Monday, March 21, 2011

The View from the sidelines

Saturday our team promoted the Black Hills Circuit Race. First race of the year for a lot of folks. I bagged any attempt to race since I really wanted to focus on helping our lead Promoter, Robb Hampton, pull this baby off without a hitch. Robb & Brian Rist (& wife Jenn) worked a lot of the behind scenes magic. All I had to do was show up at 6:30 a.m., sweep the course and spend the day trying to keep the course safe...well, it was sorta fun to watch the suffering as well. We were also really happy to hear all the positive feedback from all of the racers! We definitely have some ideas on how to improve a few things.

In a strange way, it's kinda nice to just work the race all the day. You get to catch up with lots of folks you haven't seen in awhile and actually have a conversation. I also had a front row seat to watch ALL of the races. I really enjoyed it.

Off the top of my head:

Here's my top 10 award list:

1. Umm, Josh Frick simply riding away from the 35+ field. (Kevin Cross you get a nod here for being the only one to ride with him for 2 laps)
2. Ahem, the Kenda pro dude riding like a rocket.
3. Evan Fader sticking it out with Kenda dude for lots of laps before fading, but I have to give the guy credit, you could see the pain in his face, but he still kept pumping the pedals and managed to hang onto the third chase group. Man, that was a show of determination and guts.
4. The two NCVC riders in Chase 1 finished really strong...great riding.
5. My training partner, Pete Custer, had a great ride for being sick most of the week...so much for sitting in, eh! And glad we didn't have to call the EMTs at the finish line!
6. NO CRASHES THE ENTIRE DAY! AWESOME!
7. In the 3/4 race, it was great to see 3 guys lay it on the line for a successful breakaway. Way to work together and make it happen Tony, Paul & Evan. Exciting to watch.
8. The Women's race was exciting...lots of action at the front, attacks/counters. The gal that won put a huge gap on the field on the last lap..impressive.
9. TRASH- I hardly had to pick up any!!! Thank you to all for keeping the park clean.
10. My wife for saving us working registration with her friend Tatyana! We would have been in deep doodoo without their help.

Here's my top 10 list of naughtiness (there's always a few bad apples, but the vast majority of us racers were crazy polite and very patient with this being our first event, so thanks for that):

1. Just because you are at race doesn't mean cyclist don't have to obey the laws of the road...cough, don't ride against traffic.
2. Please don't ever ride ON the course during a race.
3. While you are warming up, DON'T swarm cars driving through the park. Your warmup won't be interrupted if you have to slow down.
4. When a road guard instructs you on the traffic flow, please don't think you deserve "special" treatment and it doesn't apply to you.
5. When someone at registration asks for your license, don't behave like a child and toss your card at them. Hand it over politely..it's a thankless job and you may as well be slapping them in the face by doing this.
6. Show up with your license. It REALLY makes things much easier. Don't expect everyone to know who you are and you are above having to show your license.
7. Remember, results are managed by the officials, not the promoter. Don't get feisty with the folks at registration b/c your results aren't posted. They have no control over this NOR the results (if they are wrong)
8. Don't make snide comments around the promoters as to why they are doing things the way they are. You have your chance to do it your way when you put on YOUR race.
9. Whoever swiped the 1/2/3 results off the score table at the end of the day, shame on you. You earned the douchebag award.
10. there is no ten.


Looking forward to Jeff Cup now. Thanks to all for showing up to race!

Friday, March 18, 2011

PSA: Be careful out there

Every year about this time the same scenario plays out in downtown DC.

1. Spring time = out of towner's coming into the city in droves. Also coinciding with the millions of people coming to view the Cherry Blossoms.
2. Out of towner's driving erratically b/c they don't know where they are going. They stop for no reason. Don't use turn signals b/c they don't know where they are going. Drivers trying to read their GPS devices or talking on the phone.
3. Taxi drivers hungry for a buck and will do crazy shit to pick up a fare.
4. Fare seekers opening up cab doors without a care in the world.
5. Frustrated local drivers mad about the increase in traffic....great, not like drivers need more fuel for the fire around here.
6. Wondering tourists not paying attention to anything around them while walking around the city.
7. The fair weather cyclists being awoken.
8. Out of town tour bus drivers who aren't familiar with the city.

What does this all this mean? IT MEANS BE EXTRA VIGILANT (CAREFUL AND DEFENSIVE) OVER THE NEXT 3-4 WEEKS WHILE RIDING IN THE CITY. Every year it hits me. Today it just happened to be during my commute into the city. The tell tale signs for me were:

1. Park personnel putting up signage at Hain's Point for the Cherry Blossom parking.
2. The countless tour bus drivers either parked along Hain's Point or driving aimlessly around the loop spewing exhaust fumes.
3. The two Freds who thought I wanted to race them at Hain's Point when I casually rolled by them doing like 180 watts for my recovery day mellow spin to work.
4. A taxi driver who thought it was ok to just swerve into the bike line to pick up passengers along 15th street. He couldn't understand why I was so pissed at him. And to the lady who was about to open the door to get in right in front of me...I confess, I yelled a few profanities.
5. I had my closest call to date for getting doored.
6. Driver nearly took me out while crossing K & Vermont. He was turning left coming the opposite way and obviously was in a HUGE hurry.

Needless to say, I was just happy to get to work in one piece. It's just a busy time of year around here and I hope folks get the message. Be careful out there!!! Things will return to normal in about 30 days.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

4 day block

A few charts tell the story...lots of good tempo and threshold work.


time to rest...

Monday, March 7, 2011

Faith in humanity and the end of a good block

It has been a busy few weeks for sure. A few weeks ago while commuting home on Friday, I had an unfortunate event occur...yep, a bike commuter crash. I cracked the top tube of my Specialized SL carbon frame, bike frame destroyed. Without going into all the details since it's hard to explain, I'll just say that riding on the trails is dangerous. My accident occurred down by the airport where the trails merge near Crystal City. Fellow commuter came out of nowhere merging on. Luckily, we just barely avoided a head on collision, but I still went down after clipping his mtb handlebars. I thought everything was fine until I saw the cracked top tube...I cried inside. I loved that frame. It made it through 2 years of racing, yet, gets taken out and shot during an easy commute home...sad. BUT, the gentleman involved offered to help me cover the cost of replacement. I'll be honest, I was astonished. I never really lost my cool during the whole ordeal b/c I think I was mostly distraught over the frame. Neither of us were critically injured, I just had some scrapes and nicks. I gave him my card and said to email me if he was serious. I then proceeded to go 3 mph home on a nearly cracked in half top tube. So, Saturday I get an email from him. He feels terrible about the accident. We go back and forth and agree on a figure. Next thing I know on Monday morning a money order shows for twice as much as I expected, yet it will cover the cost for me to get a new frame, not exactly a true replacement, but good enough. Frankly, I was shocked, thankful and relieved by this. There are good people out there who are true to their word...faith in humanity restored.

Thankfully, teammate Brian is able to help me get my PCs off my training bike and get some regular cranks on it so I could hit a hard final week of training before some recovery. The plan was to take THUR thru SUN to get some good rides in.

Teammate Sunny met me THUR for one of the Haymarket loops. 70 miles, some gravel, 5k of climbing and wind. It was a great start to my mini-camp. Hit almost 3 hrs on FRI with some teammates, not too crazy, worked on some sprints. Then headed up to Frederick on SAT for a team ride. We had a shitty start to the ride when Brian got taken down by a car 10 mins into the ride. Out of towner decided to abruptly make a left turn on a 2 lane one-way street from the right lane. I was in the back of the bunch and watched the whole thing unfold in horror. Thankfully, Brian is ok, but his front wheel was taco'd and his bike un-rideable...needless to say he had a big headache. So, we get Brian in the police car and he gets take back to his car, the group pushes on. LOTS of climbing for sure. Legs came around and I was putting in some good work. I think we ended up with a little over 4 hours and then ended up eating some awesome Mexican food with Margies. SUN was a pretty free day. If I felt good, I'd do something hard. If not, I'd ride recovery for a few hours. Once I hopped on the rollers, everything came to life. Knocked out a hard 60min tempo effort at 325w avg after warmup and called it a day. Things are coming together. Getting amped about the team and our chances to do really well this year. Now I just hope my race frame comes in soon so I don't have to ride this boat anchor! It's looking more and more like Jeff Cup will be my first race...Battenkill is nearing.