My wheel; my responsibility.

This sequence captures the most terrifying moment of my Elk Grove weekend. My wife's uncle, Efrian Martinez, who saved our wedding pics because the "real" photographer sucked balls, was on point once again. Thanks Efrain!

So, there is a break off the front. I rotate through and pull. The next rider pulls in front of me before he passes my bike. He bumps my bars and almost touches my wheel (I grabbed the brakes.) No big deal. We keep riding. I should have given him more room than I did because once he's on the front the pace slows a lot. At the time, I'm not sure if he is purposely slowing the field or if he is just tired. Anyway, I coast...but clearly don't slow down fast enough. We cross wheels but I'm leaning the wrong way. I grab the breaks, hold my breath, and pull as hard as I can on the bars. It looks super dramatic--more dramatic than I remember it being. I'm mean, it happened in like 1 second.

In the first photo, at that exact moment, I am thinking...this is it...crash time. But luckily no one was to my right when my wheel came free and I shot off to the right side. I look back to see how bad I almost made everything, and seeing no seriously shaken riders. They may have thought that I was just pulling way away like some crazy people like to do to "get the hell off the front." So there was some yelling. I don't care. I'm feeling really, really lucky. I get my right foot clipped back in and slide back into the field and count my lucky stars. Lesson learned.





whew...

Elk Grove

Tour of Elk Grove (cat 4), 8/1/09
Race #32

4/75

(my dad took this photo of the finish with a bit less than 150m to go. Nice work, Dad!)

Man, I really liked this course. It was challenging with the fairly tight turns and the loooooong finish—right up my alley. The guys who finished 1st and 2nd in our race were definitely strongest today. That does not happen too often.

Type 1 report: not perfect, but not bad either. The worst part was forgetting my bag with my bottles of water…I had one bottle all morning. Not smart, but not a disaster for a 35 min race.

My RPE for this race was way higher than others. The accelerations hurt every time. With the rain and after the first crash no one wanted to take those corners too fast so instead we took them too slow. Or it was my piss poor short warm up that left the legs burning.

Teammate Jordan Ross led me out to finish 2nd in the field sprint, 4th overall, and Jordan was able to hang on for 10th. It was very tight in those final 200m. At the line I was ½ wheel off 3rd and ½ wheel in front of 5th. It was nice to have a good wheel in that finish because of all the jockeying and the length—I didn’t need to fight for one, I just needed to decide when to go. When I went I had to change lanes from the right side, up through the middle, then on the left side—ah! finally I had an open lane! So I went. My chain slipped and I wound up slightly over geared but never mind that, in just a few seconds I was gasping past the finish.

The overall race was tough. Once again, I started in the back of the field; someday I hope to lean how to get a good starting spot on the line (I better just follow Jordan, he seems to know how to do it.). Anyway, we get started and sprint out of every turn, even up front. It was really taxing. Once the rain started the course became very slick and there were a bunch of crashes. I was almost involved in one that had nothing to do with rain or turns. In chasing the break that got away ½ way through the race, I rotated through the front and another rider (I don’t remember anything about him) had trouble coming around me and when he did he hit my bars with his hips and I had to brake, then he just died or purposely killed the pace and I was suddenly overlapped and leaning the wrong way. When I came free of his wheel he was moving left and I was leaning to my right and--I thought, for sure, that my time had come…race over. But I slammed the brakes and escaped with just loosing my balance and, luckily, not taking out anyone else. In retrospect, this was a perfect case of “my wheel; my responsibility.” I was too close to him, though if he didn’t have the mustard to pull through good sense says that he should not have rotated through. After the brief shouting (not by me-I was still in shock) I jumped back in, mid pack. This whole thing sucked because it happened right in front of my entire family too (they were 50m past the finish). As my wife has been reminding me all day, I was much closer to a DNF than 3rd place, by a long shot. She’s right. Anyway, it was a short race and difficult and I’m happy with my result.

I got to hear some good news for our team. Right now we have 1 cat 3. Next season we hope to have 4. That is very good news because Spidermonkeys have been great this year as a development race team for new riders, we’ve got a few kinks to work out but we’re doing a decent job growing the racer population in Chicago. Now we will have several more mid cat racers to challenge and lead the new cats. And as Bryan Merrill said, teamwork and race plans only work well when you have a few riders at the same fitness level. Well, now we will and that will be fun.

Soldier Field Series, 7/29/09
Race #31

8-9/50

What a race. I know the threes will admit that it isn't much better but...I can't wait to upgrade.

Nothing beats racing in 20min from home!

Chicago Criterium (Cat 4), 7/26/09
Race #30

6th/125

After the race on Sunday the Spidermonkeys had the privilege to hand out and drink many Goose Island 312 beers. And that position of privilege made it possible to chat with people I’ve come to look forward to seeing at the races. No one was in a rush to go home. Nice. The one subject that came up most often was how disappointing it would be for the Chicago racing community to loose the Chicago Criterium should our bid for 2016 go sour. Regardless of your position on Chicago winning the Olympic bid, we’ve got to find a way to keep this race going.

Personally, I’m planning on writing a few letters to my alderman (I’m sure he really does not care), to my congressmen, President Obama, Mayor Daley, his wife, and every major media outlet that will take my letters to print praising this event.

For the two or three people that may read this post, please do the same.

The race organizers did a great job heeding the complaints from last year and that is a generous sign of respect. The layout and logistics were also improved, which allowed the races to go off more or less on time. And frankly, though I’m not “overjoyed” with my result, I can’t look to anyone but myself for any missteps that occurred yesterday. I know there were some (there always are) and I’m sure someone has something to complain about (not sure what?), but I give it a solid two thumbs up.

So, on to the race report.

Type 1 report: diabetes was easy to manage today and my BGs were spot on. As a result, I felt great. My CGMS was cherping during the race and I wasn't able to turn it off...yes, that was me...sorry.

As we were waiting for the officials to let us onto the course, my wife suddenly appeared smiling which totally relaxed me. I knew she would be there, but I didn’t expect to see her before the finish. It was great to see her before the race, it put me in a really good mood.

My goals for this race were simple. I know I’m strong enough to finish well but my weakness are, as shown through all the Superweek races, my field position and passivity. So, I planned on getting a good starting spot on the line, and holding a position in the front of the field for the duration of the race. Also planned to take a few pulls on the front, get my ass in the top 10 with two laps to go, mark the strong finishers, and jump just before cresting the Balbo overpass and bury myself in pain for the final 350m. If I did that, I knew I'd get a good result and secure a few upgrade points.

The race started very awkwardly for me. We get onto the course and +125 guys all immediately line up. I was expecting a free lap and so my start position was once again terrible, second from the back. As we stood there, I chatted with the guys around me for a few seconds then I hear a whistle…oh, we’re racing now. Its funny how Superweek shapes your race expectations: for the last two weeks we'd generally sit on the start line for a looooong time and listen to the pre race lecture from the official. Perhaps because there were 100 riders in front of me I may have missed it. So, with the whistle, I clumsily began to move to the front of the peloton with little problem.

IT was so great to hear the Spidermonkeys cheering from the sideline. We had great representation at the race in both the fan and racer categories. Thanks for showing up!

(here I am, on the front 10 min into the race in turn 4)

The pace was not too tough, though I felt that my legs needed a brief working over so after two or three laps I went on the front. Not an attack, just a pull for a bit short of a lap to see how the legs feel. After I dropped back a few positions, and recovered I felt pretty good. The riding and bike handling was normally bad and at times terrifying. I was almost taken out only a few times by people chopping my wheel near the Congress “chicane” or by a few knuckleheads bombing the inside of turns two and three. Lots of riders; lots of fresh 4s. Heads up!

The call for 2 laps to go also surprised me—once again, an effect the Superweek. I quickly moved to the front 10 or 15 and avoided all the foolishness around me. In the bell lap, I had good position, was ready to go, got on a good wheel on the backside and going up the overpass at Balbo a bunch of riders shifted thier lines and, as result, I lost the wheel I was on. That was the one I wanted. He made it though a gap that closed right behind him and like magic he was gone at the top. I slowed to avoid riding up another riders slowing, flailing ass; was forced outside and couldn't take the inside lane of turn 4 and lost a precious 2 seconds in that place but was able to out sprint a few riders to regain some positions for the finish. I finished 6th. I was pissed after the results were posted because there are no upgrade points for 6th. Well, that’s racing...the best laid plans...etc. etc…Bummer.

To compensate riders, like me, who had glorious aspirations for this race, the payout for 6th was a very nice $75…I didn’t expect to collect any checks the day of, especially after last year’s payout fiasco. But they had checks on hand! Nice.

My parents were out watching and my brother saw his first bike race and was very impressed. I think the Chicago Crit is a great example of what bike racing could be.

I hope it lasts.