2014.....WOW

I love racing in the rain!

     Yes, wow! What a turbulent year for me personally, job wise, and on the bike. In January I separated from my wife and moved in with my mother. This was a difficult decision because of my daughter being caught in the middle. Everything has settled down for the most part now and the divorce should be final within a month. I am definitely in a better place mentally now than when we were together. Sometimes good people are not good together. I've also met someone whom I adore, and I see a great future with, someday. First I need to get back out of my moms!

     2014 also saw me make a job change that I thought would never happen! I landed a job with an international company, and I love working for them. It's the same thing I used to do, the pay is less to start with, but the benefits are amazing and within 3 years I'll be making more than I was at my previous job. I look forward to going to work, instead of having to drag myself in and be miserable everyday. I can also look forward to retiring, finally!

      Racing in 2014 saw some of my strongest racing! I raced strong but made mistakes in just about every race that kept me off the podium. I did race in 2 training crits that I organized at a local mall in one of them I lead out my team mate for the when and took 3rd. In my first official race of the year I missed the winning move and was sitting in third going into the final turn when the guy in front went down causing me to stop to keep from plowing over him, which yielded me a 10th place finish. I did however walk away with the bronze medal for the Cat 4 state championship! In my second race I ended up in a 2 man breakaway, this was not planned at all! I had accelerated from the middle of the pack with the intention of keeping the pack together and it ended up being a breakaway for several laps! Crazy! This guy is not meant for breakaways, lol, I am way to large for that!

     This season also saw me return to Road Racing, not just crits. Well, it was one RR. I was going to see how I would perform, I finished with the pack and it was by far the hardest effort I put in all year! I should do more Road Races just for the workout!

     I believe my best race of the year was the Tour of Washington County Kick-off crit in Hagerstown, MD. It was a hot and humid June afternoon and as I started my warm-up on the trainer, the skies went from partly cloudy to pitch black! I quickly put the trainer away and decided to warm up on the course. As soon as we got out there, it started raining and the officials delayed the start of the race. This gave me the opportunity to ride the course in the rain and test the best lines and at what speed I could take them at. We started about 15 minutes late, so they cut our race time down as well. We took off and it wasn't but a couple laps in and guys were all over the road because their tires were losing traction, but not me. That's when I decided to put the hammer down to try and separate me from the non bike handlers, well it worked. Me and seven other guys put at least a half a lap on the chase group! As we headed into 2 to go, I found myself on the front coming up to turn #3, just before the turn the group surged around me and as we went through the turn I stood out of the saddle in an effort to maintain contact and that's when I went down! I ended up placing 12th overall, not where I wanted to be, but I still won $50!

     Due to more turmoil in my Personal life, I had to stop racing in June and I am just now getting back into training and riding. Let's hope 2015 sees more changes and challenges, but hopefully all of them in a positive direction!

Fort Ritchie Cyclocross Challenge 2013

Fort Ritchie Cyclocross Challenge

9-8-13

 

     Welcome back to Cross season! I was really excited about this race, after having a much better road season than last year I couldn't wait to see how I would do in cyclocross. I also knew this course was pretty flat for a cross course, so I was hoping to open up the legs on the straights.

 

     I arrived to the race 2 hours ahead of my start time to pre-ride the course and to have plenty of time to warm up. I like to pre-ride the course to get an idea of what to expect and to find good lines through the turns. The first half of the course was not too bad and included the usual double barrier set up and a really steep uphill that was rideable, but I knew that as the lap count increased, my ability to ride it would become more difficult. The second half of the course was very rough and rutted, trying to find a good line on this terrain was difficult. I finished up my ride and headed back to the car to start my warm up.

 

     I hopped on the trainer, accompanied by my support crew(Rik), and started my warm up. We chatted about my race and his up coming State Championship TT. He asked how I felt going into the race and I honestly was optimistic about my upcoming performance. He was looking forward to riding his new TT bike for his bid at a state medal. I finished my warm up after approximately 40minutes, switched bikes, and headed back over to the course to do one last lap but it was too late, they were calling my race to the starting line.

 

     My team mate Kraeg and I headed over to the starting line. I practiced a couple starts to get my clip in down. The Chief Ref(CR) started calling us up, Kraeg ended up in the Second row and I was right behind him in the third, and the 15-18 Jr Boys lined up behind us in the fifth row. The CR gave us some final instructions before firing the starting gun and off we went!

 

     I was hoping to get a good start and power up into the front pack, but my lack of training and the fact that I was racing up in category meant that I was not going very far forward. Racing up in category means, that I'm racing with guys in a more experienced category(Cat 3), and I'm a Cat 4. I was unprepared for the pace these guys were setting, right from the gun I was losing ground on the leaders. This wasn't going to make me quit though. I kept a good pace and I rode up the steep hill climb without issue and then we reached the rough section on the second half of the course. I rode into it pretty fast and the poor guy behind me had no idea and I heard him swearing as he hit the ruts and it made me chuckle a little, but he would get the last laugh, we hit a wider-smoother section and he sailed by me like I was standing still!

 

     The next two laps I just tried holding a steady pace and not lose to much ground or wreck in the tight turns. I was able to ride the hill for those two laps as well. Going into the third lap I could feel someone lurking behind me, and sure enough, here comes a junior rider around me, ouch. I stuck to my plan of corner good and lay down the speed when I could. On this lap, I hit the hill climb and made it almost to the top before having to hop off and running the rest of the way up and that's when I realized I would be running up from now on. Now we're closing in on lap #4, and I've started lapping some folks and taking back ground on my junior racer. I finished lap#4 and finally get the bell lap, and I'm 43minutes into this race and looking forward to finishing this race because the course is taking its toll on my back, every time I go through rutted area my back is aching something fierce!

 

     Last Lap! I set my mind on going all in and trying to bring back my junior rider before the finish. I'm getting a glimpse of him in some of the sharp turn areas, I run up the hill for one last time and I can tell I'm making ground! I come down the hill and head toward the pit area and I'm putting the hammer down and being a little less careful in the turns. A few more technical areas and I pass my junior friend with about a quarter of a lap left and finish with no one in my rearview.

 

     Total race time for me was 55mins! That's how long the pros race for! The good news is, I didn't finish last and I averaged .5mph faster than last year and raced 20mins longer. Boom! See you all in a week!

    

Lower Providence 2013

Focused

LOWER PROVIDENCE CRIT

4-28-2013

    This was the third PA BAR race of the season but my first. For my team mate Bryan this was his third, and we were aiming to increase his points with a strong finish, he was currently sitting in the third. We devised a very complex plan, I would contain any moves off the front and lead Bryan out for the sprint. Okay, it wasn't that complex but I was a little concerned about how well I would perform, it had been a crazy week in my house as my wife was hit by a car while out training on her bike. Luckily she was not killed but she is suffering from severe back pain, a damaged shoulder, and possibly a broken wrist. With all this going on, I hadn't ridden in three days, I was concerned I had lost fitness and wouldn't be much help to Bryan during the race. We hopped on the trainers to warm up with about 45 mins before the start of our race, it was sunny but chilly, so we waited as long as possible before getting started. Once we got done, we headed over to ride the course before the start. It was another flat, fast, four corner crit with all the turns being really wide so cornering shouldn't be a problem. We lined up after a couple of laps and awaited the start while we received our final instructions. The normal whistle blow and we were off.

    Bryan and I started off in the second row to avoid being on the front and in the wind for the beginning of the race. Right from the start there were guys trying to break away from the pack, but they were quickly brought back. We were right where we wanted to be for most of the race, right in the top 10-15 riders. There was only once that I fell further back in the field, it was after bringing back a solo break, the guy opened up a good gap on the field and no one wanted to chase so I knew what had to be done. I checked my six to make sure Bryan was there, I got low and powered up and it took about .5 mile but I caught him, Bryan came around me and said to fall back and recover because he knew that cost me some energy. It took a couple laps to catch my breath, but when I did I moved back up to the front with Bryan and boy was I glad to do that, this group of riders had very bad cornering skills and were all over the place. Bryan and I shut down a lot of the moves that were being tried off the front and to be quite honest and didn't think there was anybody stronger than us.

Killing breaks and dreams

    With four laps to go I connected with Bryan and made sure he was on my tail, if we weren't in the front 10, I made sure he was behind me before moving up. We crossed the line with three to go and Bryan was right on my wheel, we came through turn 1 and some guys had cut the corner on the inside, so I as per my task for the day I made sure Bryan was behind me and we moved up on the left hand side after the turn. I moved up into the top five and moved to the right to try and catch some draft and not but a few seconds later the guy just on my right came over quickly and without warning crossing my front wheel, but I couldn't save it and went down taking out a group behind me(video). As I was going down I remembered something my wife said she did when she got hit by the car, "go limp", so I did and I laid in a fetal position until the sound of bike on bike carnage subsided. I've got some nasty road rash but otherwise, okay. Once I stood up, I took survey of the people that were around me and relieved to find Bryan wasn't amongst the victims. I also was trying to find my bike, the rear wheel was next to me but the bike was about 20 feet further up the road on the left. I gathered everything up and then cleared the road of a couple stray water bottles so when the pack came back around there wouldn't be anything in their path. I checked on a fellow downed rider who was complaining about his head hurting, I told him to take it easy and stay awake just in case there was a brain injury. I had a feeling Bryan would be looking for me when he came back around so I waited and when they came around I saw him, waved him on while yelling "GO, GO, GO", and he went.

 I shouldered my bike and started heading back to the finish line. As the pack came around again it dawned on me that it was the last lap, so I started running with my bike towards the finish with blood streaming down my leg from the wreck. I was about 20 yards from the finish when I see Bryan yelling as he crossed the finish line a full bike length ahead of the next closest competitor, he spots me and I'm speechless, all I can do is point at him aggressively as if to say, you're the F-ing man! and he does the same. It was an undeniable day of great team work finished off by the best sprinter in the field! It was by far the best race of my "career" as an amateur bike racer and to see my team mate take the win was indescribable, but I'm still imbittered about the wreck to this day, as for the guy who caused it, he better stay clear of any future races because he's gonna have a lot an angry people aiming for him. I just wish I could have finished the race, my bike frame is okay but both wheels are damaged beyond repair. Our next race is on May 5th, I hope to repeat our dominance, and I hope I can race with Bryan again, after that win he has enough points for a mandatory upgrade and we may not be racing together for too much longer. Oh and with that win, Bryan shot up to first place with a 31 point lead! Stay tuned!

The win!

The aftermath

   

WV State Champioship Criterium 4-13-2013

CAT 4/5 WV STATE CRIT

CHAMPIONSHIP

CLARKSBURG, WV

Me leading out the field on the first lap

     Where to start? This was my first race back for 2013, even though it should have been my second, but do to an untimely back injury I was forced to sit that one out. We arrived at the race 3 hours ahead of time so everyone would have plenty of time to get warmed up, that included my wife and Heather for their race. Matt Adams was already on site, since he raced in the morning, and Rik showed up about 2pm and then Chris got there about 3pm. We chatted for awhile and watched the women race and then it was time for us to start our warm up.
     We hopped on our trainers about an hour and fifteen minutes before our race and watched the 40+/50+ masters race while we discussed our tactics for the day. We settled on getting to the front with 2 laps to go and playing some team tactics for last two laps and if anybody wanted to make a break for it to try and slow the field to increase their chances. I must admit, I wasn't sure how Matt A. would do, during our warm up he was admitting to being tired still after his morning race. As for myself, when we first arrived I was nervous but after watching some racing, especially my wife, I was excited and looking forward to getting out on the course and hammering it. I wasn't to worried about Chris's performance, he's always a strong rider and has gotten better with every race. When the masters finished we rode the course for a couple of laps, a flat, fast four corner (counter clockwise) course, and checked the best lines for hitting the corners and then lined up for the start.
     We got our final instructions from the race director and then the referee blew the whistle and we were off. I got clipped in right away and had a good start. I was sitting in the top 10 going through corners 1&2 and as we were on the long back straightaway someone tried to make a move off of the front and I was having none of that! I jump up to him and then passed him and figured what the hell, while I'm here let's see if I can breakaway. I wasn't able to breakaway but I would find out later from my wife that my time on the front strung the field out and broke the field into three groups! After 10 minutes on the front, I thought, I had better fall back into the group and recover or I'm going to pop! So I did and to my surprise I got a "nice pull" from one of my fellow racers.
     I tucked in at the back of the pack not knowing if I could recover before someone else put in a strong effort, but to my surprise I was able to recover pretty quickly and I found myself shutting down moves off the front, leading the train several times again, and even winning a $60 container of energy drink mix in a preme lap!

Chris and I with our Prizes from the Preme laps

     After we passed the finish line with three to go and I kept tabs on my team mates, and when we approached the it two to go Matt A. was on the front and Chris was moving up on the left side of the field and I was moving up on the right, perfect! We went around turns 1 & 2 with the three of us on the front and as we approached turn 3, someone jumped on my right, Matt A. and I both matched the acceleration through the turn. Approaching turn 4, I quickly realized I didn't have the legs to stay on the gas anymore. As we went through turn 4, Chris came around me on the left, I sat up to slow the field down and hung on the back until the final straight crossing the finish line in 12th out of a 28 man field. Chris and Matt fared much better, putting in solid efforts to come in 2nd (Matt) and 4th (Chris).
    
All in all, I had a great time, and had fun putting the hurt on the field for a little while. If I can perform close to this the rest of the season, I'll be ecstatic! After last year, I'm just happy to maintain contact with the field for the entire race! Wish me luck!

Strasburg RR 3/16/2013 (acting as manager)

Strasburg RR 3/16/2013   

We left for Strasburg at 5:40 AM after having some Gluten free pancakes, made by yours truly, and loading up the ladies bikes. It was rather mild considering the weather predicted for the race start was supposed to be close to freezing with rain, snow, sleet, you know, crappy conditions for being outside in general, let alone a bike race. After some wrong turns, we arrived at the race a little before 8AM.

    I parked the car and surprisingly Sarah hopped out of the car with a smile on her face, this was unexpected since she looked like she was going to fall over when she got in the car thanks to what would later be diagnosed as pneumonia. Doing my best as a manager, I set up Heather and Sarah’s bikes on the trainers as they went and got signed in for the race. The weather was a little chillier but still no precipitation. When the ladies returned from registration, they got dressed and hopped on the bikes to warm up. As they pedaled away on the trainers I pinned their numbers on and tended to their every desire, HA!

    After not nearly enough time to warm up, we headed down to the starting line where I was informed I did not pin the numbers on perfectly, according to the referee. I got news for that ref, I have yet to please any ref with how I pin a number, mainly because they all are looking for something different. We chatted as we watched the first two races take off and I gave them some words of encouragement, and then the ref called them to the starting line. I reminded Sarah to hit the lap button on her computer when the race started and then they were off and headed up a short climb just past the starting line.

    I walked back to the car to get warm as it had started to snow. After about 15 mins I started back to the starting line, I was about 100 yards from it when the womens field went by and I was heart broken that our ladies weren’t in the field. I waited at the finish line for about 1 min when I saw two women approaching the line and they both gave the off with my head hand wave, also known as I quit, and then a minute later there goes Heather through the line trucking along. I cheered her on and was starting to get worried about Sarah, when she came up to the line a little behind Heather I could see she was upset. She pulled over, through the bike at me and started back to the car. Knowing that she needed some space to cool off, I stayed at the line for a little while cheering on passing racers before heading to the car to check on her.Sarah had calmed down by the time I had returned to the car, she told me what had happened and we walked back to the line to cheer Heather on.

    The post race analysis from the ladies was very interesting and different. Despite her illness, Sarah said everything was going good, the climbs/hills weren’t bad and she was with the group until about halfway through the first lap, when the rider in front of her slipped on some black ice and went down on the steepest climb. She had to stop to get her bike in a lower gear and was pushed up the hill by a spectator. The girl that went down caught Sarah a little while later, and Sarah gestured for her to pull through to help pace back up to the group, but that was a no go. The girl drafted Sarah until the next incline and left Sarah hanging (great sportsmanship). When she got back to the line her lungs were on fire, which is why she abandoned the race.

    Heather’s report was very different than Sarah’s. Heather said that one of the climbs was at least a 20% grade, this is the same one that Sarah got impeded on. So after two laps she decided to cruise until the finish. So hearing the stark difference in the descriptions of the course, I had to check Sarah’s Garmin for an actual route map and found the steepest climb was the one where she got dislodged from the group and its maximum grade was actually 4.9% but was not a rated climb, meaning it was not long enough or steep enough to be rated. Based on the information I received from Heather, we will need to help her work on improving her climbing skills and just keep Sarah in isolation so she can stay healthy!

Poor start

     I know I promised blogs after my races but my laptop, my main blogging machine, decided to crap out on me and I haven't had time to bury myself in the old home office to write at all. Let's start with The 19th Annual Carl Dolan Classic in Columbia,MD.
     This was my first race as a Cat 4 and I had hoped to be racing side by side with my team mate Bryan, but the registration for the 4/5 race filled in about a minute and thirty seconds, and my typing (like my riding ) is painfully slow. After about a week of deliberation I decided to sign up for the 3/4 race instead. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous about it at first but I calmed myself down and decided that it would be a great opportunity to learn from more experienced riders and to get some decent racing in, I've also heard that the 3/4 races are a little less accident prone so what the hell. Granted we had a pretty mild winter but when it came time for this race it was HOT for April. My race was in the early afternoon, so temps were in the mid to upper 80's and I was not acclimated to the heat at all. I was going to take two water bottles with me but my team convinced me otherwise. after a decent warm up on the trainer, I headed over to the starting line and awaited my first race as a Cat 4.
     We received our instructions and the whistle blew to send us on our way. This race was supposed to be 25.2 miles or 12 laps on a 2.1 mile loop. The course was pretty "easy" with a tough little climb that came after the only sharp turn, a right, and ended 100 meters from the finish and some breaks in the pavement that were just wide enough for a bike tire to get wedged into and could be hazardous if not treated as such. We did a couple of laps and I was very comfortable with hanging in the pack but it also became apparent that it was going to be damn near impossible to move up in this field. This race was capped at 125 riders, and we were racing on a two lane road with riders stretched from the left curb to the right curb, from stem to stern. To give you idea of what I'm trying to describe, the Giro de Italia has 190 or so riders in it, and they get wide open roads to try and avoid too many problems.
      The peleton circled five times with no issues, it would spread apart at the turn and come back together on the climb, but we also had no breakaways and so the pack stayed pretty tight together. On the sixth lap, just before the turn, some riders got tangled up on my right and a crash ensued. I considered myself lucky and kept on trucking around the turn and back up the climb. Just as the pack was coming back together on the climb, BAM, another accident, me and about four other riders narrowly escaped getting caught up in it by deviating off the course to the left and into opposing traffic. We worked our way back onto the course and chased to make contact with the field again. Not only is that hard but it was hot and my water bottle was empty, and I was in desperate need for more! When we looped back to sight of the second accident the officials had neutralized our race because one the riders had a pretty bad concussion. As we waited for the injured rider to get the medical attention he needed they let us retrieve more fluids and get out of the sun! I have to be honest, I considered dropping out of the race and calling it a day, the heat was getting to me but I didn't want to appear weak to my team mates or our junior squad, that had raced earlier. After about 15 minutes they called us back to the starting line, they informed us due to the delay they were cutting our race short, at the restart we only have 3 laps remaining, off we went for round two.
     The pace on the first lap was moderate, on the second it was FAST and after we exited the turn and hit the climb it was unreasonable. I'm a big guy and any kind of sustained climb really takes its toll on me to keep up with smaller guys, so when the pack hit the climb they we flying and I put a big effort in to stay with them and didn't make contact until just before the the finish line which turned out to be just moments before another crash to happen right in front of me! It was about 30 yards past the finish line and I was able to lock up my brakes, stay upright, and find a small hole to my right and then it was off to the races trying to catch the field AGAIN! But it was not to be, I fell in line behind a couple of Cat # guys and let them do the lions share of the pulling until we came back around to the climb when I came around them for the finish. I finished 51st overall and was able to avoid getting taken out by any of the crashes.
     I was correct on one thing the heat did takes its toll on me I had become so dehydrated and suffered from hyperthermia. I ended up staying home from work the following day because I felt so bad. I don't think any of the wrecks hurt my standing overall, I actually believe it helped me because it eliminated a lot of competition.  This is the only race I managed to be "involved" in so far this year all the others have been colossal failures, after Months of training and anticipating some good racing this year, I have yet to post a result better than this one. There is nothing quite like a bruised ego to bring you down. I didn't expect to come out and crush the competition, but not even being able to stay with the main field, or help my team mates is devastating to me, with any luck maybe I can salvage the rest of the season. Till next time!
   

The Snowcone Training race #2

That's me in the black and green argyle! Awesome Job Bryan!

     This was Team Integrity's First race together and I had a blast! It was nearly a 3 hour trip down to Richmond, Va and we took the time to plan our race strategy. This took all of 5 minutes and our individual goals were pretty similar, don't wreck and don't get dropped from the main pack. The rest of the trip I spent getting to know my teammate, which was very cool, he is very interesting and much more mature than my goofy ass. We also discussed how we were feeling and we were on opposite sides of the spectrum before the race; he was suffering from lack of sleep and fatigue from a hard day of training for his job; and I was feeling good and slept like a champ the night before.
     We arrived at our destination just before 11am, perfect! We had plenty of time to check in and warm-up before the race start. We got our bikes together and headed over to the course to check it out and warm up. The course had five turns, with one of those turns being a 180 degree turn before the finishing straight. After some hard efforts and a couple of sprints we took a couple of minutes to take in some gel and cool off. We got to the start, listened to the race instructions, and checked our computers while Bryan prepared his GoPro video camera(video here).
      I was nervous and jittery, as usual, and with the Official saying "riders ready, GO", we were off and hammering in no time. The Boys from Richmond velo sport kept the pace hot for the first couple of laps and we ended up shedding a lot of riders early on, but I was right there with the pack. I had been so focused on staying attached to the pack, that I had lost my teammate and was worried that he was dropped, but low and behold he was right there with me (awesome).
      The first 30 minutes I spent figuring out what lines to take and who to avoid. After I got comfortable with the pace I headed up to the front of the pack to take a turn with the pace setting and to see if I could pull away from the field with a hard steady effort, but it was going to take more than that with this field(note to self, if you going to make a break for then go all in or don't go at all!), I was over taken by the peloton and I settled in to recover before the final laps. The lap after my effort, the officials announced that we had 3 laps to go, and it got a little tenser in the group. The next two laps were quick but uneventful. Just before we got the bell for the final lap, I had got it into my head that I couldn't sprint for the finish, so we passed the finish line and I found Bryan to see how he was doing, because if he said good, I was going to kill myself to lead him out! So I rolled up and asked and his response was unexpected, "I hurt my back", "okay" I said and headed on up the road. The last lap was not as fast as the previous two, but people were getting really squirley, and it was making me nervous. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a wreck in a training race where a win would net me nothing(except boost my ego), but I wasn't going to give up. With all that being said I chose the wrong line going into the 180 turn got blocked out of the sprint and captain "hurt back' finished in front of me, because quite frankly he's a better/smarter racer than me.
     We both accomplished our two main goals and I earned another mass start to add to my resume'. I look forward to the next race with my new teammates and getting some more race experience. Next weekends goals will be very similar, except maybe some more time at the front and I've got to try and make a break even if it kills me! After all it is a training race, right? What better way to try something than in a training scenario.