USGP - Planet Bike Cup

Madison, WI

4 races and a revelation
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Been looking forward to this weekend for several months. Doubly so since I found out that my favorite CX racer ever, Erwin Vervecken, was coming along to race.

Drove up to Madison on Friday, booked into the super 8 with every other cheapass CX racer, went to collect my numbers and check out the presentation, then hit up State St in search of pizza. Paisan’s did the trick, so good that we ordered a second one.

Dawn Saturday and woke up feeling pretty off. Forced some breakfast into me that wasn’t really worth it – got my stuff together with very little enthusiasm and headed for the course. There had been some significant rain the previous afternoon, but the course was fairly well drained – only a very moderate amount of mud.

Nice open start to a gradual right hander to a right hairpin and a gradual bend leading to the double barriers – no real bottleneck for the first km or so; that’s fairly typical for races with large numbers. Then a few muddy off camber turns, couple of bits of twisty stuff through the trees, a few heavy straight stretches with plenty of passing opportunities, couple of pavement hairpins into an extended wood section with tricky, tight off camber corners, up a hill into a right hand turn and a sharp left to the hillside strangler, steep hill with a set of four railroad ties, tricky variable radius off camber curves to the start/finish straight.

There were 4 swooping off-camber sections that were problematic in the mud, stay high and risk sliding off, go low and you might get stuck in a rut or not have the traction to get back up.

First practice lap with about 35 psi in the tires I was bouncing around way too much, 2nd lap I bled down to something below 30 psi and it was night and day. Hooking up well and smooth as buttah on the straights. Almost riding on the rims, but with only one pavement section that wasn’t a problem. Recently converting to tubeless was definitely a help – anyone who ran tubulars certainly had an advantage.

So, it was an open course, not very technical, fast but heavy going in parts. Keeping it upright would be important.

Can’t fault the organization anywhere. Call ups by order of registration, announcers keeping it exciting, even for the 4s race, starting grid, plentiful bike washes (very much appreciated), pits, more officials than you could shake a disgruntled bike racer fist at; it was all very pro.

I line up in the third row with no idea how I was going to do. We receive our instructions – no kicking, gouging within eyeshot of small children etc. - and we’re off! I don’t feel like I’m going fast but a gap opens up in front and I shoot through, then another one, shoot through that as well, round the corner, losing and gaining places then the whole field brakes for the hairpin and we simultaneously fishtail skid 30 metres – everyone keep it upright and we get round that ok, then the next turn and the slight uphill to the barriers.

By the first turn I was hit with that curious taste of mercury, blood and ashes in the mouth that one usually gets midway through the last lap of the hardest race of the year. By the second turn I had a rasping dry throat, by the third I was overheated, by the fourth nearly shivering. Something was not right. Nothing to do but maintain my position as best I could and hope that my body would recover. It never did, I gradually felt worse but somehow my legs kept turning. I lost a few places here and there, guys would bury themselves to pass me, then blow up and I’d pass them at my cruising speed. Can’t recall catching many people but the attrition rate was pretty high and crashes lost folks lots of time. I only made one serious mistake, trying to ride the double off camber on the high side and sliding out, losing five positions that took me a lap to get back. I also messed up the entrance to the hillside strangler on each of the first four laps, either botching my dismount or losing my footing on the ultra-slippy steps and sending the bike under the fencing, but didn’t lose any placings. Otherwise, I took the corners pretty conservatively, using the outrigger to rail some of the fast corners and negotiating my way through the off cambers and ruts without doing anything stupid. One of my favorite things about cross is the way lines can change each lap and you have to keep your wits about you to keep aware of this. With the course rapidly drying, many corners became deeply rutted and sketchy, while previously unnegotiable parts became suddenly rideable. The tracks in the straightaways also became quite loamy and one was faster to just ride in the grass to the side. Paying attention to this helped me quite a lot.

There was a group of 6 or 7 a few turns ahead of me that I came close to catching on the last lap, but never quite made it. The last time up the hill I was flawless, but a guy who I had caught and presumed to be a lapped rider produced an astonishing running burst to pass and gap me with enough space to make it over the finish before I could catch him again. Lesson learned; presume nothing.

That was it. I came home pretty dissatisfied and with a serious side stitch. Astonishingly, I was placed comfortably in the top 20 of 90 starters. I didn’t deserve it.

With an hour to kill, I chugged down a liter of powerade in one go, chilled for a bit, trying to take it all in, grabbed the singlespeed and headed for the line for more of the same. No tubeless on this setup, but I still reduced pressure to close to riding on the rims and hoped that the rapidly drying course would compensate for the lack of grip on my worn rear tire. SS is a lot of fun and features riders of cat 1-5 abilities. We lined up behind the 2/3 field and witnessed the most spectacular starting crash I’ve ever seen. Bodies flying everywhere, must have been about thirty bikes piled up. A couple of bike fatalities but no serious personal injuries.

I did what I could. Didn’t slack, kept it upright the whole race with no notable mistakes, enjoyed the plentiful rear wheel slides that made cornering that much quicker, and didn’t come last. A couple of people got away from me that wouldn’t have if I were fresh, 42*18 gear worked great, 42*17 would have been perfect with fresh legs. It was a lot of fun catching about two dozen of the 90 or so Cat 2/3 racers and just practicing my cornering and dialing in the course. Amazing what grades you can get up when you have no choice.

With two laps to go I felt a strange pain in my lower quads, one I normally don’t get. I looked down and, sure enough, my saddle had started slipping. I spent most of the rest of the race just hammering out of the saddle and had a revelation – I was going faster. Hurt like hell, but I was getting up to speed way quicker out of every corner and actually catching people much sooner than I expected. And managing to recover in the coasting sections as well. I had forgotten the intensity of cross and had been ignoring my rules: If you're in your happy place, downshift and go harder. There's plenty of time for recovery later.

Despite feeling well out of sorts, I simply hadn't been going hard enough. My lollygagging had thrown away a top 10 on a course that really suited me.

I'll keep Sunday brief. Mrs F's birthday. Same swanky restaurant as Erwin and the UCI bigwigs (thanks Chris from Team Magnus). I had the wild boar, Erwin had the lamb chops. Too much rich food. Managed to digest it but not breakfast the next morning. I was still wiping the barf off my bars when the whistle went.

Second row start this time. Lungs actually felt great,, I was ready to apply my newly refound Go Harder philosophy, but the legs had nothing; empty. Went backwards from the start, the Pegasus guy who took the holeshot went down on the first hairpin and the field compressed. Found a nice inside line but the fool behind me decided to muscle in to the minuscule inside space as well and took both of us out. My own fault for even leaving a chink of light there and not protecting it better. Lost 10 places there, a few more on the next corner and a few more coming to the barriers. Simply couldn't respond, cruising speed was fine, I could even up the pace a bit here and there but that top end was AWOL. Saturday's exertions sure sapped the legs.

The course was only a little changed from the previous day, a bit faster, only slightly muddy from the dew but drying up fast, a few more twisty bits with a couple of the off-cambers made easier. Instead of the railroad ties, we now rode up stranglers hill, descended into a steep hairpin and rode up again. Without practise, I wasn't even going to attempt it so I dismounted at the top, ran down, made the tight turn and ran up again. I passed two people on the first lap by doing this and lost no places or time on any lap. Amazingly, most people rode the whole thing but I didn't trust my legs or the slippery turn at the bottom. I also avoided that extra effort and feel that I was able to catch a good few later who fatigued from riding this section.

The first two laps consisted of me going backwards, lap 3 I stabilized my position, laps 4 and 5 I pulled a couple of baller moves on tired groups of riders and caught large numbers. Crossed the finish line 15 places lower than Saturday - could and should have been a lot worse.

The singlespeed race was fun. I was gapped and in last place by the first bend, nothing in the legs whatsoever and really had to dig deep not to DFL. We caught the tail of the 2/3 race stalled on the first off-camber section and I was looking forward to catching loads more 2/3s like Saturday, but it never happened. They just rode away from me. My only goal now was not to get lapped. Coming to the bell lap I thought I had plenty of time between me and the 2/3 leader but I wasted too much time goofing off on the hill with the Pegasus riders and then bobbled badly on the last rutted off-camber. The leader caught me coming into the finishing straight and I was pulled. Bit of a bummer but that's how it goes.

Anyway, an enjoyable weekend. I learned a lot and remembered a lot. Funny how the lungs let you down one day and the legs the next. I'm due a breakthrough result sometime this season. My results in the cat 4 were better than I deserved, considering how I raced so badly, so I must be doing something right. I need to keep training and ensure that I come to the races well-prepared in mind and body. Someday it'll happen - hopefully, I didn't throw away this year's chance already.

Illinois State Road Race

Willow Springs, IL

If you believe that a State Road Race Championship should be long and hard, and those fighting it out at the finish should have earned the right to be there, then you’re probably not from Illinois.

Amazing job from Tower Racing in finding the only hill in Chicagoland, organizing the permits, partial closure of roads and solving multiple other problems – while keeping a strong emphasis on safety (and parking a respectable Irish pub, with viewing patio, on the course). After the usual ritual of getting lost in Chicagoland, we found the racesite; parking and registration couldn’t have been smoother; temperature was cool and the mood was good. $35 registration is a very fair price for a road race, considering that CX and Crit races are hitting $30 now. I have no problems with the late fee either. Many people doubled up, so it would have been nice to get that $10-15 off for a second race as $70 is starting to get a bit steep to support the premier bike event of the year as fully as one can.

The 10 mile triangular course consisted of a 3 tier mile long hill with about 200 ft of climbing, a smooth descent followed by two 4 mile sections of smooth, narrow and sheltered road with a couple of false flats. The finish line was located at the top of the hill and the start a short distance before the bottom, so each race would ascend the hill by the number of laps plus one. Bar the hill, there was nothing to aid a separation, the lack of wind and smooth road kept speeds high, however this lack of natural separation didn’t prevent the cat 4s from creating their own.

It’s been an abysmal season for me. Don’t know if I’ve even finished in the upper half of a race this year, so I was hoping to gain some redemption with this one and get a decent result. Being a hill aficionado with no sprint, but solid endurance, I thought I should be able to do ok.

The order of the day was hammer it up the hill, coast down, tootle along merrily chatting amongst ourselves for the next 9 miles and repeat. Those who did well never showed their face at the front, did no work and had enough endurance to put out strong surges in power over a 1-2 minute period. Being an uphill sprint, the bigger 20 second crit sprinters were at a disadvantage – it would be interesting to see whether the smaller sprinters or the more powerful, but bigger, trackie types would do well on the day..


Masters Cat 4/5 75 starters

Biggest field of the day for the old geezer 4/5s. We were all aware that the centerline rule was strictly enforced, but other details concerning where use of both lanes were allowed were unclear because nobody outside the first two rows was able to hear the official.

Off we went, there were several holes and parallel cracks in the road that we weren’t prepared for and half a dozen bottles went flying immediately. Up the hill at a robust clip – hurt like heck in my unwarmed-up state – and through the finish line. Mindful of previous experience I tried not to lag near the back where accidents happen but only managed to make it up to about 40th place.

Crash #1

A little bit past the finish, just where the shoulder vanishes, something happened. I didn’t see or hear it happen, just saw the rear of a bike, with a leg attached, lying horizontal about 5 wheels ahead. I yelled out a warning, hit the brakes and unclipped. I slowed down pretty quick but was most worried about being crashed into from behind and sent flying into the rapidly increasing pile of bikes and bodies. Somehow I managed to negotiate my way between the flying bottles, metal, carbon and flesh but didn’t have time to congratulate myself. The guys at the front punched it immediately and the pack was split in two. There was no way I was going to let them get away and have my race ruined. I endured several of the most painful minutes I have ever experienced on a bike, chasing like a madman until they slowed down slightly for the turn onto 96th and I caught back on. Only a couple of us made it.

Nothing much happened after that, I felt we were going pretty slowly and expected that the rest of the field would catch on, but they never did. There were a bunch of manholes on Archer Rd that weren’t expected, and made taking a drink quite risky – combined with regular 4/5 riding, you had to have your wits about you to avoid surprised riders with one hand off the bars making squirrelly moves. That said, the pack was overall quite well behaved and nobody took any stupid risks. I was still suffering from my bridging effort and hung at the back hoping to recover.

The first three times up the hill were painful. The fourth time, coming on to the last lap, I got to the top and realized that I had barely noticed it. Took me 30 miles to warm up. Time to move up and get in good position for the final dig.

I spent the rest of the lap trying to move up without much success. I’d try on the outside, get stalled and get passed by those on the inside. Try again on the inside, and get passed by the outside. We were all bunched up and with very few people jockeying for position there was little fluidity and opportunity to get forward. I kept trying, nonetheless, and as we hit the corner for the final climb I looked around to gauge my position. I was still amazed to see that I was last but one of the 35 or so still in the pack.

As usual, a few riders found they were in too high a gear and stalled. I took the oppor-tunity and dug hard, shooting up to about 20th and tucking back in. Hitting the second tier I was able to move up to about 15th past a few guys who were starting to feel the quickening pace. All I needed now was the pack to spread out a bit and move into the top 10 before the final deciding all-out effort for the line.

It never happened, nobody was sure where the centerline rule ended and risk getting DQ’d so we proceeded like that until coming to the base of the hill. Boxed in, with not much I could do about it!

Then the shenanigans started: someone decided to break to the left, then swing to the right, another guy gave his teammate a lead out and decided that swinging over to the right and impeding half the pack was the right thing to do. Others felt that riding diagonally was preferable to going straight, and if swinging to the left didn’t make you faster, then trying to swing to the right might. The two guys directly in front of me were banging shoulders and handlebars and swerving all over the shop. I was seriously scared to move up - shamefully amateurish riding.

I felt amazing - floating uphill with no chain, accelerating up the slope and feeling nothing. My first no-chain day of the year and I’m having to soft pedal and touch the brakes several times to avoid the nonsense in front that was scaring the living daylights out of me.

After an eternity feeling that I was stuck outside the pay toilet with a crooked penny, the two antagonists in front ran out of steam and I was able to sneak by. Just in time:

Crash #2

One of the guys I had just passed went down; spontaneously, I think. I heard the worst crashing cacophony imaginable; yells, swearing, brakes and the sound of metal scraping and carbon breaking – lots of it – frames, wheels, shifters, bars, the lot. At least 10 people got taken out. A buddy who came on the scene a couple of minutes later said there were bodies and bikes all over the road.

I didn’t look back, just wanted to get the hell out of there. Finally, I saw daylight with about 60 meters to go and was able to punch it for all I was worth. I zoomed past half a dozen riders and managed to sneak into the top 10 before running out of real estate, crossing the line with plenty left in the tank and feeling like I had barely broken sweat.

I, along with a few others boxed-in guys, should have been sprinting for the podium. I was at least as strong as anyone else in the race. Lousy positioning on my part and inept riding by others had cost me the chance for the win. Still, a top 10 in the State road race is a remarkable improvement for me – I’ll take it and be thankful that I’m still intact.

Cat 4 race 55 starters

Things were a bit more fluid in this race. This time the official made sure that everyone heard the pre-race instructions and we had all taken the time to figure out where we could spread out for the hill. I was feeling bad about not doing much work in the previous race, so I went to the front from the beginning and pushed the pace several times to make it just that bit safer. I also wanted to test the legs and see what I had left; clearly not much as I nearly got dropped the second time up the hill. So, I wouldn’t be sprinting for the win, but there was no reason that I still couldn’t get a good top 15-20 result if I paid some attention to good positioning and measured out my efforts.

Crash #3

Nothing much to report before the finish. The pack stayed together, maybe 3 or 4 people got dropped by flatting or finding that they just couldn’t climb hills. Next-to-last time up the hill, half a dozen riders decided to risk DQ and crossed over to the left lane, one fool knocked over one of the cones placed to prohibit this and knocked it into the path of another rider in the right lane. He managed to avoid it, but was forced back into the next cone. Sandwiched between the pack on the right and the rule-flaunting riders on the left he had nowhere to go, colliding with the cone, going down with a blood-curdling scream and taking a couple others with him. Meanwhile, the guys who caused it all snuck back into the pack, smirkily pretending that nothing had happened. I hope they’re proud of themselves.

The hill was starting to hurt, but I didn’t want to repeat the positioning fiasco of earlier; I sucked up the pain, dug deep, and made it into the first half-dozen riders as we crossed the summit. I let myself fall back a few places here and there but stayed in the front third of the field for the rest of the lap, being able to move over and let my teammate past for a prominent position as well. Things were a bit more fluid, and this time it was much easier to float back and forth in the field if you kept your wits.

Hitting the hill for the last time I was in about 20th wheel, a position I was confident I could move up from, and I shifted to a lower gear for the steep first section. Then I got swarmed by about 15 riders from behind. Most of them found they were overgeared or ran out of gas, and after a little dig I was able to pass them again and regain my position. At the head of the field a couple of larger guys had broken away early, but they weren’t getting away and the top 20 were pretty much together. I was happy where I was and thought I could probably sneak another top 10 if I played my cards right.

Crash #4

At the crest of the first hill the Cuttin’ Crew train was busting a move on the outside, trying to get their man in position for the win. Not sure what happened, probably a wheel rub; I heard a drawn out ululation and saw a guy going into a full tuck and flying over the bars while sending his bike skidding to the right into my path. I Yell, brake, head for the ditch, trackstand; all on an uphill. Snuck through between the bike and the margin but that was it for me and the other racers directly behind. I pulled a muscle in my thigh trying to catch on, did manage to get on to the tail end and had a good view of the finish as we hit the final hill. 5 or 6 riders were fighting it out for the win, another 10 or so trying not to blow up and fill out the top 10 and another 15 in various stages of going backwards. I had nothing left and soft-pedalled home, still managing to pass another half-dozen or so bikers who were in a worse state than I was for a place
somewhere in the thirties.

That was it, exchanged a few war stories on the cool down, had something to eat and a couple of beers in the Irish pub, watched some more races and headed for the U2 concert that evening.

Looks like I’m finally hitting some form for the real season – Cyclocross starts in a week. Glad that I was able to put a silver lining on my miserable road season with a respectable result, but still annoyed that I was capable of competing for the top step of the podium and did a lousy job of enabling that to happen.

That said, I saw four crashes up close and managed to avoid them all. None of them should have happened – all were due to sloppy riding. I’m still alive and unharmed, that’s more important to me than any result.

While it’s great to have a unique course in the Chicago region, and Tower Racing did a great organizational job, anyone who thinks that this was a road race is fooling themselves. It wasn’t. It had the intensity somewhere below a Sunday group ride interspersed with a hard 2 minute effort every 25 minutes. The results say very little about riders road racing abilities – including mine. The hill added a different flavor and threw up some unexpected and welcome faces on the podium in all the races. It’d be great to have a State Championship that was genuinely long, hard and selective, like Iowa’s or Missouri’s, but let’s face it: we live in a state where road races are an afterthought and we have to be grateful for what we can get.

Jackson Park Cyclocross - Venez Nombreux!

Amazing turnout for the first CX race of the season. Four hundred and change was the number - making it the biggest cross race ever held in Illinois. Congrats to XXX and CHiCrossCup for bringing out the crowd and growing the scene remarkably. My experience of Chicago is that you need to charge more in order for people to appreciate it The extra bikereg fee and proposed late fee appear to have done the trick.

Plan for the year was to do a few cat 4 races, actually see the head of a race at least once, hopefully sneak a top 10 placing somewhere and then cat up as packfodder to the 3s. I had been looking forward to this for several months; last year I was bubbling under the top 10, this year - definitely stronger - I wanted to break through.

Manged to drag myself out of bed early enough to eat some oatmeal and make the 2.5 hour drive to Jackson Park in Chicago. The field for the Masters 30+ was relatively small, so decided to jump into that as a second race and use it as a warmup mission. After standing in a non-moving line for 20 minutes the XXX folks kindly brought me to the front and got me registered with 15 minutes to spare. Took me a full five minutes to pin on my number, hit the portapotty and get the bike together. I rolled around the parking lot a couple of times feeling pretty dead, saw Damon from Beverly, who busticated a rib on a major rut during warmup, and headed for the line.

I just took a place at the very back of the 30 starters and decided to take it easy for the first couple of laps to get to know the course and not to kill myself. At the whistle I stayed out of the starting shenanigans, felt pretty awful, and took it fairly easy. Good thing I did because I was all over the place on the first couple of laps. A mighty twisty course had me braking like crazy and heading into the course tape several times. I just wasn't getting warmed up and rode tempo - passing a few folks who crashed or dropped chains - and maintaining about 22nd place. The course was bumpy as heck, so between the excessive braking and the difficulty of building up any speed it took me forever to get in the zone. Eventually, after 4 laps I started to feel ok and was able to downshift a couple of gears, dial in the turns, lay off the brakes, and maintain a higher speed. The higher gear is always much better for bumpy courses, and the surface was starting to break in from all the bikes and gradually get faster.

Troy from Mission Bay - who had beaten me in every race last year - passed me then so , of course, I had to test myself. We hammered it for the last 3 laps. I'd pass him on the spiral of death, he'd get me on the barriers and I'd pass him again half a lap later and try to put some distance on him. He'd catch back up and get me on the next barriers. This race within a race really got things going, I forgot about my worsening back from all the bumps, and we passed what seemed like a bazillion 40+ backmarkers and lapped a few 30+ to boot - all in various states of blowing up and just ready to be done.

I got a small gap in the final lap and maintained that to the end. Crossing the line knowing that I had at least raced for a full 15 of the 45 minutes. Of course, the results got messed up and we were listed as close to DFL. I couldn't be bothered protesting, especially when the 40+ racers were getting mighty perturbed over some major scoring errors in their race. Maybe they'll recheck the 30+ while they're doing the 40+ and figure out that we weren't actually lapped, but it's not something that I'm going to worry about - and it's a longstanding cross cup tradition.

The course itself was a bit weird. They had clearly put a lot of thought into the design features - nice use of elevation change with a couple of tricky off-camber hairpins to keep you honest, plus a groovy spiral of death that I always enjoy trying to rail and the best part - a 3 log barrier that gave you a choice of riding or running; but the overriding theme was turns, lots of them, all requiring extreme braking and just enough skill not to crash. There weren't any long enough stretches to get back up to speed so it was a sequence of brake, accelerate, brake, coast around twisty bits, brake accelerate etc. If you really hammered into the start/finish you might pick up a big enough head of steam to catch someone going into the sand, and maybe another one coming out. But that was about it. It felt like it was designed by a mountain biker who had a complex against going fast and wanted to get his revenge against every roadie who had ever passed him. Therefore hairpin turns were placed at every possible opportunity to ensure momentum was killed and to negate any possible advantage one might have from going faster or railing a turn. There's a good reason you see very little of this at the UCI races - it makes for remarkably boring racing. Twisty but not technical - great for causing logjams and congestion. Not my kind of course, but I appear to be in a minority of one on that.

Meanwhile, after rehydration, hanging around meeting old acquaintances and taking in the following races - three hours had gone by and it was time to suit up for the 4a race.

The race was decided before the whistle even went. A hole shot into a set of hairpins meant the scramble for starting position would decide everything. I managed to muscle my way into the the 2nd row, but I doubt if anyone not on the front row got into the top 10. I was lucky enough to be on the faster-starting side, moved-up rapidly, rubbing shoulders and wheels into the hairpins and was in about 15th wheel hitting the sand - a pretty good start for this diesel. That's never high enough though, as someone between 7th and 10th always goes down and creates a logjam. The first seven got through cleanly to fight it out, a couple of fast-twitchers lose it and get tangled up and all those on one side are forced to get off their bikes and run. Lost about 5 places here. We roll around till the first hairpin barrier, I take it very cleanly but on the remount find that someone has optimistically placed their front wheel over my pedal and I'm trying to clip into his spokes. I get swarmed by about 10 riders before I can remount again and that was it. Stuck in a convoy through all the chicanes and turns. If you could maintain a certain minimum speed it was not possible to be passed unless you crashed. No choice but to resign myself to the parade until things would space out on lap 2. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. We continued on in the procession - passing maybe two riders per lap and losing or gaining a place on the barriers - until half a lap to go. Finally people started to tire, daylight appeared and I was able to get past a couple more riders for the final spurt to the line.

Very short race - The winner crossed in about 25 minutes. Last year we did six laps for 8 miles., this year four laps for 6 miles. It was the first cross race ever that I can say I just did not enjoy. I've raced in larger fields, but on courses that were designed to allow races to spread out and that didn't consider going fast a crime. I felt that I just didn't race. My result had nothing to do with how fast or slow I was, merely to do with starting on the second row. A third row start and I would have been ten places further back. Fourth row and I would have finished in the forties. So it goes.

A pretty deflating way to start the season. Once you get that top 10 callup it's very difficult not to maintain that placing. I need to forget about series points and callups and just take as much as I can get from each race and enjoy the experience.

We suck it up and move on. I'll be heading for Madison this weekend - that should be very different. I'll make sure to enjoy it more.

Colesburg 40 Gravel Road Race.

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IL State Time Trial Champs

Harvard, IL

I dug out the TT frame a couple of weeks before this and rode it exclusively coming up to this event. TTing is always something I’ve liked. I have a good tolerance for suffering and have always seemed to maintain concentration and never give up. Good attribute for my favorite discipline of cyclocross.

The aim was to break 25 mph and average 290W. I’d been doing 285 W in training without too much pain, so I thought this was achievable if I were fresh and well-prepared. Equipmentwise I own a craigslist TT frame and fork, with a too-tall headtube, that I got a great deal on plus: a Giro TT helmet, chopped roadbars, performance’s cheapest clip-ons and an 8 speed shifter run in friction mode so I can use a 9 speed 11-23 cassette. Regular road wheels (18 spoke, 28 mm rim) on front and 32 spoke powertap with open pro rim on back, all shod with regular 23 mm Michelin Pro Race 3s. I’m a bit more flexible this year so I reduced the stem height by about 2 cm and brought my position slightly forward. Not being a fan of buying speed, I made my own aerocovers with some Hobby Lobby foamboard and some zipties – a complete PITA to mount and dismount, and I’m not sure that it makes me faster, but I do it just to annoy the folks who spend $1000+ for a cool sound and a few extra seconds.

I’d be more impressed with the event organization if they could actually state the correct distance on the flyer (it’s 32.7 km, not 30 km) and let us know in advance how rough the roads were in parts. Closing online reg a week beforehand and then charging a cheeky $37 for day-of is not the way to impress. If it wasn’t the State Champs I doubt that many would have turned up. As usual, payout was minimal. That said, the most important thing was safety: the course was very well-marshalled with very little traffic. They also got the results online very promptly, something that very few promoters seem able to manage.

Onto the day itself - not enough sleep, 2.5 hour drive, lousy warmup is not the way to prepare. Temp in the 70s was perfect with a light breeze. There’s a 10 minute start delay so I use that time to go for a little more warm-up cruising. Of course, I lose track and end up sprinting back to the start just as my minute man is taking off – a close call!

I get going and use the PT to moderate my power and avoid the early blow up. Just can’t find any rhythm and the horizontal cracks in the road jarring me every two seconds really start to get to me. I shift up and shift down, playing around with my cadence, but just can’t seem to find that happy place. I try to keep power up but there are several points where I look down and find I’m doing only 220W. Feels like my seat is way too high and my hamstrings are in serious pain already. Hit the first corner, the surface improves, and I make a big effort to settle in – finally find some rhythm and am able to put down a consistent power for a while. A few more corners, taken conservatively, and I’m about two thirds done. This is where there is an extended section of potholes, hidden in shadows, followed by the one fast downhill with a rough culvert at the bottom that’s just begging for a dropped chain or pinch flat. I get some direct pothole hits and
then coast gingerly over the rough hollow. Probably lost quite a few seconds here but I’m not prepared to risk it when I don’t know the course. The strangest thing is that I passed noone and nobody passed me. Something that’s never happened me before. Catching sight of a rabbit can be a great motivator, as can being caught; I found it mighty lonely out there.

After the last turn I know it’s a straight shot for home on a slight uphill and mild headwind. Really starting to hurt here and my muscles and tendons are protesting. The next few miles consist of alternating between 30 secs or so at 300 W, dropping down to 240 for a few seconds, before sucking up the pain again – all the time waiting for an indication that the finish line was near - some course distance markings would have been useful. After an eternity in the pain cave, and many false sightings, I see the finish tent and hammer for all I’m worth for the final minute.

24.6 mph, 283 W - Kinda disappointing. There are folks putting out lower power and going faster, so I’ve still got quite a lot of aero gains to make. The good news is that my breathing was fine, my legs let me down. I think my saddle was just too high. Way too much messing about with position and I guess I never settled on one in time to really get used to it. I estimate my CdA at about 0.275 m^2. Looks like I can afford to lower my position a bit more and get closer to 0.26 CdA – that would have me comfortably above 25 mph. Gotta dial in one position for next year and ride that a lot more.

Resultswise Cat 4/5 is always a bit of a joke. You always get a bunch of triathletes or TT specialists who have never raced enough to upgrade and come out to do some ridiculous times. The top 5 would also have podiumed in Cat 3 while the winner did 28 mph and just lost out for best time of the day to a P12 rider. As it was, I finished somewhere midway. It was interesting that there were several riders clustered together with only a few 10s of seconds separating us. This is where it becomes tempting to invest in all the bling. Zipp 808 front, carbon aerobars, carbon rear would guarantee me an extra 30s to 1 minute and soothe my ego by vaulting over 3 or 4 others. It’s not something I really see the point of though. I’ve DFL’d enough races to know that I don’t have serious self-esteem issues and I could never spend enough to get me on the podium. Next year, maybe a decent skinsuit and a new wheelcover – main thing will be dragging the bike out much earlier and working on getting used to lower position. The 40k hour mark still needs to be broken.