3 Days, 3 Bikes

Another weekend of riding bikes. It's pretty much the only thing I do consistently, or at least kind of consistently since I haven't been on the trainer as much as I should. Still haven't warmed up enough to the fact that even though it's already dark out by the time I get home, I need to get on that dumb thing to stay fit. Maybe one of these days. Anyway, I took Friday off work and got some things done in the morning so I could meet Adam and Brant at Green Mountain for a mountain bike ride. We weren't really sure if it would be dry enough, but it was still worth finding out. Good thing is we didn't have any real problems. We were far from clean at the end of the ride but no real problems......other than lungs and legs. My aerobic conditioning seems to be good but once I get anaerobic, I fade pretty quickly to where it's just managing the process. On this ride there was a long climb to the top that tested everyone's conditioning, and everyone agreed that we failed. Other than making it to the top of course. The downhill was a bit anticlimactic since it was down a fire road rather than singletrack but we were running up against the dark so it was the quickest descent with the most light.

On Saturday I could have gone up to Louisville to race 'cross but opted against it since I was racing on Sunday. Instead I hopped on my road bike for a bit which was fun since I hadn't been on it in a while. Nothing special about the ride; just a solid tempo ride. I think it's easier to ride a steady-hard pace on the roadie after pushing (and spinning) on the mountain bike. It was good to feel the vibration of the road too - just a steady hum the whole time through.

Sunday. Race day. Actually it was race day that I almost missed. I woke up and fell into my routine of making breakfast, watching NFL pre-game and then some of whatever game is being shown while I gather my stuff and head out to the race. Well today they changed the times and the race was about 1:25 earlier. I figured it out in time, but only got one warm-up lap in. Seems to be the story as of late. Fortunately I had talked to Adam after he was finished with his race so I had an idea of what to expect. The course was pretty twisty in the front half with a lot of S-turns that were capped off by a steep run up with a barrier in the middle of it. A few more turns at the top and then flat and rough on the back with a section that was just soft. You could pedal as hard as you wanted but you weren't going anywhere fast through it. Kind of like pedaling through a moss field. Then a barrier section, turn a corner and back to the beginning.

The field was smaller than fields have been in the past. Could be that the early season saw a lot of people just giving cyclocross a try and they've fallen out, or that it was in Brighton which is basically the middle of nowhere. Judging by the caliber of people riding, I think it's the former and you're now getting the people that actually want to be out there who want and know how to ride their bikes.

As usual, my start wasn't anything spectacular. I got in a decent position and was generally able to hold it on the first lap. As the separation of groups started to occur, I could see the people up ahead of me, whether it was a couple bike lengths or 10 seconds. With all the turns on the front side you need to have some good explosive strength to pedal out of the slow corners, even if it's only for about 10-15 yards. Hit it hard, slow for the turn, and hammer again. One section had about 5 turns like that. Without the upper end strength, instead of picking up some ground, I was left to defend the ground I had and/or watch a few people pick me off.

Once to the back side, somewhere on the second or third lap I realized that it was a good long, flat stretch that I could get into a solid steady-hard effort like I did on the road bike the day before. And then I realized I could shift up to the big ring and make my effort more efficient. Lo and behold it worked and I started moving past a couple guys. No big groups but every person counts. That became my strategy for the rest of the race. Maintain on the front half, push it on the second half. There was a group of maybe 4 people that I kept playing leap frog with because of our different abilities. Finally it was down to two laps so I figured I had to make whatever moves I was going to, but be smart about it. I got to the top of the run up and passed a guy. Then another guy I'd been following (and passed on the last lap last weekend) bobbled briefly which was just enough for me to get by. Hoping I could drop him, I kicked it into gear and hammered the back stretch. I got a gap but it came at a price and coming back around the start section I saw he had made it up. I've ridden a lot of these races on my own without much of a chance to use race tactics against other people riding with me so this was a chance for that. With that in mind, since he was so close, I let him come by and figured I'd just hold his wheel on the front again, bide my time and do a repeat on the back stretch. That worked great right up until the run up.

Once I got to the top I realized I'd blown up a bit and the guy in front got a gap. It started small but kept growing and by the time we got to the flats it was too late. I was able to hold off the guy behind me but didn't get to make the move I wanted and finished 29/40.

In retrospect, knowing that I was a weaker rider through the turns, I should have held my position and made him work harder to get around me. That would have been my best bet to moving up that one spot. Either way it was fun to race like that and even though I was close to the bottom, I was happier with the way I rode than what the standings showed.

Next week is the final race of the Boulder Series so I'm expecting another big crowd at the start. Not sure of the course yet but I'm hoping for mud!