PreTour of the Valley 2013.
 |
| pretty nice seeing dynamic up front leading the field |
As I came into the road season this
year and laid out my schedule, this was a race I came into the season
to be peaking for and to place in the cat 4 field. The week before
TOV was Mapletown RR this was a tune up race for me to see where my
fitness is, as a I wasn't concerned with my finishing place I opted
to help my teammate Jerry to secure his lead in the ABRA Road Race
Series. As we had lined up to start the sky just started to open up
and the rain was falling and the temp was in the mid 60's. This race
felt really good for me, I was able to stay with the lead group of
riders up until we crested one of the last climbs where I was unable
to shift into my large chainring and spent too long trying to get it
to. I lost contact with the group on the decent and the next several
miles were on a false flat that tilted down, I was slowly losing
ground on the group and was redlining myself to catch up, I was
unable to pull back any ground. The last six miles I lost sight of
the group and just set a steady tempo as not to get caught by anyone
that was behind me. I cross the finish line very content that I felt
that good and that without a mechanical I may have been able to hang
with them up the final climb. About 25 yards after I cross the finish
line I lean to the right to enter the parking lot and I could just
feel the bike start to slide, next thing I know im on the ground, me
and the bike scuffed up but nothing in too bad of shape.
TOV '13 TT
 |
| Didn't have clip on bars so had to go merckx style |
The dreaded time trial, well at least
for me. I'm not know for my individual riding efforts, so I came into
this with extremely low expectations and looking to just do a
personal best for a time trial. I do a warm up on the road since I
forgotten my trainer to warm up on for the weekend, though not a big
deal. I get to the line about 5 mins before my start time and just
relax to keep myself from trying to start out too hard and get burned
out for the second half. I figured in my head if I can finish within
18 mins over the 7 mile course id be content with that and would be
one of my better TT. I start off and quickly get up to speed and
settle into a rhythm, I got passed by my 30 second guy about 1/3rd of
the way into the race though I kept him in sight to use as a rabbit
to push myself but I eventually he slipped out of sight not long
after the turn around. The second half I was giving in to my more
realistic side, or some may call it a pessimistic side but I let the
thoughts of realizing when my 1 minute guy passed me that no matter
what kind of effort I put out in the TT I was unlikely to score
points for the General Classification due to my lack of skill in
this discipline and that I should hold back and save some matches for
the road race the next day that was slightly better suited to my
skills. I cross the line 31st out 36 in the TT at 18:09
just a few seconds off my own goal and over 2 minutes down from the
winner, and almost a minute and a half to score points but it was
still a personal best in a TT for me.
 |
| Don't look too gassed after 7.2 miles |
The Road Race
I got to the venue just before the
first races head off for the day more than 2 hours before my race
starts. As i was laying out my stuff to start getting ready, i
remember that my cadence sensor and heart rate strap had died during
the time trial. I looked up where the nearest rite-aid was and took a
short ride over to pick up new batteries, on my short ride I could
feel the ride from the previous day even though I didn't go all out.
I think back to Mapletown and try to figure why I did better there
and kept thinking I stayed in the front. so thats what I did, I lined
up towards the front and tried to hold it through the neutral roll
out as thats where the crash was last year. My main goal was to just
try to stay safe and to keep up with the lead group as long as
possible. I sat in the group within the top 10 to 15 riders and took
a couple of pulls, but focused on trying to stay in the group and to
save energy. All was going well up until about 10 miles in, I
recalled the king of the mountain climb being at mile 11. On a
descent I made a jump to get to the front of the field on a downhill
to lead in to the climb so if I faltered I could catch on to the back
of the field. We made the left hand turn at the base of the climb
and I was sitting in first and started to get into a rhythm. When 4
or 5 riders made a attack, after they went Jeff byer a west
Pennsylvania racer, had came up and asked if I thought we should
cover it, we agreed that 12 miles into a 54 mile race was to early
for a break to work. Though as soon as we decided to let them have
some space the field reacted and I started to drift back. By the time
I reached the KOM line I was just dangling off the back by only a
couple hundred feet and was with a small group and thought we could
catch back on. Though as we kept going over the rollers I kept
finding myself on the front doing most of the work trying to catch
back on, because anytime id get off the front the pace would drop,
and id see the field slip further away.
 |
| Heading out for a second lap |
I realized if I kept doing
this I would burn myself out and sure enough about 5 miles of pushing
it I popped and couldn't keep up with the group I was in. Not long
after I got dropped I got picked up by a 2 man group and we rode
together until Caleb Smith from pro mountain caught us(was surprised
here I thought he was stronger than I was) it wasn't long till he
saw some more riders in front of us and went off on his own. He made
it half way across and stalled out, it took me and the other 2 guys
awhile to catch him, only for him to repeat it not long after we had
caught him. We then started working together as we finished the first
lap. The second lap was pretty uneventful as Caleb repeated try to
make solo efforts to catch other groups, the final time he went and
after awhile I saw the group he was going after and I made a attack
myself to try to catch him. We had eventually caught the small group
that I was first with after getting dropped, about half way through
lap 2. our little group made a sprint to the line, I went to stand up
to up out more power but legs had nothing in them. I finished second
in our little sprint and 24th out of 38 for the day. I
once again learned how much I dislike the heat, I had wore my mesh
skin suit from champ-sys, though I learned one thing on the day. If
im going to wear the mesh skin suit on sunny days that I should apply
sunscreen to my back.
The TOV Crit
I get to the race 4 hours before my
race so I can eat, and walk around the course to get an idea as to
what im going to do. I have some left over pizza and I start to walk
around the course. This was going to be another hot day on the bike
and I had already drank a a bottle of water and had my others were
half frozen, for the race I opted for a bottle of drink mix and a
bottle of water to cool off during the race. I wished the people I
know good luck before they start their races and went to start
getting ready myself. With two races to go until my race I go and
get a pre-ride on the course to get a ideal what it was like. It was
a 4 corner downtown crit, though the turns and the side streets were
wider than what ive raced before and that would be beneficial for me.
Now the back straight was very rough and and had one traffic island
and several large holes. The final straight was going to be
interesting, as you came out of turn 4 there was a traffic island and
on the right was parking spots that the curb came back in to the
course; and and the second traffic island the left side was closed
for construction, then about 100m to the finish. Since I had
forgotten my trainer I join other riders in warming up next to the
course on a short loop.
 |
| Keeping Safe |
We lined up, I ended up lining up at
the back due to getting there a bit late. We set off and everyone is
a bit jittery the first few laps but everyone stays up right. I
managed to hit the large hole for a manhole cover, the first time was
jarring and was a bit concerning, though the second time I hit I
flowed through it. About half way though several riders went for a
prime coming down the back straight, as we came through turn 4 I
wanted to stretch my legs and see how they were feeling. I managed to
catch all but the lead guy for the prime he had several bike lengths
ahead. As I cross the line I think to myself ill see how fast I could
take the first 2 turns and when I looked back over my shoulder
half-way down the back straight I had a pretty sizable gap on the
field. A solo attack isn't something I felt comfortable with that far
into the race, so I sit up and let the field catch me. About 2/3rd
into the race I see a couple of riders get squirrelly, and suddenly I
start to see rider go down, I start to go wider and wider as I saw
more riders going down. After that I forced myself up towards the
front to keep myself safe. The final few laps a lot of people were
jockeying for position for the final sprint, I kept making an effort
to get to the front. The second to last lap there was a prime and
again a few riders went for it, though the group didn't really react,
and left them out front. Going through turn 4 I was sitting 5th
wheel or so and was getting ready to sprint until the guy leading it
out just sat up and suddenly everyone went around I was too late to
react to the move to be at the front but managed to finish 7th
out 30 some riders. So all in all as the weekend went on my races got
better and better, not what I came into the season hoping to.
 |
| Sprint finished |
I would like to thank Honey Stinger for
keeping me fueled all weekend, Pro Gold Lubricants for keeping my
bike running smooth all weekend, and Kenda Tires for keeping me
upright all weekend and providing confidence in my bike. Also would
like to thank Fred Jordan and Mike Briggs for being out there all
weekend taking awesome pictures, that I used in this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment