October 15, 2006
http://www.teamlakeeffect.com/Midterms this week, so this might be a little bit weird. Let me know if anything is totally off.
It's CYCLOCROSS SEASON!!!
Finally time to get started. This year the Lake Effect guys have added a new race category, Master's 40+. So I've got a dilema... I can race either the A race or the Masters race... and I'm torn.
The master's field will be taking numbers away from the A race, as probably half of the regular A's from last year can race in the Master's field. It also gives some of the faster B masters a place to go instead of racing against Paul Martin, Ernesto Marenchin and Mike House. My biggest problem in the A field last year was that there weren't enough people racing A's to make it a race. The fastest guys would pull away, and I'd be riding on my own... ahead of one or two others, but without someone to chase... so it was more like a 10-15 minutes race until the gaps got huge, then I'd be doing a Sunday cross practice ride at less than 100%. If I race master's, I feel like I'll be part of the problem... then again, there may actually be some racing in the Master's field.
So... I arrive at the venue, and I still don't know what to do! What a wishy washy bike racer I am.
The Course
Fairport Harbor is a new location. It's right on the beach, so I expect some sand... and boy is there sand. From the line the course is on grass next to the road. The grass leads to some sidewalk, and drops off a curb to cross the road. It then twists around a sidwalk climb, around a lightpost, and down to the amphitheater run up. You can almost remount for the ride up the hill... but if you miss the pedal, you'll stall and loose more than it's worth. Once remounted, there's the nice off camber decent leading to some grassy twists back to the theater stage. Then across the lawn toward the beach.
More twisting sections before we have to deal with the sand. On the way to the beach we go around a stump... that is in same semi hard packed sand. Turn to hard, and the bike will wash out. Down a nice drop to a short, soft beach section that climbs up to the previous level. I was dismounting before the drop and running this section for lots of reasons. Once back on top, there was some hard pavement/sand leading to two short sand section, before turning onto the sidewalk to head to the second half of the course.... and more sand.
The second half had two sand pits separated by a twisty grass section around some barbeque grills, then through the beach house to... more sand. A straight, semi hard section leading to a softer section, leading to a log crossing. Then a hard packed sand parking lot lead to a short paved climb that went up and around a gate over some broken pavement, then headed back down to the parking lot. This section had some bumpy grass section leading to the one set of barriers, a three pack in grass. Back on the bike, and back to the bumpy hard packed sand parking lot. Then you twist around a paved traffic circle, up a shorter paved climb before hopping a 6-8 inch drop back onto sand. (yes, that was sand, I'll explain later). We then dropped back to the start finish.
Overall I got about 1.25 miles per lap. With all the sand, it was a tough little course. The key would be to find the right lines through the sandy sections to not loose time, then figure out where to recover. It's a little cool at about 50+ degrees, and pretty windy. Fortunately it's mostly protected, but there are some spots that it makes a difference. A nice tail wind along the sidewalk... and some headwind sections going back through the start finish.
So, I think Erwin Verveken is a sand specialist, I hear that the Netherlands cross courses are very sandy. The trick is to turn as little as possible on the sand, cause you're sure to go down. At one point during the B/C race, I watched a guy get turned sideways in a sand pit... the bike stalled, and from a complete stand still, he just fell over. Like the guy on the tricycle in the old Laugh-in shows. He never came unclipped from the pedals, and his bike just lifted right over him. It looked pretty amusing... especially since I figured he couldn't really get hurt in sand.
So, the B/C race goes off and I'm cheering on my teammates as they figure out the course. Rick, Gary and Don, joined the 27 B racers that showed up, in that order. I still haven't decided what to race. In the A's I'll be racing Brett and the young super fast guys. In the Masters' I'll be racing some of the older super fast guys. In the end, I flip a coin, and join the masters. The only big deal about this is I make the decision for the whole season at the first race. So know I'm commited.
Race
As we lined up with the A field, word has it we'll start as a bunch. I was thinking that would be cool, until I realized that we wouldn't really have our own race then. Rudy decided we could vote on the start and one of the 12 Masters wanted the mass start... so we decided to start 30seconds after the A's. 14 A's and 13 Masters, so both fields were reasonably sized.
Oh, and there were some fast guys in the A field, so I figured I had made the right choice. Not that the Master's field was a slouch... we had Rudy, Jeff Craft, Brent Evans, Bill Marut and Derrick Wilford among the group. And I figured the finish would include the 6 of us, but had only a few ideas on the actual order.
Off the A's went, 30 seconds... and the season has started!
I get a good start and slightly lead it onto the sidewalk. I figure I don't really want to totaly set the pace, so I let Brent ahead, and sit on his wheel. Up the first run up, It's the two of us on the front of a reasonable group. We hit the beach together, and I take a pull next to Brent, then slide back in as we head to the second half.
Along the sidewalk, we catch the first A rider. This guy probably should not have been in the A race, but he was. As we come up on him, a couple of guys are shouting warnings that we're coming up. I guess one guy got a bit overheated about it and told the guy to get off the course. Not really fair. The guy did pay for entry, and was getting totally killed. Still...
So into the sand, and I'm still second wheel. Feeling pretty good. We hit the log, and I've got the roll over move down. Once onto the parking lot, Rudy lays down the attack, and the gap starts to open. Rudy and Jeff make a move, with Brent. It turns out only Bill and I are left. so the ordering seems to be setting up as I expected. Throughout the entire next lap, I'm keeping everyone in sight, but the gaps are opening. I'm feeling pretty good, but not good enough to close things down.
But we are starting to bring the back end of the A field in. Then Bill pulls around me and opens his gap. OK, so I'm getting back into the rythem of cross. Keep the gap to Bill constant. Work on bringing the back end of the A riders, and wait to try to make my move to catch Bill at the end of the race. One by one, Bill is picking off the last A's. I'm keeping about two guys between us. The gap is opening slowly, but doesn't seem to be out of hand. I just need to keep the pressure up.
I've never been cold during a cross race before... (that I remember) but for some reason, it took me a LONG time to warm up. I don't know if I should have put on a baselayer, or if I'm actaully sick, but for the first 3-4 laps, I was downright cold.... and wasn't I so cross eyed that actually I thought about it and even now I remember being cold. So something wasn't right there. Just don't know what!
About halfway through the race, things start going a bit side ways. I'm closing on Thom Dominic, from the A race. Bill is in front of him still in sight. I get on Thom's wheel through the barriers, and sit comfortably heading into the start area. As we head off the pavement, I rail the corner trying to accelerate past Thom to start to bring back Bill, when I realize (the hard way) that there is hard packed sand right off the pavement. My front wheel digs in, and I go down... still clipped in, the bike goes bouncing up above me... and I am reminded how unamusing this is... even though it looked almost exactly like that C racers wreck earlier... except I wasn't at a standstill. Ouch.
Now Thom has reopened the gap, and I've got to go bring that back again! Fortunately I wasn't down long, but it does take your momentum away. For the next lap or so, I have to convince myself to keep up the pressure. I notice my heart rate is down, and I'm not pushing as hard as I should be. Thom has opened his gap a bit over this time, and I finally get back into my rythem and start to bring him back again.
Now my back is starting to hurt, my lungs hurt, everything is getting painful... I must be doing something right then... My gaps are staying reasonably constant, so I'm not loosing a lot, but I'm not gaining either. Thom seems to be yo-yoing. I'm bringing him back, then he opens up again...
When I raced A's, my first goal was to not let Paul Martin lap me. I figured I was doing ok, if I could stay on the lead lap. With 2 or so to go, Mike House (former US CX champ) and Jake Stechman catch me, I slow before the run up to let them by. Thom has opened his gap up again, and I can't see Bill anymore. Behind me, I can only see Paul Martin and a couple of A racers I've already passed, so I just have to work on pulling back the tail end of the Master's field. Paul catches me on the same lap.... then Ernesto gets me with 2 laps to go. I worked to hang with each of these uber fast A racers for as long as I could, just to check my technical lines, House and Steckman carried from the top of the beach drop through the sand. Ernesto takes the same lines as I do through the off camber drop.... I can't hold Pauls wheel through hard/soft sand before the log (duh!).
So 4 A racers get me, though they did get a 30 second start, I don't see how I would have held them off if I'd joined the A race. More confirmation that I'm in the correct race.
As the laps go on, my shifting starts to really deteriorate. Sand is some nasty stuff. By the end my gears are skipping like crazy.... every time I jump on the pedals, the gears skip. How am I going to catch anyone if I can't apply the pressure I want? Whenever the gears shift, I try to move to one harder gear. That seems to keep me moving.
The only lap cards I see are 6 to go, 4 to go, and then I look, and there are no numbers... ! How many more? They say this is it... where's the bell? I've got bell issues from my last road race. OK, so I've got one lap to see what I can do... so I just bury it. On the last lap, I picked up one more lapped rider, but things were pretty set.
Post
So as expected, Rudy took the win, Jeff was second, then Brent for the podium. Then Bill, me and Derrick. There was no time data taken, so I don't really know how far back I was. I do know my heart rate was pretty constant, but I didn't really go as deep as I remember going in the past... so maybe there's some improvement opportunities there.
It seems like I'll be chasing Bill this season, so the goal is to get in front of him... and maybe get onto the podium, though that seems like a tal order with the looks of this field.
In the A race, Mike House took the win ahead of Paul Martin. Jake Stechman had some mechanicals with 3 or 4 to go, and ended up dropping off of House's wheel, but managed to hold on for third. Brett Davis did a bang up job of his first A race staying on the lead lap and pulling in an 8th place.
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