCC Crit, June 7, 2009
So over a month ago I did the CCC Crit, and I've finally, in my mash of helmet cam edits, finished up with the clip editing. Rough, I think, compared to some of my visions of what it could be, but fun.
Without further ado...
A special treat - a second cammer raced in the crit, and he happened to be on my wheel going into the sprint. This is the first time I've seen clips of me racing from a cam point of view, so that's interesting.
Without further ado...
A special treat - a second cammer raced in the crit, and he happened to be on my wheel going into the sprint. This is the first time I've seen clips of me racing from a cam point of view, so that's interesting.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Helmet Cam - Race @TheRent, June 2, 2009
Early in June I had the misfortune, I mean privilege, of doing a really hard race. Hard for me anyway. One of the frequent East Hartford Races @ The Rent.
I wrote about it a bit here, but, as you know, there's nothing like a more comprehensive description of the event.
So, calculated at 30 frames per second for 9 minutes and 59 seconds, there are about 17,970 frames, and therefore about 17,970,000 more words on the topic.
Roughly.
(I'm not counting the text in the 17,970 frames.)
Without further ado, a clip of a complete failure of a bike race by yours truly:
(Jeepers. 3 hours to upload a 318 MB clip. Maybe I'll post this tomorrow.)
I wrote about it a bit here, but, as you know, there's nothing like a more comprehensive description of the event.
So, calculated at 30 frames per second for 9 minutes and 59 seconds, there are about 17,970 frames, and therefore about 17,970,000 more words on the topic.
Roughly.
(I'm not counting the text in the 17,970 frames.)
Without further ado, a clip of a complete failure of a bike race by yours truly:
(Jeepers. 3 hours to upload a 318 MB clip. Maybe I'll post this tomorrow.)
Monday, July 06, 2009
Equipment - Gear Head?
I know of three kinds of computer users:
1. "I turn it on and look at the Internet. I dunno what kind of computer it is."
2. "I just want an inexpensive thing that works. I kind of know the specs, I don't care about the latest quad core CPU, I don't play the latest games or use the latest computer hog software (CAD/CAM etc)."
3. "Man, I would never use a computer with less than (name the latest CPU, but a couple of them, and server level with tons of L1 cache) and a gazillion GB of RAM. I have a umpteen megabyte video card that requires its own powersupply cable, my computer is liquid cooled, and I built it from scratch. When I turn it on the whole neighborhood dims. It rocks!"
I would only consider #3 a gear head. I think I'm like #2.
I am/was an IT guy for about 10 years. Worked on inexpensive arrays of cheap servers (max 32 GB RAM, quad core dual CPU). I built one PC and regretted it - too much figuring out. I buy remanufactured or open box PCs (typically HP), upgrade the video card by installing one, add some memory, and call it a day. Okay, yeah, I rebuilt things with Linux and stuff but not recently. I have to admit that Ubuntu has a spot in my "to do" list, but that's about it.
I simply don't care enough to do all that work. Burnt out. Was when I stopped. Still am.
Before that I was a bike guy for about 15 years. And I did everything, right down to swapping out derailleur pivot bolts (not recommended), replacing all of my brake hardware with SRP bolts (best justification: doesn't rust), rebuilding Ergo levers (key feature of Ergo levers), wheel building up the wazoo, and all the regular mechanic stuff. Okay, I didn't do brazing or frame building as I've yet to wield a torch.
I'm a recovering burnt out bike guy.
For a couple years I refused to do any work on my bike and didn't even change flats. I just changed the wheel if I cut a tire or a tube didn't hold air. With the number of wheels I had due to my wheel building inclinations, there were a lot of them. When I started to run out of wheels - it took a couple years - I finally changed a flat.
And kicked myself for using up some precious Vittoria CXs and CGs because I didn't want to spend less than 9 minutes (which was our time limit at the bike shop) to swap a $1 tube.
To top it off, I typically buy stuff like tubes in bulk, 10 or 20 at a time, so I had loads of them on hand. In fact, I just started using them up, 10 years later.
I know a lot of the bike gear out there. I'm behind the curve with mountain bike stuff, but road stuff, I've kept a surface amount of contact with shops and such, and so I have a brief understanding of a lot of what's out there.
It helps that there are virtually no new ideas - many of them are rehashed ideas first introduced a long, long time ago.
I understand what manufacturers claim. And although I have a nice bike now, I rarely owned cutting edge equipment once I was out of the biz. Okay, even during the biz, I owned the second tier stuff - the pay left something to be desired.
It took me a couple years after they hit the market to get 10 speed Ergo levers and the stuff you need to run 10 speed - a cassette, rear wheel, chain, and a rear derailleur (I promptly won my first field sprint in eons on that set-up).
I ran an Ultegra front for a long time - 7 years? - simply because that's what was sitting in my parts box when I put my bike together, and Ergo doesn't care what kind of front derailleur you use.
I like to think I buy smart, usable equipment.
To wit:
I don't own super light brakes but I own a light, stiff, and lower priced stem.
No carbon bars either, but I have a multitude of crit bend bars, bars which I need so I don't bruise my forearms too much in a sprint.
Many years ago, in the early 90s, I actually used, cracked, and ditched my carbon post before everyone came out with... carbon posts.
But at about the same time, I bought Zipp deep profile rims when they first came out. I have owned and raced aero wheels pretty consistently since the late 80s.
I didn't get STI levers when they hit the market in the late 80s, but I didn't need to - I ran a right-side bar-end lever, enabling me to shift while sprinting. That shifter was cheaper, lighter, and already dialed in. It took until 1992, when Campy hit with Ergo, that I finally stopped using that bar-end shifter.
Having said that I now have a Record SystemSix Cannondale, with an SRM Power System and Reynolds carbon wheels.
Hoity-toity, right?
Well, not really.
I swapped out the bar (to non-carbon), stem (fit), post (to non-carbon), and swapped out wheels (sold them to help pay for the bike). The frame was already a year out of date, the SRM about to be out of date (wired), the wheels I put on were first generation (heavier, different hubs), and only the Record brakes (unchanged for the last couple years) could be considered "current".
And my front race wheel is... a Zipp rim from the early 90s, built around a Campy hub from the late 80s.
Yes, I appreciate the latest technology. But I carefully balance functionality and price.
The part has to be reliable, usable in all conditions. It needs to be "field-serviceable", meaning that if you have a problem while on a ride, you can make it home. A Reynolds wheel may not seem "field-serviceable" and it isn't, but it is strong enough to ride home with a broken spoke or two. However, a snapped carbon bar is not field serviceable.
Broken frames and forks don't count - if that happened, I'd be worried about other things, like my head.
It also has to be fiscally responsible. $6000 for a frame? Um, sorry. $2000 for one wheel? Pass.
There's that saying, "You can have Fast, Cheap, Good. Just pick any two."
Meaning you can have it Cheap and Good, but not Fast.
That's me.
I don't have any cycling aspirations that are age-defined, i.e. turning pro by age 21. So I can wait, literally, a year or two to get a wheelset or a powermeter. And, with my advanced age (heh), I have the patience to wait that long.
A year in a 21 year old's life is 1/3 of their adult lifetime. For me, it's about 10 times less significant.
So I figure out what I want and then carefully keep an eye out for such a thing. I'll research, figure out the market price, and buy what I think is a fairly priced, good condition item.
So I don't know, am I a gear head?
(Original drafted March 23, 2008, updated at post date)
1. "I turn it on and look at the Internet. I dunno what kind of computer it is."
2. "I just want an inexpensive thing that works. I kind of know the specs, I don't care about the latest quad core CPU, I don't play the latest games or use the latest computer hog software (CAD/CAM etc)."
3. "Man, I would never use a computer with less than (name the latest CPU, but a couple of them, and server level with tons of L1 cache) and a gazillion GB of RAM. I have a umpteen megabyte video card that requires its own powersupply cable, my computer is liquid cooled, and I built it from scratch. When I turn it on the whole neighborhood dims. It rocks!"
I would only consider #3 a gear head. I think I'm like #2.
I am/was an IT guy for about 10 years. Worked on inexpensive arrays of cheap servers (max 32 GB RAM, quad core dual CPU). I built one PC and regretted it - too much figuring out. I buy remanufactured or open box PCs (typically HP), upgrade the video card by installing one, add some memory, and call it a day. Okay, yeah, I rebuilt things with Linux and stuff but not recently. I have to admit that Ubuntu has a spot in my "to do" list, but that's about it.
I simply don't care enough to do all that work. Burnt out. Was when I stopped. Still am.
Before that I was a bike guy for about 15 years. And I did everything, right down to swapping out derailleur pivot bolts (not recommended), replacing all of my brake hardware with SRP bolts (best justification: doesn't rust), rebuilding Ergo levers (key feature of Ergo levers), wheel building up the wazoo, and all the regular mechanic stuff. Okay, I didn't do brazing or frame building as I've yet to wield a torch.
I'm a recovering burnt out bike guy.
For a couple years I refused to do any work on my bike and didn't even change flats. I just changed the wheel if I cut a tire or a tube didn't hold air. With the number of wheels I had due to my wheel building inclinations, there were a lot of them. When I started to run out of wheels - it took a couple years - I finally changed a flat.
And kicked myself for using up some precious Vittoria CXs and CGs because I didn't want to spend less than 9 minutes (which was our time limit at the bike shop) to swap a $1 tube.
To top it off, I typically buy stuff like tubes in bulk, 10 or 20 at a time, so I had loads of them on hand. In fact, I just started using them up, 10 years later.
I know a lot of the bike gear out there. I'm behind the curve with mountain bike stuff, but road stuff, I've kept a surface amount of contact with shops and such, and so I have a brief understanding of a lot of what's out there.
It helps that there are virtually no new ideas - many of them are rehashed ideas first introduced a long, long time ago.
I understand what manufacturers claim. And although I have a nice bike now, I rarely owned cutting edge equipment once I was out of the biz. Okay, even during the biz, I owned the second tier stuff - the pay left something to be desired.
It took me a couple years after they hit the market to get 10 speed Ergo levers and the stuff you need to run 10 speed - a cassette, rear wheel, chain, and a rear derailleur (I promptly won my first field sprint in eons on that set-up).
I ran an Ultegra front for a long time - 7 years? - simply because that's what was sitting in my parts box when I put my bike together, and Ergo doesn't care what kind of front derailleur you use.
I like to think I buy smart, usable equipment.
To wit:
I don't own super light brakes but I own a light, stiff, and lower priced stem.
No carbon bars either, but I have a multitude of crit bend bars, bars which I need so I don't bruise my forearms too much in a sprint.
Many years ago, in the early 90s, I actually used, cracked, and ditched my carbon post before everyone came out with... carbon posts.
But at about the same time, I bought Zipp deep profile rims when they first came out. I have owned and raced aero wheels pretty consistently since the late 80s.
I didn't get STI levers when they hit the market in the late 80s, but I didn't need to - I ran a right-side bar-end lever, enabling me to shift while sprinting. That shifter was cheaper, lighter, and already dialed in. It took until 1992, when Campy hit with Ergo, that I finally stopped using that bar-end shifter.
Having said that I now have a Record SystemSix Cannondale, with an SRM Power System and Reynolds carbon wheels.
Hoity-toity, right?
Well, not really.
I swapped out the bar (to non-carbon), stem (fit), post (to non-carbon), and swapped out wheels (sold them to help pay for the bike). The frame was already a year out of date, the SRM about to be out of date (wired), the wheels I put on were first generation (heavier, different hubs), and only the Record brakes (unchanged for the last couple years) could be considered "current".
And my front race wheel is... a Zipp rim from the early 90s, built around a Campy hub from the late 80s.
Yes, I appreciate the latest technology. But I carefully balance functionality and price.
The part has to be reliable, usable in all conditions. It needs to be "field-serviceable", meaning that if you have a problem while on a ride, you can make it home. A Reynolds wheel may not seem "field-serviceable" and it isn't, but it is strong enough to ride home with a broken spoke or two. However, a snapped carbon bar is not field serviceable.
Broken frames and forks don't count - if that happened, I'd be worried about other things, like my head.
It also has to be fiscally responsible. $6000 for a frame? Um, sorry. $2000 for one wheel? Pass.
There's that saying, "You can have Fast, Cheap, Good. Just pick any two."
Meaning you can have it Cheap and Good, but not Fast.
That's me.
I don't have any cycling aspirations that are age-defined, i.e. turning pro by age 21. So I can wait, literally, a year or two to get a wheelset or a powermeter. And, with my advanced age (heh), I have the patience to wait that long.
A year in a 21 year old's life is 1/3 of their adult lifetime. For me, it's about 10 times less significant.
So I figure out what I want and then carefully keep an eye out for such a thing. I'll research, figure out the market price, and buy what I think is a fairly priced, good condition item.
So I don't know, am I a gear head?
(Original drafted March 23, 2008, updated at post date)
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Racing - Radios or No Radios?
Note: I drafted this up in Feb 2008 but never posted it on the site. The recent decision to ban radios from two stages of the Tour has brought the topic to the forefront again.
The question once again: Radios or no radios?
Specifically, we're talking about radios between riders and directors. There will always be radios for the race caravan (when applicable), but it's the ones the riders carry that have caused some ruckus.
The UCI recently (in Feb 2008 it was recent) passed a rule banning radios for U23 racers.
This made me pause for a bit. I grew up following races with domestiques rolling back to the car to confer with the director while hanging onto the car, leaning into the window, because "they can't hear really well".
"What did you say? And can you drive a bit faster?" Fignon, definitely not a domestique, talking to his director Cyrille Guimard, and getting a "slight assist" from the Renault.
But the last whatever years, a common sight in the pro peloton is that of a newly formed break, rolling along, and after a minute or two, each of the pros grab their jersey and talk to their zipper, asking for instructions from the director hiding in there.
When radios first became legal for use, radio supporters cited a number of safety factors to help convince the authorities that radios were a good thing.
Directors wouldn't risk life and limb and vehicles to pull up to their riders at the back of the field to tell them to chase the break or something. There were stories of team cars going 90 mph over blind hill crests, blasting over grass shoulders, and slewing on and off the road as the average-skilled driver tried to regain control over their overloaded, top heavy steed.
In addition, by making relative instant communication possible, radios would make for more exciting racing. Instead of chasing everything a few minutes after they're gone, racers would have instant access to break identities, flat tire victims, and even the odd deal or two. If someone attacked while the field was kind of rolling along, an alert director could holler "Go, go, go!"
And his guys would go.
They could also tend to a flat-tire-stricken team leader, or adjust leadout positions on the fly, or whatever they needed to do which required some intra-team communication.
Finally, radios, and their instant communication, would allow better emergency responses - if someone went down, presumably someone would say something like, "Hey, someone fell off at the left curve - they flew off the cliff." And then they'd find Johan Bruyneel who actually did plumment down a steep mountainside in 1996, luckily in the presence of both TV cameras and other vehicles.
All that stuff sounded pretty good, and with cycling becoming more sophisticated, radios seemed like a natural progression.
So radios it was.
I felt that some of the spontaneity of racing went away though, that whole argument of "robots on bikes". Racers had less of a say on when to go. Instead, they waited, poised, ready to smash legs. Then the director would do a virtual "Hut, hut, hike!" and the team would spring into action.
Although well utilized, I think the following gets us a bit far away from "racing":
I read a story about a particular director being worried about a very good climber who had attacked early in a mountain stage. The attacker quickly gained ground and looked to be on the way to either a spectacular escape/win or an equally spectacular explosion. The director called an "expert" (who wasn't at the race - in fact, he was at his desk job or driving around his car or something) that liked calculating vertical meters per minute and the like. The director asked for this geek's opinion on whether this racer could sustain such an effort. The expert ran some quick calculations and replied that no one, not even this excellent climber, could maintain the vertical ascension rate he currently held.
The mollified director told his worried racer to stay put.
Sure enough the climber blew and the race came back together. The director's racer waited and attacked, winning the race.
What would have happened if there were no radios? Would the racer have panicked? How about the director? Would teams have mounted a fruitless chase? Would the race have ended differently?
Of course we don't know. Things ended the way they ended, and the director, one Johan Bruyneel (you just saw him tumbling off a cliff just above) guided his one and only Lance to yet another Tour victory.
Does this imply that radios are bad?
Not if you don't use them.
Baden Cooke tells a story of some Patrick Jonker's last race in Australia. Cooke was riding without a radio and didn't know who was up the road - some break was up a minute or so and didn't seem to be coming back, and lots of guys in the field were riding so it wasn't like the field was just sitting around.
Cooke asked the soon-to-retire Jonker if he knew who was up there (Jonker was in the leader's jersey of the stage race and therefore had some interest in making sure things were "just so"). Cooke figured the leader of the race would have a radio on him and could just talk to his jersey zipper to find out who had ridden away from the field.
Instead Jonker stands up and rockets away up the road. After a couple minutes he comes back, a little winded but definitely not hurting, and reels off a list of numbers to a very surprised and awestruck Cooke.
I have a love/hate relationship with radios. When they first came out (Motorola had them, naturally), I tried to make my own with FM broadcasters and transistor receivers. I started testing a very short range set (effective range about 20 feet - I justified it by telling myself no one could overhear the conversations). I probably spent a very anxious and excited week working on my pair of radios.
The USCF promptly made them illegal for racers below Cat 2 so that project got junked.
However, I'd taken that step. My actions indicated that I'd prefer to have a radio for myself.
However, I've seen some really funny (to me) confrontations between other teams' teammates over radio air time, usage, what to report, and why they didn't mention that break of 8 that lapped the field until the break lapped the field (or whatever).
I've also seen some of the stupidest tactical moves made based on observers on the sidelines radioing ridiculous recommendations to their racers. Since they were not my teammates I just kept my mouth shut. Then I waited for the fireworks after the race when the frustrated and tired racers demanded to know exactly why the observer told them to do this or that.
I don't like when pros, with 2 k to go, in a two man break, radios back to his director for instructions. Like dude, it's one on one. If the director has something to say, he'll say it, but don't go crying to mama every time you're in a situation that requires a little.. thinking. You need to be able to figure out what to do in such a tactically straight-forward situation.
Finally, although not a good excuse, I like hearing the directors leaning out the windows with megaphones yelling at their riders. Usually this happens in time trials. That advice is interesting to hear because it's what they want to tell their rider. I like to hear if they're telling the truth or not, what sort of things they yell, etc.
"Encore, encore, encore! Allez!"
Head shaking. Tsk-tsking.
"Allez allez allez!"
You could smell the defeat in the air.
Beats a very flat toned, "You're up 10 seconds at that last check point. Left curve coming up, 53x13, watch the manhole cover on the exit. Remember to drink. Hands lower, remember the wind tunnel tests. Elbows in. Chin down. Lower. Okay, good."
Plus it makes for cool pictures.
Since I can't use radios I can't really say if radios really would have helped me or make racing safer or whatever. But I think racers having to read their own races, or at least a delay in figuring out who is where, makes racing more exciting.
Racers without radios get frustrated, flustered, and caught off guard. I certainly do - I've sprinted for the line not knowing there was a guy that almost lapped the field, and I've also sprinted for the line thinking we were going for 8th when, in fact, the break had broken up.
I've also asked (yelled) for help from the sidelines, splits, numbers of riders, whatever, and usually get virtually nothing. Partially because of the Doppler effect (I hear "EERrrrrsssssss" when someone yells "It's all together, just wait for the sprint!"), partially because I can't hear well, and partially because it's hard to yell at someone if you can't focus your voice at him because you can't find him because he's hiding behind a bunch of wheels.
Phew.
There's little enough of this tactical chaso as it is and some more of it would be good for those of us watching the racing.
Personally?
I'd prefer if there was no radios.
We'll see what happens in the Tour.
The question once again: Radios or no radios?
Specifically, we're talking about radios between riders and directors. There will always be radios for the race caravan (when applicable), but it's the ones the riders carry that have caused some ruckus.
The UCI recently (in Feb 2008 it was recent) passed a rule banning radios for U23 racers.
This made me pause for a bit. I grew up following races with domestiques rolling back to the car to confer with the director while hanging onto the car, leaning into the window, because "they can't hear really well".
"What did you say? And can you drive a bit faster?" Fignon, definitely not a domestique, talking to his director Cyrille Guimard, and getting a "slight assist" from the Renault.But the last whatever years, a common sight in the pro peloton is that of a newly formed break, rolling along, and after a minute or two, each of the pros grab their jersey and talk to their zipper, asking for instructions from the director hiding in there.
When radios first became legal for use, radio supporters cited a number of safety factors to help convince the authorities that radios were a good thing.
Directors wouldn't risk life and limb and vehicles to pull up to their riders at the back of the field to tell them to chase the break or something. There were stories of team cars going 90 mph over blind hill crests, blasting over grass shoulders, and slewing on and off the road as the average-skilled driver tried to regain control over their overloaded, top heavy steed.
In addition, by making relative instant communication possible, radios would make for more exciting racing. Instead of chasing everything a few minutes after they're gone, racers would have instant access to break identities, flat tire victims, and even the odd deal or two. If someone attacked while the field was kind of rolling along, an alert director could holler "Go, go, go!"
And his guys would go.
They could also tend to a flat-tire-stricken team leader, or adjust leadout positions on the fly, or whatever they needed to do which required some intra-team communication.
Finally, radios, and their instant communication, would allow better emergency responses - if someone went down, presumably someone would say something like, "Hey, someone fell off at the left curve - they flew off the cliff." And then they'd find Johan Bruyneel who actually did plumment down a steep mountainside in 1996, luckily in the presence of both TV cameras and other vehicles.
All that stuff sounded pretty good, and with cycling becoming more sophisticated, radios seemed like a natural progression.
So radios it was.
I felt that some of the spontaneity of racing went away though, that whole argument of "robots on bikes". Racers had less of a say on when to go. Instead, they waited, poised, ready to smash legs. Then the director would do a virtual "Hut, hut, hike!" and the team would spring into action.
Although well utilized, I think the following gets us a bit far away from "racing":
I read a story about a particular director being worried about a very good climber who had attacked early in a mountain stage. The attacker quickly gained ground and looked to be on the way to either a spectacular escape/win or an equally spectacular explosion. The director called an "expert" (who wasn't at the race - in fact, he was at his desk job or driving around his car or something) that liked calculating vertical meters per minute and the like. The director asked for this geek's opinion on whether this racer could sustain such an effort. The expert ran some quick calculations and replied that no one, not even this excellent climber, could maintain the vertical ascension rate he currently held.
The mollified director told his worried racer to stay put.
Sure enough the climber blew and the race came back together. The director's racer waited and attacked, winning the race.
What would have happened if there were no radios? Would the racer have panicked? How about the director? Would teams have mounted a fruitless chase? Would the race have ended differently?
Of course we don't know. Things ended the way they ended, and the director, one Johan Bruyneel (you just saw him tumbling off a cliff just above) guided his one and only Lance to yet another Tour victory.
Does this imply that radios are bad?
Not if you don't use them.
Baden Cooke tells a story of some Patrick Jonker's last race in Australia. Cooke was riding without a radio and didn't know who was up the road - some break was up a minute or so and didn't seem to be coming back, and lots of guys in the field were riding so it wasn't like the field was just sitting around.
Cooke asked the soon-to-retire Jonker if he knew who was up there (Jonker was in the leader's jersey of the stage race and therefore had some interest in making sure things were "just so"). Cooke figured the leader of the race would have a radio on him and could just talk to his jersey zipper to find out who had ridden away from the field.
Instead Jonker stands up and rockets away up the road. After a couple minutes he comes back, a little winded but definitely not hurting, and reels off a list of numbers to a very surprised and awestruck Cooke.
I have a love/hate relationship with radios. When they first came out (Motorola had them, naturally), I tried to make my own with FM broadcasters and transistor receivers. I started testing a very short range set (effective range about 20 feet - I justified it by telling myself no one could overhear the conversations). I probably spent a very anxious and excited week working on my pair of radios.
The USCF promptly made them illegal for racers below Cat 2 so that project got junked.
However, I'd taken that step. My actions indicated that I'd prefer to have a radio for myself.
However, I've seen some really funny (to me) confrontations between other teams' teammates over radio air time, usage, what to report, and why they didn't mention that break of 8 that lapped the field until the break lapped the field (or whatever).
I've also seen some of the stupidest tactical moves made based on observers on the sidelines radioing ridiculous recommendations to their racers. Since they were not my teammates I just kept my mouth shut. Then I waited for the fireworks after the race when the frustrated and tired racers demanded to know exactly why the observer told them to do this or that.
I don't like when pros, with 2 k to go, in a two man break, radios back to his director for instructions. Like dude, it's one on one. If the director has something to say, he'll say it, but don't go crying to mama every time you're in a situation that requires a little.. thinking. You need to be able to figure out what to do in such a tactically straight-forward situation.
Finally, although not a good excuse, I like hearing the directors leaning out the windows with megaphones yelling at their riders. Usually this happens in time trials. That advice is interesting to hear because it's what they want to tell their rider. I like to hear if they're telling the truth or not, what sort of things they yell, etc.
"Encore, encore, encore! Allez!"
Head shaking. Tsk-tsking.
"Allez allez allez!"
You could smell the defeat in the air.
Beats a very flat toned, "You're up 10 seconds at that last check point. Left curve coming up, 53x13, watch the manhole cover on the exit. Remember to drink. Hands lower, remember the wind tunnel tests. Elbows in. Chin down. Lower. Okay, good."
Plus it makes for cool pictures.
Since I can't use radios I can't really say if radios really would have helped me or make racing safer or whatever. But I think racers having to read their own races, or at least a delay in figuring out who is where, makes racing more exciting.
Racers without radios get frustrated, flustered, and caught off guard. I certainly do - I've sprinted for the line not knowing there was a guy that almost lapped the field, and I've also sprinted for the line thinking we were going for 8th when, in fact, the break had broken up.
I've also asked (yelled) for help from the sidelines, splits, numbers of riders, whatever, and usually get virtually nothing. Partially because of the Doppler effect (I hear "EERrrrrsssssss" when someone yells "It's all together, just wait for the sprint!"), partially because I can't hear well, and partially because it's hard to yell at someone if you can't focus your voice at him because you can't find him because he's hiding behind a bunch of wheels.
Phew.
There's little enough of this tactical chaso as it is and some more of it would be good for those of us watching the racing.
Personally?
I'd prefer if there was no radios.
We'll see what happens in the Tour.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Joe Parkin - Blog and Twitter
Joe Parkin is an ex-pro, raced in Europe, essentially a domestique, but a guy who has witty insight and a great writing style.
Blog
Twitter
Why I think this is significant: his book.
And my brief venture into that world; just a skimming of the world, like a meteor on its way elsewhere, glancing off a strange world's atmosphere.
Blog
Why I think this is significant: his book.
And my brief venture into that world; just a skimming of the world, like a meteor on its way elsewhere, glancing off a strange world's atmosphere.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Racing - Prospect Park, 17 June 2006 - Helmet Cam
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
Okay, it's not Star Wars. Or any of its Clones.
It's an old helmet cam tape that I resurrected. Back then, when I started doing helmet cams, I wanted success, a story, something big to grab the viewer's attention. Apparently, back then, I felt that a broken spoke and a wild field sprint was... not big enough.
Once I left the clip behind, working on others instead, it aged quickly. I had the original 90 degree lens, not the 120 that I have now, so we're in the "butts and ankles" mode. In addition to that, the lens protector had a yet-to-be-discovered crack in it, causing the lower left part of the clip to be obscured by a big, fuzzy, banana-shape (I discovered it after the Prospect race and replaced it shortly thereafter).
Nonetheless the race was a good one.
As an added bonus, this is the first time I've been allowed to upload a larger-than-100 MB file. So the original file, if you select "HQ", will be some not-as-compressed version of the 268MB file I've uploaded.
That day, June 17, 2006 (more than THREE years ago! Can you believe that?) started out at Dark O'Clock, about 4 or 4:15 AM. Crazy, but to make the start an hour away, we had to be on the road by 4:45 or so. I went with a long-time teammate nicknamed Merto (to give you an idea of how long ago it was, he's now married with a newborn baby girl). We knew each other literally two decades or so, but we only started hanging out a few years ago.
He did the 4s while I did the M35+.
I'd placed in the top 10 or so the previous Prospect race, winning the field sprint handily, so I came with some expectations. I had no illusions as far as breaks went, but if it came down to a field sprint, well, I'd be there, duking it out.
The race started normally, but then...
About a half hour into the race I heard a loud "Ping!" Then a metallic flopping sound, that of a steel spoke bouncing off of a carbon fiber fork leg. One of my spokes had let go, in my front wheel.
Unpleasant.
I eased a bit, checking the wheel. The bike felt solid but I didn't know how a 15 spoke DV46 would hold up. I went to the back, not wanting to take anyone out if the wheel spontaneously collapsed.
Lap after lap the wheel seemed normal. I could climb the hill, gingerly standing after doing the thing seated for a couple laps.
The bike seemed fine.
I also let the bike accelerate down the descent. Even doing an aero tuck over the front wheel, a few descents later.
Fine again.
With two laps to go I decided to contest the finish. I moved up aggressively, getting as far as about 15th spot before going backwards on the hill. Exhausted, I almost gave up, but the ringing bell urged me on.
Although the last climb wasn't too bad, I had to ease near the top, trying to conserve some of my sprint. Luckily the pace wasn't too bad, and by the time we'd descended onto the final flat mile, I was in decent position.
Then, as I conservatively stuck to my plan (follow a guy that beat me in some recent sprint), guys kept going around him (and me). I got a bit boxed in, got leaned on really hard twice, and waited and waited for an opening.
Finally it came, and after the briefest of sprints (about 7 pedal strokes), I managed to place 7th.
I turned around immediately, praying the wheel would make it to the parking lot. The wheel made it. Ultimately I rebuilt it with DT Revolutions, lightweight round spokes with beefy ends, and I still race it today.
Merto didn't realize exactly what I'd dealt with during the race until I twanged the floppy spoke, on camera even. His exclamation was short, succint, and enough.
About two seconds later the tape ran out. Or the battery died. Either way, the tape ended.
Phew.
As the saying goes, "All's well that ends well."
And to all a good night.
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