The day after Glencoe I decided to head out to South Bend for some crit racing. The field wasn't huge but was respectable sized. Lots of Cat 3s, which is tough because most all of them had already raced the 3/4 race earlier. My collegiate teammate Doug "Duggles" Ansel almost took that one, but got second out of the break. Congrats to him on a good effort.
Our race started with a few break attempts. I was in a frustrating position: I knew I was strong enough that I should have made the break, but only strong enough to go with half the serious moves. So I missed the five man winning break, which was a bummer.
Back in the main field, guys were hurting big time. They were letting stuff go off the front like it was nothing. At one point three guys went, and then a fourth, fifth and sixth guy bridged like it was nothing and nobody reacted. The "break" grew to ten guys. It really ticked me off, so I decided to play sweeper and clean up the mess. My other collegiate teammate, Matt, was about to bridge as well. I turned to him and said, "no man, just sit on. I'm sick of this crap." I hit the front and pulled back all fifteen seconds from the ten man break.
The winning five man break lapped us. I hopped on as they came by, and the field realized they could too. Three guys from the break attacked. Brandon Feeherty, who was in the break, asked if I wanted to try to bridge to the three guys and if I'd help him. I told him yes, so we went. A third guy grabbed our wheels. I pulled at a pretty unsustainable pace for the first three laps to get Brandon up there but couldn't help him get there. We had like 12 laps to go, and it was pretty obvious we'd make it the whole way since the field was toasted. Brandon pulled the last lap and really helped me stay with the break toward the end, which was nice of him, but I still couldn't win the sprint. I thought we were sprinting for 6th buy apparently some other group got off the front that I didn't know about so I only got 13th.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Cobb Park 123s
Small field at the race yesterday; only 15 guys. That's a shame since its a good, well-run race put on by the South Chicago Wheelmen. A few moves went early but Tony and I stayed on top of them. Eventually a serious break with a Wheelman and a XXX guy got about 15 seconds. I had to start taking pulls. As we got closer, tony bridged and the Wheelman got dropped. Eventually Tony dropped off too, so I hit the front to kill the move.
After that the race was winding down and the Weelmen started sending guys off the front. Their strong juniors made good moves. With 4 laps left one of them got a big gap. I rode tempo to keep him in sight, but I thought he would make it.
With 2 to go I saw the lap counter flipped to "1" early. I got the sense that the two guys in front of me didn't realize it and thought it was the last lap. Sure enough, I followed their wheels as they sprinted a lap early. I looked back and had a substantial gap just like I hoped. I measured my effort since I knew I was likely to get the win if I could last. I caught the wheelmen kid with a half lap left. I eased up since I wanted him to grab my wheel so his team would sit up. Unfortunately he couldn't hold it. I was committed at this point. I still had a healthy gap out of the last corner, but jim flora from the wheelmen caught me with 200 meters left and took the win. Several people rode his slipstream to pass me in the last 50 meters. Anyway, it didn't work out but I played my cards well. You have to risk losing to win, and that's what I did.
Thanks to the wheelmen for putting on a great race again. Hopefully there will be more riders next year!
Monday, June 13, 2011
First Race Experience: Tour of Galena
Since this was my first race I really didn’t know what to expect. I wanted to gain experience and to see where I stack up against other competitors. My only two goals were to 1) not crash, and 2) have fun…
Time Trial: Although I had never been in a time trial before, I was comfortable with the race because of my experience in triathlon. The short-course was constant rolling hills, but nothing too steep. I tried to press hard uphill and recovered on the decent. I passed the rider who started a minute ahead so I knew that I probably had a good time going. I finished the
Road Race: I heard it was hilly in Galina. I guess “hilly” is relative. The time trial short-course wasn’t bad and the crit course was flat. How bad could the road course be?* Well, about half way down the first decent I told myself this would be my last road race. I had a death grip on the handle bars and was shaking so bad I was having trouble keeping smooth. I was scared. I liked the climbs a lot better. Although they hurt, I was not afraid of dying while going up. I could tell right away the uphill sections were where riders would be dropped. About half way through the course I was in third position, on the wheels of the eventual 1st and 2nd place finishers. This is where the steep decent/sharp turn/railroad-to-hell-crossing incident took place. When I flew off the road I was just glad that I didn’t crash. I scrambled to get back on the road, clip in, and catch the front again. When I pressed down nothing happened. That’s when I looked down to see the chain was off. I dismounted again, and fought against my trembling hands to put the chain back on. When I restarted the group in front was nearly cresting the next climb and I knew I was probably done. I was told that the top two riders finished together, then a small gap, then 3 more, then another gap to the rest of the field which was strung out. I was able to chase down everyone else, to finish 6th in a field of 40+.
* On Sunday I talked to one of the race organizers about the road course. He said it was probably the most difficult road course in
Crit: The crit course had two long straight aways, one easy, wide turn, and one tight, narrow turn. At the start of the race I went to the back of the field for about 5 laps, until the lead pack started to separate. I passed guys that were dropping to stay on the heels of the lead pack. With about 5 laps to go I wanted to see if I could get to the front. I was able to pretty easily and led for one lap before attempting to settling back in. This is where my inexperience hurt. As I gave up the lead I could not get back in line and ended near the back of the pack again. I was able to out-sprint most of the field down the stretch to finish 4th, but I put myself in such a bad position there was no way I could get to the front.
Overall this was a great first race experience. The long team rides and talking to some of the more experienced riders on the team helped tremendously. Looking forward to the next race!!!
Mike
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