Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Weekly World Championships

Here in Boise, we have a lot of strong riders.  It's a really nice day out for the first time in a while, so a lot of those strong dudes came out for the Donnie Mac's Wednesday Night Dump Loop.  Most of these guys were the 1-2 Bob's Team.  Luckily, I'm on the same side as they are for the rest of the year, but on Wednesday nights, we get to have a little fun with each other.  Adding to the chaos is that most of us have the same coach who told me that "From the first climb to the mormon church this is a race and you are attacking and going with moves and working with chase groups to get to the mormon church first."  I assume that's what everybody else's TrainingPeaks told them too.  Hence the Wednesday Night World Championship was on.

As usual, we cruised along Hill Road and BS'ed.  Call that an extended neutral roll-out.  Once we make the corner away from Hill and towards Seaman's Gulch, it's game on.  The fast guys all gravitate to the front.  The slow guys, well I don't really know, I'm already fixated on the hub in front of me.  Josh Howard had a PowerTap; Joe Kafka had a Mavic; Shawn Mitchell's was very shiny.  Usually, it's Hoene, John Rogers, whichever Bob's guys happen to show up, maybe a random guy, and myself.  But today was a different day.  A large group of us started suffering towards Hidden Springs.  It was fast but consistent climbing.  Then Josh attacked.  A few of us went with that.  Then I went off with the top of the hill in sight.  I didn't really think that I'd be able to TT away from all of them to the church, but I hadn't been the first one over a climb all year so I went ahead and won a few imaginary KOM points.

The group caught me again as we entered Hidden Springs.  There were a lot of them.  The guys that I'd expect and a few that I didn't.  Ben Monahan and Steve Henry are both new Bob's guys and coming along nicely.  I look forward to crushing with them this summer.  They were there.  So was Josh and Joe and Jake and Mitchell and a few others.  Like a said, a lot of strong dudes.  We pushed into the wind until The Wall.  I decided that I wanted to win again and I attacked.  Josh came with.  He started to attack, but I beat him to the punch.  Hoene had magically appeared at that point and out-sprinted me up the hill, but I don't really count him since he'd been putzing along waiting for us for a while.  He sat up at the top of the hill so I was off the front by myself again.  That was exactly what I wanted.  I knew I could keep going hard over the short, steep pitch that was next and bomb the OMC decent.

Then things went bad.  I went hard down to the stop sign, looking as much as possible for cars.  I got to the point that I became convinced that there was nobody coming and I could rail the corner safely.  So I began railing.  Then I saw the Subaru.  I slammed on my brakes and she slammed on hers and I escaped with nothing more than an apologetic look on my face towards the driver.  But I'd slowed down and I was unnerved.

The group caught me again at the bottom of the climb.  They were going really fast and I was not.  Just like that I was OTB.  No rainbow jersey for me this week.  Maybe next week.  Or maybe a Tuesday Night Criterium World Championship.  Or maybe a Tuesday Night Half Bogus World Championship.  Or maybe a Thursday Night Time Trial World Championship.  The pros are really missing out with their one WC in each race per year...

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Conference Championships

First, Conference Championships
Last weekend was the final NWCCC race of the season.  It's always the same set of courses, and they're always brutal.  The road race started out fairly calm heading out of Palouse.  A couple of riders rolled off early in   a slow motion attack and somehow got up the road a ways.  Then I saw Nate from UM bridging up.  I was in a break with Nate both days last weekend, so I decided to go after him in hopes that things would turn out just like last weekend.  So I soloed away to the three riders up the road.  I got within about 15 seconds of them, came around a corner and was staring straight into a steep power roller.  I'd forgotten about that.  I powered over it and caught Nate and Jordan (UW) as we crested the hill.  The guy from WWU took off over the top and was gone.  So the three of us bombed down the decent and just as we started working again, I heard wheels whizzing by.  That was a waste of a good 5 minute effort.  I sat in the pack for the rest of the lap, then things took a bad turn.  The end of the lap is a gnarly downhill into Palouse, where I found myself shuffled to the back of the pack.  That wouldn't be a big deal if the start of lap 2 wasn't a long gradual hill.  The guys on the front started drilling it up the climb, and gaps started forming ahead of me.  I wasn't feeling that bad, but I just couldn't close it down to the pack.  I spent about half a lap chasing from about 100 yards behind the wheel car.  I hate getting dropped, but I really hate having to watch the race unfold ahead of me just out of reach.  Eventually, the race got up the road, and I got caught by the B's.  I hung on to the back of them for the rest of the race.  We caught a couple of A riders who weren't very happy to see me relaxing on the back of the pack, but since the official was right behind me for the entire race and they could have done the exact same thing, I don't feel too bad about it.

The team time trial was up next.  It was a flat out and back.  Our D team was first up.  They came back from  just as we were heading out.  Since, as usual, our A team featured Beth and a D rider (Mark this week), I had planned on just having a nice easy ride.  Then Chris announced their time to us and I couldn't let that go.  So I went hard enough to make the other two hurt a little while I stayed in the small ring.  We ended up beating our D team by 21 seconds and only 2:04 off the 6th place A team, which is a significant improvement.

The crit on the UI campus is probably my favorite collegiate race of the year.  There's a crazy downhill corner, then a gradual climb back up to the finish line.  It's all the fun of decending and going really fast through a corner with most of the pain of climbing back up eliminated.  For the first few laps at least.  Then I started noticing the slight inclines a lot more.  It was the fastest race of the season.  I tried to bridge up to Steve Fisher about 20 minutes into the race.  Once I started getting close, the field picked up the pace and shut it down.  We both got caught, Steve just managed to get away again for the W.  I tried another move with a couple of guys who both randomly sat up as I pulled through.  That was weird.  After that I stayed in the field and sprinted for 8th place.  I finished the regular season in 10th place and will be attending Nationals in a couple of weeks.

Now, Random Coolness
First off, I have to plug the movie that BSU Cycling is showing.  It's called The Anthem, and it's going to be the greatest night of bike-movie-mayhem ever.  Boise Fry Company is hosting the pre-party where we're raffling off a bunch of really cool stuff (Pivlocks, anyone?).  That starts at 5:30 next Monday.  After we get all full o' fries, we'll head over to the Special Events Center for the movie.  That starts at 7:00 for those of you who want to see the movie, but don't like to party (or whatever perfectly valid excuse you might have).

Next, we have new kits!  Look at them!
Photo by: Catherine Cooper
Photo by: Chandler Abraham

The last cool thing I have to post about is Bill and Joan Wykoff.  They're extra-strength cool, and are retiring from their post as Conference Directors.  USA Cycling is going to miss them, but Miles will do a great job in their place.

Monday, April 18, 2011

The Good Stuff!

The legs seem to be coming to form just in time for Nats!  I wound up in 2nd Place in the Montana State Road Race and 5th in the University of Montana Circuit Race.

Saturday was the Road Race.  It is the same weekend as the Tour of Walla Walla and it takes approximately 100 hours to get from anywhere to Bozeman, so the numbers were significantly diminished.  There were two really strong guys in the field and everybody knew who they were.  Every time Chris Daifuku (UW) or Jake MacArthur (WSU) would start to accelerate, there was a general panic through the rest of the pack.  The first time up the long, gradual climb those two started going at it and a few other riders snuck up the road.  That break didn't make it over the hill, but it made me realize that I could probably get away while everybody is focused on the two big dogs.  So Nate Keck took off over the top of the climb and got away solo.  As we were descending, Sam Forsyth (MSU) rolled of the front a little.  Jake caught him and countered.  Everybody grabbed his wheel.  Just as he was caught, right before the bottom of the hill, I took off.  I suffered as much as I could for about 7 minutes until I had established a gap, then settled into a rhythm.  Shortly after that, a group of 3 caught up to me.  I got in with them and worked our way around the course.  We dropped Tony Azevedo, the one UW rider, going up the hill the second time.  We were contemplating waiting up for him so that he wouldn't get caught by the pack and the Huskies would start drilling it since they no longer had a man in the break.  We then caught Nate and the lead car.  We asked for a time gap and the driver flashed 5 fingers followed by 3 fingers.  We all looked at each other and thought 5:30 was a pretty good split, then the driver rolled up along side of us and said that we had EIGHT MINUTES.  I guess everybody was waiting for Chris and Jake to do something and nobody would work in the pack, so they just chilled out.  After that we decided to leave Tony behind and cruise to the base of the final climb.  We were greeted at the bottom of the hill with teammates cheering and several looks perplexed looks at the lack of UW riders in the break.  Jared Nelson (MSU) started setting the pace up the climb.  I didn't feel like we were going super-hard, but the 60-some miles before were definitely taking their toll on my legs.  I started to gap off.  I knew I had to catch back on.  So I did, then Nate started to gap after 35 miles of soloing.   So I got around him and worked my way up to Bryce Daviess (UM).  He started to gap, so I took a pull.  I stood up and we touched wheels.  He went down.  I looked back to make sure he wasn't seriously injured, then kept going.  I caught up with Chris, who was sitting in 9th place in the D's even after stopping to aid a rider who had dehydrated himself to the point that he fell over and started seizing.  He started cheering me on as I rode by.  So I went harder.  I turned a corner and saw a blue and gold kit up the road.  I thought to myself "Jared must really be hurting now, he's going really slow.  I could win this!"  So I pushed harder.  I caught up to the rider and saw a 300-series number.  He was a D rider.  That was a letdown.  So I rounded another corner and saw signs for a "Scenic View Turnaround" point.  I then thought "they must be talking about the parking lot at the top.  I'm almost there!"  So I pushed harder around the corner and saw a pull-out and the rest of the climb ahead of me.  Another letdown.  The final stretch up to the finish is really steep and the wind was blowing straight down the hill.  So I pushed harder.  I finally made it up to Bill and Joan's car (I don't think I'll be able to recognize a finish line after the collegiate season without Bill and Joan's car).  I crossed the finish line and immediately shook hands with Jared.  He was ridiculously strong up that climb.  There was no attack on his part, he just rode us all off his wheel.  Bryce and Nate made it up the climb shortly after, followed by Tony.  He rode really tough to keep his position considering how much he was struggling to keep in the break and got popped off with 30 windy miles to go all alone.  At the end of the day, BSU had all three riders in the top ten of each of their categories.

We then headed over to Whitehall for the TTT.  The first thing we did was hit up the A&W.  Since our Men's A team consisted of Beth (Women's B), Chris (Men's D), and me, I didn't really worry too much about the time trial.  I knew ahead of time that we would be last in the A's and we would take our points and enjoy them.  So I ordered a Polar Swirl (a.k.a Polar Squirrel).  Beth got a root beer float.  Then we went across the street and talked the front desk attendant at the Super 8 to let us use her conference room to do homework in.  We left the Super 8 about a half an hour before our start time and began getting ready.  At about T minus 5 minutes Ty from UO looked over at us and said "you have a girl on your team too?!"  It turns out that UO's MA team had an identical composition as ours.  We actually had to compete for not last now.  The Polar Squirrel may have been a mistake.  So was the root beer float.  So was the zero warmup.  We took off 1 minute ahead of the Ducks.  The first half of the out and back was uphill and into the wind.  Chris had timed us against them at the turnaround, and we were ahead.  Then I rediscovered that both Chris and Beth had compact gearing on their bikes.  They were just maxed out on the downhill, tailwind run to the finish.  UO gained 40 seconds back over the last 8 miles and beat us.

We then headed to my great aunt and uncle's in Hamilton.  We met their ultra-energetic puppy, Ruby and learned that Vonnie wouldn't be able to cook us each a pound of bacon in the morning as they had church obligations.  She did, however, tell me that I had "very pretty teeth."  We then went to the circuit course in Missoula.  Chris had gone home after the TTT, so Beth was the first one up.  She raced a couple of laps on a slow leak and finally stopped to change wheels.  The official could be best described as "dippy," had passed her even though she wasn't off the back to go with the lead driver.  So a corner marshal radioed her.  The official radioed back that she had no wheels, even though I had put them in her car and specifically told her that the wheels were for the BSU racer.  After the race, she gave Beth a different and possibly dumber reason for not giving her a wheel.  The official had determined that Beth was out of the race and there was no way that she would want to continue on if she waited a full lap for the car to come around again.  Beth would get her spare and ride laps backward around the course for the entire Men's B race and some of the A's.  Clearly, she didn't want to continue riding...

My race started out fast with Tony attacking from the parking lot.  I decided to let him go as I felt that he would get caught quickly, which he did.  Unfortunately, I was shuffled to the back of the race when he did and the counter-attack rolled away.  UW, OSU, and UM all had a rider up the road.  That left Ty, Sam, and myself in the  pack without a rider up the road.  Both of them were struggling to hang on to the pack through the first lap, so it was obvious that the break would not be reeled in.  I knew that I would have to bridge up solo to get to the front of the race.  So I attacked out of the one really fast corner on the second lap.  It was significantly tougher to get away after taking 2nd the day before.  I was not liking being a marked man.  But I had to keep trying to get away as the longer I waited, the farther the break would get.  So I attacked the finish line climb on the third lap.  Nothing.  So I attacked the long climb on the forth lap.  Nothing.  So I attacke the finish line climb on the forth lap.  Nothing.  So I rested the fifth lap.  I attacked the flat before the long climb on the 6th lap.  Nothing.  So I attacked the finish line climb on the 6th lap.  Nothing.  So I attacked the long climb on the 7th lap.  Something!  I had created a separation with Nate and Danny Koski-Karell (UW).  So I attacked the finish line climb on the same lap and shed Danny.  We had to survive 3 laps now.  We started working together and did it.  Nate blew me away in the final sprint, so I wound up in 5th.  Overall a great weekend for BSU Cycling.  We now have a rider in the top ten in the MA, MB, and WB season omniums!

Next weekend is the Conference Championships in Moscow and Pullman.  These are always great races and a lot of fun, so we'll see what we can throw out for that.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Stuff I Learned This Weekend

  1. My team is awesome.  I asked them to be down on campus at 6:00 AM to help set up.  They complained a lot, but no excuses were made and they were there, tossing straw bales like regular cowpokes.  After that, they all went out and crushed it!  As a team, we had 7 individual top 10 finishes and our Women's B time trial team (as in Beth didn't have to ride around with boys this week) took 2nd despite Melissa flatting out and Savannah dropping her chain, twice.  These kids are legit.
  2. 50 straw bales is a whole lot o' bales.  It took 2 loads in the big Bob's trailer (I'm going to send a 50 bale-sized thanks to Vern and the Bob's guys for being awesome and letting me steal the trailer whenever I need it, as well as to Zamzow's for lending bales to us for the weekend free of charge) to get them down to the school on Friday afternoon.  Apparently, loading, unloading, and distributing those around the crit course is not the best thing for the legs.  I went from a fifth place last week to rapidly off the back in both races.
  3. It is possible to have a cross wind for 100% of a course.  It was annoying.
  4. 700 square feet can hold 14 cyclists.  I had a slight housing emergency on Friday afternoon and had to put as many Oregon Ducks as I could fit onto my floor.  Beth got her parents to take 5 of the 19 (again, my team is awesome, as are their parents) so the other 14 were with me.  We had to move the coffee table and a couple of chairs out to the deck, but we got everybody in.  The UO guys have some spacial planning skills as they left me a path to the fridge and out the door.  They're also really good at backing a trailer.  They got it up my ridiculously steep and narrow driveway that I wouldn't back up without a trailer.
  5. The officiating crew is really good at what they do.  I already knew that about Bill, Joan, and Miles, and had a strong suspicion about the Welshimers, but this weekend really drove the point home.  Tyler was helping me with all the normal official duties, then going above and beyond by offering his assistance on everything from finding volunteers and bales to media relations.
This was a great weekend and I want to thank everybody out there that made it possible.  Team, officials, volunteers, parents, you're all super cool.