NWX Crit Report

The NWX Crit was fast. Actually fast, not "fast in my mind" because I got my ass handed to me for 30 minutes. Fast as in verified by Jen Ackeroyd (Group Health) on Saturday morning when we ran into each other at Wickiup Reservoir, who called it the fastest crit she had ever participated in. This made me feel better about the race, because, up to that point, I had spent 12 hours being pretty peeved about how I had ridden.

Fourteen ladies lined up. Twelve finished. I rolled in ninth.

I think this brief race report can be brought to you by the letter "A"...as in "altitude," "attitude" and "a-game." I definitely didn't bring the third, and although I would like to blame it on the first, the second was likely more to blame.

Problems started straight from the whistle. A local pro took the first lap out at a blazing pace and I immediately felt like I was breathing through a straw. Second lap I hit my pedal when I started pedaling too soon after a tight corner. The noise was such that I thought I had flatted. So I pulled off, no flat. Shit. So then came four laps of chasing back onto a group that was attacking each other every 1/2 lap. It took a lot to suck it up and not drop out.

Then came 20 minutes of gaining and losing position and constantly fighting not to get completely thrown off the back. I had a really difficult time maintaining my position on the high speed corners. I'm going to pin about 2/3 of this on my own handling inexperience. There was, however, two or three riders in the back half of the pack that were constantly passing on the inside on the corners (not necessarily a no-no, but definitely unsafe and not appreciated by the other riders) and I wasn't being aggressive or confident enough to hold my position and my legs just didn't have it attack and move up front. Was constantly giving up a spot or two. Each time it happened, I got more and more frustrated.

That frustration level had hit about 8 on a sale of 10 by the last two lap. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't corner, I couldn't seem to get myself up to midpack for the sprint. The course had a nice little riser going into the final straightaway...usually a great thing for me, but today my legs were basically ignoring all of my requests for an extra gear.

But I finished. Upright (despite hitting my pedal three times after the initial incident). With the group. And with a list of things I need to work on before my next crit.

Salem (fast)twitch trials- Race report 6/28

It was fun, fast, and furious for the Hammer Velo crew today!
So light a stogy and sit back, race report commin' atcha'.

Short Track Ate My Helmet.

My Monday night race report is up on my blog. I think we had John Lin, Chris Streight, Jeff, Dave German, Kolben, myself and the entire Gapay clan out racing. If you can get your hands on a mountain bike, you should really try this out...its a total hoot and great training for cyclocross. Which is ONLY 11 weeks away....

Capitol Criterium Race report 6.20.09

...'Its the Water'

Capital Criterium

Juan, Jeff, Sam and I journeyed up to Olympia, Washington yesterday to race the Capital Criterium. I don't have any racing pictures, but here is a picture of a really weird unicorn cake Sam and I spotted at a cafe near the race course:

Racing in Washington is sort of a pain in the ass. You have to buy a USCF one-day license and pay $10 to rent a number. Its total racket. All of a sudden, a race that originally cost $25 costs $45. Lucky for Sam and I, we got to race one minute for every dollar and got $10 of it back for returning the numbers unharmed.

I liked this course. The front side was a straightaway 500 meter incline. Not really a climb, because we could big ring it, but the grade was high enough that you could use it to make people suffer. It plateaued at the south end and the back and north sides were downhill and technical. Basically...it was like doing one minute intervals with 30 seconds rest at 90% for 45 minutes. Barf-o-licious.

Jeff raced first, in the masters A/B race. Direct quote: "Those are some fast old fuckers." Unfortunately, our fearless leader was pulled early and paid around $2 a minute to race. Not a good value.

Juan went next. From where we could see the course, it looked like he held 2nd-8th wheel the entire race and finished fourth. He'll probably post his race report up here later this week.

Sam and I rode in the Cat 3 race. It was just Cat 3s...a change up from riding down here. Another change was that 80% of the riders belonged to one of three teams. And those teams are coordinated and disciplined. Like Juan, I'll post my longer race report later, but here's the short version.

Since I hadn't put in a hard effort on the bike for 14 days, I spent the first 20 minutes wishing that a meteor would fly out of the sky and put me out of my misery. I watched Sam win a prime and tried to pick up on how the teams were coordinating. All while trying not to get yo-yo-ed off the back. At about 25 minutes, everything started to feel better, both in my legs and in my head, and I was able to really start racing, instead of simply surviving.

It was pretty obvious after 20 minutes who two of the teams wanted to save for the end of the race. The third, I had a pretty good idea, but wasn't 100% positive. There was lots of talking in the pack and there was more than one instance where I wanted to tell someone to quit bossing me around. But I'm trying to behave myself and I was likely breathing too hard to do more than squawk.

It was also obvious that after Sam contested a few primes and I put in some good attacks on the incline that the organized teams tried to start limiting our movement. We kept getting boxed in and/or pinched out on the good cornering lines. It didn't take me long to realize that if the pack stayed intact in the last 2 laps, we were dead meat.

So with three to go, I took a huge flyer off of the front from the base of the climb. And I just kept hammering until the end of the race...standing up on the hill and taking the corners as quickly as possible on the backside. The effort wasn't going to win the race, but I figured that I could throw down enough hurt and shell enough people to give Sam and I some room to move at the end.

This effort was really fucking hard. There was lots of drool and I threw up in my mouth at the end of the race. That is all I have to say about that.

Two women passed me with 1/2 lap to go and I just willed myself to stay on their wheels until the end. Lucky for me, the finish was the steepest part of the incline, and I was able to hold on for third. Sam had room to get herself up to fifth.

So this is what I like about WA races...being the wild cards messing with the organized teams and they have much better schwag for podium finishes. I got a really nice steel water bottle, $20, socks, a t-shirt and some tire levers that look like sex toys.

We stopped for milkshakes on the way home. All in all not a bad race experience.

Murderhorn 6/17 pics

The Hammer crew was out in force last night, both in the packs and on the sidelines cheering. Snapped a few photos of our women dominating the race. While we didn't pull any wins, there was no doubt that Anna and Mindy left their mark on the race by SHATTERING the women's 4 field. Props to Sal for her second place!

Mt. Tabor Round One

Results are still preliminary and still in need of correction...but I can say for sure that Mindy wiped the floor with the Cat 4 women's field and Sam finished 4th in the Senior Race.

Juan, James and Jen also raced, but I'm not sure where they finished...will update when results are corrected and finalized.

The rest of us heckled and drank tasty beverages on the volcano.

PIR Master's Monday 6.08.09 Race Report

Hot racing action on Monday night!
High speeds, blistering attacks and suicide breaks- good times.

Dave German and I owned the night from the front of the pack (and nearly book ending the final results in the process ;-) )...Many a lunch was eaten.

PIR 6/9/09

Another exciting evening of racing at PIR. James Ralston and I were the only Hammer Velo representatives. We did six laps with primes on laps 3 & 4. I launched an attack off the front with around 300m to go on lap 4 and got 2nd or 3rd place and collecting some points. James ended up 4th in the final sprint and I didn't sprint then. The cat 3/4 and 1/2/3 races were all points races with points to be had on every lap. It made for some awesome racing.

Crash and Burn: LK's Mt. Hood Race Report

It's a pretty long report, considering I only rode half of the race...but here is my version of Mt. Hood Cycling Classic.

PIR 6/8/09

Excellent job everyone who raced last night, especially Juan with the win the Masters 4/5.
**I took a ton of photos and I'll try and get the rest on PhotoBucket and send you guys the link.
***CLICK THE PHOTOS AND THEY BECOME HUGE***

Wednesday Morning Ride

James Ralston and I rode from L.O. over to the Springwater Corridor and across the steel bridge to waterfront park and then went back the way we came except we rode up through Riverview Cemetery.

32 miles
16 mph avg

Some cell phone pics from the ride...

PIR Women's Race: June 1

Yah, so there was a bad crash in our field last night. Everyone knows about that, so I'll just post on the good stuff that happened during the race.

I only have 7-8 PIRs under my belt, but until the crash, this was by far the hardest, and most entertaining, women's PIR race that I've been involved in. Why?

Veloforma showed up.

VF had Tina, Laura and Stephanie. We had Beth, LK, Anna and Mindy. Perfect ingredients for a Monday night throwdown.

Beth attacked in the first lap and it was on from there. VF attacks, HV chases. HV attacks, VF chases. Ironclad and Dawn Riddle from Gentle Lovers also helped mix it up a bit.

Damn, those gals are fun to race with. Very few lulls in the action and when we weren't attacking, there was some good cooperation in keeping the overall pace high.

VF killed all of the prime laps and the final sprint, but we will have our revenge.

PIR - 6/1/09

Well, it was a strange night out at PIR on Monday night starting with the Philadelphia-style-cheese-steak-slime-humidity. Thanks, but no thanks.

Jon rocked it in the novice5's, placing a strong fourth after a strategic race.
I picked up the win on the first hot spot for $10 and got nipped at the line for third on another by Joe Martin (of Veloce, who is quickly becoming my new nemesis). I got placed third overall for the night based on points, which was really a formality since our finish was scrubbed because of the horrible crash in the women's race. Kristin of Ironclad is pretty banged up, but apparently showing good signs. We are all thinking about her, and sending out healing thoughts.

I was pretty thankful and happy that my own teamates escaped severe physical injury last night. It's always scary when you hear the bikes hit the ground and shattering of plastic that inevitiably comes with it. Seems like just about every night I'm at PIR someone goes down, sometimes pretty close by. Its a dangerous sport, cycling. Anyway, I mostly wanted to give a huge shoutout to my teamates who were there at the scene when things went bad. I was blown away by how compassionate, caring, worried, helpful, and supportive to one another you all were. It made me very proud to call you all teammates.

Rubber side down.

Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'

Fast Twit [sic] Friday 5/29/06 Racy racy!

Bit redundant to LK's report-squirrelly junior and all...but read here for a little dash of George Lucas' wisdom mixed in with my own homespun wisery...The pain will bring us closer together.

Team Time Trial: Senior Women

Fast Twitch Friday: May 29

Cramps, German and I wandered out to Alpenrose on Friday night to try out some track racing. It was Dave and I's first time track racing, and Cramps' first time since he was 19 (so, say, first time since 1974).

For novice riders, Friday night racing is held in an omnium format: three races, the overall "winner" being the rider that accumulates the most points at the end of the night.

Juan was there when I arrived and Dave, in typical Dave fashion, didn't get to warm-up because he showed up 10 minute before racing started. Juan and I did get some good warm-up laps in, and he helped diagnose, and partially alleviate, the rattling coming from my chain.

Here is my race report, I'll let the boys add theirs in later...

Race One: Alpenrose Mile. 6 lap scratch race. I spent the first four laps trying to get out from being stuck behind a very squirelly BBC junior. On the back stretch on the fifth lap, I was able to get around her and move toward the front. Attacked at the start of the bell lap and was able to hold on for the win.

Unfortunately, a rider that was trying to catch me on the front stretch ran into my calf with her front wheel when she stood up to sprint. I stayed upright, she went down pretty hard, but was able to get cleaned and bandaged up to race in the third race. Her tire left a second degree burn on the back of my calf, bruised my ankle bone and destroyed the buckle on my right shoe.


Race Two: Ten Lap Tempo Race. Points given each lap, 2 for first, 1 for second. I basically hung out for the first three laps, then went high, moved out front, accelerated and stayed out front for the final six. Hard work, especially into the wind, but I'm a bit undergeared (48x16) and was spinning out frequently-- so I didn't feeling like I was working any harder than about 80%.

(Pre-Tempo Race. Credit: Jose Brujo Sandoval)

Race Three: Unknown Distance-ride until the bell ring, then sprint like hell. At this point, I've won the omnium and decide to just sit in and work on getting comfortable in the pack. I start out in the front and fade to the back once Elena Larsen and Kristin McCarthy attack the field. Got to watch the sprint from the back...good learning.

At the end of the night, both Juan and I won the omnium for our groups. I think German's rental bike left him undergeared for most of the races and he'll be able to be more competitive with a different gear ratio.