Hey, A New Post!

Guess who's back? Probably no guessing required. You clicked the link to get here.

I raced CX this past weekend. Like always, it hurt a lot. CX gut from Day 2 lasted through Monday night. Never had that happen before. I could go on and on about how I don't have a lot of fitness and bore you with those details but I won't. Let's just say my lack of group rides (I haven't been on one now in over a year. Not entirely by choice.) is evident when I need to get back on the gas when I'm already in the red. Group rides can't be all of your training, but if the ride is fast enough and somebody's trying to win it, which they usually are, they certainly help develop the top end. My current top end is very close to bottom.

Still, all in all, pretty fantastic weekend of racing. Was in 5th on Day 1 going in the final lap until I realized the guys running me down were definitely going faster than me. I got nervous, which made me panic, which ended with me tangled in the tape. Not too long after that I gave away two spots, couldn't get them back and finished 7th. Day 2 was a bit better, though I gave away an additional place, however that happens. I averaged 30 extra watts, which I was happy with, because a review of the numbers from day 1 made me question how hard I was actually pedaling. In the smaller field sizes here that's essentially 2 mid pack finishes for 19-34 Cat 3s, but somewhere in the top 25% if you count all the Cat 3s on the course at the same time, but are all scored separately. It's confusing.

The following is not a direct criticism and believe me when I say I'm glad I'm not the one having to make these kinds of decisions. The promoter here runs the Elite women (field of < 10) with the Cat 3 men. They get a 30 second head start, then 30-40 Cat 3 men are released. On both days, we (top 15 through lap 1 on day 1, top 10 on day 2) caught all but 2 women in the first lap.

I only bring this up because it's a huge disruption for both the Cat 3 race and the Elite women equally. We're going faster than they are and in some cases, a lot faster. If you happen to make the catch on a straight section, no big deal, just go by. But most of the time it doesn't quite work out that way. We're either scrubbing speed to bide our time to pass or very rudely chopping them in the corner to maintain that momentum. They get mad at us when we pass aggressively. We get mad at them for not getting out of the way. And I think both parties are absolutely justified.

On Day 2 this overlapping of races caused a split in the Cat 3 race as the top 10 or so caught one of the women. The first 4-5 guys were able to get by before a corner. The next 4-5 guys had to wait. I was in the group of 4-5 that missed this split. Truth be told, my time in that group was probably limited, but I wouldn't have gotten popped out of it that early. By the time we could get a section to cleanly pass the gap was big enough that most of us weren't going across it. Looking at the results, I don't think anybody did. That's not a scenario that should be sorting out finishing positions.

Conversely, the results of the Elite women's race was also affected by the Cat 3 men. About mid way through the leading woman had about a 30-40 second gap over 2nd place. I passed her on a straight section and she grabbed my wheel as I went by and stayed there for a bit. There was a downhill, right turn into a steep hill where the line I liked wasn't the line she liked. She also wanted me going into that hill faster than I was going and was yelling "pedal, pedal, pedal" at me while I was coasting. She got tangled up in my rear wheel and crashed. I did not. The crashing part was her fault and I don't think I did anything wrong by taking the line I wanted at the speed I wanted as I was leading. That's a risk you take following into some section like that, but she ended up losing the race in a sprint, which should not have been the case, because she crashed on the wheel of a guy she wasn't racing which let 2nd place back in. A mental mistake for sure, but one that wouldn't have presented itself had she been off the front by herself, not navigating through Cat 3 men passing her.

I understand they want to race the Elite women separate from the new women so they don't all get demolished and discouraged. That makes sense, but this format just doesn't seem to be the right one. 30 seconds clearly isn't enough of a head start to ensure we aren't catching them that quickly. And ideally, the two races wouldn't have this kind of impact on each other, while being on the course at the same time. Maybe they need a bigger head start? Maybe they should start after the men? I'm sure the head of the men's race would still lap a few and maybe the head of the women's race would have to work through some of the back traffic of the men's field, but it seems like the over lap would be a lot less. At least, if you look at lap times, this seems to be the case. I don't know what the answer is, but in the current format, I see this sort of being an ongoing thing. I guess we'll see.

I'm mostly just stoked to finally be racing again and since my folks are now in town they came to the race on Sunday. Just like when I was younger playing baseball you can always pick your parents voices out of the crowd. I'm going to have to teach them to heckle because my dad's "dig deep" on every lap wasn't exactly helpful.

Upgrading. How does it work?

I’d like to genuinely start a dialogue about what I see as a major issue of modern day amateur cycling, the upgrade process. So clearly that first sentence has to be read a little tongue in cheek because I realize we aren’t curing cancer or solving Spain’s debt crisis, but, for those of us out there who spend a significant amount of time training and then racing, I think we owe it to ourselves and future generations to try and come up with a better system and solve this problem.

Issue 1 –

Fundamentally I think the current system is a problem because it does nothing but encourage bunch sprints and individual racing, regardless of how many matching jerseys may be in the field. Nobody gets rewarded for sacrificing themselves for a teammate, which, is what real bike racing is. Somebody tell me the last time Danny Pate won a bike race? Now tell me how long he stayed unemployed with the HTC collapse? We need to upgrade more Danny Pates  because they make racing safer by ensuring it’s fast and less guys are confusing themselves for Mark Cavendish with 500m to go.

I have no idea how you go about proving that despite not having impressive results you should be upgrade material. In our current system there doesn’t seem to be a way. But if you take our little team of VeloWorks-Spokes, Etc as an example, we’ve got a slew of podiums, and two wins (not counting training races), and exactly two guys with upgrade points. But ask them why they were able to win. Neither are going to say it’s solely because of their finish kick. That’s what we’re trying to do, so our small team is happy making that sacrifice for each other, but in the current upgrade model, our sprinters don’t get to say, they only agree to the Cat 3 upgrade if you bring these 3 guys with us, like Cavendish likely did with Pate and Eisel and like Contador has done with Pereiro and Hernandez when he’s moved teams.

Issue 2 –

Upgrading seems straight forward enough. You go to this website (http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=580) and you figure out how many guys started your race with one finger on the top, then you scroll down to your finishing position on the left, you then move those fingers down and to the right, respectively, and when they hit each other, that’s how many points your previous race earned you. Write that down and repeat the process for each race, adding those up until you get to 20. When you’ve gotten to 20 points, you send in an email requesting your upgrade and provide the coordinator with the names and results of those races. There’s also the 25 races with 10, top 10s or 20 pack finishes as an option, but unless your single, and want to drive to Jersey every weekend (they have a lot of crits with overlapping category fields), not many guys are upgrading using that method. But, then again, what do I know?

Apparently I know nothing. Because a quick review of the guys suddenly racing Cat 3s shows that the above described process is not how it actually works. And it’s not just this year, I looked up a bunch of guys who I’d raced with in 2011 that are now Cat 3s and a result in the single digit is rare, and they certainly didn’t race 25 times. One guy recently upgraded and I count 7 points from Cat 4 races. I’m confused. Are you?

If we’re going to have this point system, we should at least use it, right?

Issue 3 –

Training races, juniors and masters races counting for upgrade points. This shouldn’t even be an issue, but, apparently it is.

Training races obviously shouldn’t count, especially training races that aren’t even bothering to score more than 3 guys. Since the field size matters in how many points you earn and for a 50+ crit, 6^th place gets 1 point, can every guy in that race claim to have gotten 4-6? Who’s going to know? And who even knows if there were really 50 guys there? Results get screwed up all the time. I currently have a DNF and a 23^rd from Carl Dolan for the same race. Neither of those results are what they posted at the actual race site after the protest period closed. While that’s a whole different issue, at least, if push came to shove, somebody is trying to keep a record of that race. Those training races, at this point, basically didn’t happen, unless you need them to. See what I’m getting at here?

Junior races also shouldn’t count for upgrades and I say that as a person who is invested in the junior racing in this area. I whole heartedly believe that junior racing is important to grow this sport (that’s not rocket science) and I wish that every race was required to host a junior field, but with that said, there’s a lot of local guys using junior’s races as upgrade points and that’s just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Their fields are tiny and often dominated by two teams. If they do start with 20, only 10 are going to be left at the end, which really means you started with 10. (I like race attrition, but at least in the 4s the guys have done 10 5 races at some point. So even if they do get dropped, it’s not their first time racing. The juniors don’t have that same qualifying standard.) If one team is racing for 1 or 2 guys then 20% of the field just sits up on the last lap to make sure their teammates get the points to spread the upgrade love around. I understand that this point slightly negates my point above. It’s good that the kids are thinking about those things in making their race strategy. That will help them down the road. But that means whoever’s getting points from that race really only raced like 5 people that day. You get an upgrade point for that?

99% of these kids are going to be a much better and faster bike racer in the long term than I ever hope to be. I’m fine with that and in fact, I hope for that. But that’s not the point in this discussion.

Master’s – I don’t know if this is an issue. I don’t think it is. But for consistency sake I’ll throw it out there. I believe category upgrade points should be earned from category based racing. Masters will get their upgrades naturally every 10 years.  I also think most guys racing the Master’s races are primarily excited to not race with the point hunters in the 4s and 3s. They like their skin and want to see it stay attached. I’m secretly counting down the days!

And a few conspiracy theories:

-          Since your category is self-selected when renewing your annual license, what’s to stop you from just picking whatever category you want? Nobody’s checking into that.
-           Races over the past few years have been notoriously slow and or just not bothering to post results online, whether that’s on BikeReg, USA Cycling or their own website. If a tree falls in the woods and it doesn’t end up on the internet then who really won that race?

One day I hope to be a Cat 3 bike racer, if for no other reason than to stop saying “Cat 4” when someone asks me what category I am, but I have no idea how to solve this upgrade puzzle as it seems to get more confusing by the day and with each person I hear of getting an upgrade approved. It’s quite possible that I’m over thinking the whole thing and all I have to do is ask nicely. Maybe at the end of the season I’ll try that. But given these scenarios, I honestly think there’s an over-arching issue with this fundamental process of amateur bike racing that can and needs to be addressed. I just don’t have any good ideas. Maybe you do? If so, leave them in the comments and maybe next week we’ll tackle that Spain issue.

Got a Buck? Save a Bread Truck!

My wife is very good at marketing. She sent this email out yesterday  to some friends and family. I'm posting it here in hopes to drive some random traffic to the Richmond Cycling Corps site and solicit a few donations. There is not a better non-profit in the world. I mean that. Please help if you can!

Hi Friends,

I'm sending this along to you because I think it's a cause you'll find important.  A friend of ours runs a nonprofit organization for kids in under served communities in Richmond, VA and they are in a bit of a tough spot.  If you can do anything to help, however small or large it may be, the organization could use all the help it can get. 

Even if you don't want to or can't donate, maybe you can help by spreading the word around.  I'm hearing that this social media thing could be pretty powerful, so tweet to your friends (and follow @riccyclingcorps), post on Facebook, whatever.

We are trying to get these guys back on the road so they can keep helping kids!  

Details below...

Thanks!

Jill and Landall

We need your help! 

Richmond Cycling Corps is an inner-city program in Richmond that uses cycling as a tool for leadership and character development. They promise their youth that if they stay with RCC, they WILL get out of the projects. 

In order to transport the bikes to the kids they use an old converted bread truck that has recently broken down. Without the bread truck, they simply can't get the bikes to the kids and the program is at a stand still. These kids count on this program! 

Here is a link to some videos about the program: http://www.richmondcyclingcorps.org/video/ 

Here is a link to the local news story about the bread truck situation: http://www.nbc12.com/story/18062724/broken-down-truck-halts-non-profit-kids-cycling-program

Even a donation as small as $1 would help, so if you would like to donate you can do so on their website: http://www.richmondcyclingcorps.org/

Peanut Butter Energy Bars

I should preface this with giving credit where credit is due. This recipe is basically just a variation of the recipes Georgia Gould put on her website. If you want her varieties, you should check them out here, http://georgiagould.com/blog/2012/02/the-best-homemade-energy-bars/. Her directions are also probably a bit better than mine.

When my mom was visiting she made two varieties of Georgia's recipes and they were awesome. My wife remade the fruits and nuts bar with some variation based on what we had on hand. They turned out really well also.

Peanut Butter Energy Bars --

Ingredients:

2C (cups) rice crispies
2C rolled oats
1 package of bacon (fried, then chopped into small pieces)
1C peanut butter chips (chocolate chip pieces but in peanut butter flavor. sometimes hard to find. I use chocolate chips as a substitute)

1C creamy peanut butter
1C brown rice syrup

Directions:

Put your dry goods into a large mixing bowl and pre-stir.

In a sauce pan, heat the peanut butter and brown rice syrup over medium heat until it's combined and pretty runny.

Pour over dry goods.

With a spatula or wooden spoon mix the rice syrup/pb with your dry goods. Work quickly because when this stuff starts to cool it's going to get hard really fast. After about a minute, ditch the spatula and use your hands mixing it all together into one big clump.

Pour your mixture into a greased (crisco works if you got it) brownie pan.

Press the shit out of it to flatten it as much as you can. You want to try and get it about an inch thick. This will make sure everything holds together later.

Set it aside to cool for at least 1 hour. 2-3 is better. You can even leave it over night if you don't have time to mess with it.

Once cool, use a butter knife to cut equally sized bars of whatever portion you want. Since you wont' be trying to eat them on a bike you don't need any fancy wrapping instructions. Aluminum foil will work just fine. Store them in the fridge, though I'm not sure this is actually necessary.

Roughly 200 calories per bar if they're about 2" squares.

If you want, you can basically substitute any dried fruits or nuts for the bacon and peanut butter chips. You can also use almond butter or sunflower seed butter instead of peanut butter if you wanted. The more ingredients you add, reduce your rice crispies and rolled oats to 1C each. I've done tons of varieties and haven't found anything that isn't good.

Jefferson Cup. Not Good.

The Race: Jefferson Cup Road Race
The Course: 6, 11ish mile laps. 1 climb, the rest steepish rollers w/ a long false flat to the finish.
The Field: 3/4 Men
The Finish: Not DFL but not sure I actually got scored either.

It's less than 24 hours after I watched a group of guys pedal away from me up the climb at Jeff Cup. I guess I knew it was coming but, ever the optimist, I decided to start the climb at the back telling myself I could definitely at least just stay in contact over the top.

Well, that didn't happen and I had the pleasure of rolling it in by myself for the last 75% of that lap. Weird thing that I can't figure out is after the decent, I rode at threshold, by myself, avg about 24mph for the rest of the lap. My ability to go 200% of ftp for a sustained period on the climb which is what was required to stay in the group was zapped, that's a fact. But still riding at ftp for another 20minutes or so means that I definitely didn't bonk. I think this points to an even worse scenario, total mediocrity.

My teammates Thom and Mike rode really well. Thom well above where he expected himself to be and ended up 7th. Mike was strong and it's really too bad that I sucked so much and couldn't be there at the end to help him. That's definitely the worse part about sucking when you have teammates attempting to race as a team. The feeling of letting 3 other guys down is way worse than any embarrassment of pedaling in solo after everyone else has already started to explain to their friends why they didn't win. Mike had to avoid the crash that was in the finish but still ended up 8th. Luckily he didn't get tied up in that.

The positives:

- Not crashing when the kid in front me missed his bottle in the feed and it immediately went under my rear wheel.

- Not crashing when the junior forced me off the road and into a gravel driveway with a mailbox at 35+mph on one of the descents.

- Seeing Jill holding Hudson and the mesmerized look on his face as the group rolled by every lap.

- 65 miles in around 2:45 is a good training day and I suppose that's how I should look at it.

The negatives:

- The race was basically 2 laps too many. If we'd have done the 4 in the morning and not the 3/4 in the afternoon I think we'd have come to line with 4 guys, organized and able to win. (It should be point out that it's my fault we did the 3/4 as I made the sell and convinced everyone it was a good idea. Another reason I feel pretty shitty about how my day went).

I didn't see anybody taking pictures but if I end up on You Got Dropped I'm retiring and taking up bowling.

Black Hills Circuit Race

The Race: Black Hills Circuit Race
The Course: 10 laps a of 1.5 mile circuit
The Field: 4/5 Men
The Finish: 8th

I read another local guy's description of the 4/5 field that was pretty accurate, having taken part in that race. His observation was that we rode around slowly for 9.8 laps and then really fast for .2. That's about right, but hopefully a trend we can buck.

Not sure if it was the hill or what but there just wasn't a lot of motivation for a lot of guys to ride hard. I suppose I'm just as much to blame as anybody because I was at the front and on the front several times but never really drilled it, not even up the hill. And because of that we all came to the bottom of the hill in a big group with 30+ guys confusing themselves for a Alejandro Valverde type.

My job coming into this race was to stay at the front and play defense against any dangerous looking moves. Nothing really ever took off. We let two guys dangle for two laps but when we did bring them back they had both completely dropped the anchors, clearly a move that wasn't going to go to the line.

The pre-race plan was to drop Mike off about a quarter of the way up the hill if it was still groupo compacto. It was, but I couldn't find Mike in the group so the plan changed to follow wheels and hope for the best result I could get. I also had no idea where Thom or Jay were but before the right sweeper that leads to the hill I heard Thom tell me he was behind me and he had Jay on him. At that point, it made sense to try and drill it and lead Jay out as best we could. In theory that would have been great, in practice we left it too late and by the time I got room to go, people were sprinting.

Jay is VERY fast for 5-10 seconds, just like a good sprinter should be, and he used that burst to get through the traffic and finish 4th. Thom came by me right at the line for 7th and I got 8th. Mike came out of no where picking his way through the chaos for 15th. It wasn't the plan we drew up but 4 guys in the race and 4 guys in the top 15! Not too bad and a great start to the season.

From an entirely selfish perspective I think taking the split second to make the decision to try and find a hole to lead out Thom and Jay cost me a few spots. I had the wheels I was going to go with as my own lead out and abandoned them. Though, after watching a very grainy video of the finish I don't think I'd have won because I wasn't aware that the French National Champ was even still there so obviously I'd been following the wrong wheels.

All things considered I think everybody on the team did exactly what they needed to do to be there at the end. Thom and Jay weren't sure how it was going to play out on the hill so they were being conservative in the field. Since it never got really hard they were still there and were able to take high placings because of it. I was able to stay at the front, watch the moves, play defense and still had plenty left at the end. I'm looking forward to being the aggressor in a few of the upcoming races. Eventually some move has to stick right?

Video of the finish:



A few photos:

The Greatest Cycling Coaching Company EVER!

And, I need to link to the image for our race team blog. Which you can check out here: http://veloworksspokes.wordpress.com/