Rouge Roubaix XIV: March 11, 2012

Seeing Red:  the Rouge is something of a legend.  It's been written up in the New York Times (by
one of Oxford's own!); its sponsors make sure you know, it "aint no sissy ride"; Strava even sponsors mid-race primes (in a 100+ mile race?!?).  At St. Francisville, Louisiana's cafes, the locals--who all know why the skinny guys with funny caps are in town--talk about the time they rode some of the course.  And my race-eve pre-ride confirmed:  the pavement might be worse than the dirt and gravel sections that made this a destination race for out-of-towners and a early-season test piece for all the local riders.

Alex Harvie's striking official race poster

  
Knee Trouble:  I was coming into the race (winter) fit, but having just survived a knee issue (it wasn't so much pain as an alarming loose wobbling in my left knee) that caused me to back off training for most of the week.  So with a forced mini-taper freshening up my legs, I pre-registered, packed, and hoped that nothing in my knee blew up on the five-hour drive south.  On the way to St. Francisville, I called ahead and made a reservation with the race's favored masseuse--that was a first, and I was going to need all the help I could get if I didn't want to drop out at mile 50.  So, cafe pizza eaten and legs massaged, I went to bed, knowing tomorrow could bring anything.

Race On:  after the cool early-morning rollout (I was surprised at how many racers were using deep-dish wheels...seemed risky given the rough-surface reputation of the race), I loitered in the pack until I found Jess, a friend-of-friends who had come down from Tulsa.  I introduced myself, and we talked about the race for a bit--he had some experience with the course, which would come in handy later.

Sometimes your tongue just needs cooling.  Pics pilfered from Michael Lyons.

Gravel and Potholes and Wipeouts, Oh My:  The first half was mostly cat 3 loitering, but at the first dirt section (Woodstock Road, around the 25 mile mark), inspired by Strava banners and the promise of cold cash, the pace picked up.  I rode hard from the beginning, Jess bridged up, and a few of us kept the pace high.  I think a fair number of riders were shelled out the back here...I was lucky, and Jess was cyclocross strong, and staying near the front and picking good lines helped.  It was still a tad scary, though, having to choose between crossing the thicker gravel in the center or ending up on the outward camber of a turn...no good.  Somewhere in one of the early dirt sections, I hit some soft sand drifting back in the pack, lost a bottle, pounded some serious potholes, survived a puddle of indeterminate depth, and avoided a low speed climbing wipeout by a rider in front of me.

One bottle gone, claimed by the rough surface

By the next Strava challenge, I had taken some neutral water, supplemented with my own endurolytes (lucky preparation), and pushed the pace up front with the eventual third place finisher, Jesse.

Overheated tongues the norm in this race.

Although I was interested in pressing, Jesse wasn't, and we slowed at the end of Blockhouse hill, allowing the pack to regroup.  We were still chasing a couple riders up the road, and for the next little while, the Caine's riders blocked for their man in the break while Tiger Cycling and West Florida Wheelmen tried to push the pace.  At 73, knee feeling okay, I did what no one really would have recommended:  I waited until a blocker had just taken a turn on the front, stood on the pedals, pushed a nice big gear around the corner and over the hill, and settled in to TT for the next 30+ minutes.  Two riders up the road, no one chasing (yet) and me dangling out there in 3rd.  I had gotten well out of sight of the pack, best I could tell, and was humming along nicely, thinking about my knee and why I should have practiced TTing more this winter.  When I hit the next dirt, breaking my back wheel loose, I dismounted and trotted up the hill.  I wasn't exactly pressing the pace, but I wasn't really dawdling either.  I was surviving, and staying away.

Soon after, however, I could sense riders back, and I realized that three of the strongest had sprung loose (maybe at the beginning of that dirt section?) and were coming to get me.  It was around mile 90.  I hung on, rested a bit, and began to work into their rotation.  It was hard, I was definitely suffering; we caught the two from the original break.  These guys were still popping jumping hard.  Every once in a while, in this lead group of now six, I'd get gapped and have to fight back on.  The three chasers were stronger and fresher, and with less than a mile to go, on the final gentle rise, everything went fuzzy; was this a bonk?  I redlined--I could see my wattage was 1/3 of what it ought to have been.  I had ceased to care.  Where were my gels?  It was far too late for gels.  I softpedaled in, staying away from the pack for sixth, finishing a bit behind the original two breakers, who were also dropped by the leaders.  Crossing the line, I checked with a Gran Fondo finisher to make sure that that was, indeed, the finish.  I kept pedaling--it hardly mattered; nothing would erase the suffering.  The three chasers ahead of me had finished in a sprint, with Stephen Hyde taking it, "textbook," he said.  Jump last and nip the other two at the line.

So I rolled back to the staging area, cleaned up, and housed a few pounds of the local club's homemade pasta.  (I think I'd enjoyed that post-race goodness before, at a Baton Rouge XC race.)  With a local bluegrass band as background music, we lounged on the grass and traded race stories, until, finally cleaned up, it was time to head back to Oxford.  My first Rouge Roubaix under my belt--I think I'll make it a yearly habit, if I can.

Crosswinds Classic: A Series of Firsts

With a solid winter of training under my belt, I figured I'd head out to Arkansas at the end of February for the Crosswinds Classic, presented by CARVE, Central Arkansas Velo. 

The night before, I was not thinking seriously about racing, but this was supposed to be a flat, fast, and fun early-season event, and the weather looked good--so, armed with a big mug of coffee and cash for day-of registration, I tossed my gear into the car in the predawn chill, hitched a draft off two SUVs headed west from Memphis with bikes on the back, and pinned my number on.

Eff It, Kevin, I texted:  Let's Race.

And that's around the time things started to circle the drain.  Pulling a new tire on my spare rear wheel, I realized...oh yeah.  No rim tape.  That's not going to work.  So I gave my training tires a spin, pumped a few more PSIs into them, threw my front wheel in the wheel van, and rolled to the start.

Cat 3 neutral rollout, image from JBar Cycling

The neutral start brought us out of a big-rig shipping depot and took us onto a flat, fast, and mostly straight loop. It was a nice race--what you'd expect from flat and fast.  Halfhearted attacks would go up the road a little, only to turn the corner and surrender to the wind.  On the back straight, a succession of brave souls would try to string out the pack hoping they might open a gap and turn the corner to run with the wind for half a lap.

Somewhere in there, in the first half of the race, I spooled up and, revving at 135 or so, hit my max wattage of the season.  I know it was the first half because soon after, I felt my front wheel go squishy.  I waved for the wheel truck, took my front--and only--wheel, and gave the driver the thumbs-up.  That was a first--compound firsts, in fact:  my first flat in a race (my first of the season), and my first tow back to the pack.  That part--the individual attention while being towed back to the pack--felt cool.  Returning to the race, I slotted in near the front, and rode moderately for another lap and a half, until...soon after the start/finish on the third time around (and luckily, near the turnoff to the staging area), the spare wheel went soft, and I found myself taking proud credit for my first two-flat race.  Either I was the only guy hitting the impossibly small glass out there, or my rubber--basically, the same tires I'd been doing 4 and 5-hour long rides on all winter--was done.

The wheel-truck driver was funny and kind, in turns, but the rule was apparently the rule:  no neutral wheels.  So, staring at a truck-bed full of front wheels, I took enough air to return to my car, changed, and drove over to watch the finish.  I heard that someone crashed and a late break of three stayed away in the (what else?) crosswind for the finish.

And me?  Equipment lesson learned.  I ordered some atrociously thick, heavy, and cheap training tires, a set of new racing shoes for my baby, and resolved to plan ahead from now on.  Apparently, I outlived my bad tire karma, since I finished Battenkill sporting this bad boy on my Pavés:

Karma?  I'll take it.

On Broken Bones, Lacerated Kidneys, Remembering and Forgetting

My right kidney has now gone fifty-two weeks without having two splintered ribs rudely pushed into it.  I gotta say, it's been a good day year.

The crash itself had a disorienting effect on my 2011 season in a number of ways.  It happened at my first cat 3 race, Quabbin Reservoir Road Race, and at the time, seemed like it stalled my racing momentum.  It ended my research stay at Yale a week early, and it defined my time in Worcester the following month.  It made me an offer I couldn't refuse:  give up sitting up comfortably for a month, and you'll get all the sympathy and BAMF cred you want with non-cyclists.

It didn't really disrupt my training plan--I was already between plans (ironically, where I find myself again), and in the end it meant I simply spent hours annoying the Gold's Gym spin-class leaders with my refusal to "Yay!  Really hammer now!" and, later, sweating enormous pollen-ringed puddles every morning on the deck of the American Antiquarian Society's beautiful guest house.  But afterward, crits seemed insanely punchy and fast after two months being neither, and every so often after races or long training rides, I could hear my ribs telling me about the time they got cracked in half and pushed into my kidney.

If last season was about remembering the crash, most of the offseason I spent forgetting it--I got to start over in a new place, tell the story a few times ("and that's why I'm not playing basketball in the offseason") and move on with a real off-season.  Once the interminable afternoon calls to insurers and medical billing were over, there wasn't much to remember.  Besides, maybe, the random and only mildly alarming facts that I have a duplicate Inferior Vena Cava and an unidentified mass in my left inguinal canal.

The last few weeks, though, have been season of remembering:  Easter weekend came earlier this year than last, so I celebrated my crash's liturgical anniversary by (what else?) driving 9 hours and then racing.  At Battenkill last week, Harry Zernike handed me a copy of the beautifully-produced issue 3 of 9W magazine, featuring interleaved firsthand accounts of the Quabbin Reservoir Road Race, including my crash report.  It's a nice feature, focusing on the ways in which epic nasty conditions that day sent various riders to idling cars, McDonald's bathrooms, and emergency rooms.

And today is the calendar anniversary, another occasion to contemplate the relationship between remembering and forgetting. I guess I don't mind remembering, especially if Milan Kundera was right when he wrote "Remembering is not the negative of forgetting.  Remembering is a form of forgetting."

(I'll have to tap Kundera for a quote again sometime when I need to ponder the Unbearable Lightness of Climbing)

O Battenkill

Saturday, April 14, 9:40 AM:  Matt and Ryan and the rest of the cat 2s have departed.  My wheels are in the Jeep.  Our lady of the gravel roads, carved hills full of grace, have mercy on my sidewalls.  Have mercy on my frame have mercy on my ribs on my kidney have mercy on my bank account.  Have mercy.  I re-pin my number in penance and nibble the Gatorade and Clif bar sacrament.  I ride my bike across the grass field to the portajohns one more time.  The line moves fast.

Another day, another race.

10:10 AM:  The Cat 3 Yellow field rolls out.  I have finished the clif bar, passed the wrapper out.  No extraneous trash or weight.  I surf the neutral field, finding the lines where riders move up, working the white line.  I make the bridge in the front ten or fifteen riders.  Much better than last year.

Mile 22:  The field has been sedate.  We have already passed Juniper Swamp.  Two riders move forward at the feed zone.  They take no bottles; I stand up, gun it, bridge up to them alone after a thirty-second effort.  Five or six other riders join us and we begin to work.  One rider is pulling too hard, gapping us.  I pull through, but not too hard.  It is still very early.  Nick offers me a gel.  I decline.  I am compact, stable, preternaturally aware of turns.  I call them out well before anyone else. We will be caught by the next dirt hill.

Mile 29:   We ease up into the dirt.  The sun is in our eyes.  I hear a note of alarm in a voice declaring us caught.  I do not mind.  I try to make the case to Michael; they have to chase us up a hill.   I ride by Jeff, Alex is working hard.  We pass Veronique's barn.  I wonder why my car is not parked out front.  Over the next few miles a couple riders will stay out front, cooking their legs.  Forgive them, Battenkill:  they know not what they do.

Mile 39:  Cheese Factory Road.  Level, meandering, recently graded.  It was covered in large loose gravel chunks.  The pace picks up here.  The pack remains largely together.  A chunk of dirt hits me in the mouth.  I hear large rocks bouncing off carbon.  I imagine the rocks are bouncing from bike to bike.  I fishtail, struggle for a line.  Mike is riding in the wind.  A rider attacks hard but without real conviction--we are all working hard, and he will not get very far away.  I am frankly confused.  The pack is a hive animal, reeling back in the two breaking riders.

Mile 41-46:  the pace has lifted permanently.  We see glimpses of our pace car.  We pass our wheel Jeep on the side of the road.  No flatting now.  The grinners and laughers are no longer grinning or laughing.  I remain in hiding.  We make the catch, and a collection of new riders moves forward.  I am low on my bars.  The course is a hyena with its ribs showing.  It lurks, and I wait for it to claim the weakest.

Mile 48.5:  At feed zone 2:  I take a bottle from Greg.  He is all business, and perfectly positioned.  I see Beth too late, my own bottle bobbing above heads.  I take some gel.  Meetinghouse Road:  I am suffering in earnest now.  Forgive me, O Battenkill, for I have sinned.  Since my last confession I have eaten three carryout Little Caesar's pepperoni pies and seven Domino's pizzas, each time with at least one and sometimes two chocolate lava cakes.  I have eaten entire tins of delicious roasted cashews, boxes of cheap granola bars, and endless bags of craisins.  Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  I get low and descend hard, taking a clear right-hand track and passing to the head of the field.  I coast up as far as I can before pedaling again.  There is no relief on the crest, riders waterfalling over loose gravel into the next pavement stretch.  I hold position as we regroup.  I remain in cover.  I am afraid to assess the size of the pack, but someone says we are fifteen.

I am trying to break your heart.

Mile 56.1:  Stage Road looms to our left.  I squeeze out half a bottle--I have not had time to drink nor will I again for the rest of the race.  I pull across and move to the head of the pack.  I find the smoothest line and climb by myself for ten pedal strokes.  The others move up.  I climb in second position, but I am losing ground.  I stand, I sit, I grind on the pedals.  I am out of my mind.  I am Teresa skewered in holy bliss.  I am breathless, stupid, automatic.  I am right behind.

The Oregon State Hill Climb champ over my left shoulder.

As the road turn up one more time, two riders move forward, a third.  They crest.  We are mere yards from pavement, and the rider to my right hits the ground.  I stare deep into his eyes as my front wheel misses his head by inches.  Everyone else seems to have stopped, but I shoot forward and crest the hill.  The rider in third is big, descending.  I am frantic, tunneling nose-first over tarmac.  I whip the pedals, passing him, and coast up to the lead pair of riders, deep in oxygen debt.

Mile 58.8:  We have no business being out front.  I do not understand where the rest of the pack has gone.  They will catch us, I am sure.  I come around and pull, we rotate smoothly.  We can see that the big rider is chasing.  When I am slow to pull through the smaller rider jerks his head around, searching for me.  I stay low, I kiss my stem tenderly, caress the hoods, drape my hands over the bars.  I glimpse my wattage; it is enough.  I want nothing more than to stay in front.  I tell them so.  We are pulling hard and well.  The chase will not catch us.  The final kilometer signs pass.  I begin to realize what is happening now.  I always knew it would.  I rest.  I am bigger, I think, I can outsprint these two.  It does not matter if it is true.  I feel my legs twinge, well done lumps of charred steak.

Mile 62.1:  With three hundred meters to go, I float back.  I cannot believe they would let me rest on the back.  I find myself clear, and I jab, spinning up hard for five seconds.  Everything goes red and my legs feel like numbed stumps.  The first rider responds, charging, and the other catches his wheel.  I swing behind and fight for second but I am done.  It is finished.

Pilfered from Jeffrey Pacailler

Needless to say, I'm tremendously pleased with a third place in such a race, and pleased to have made the move and put myself in the final selection.  It's been a year or so since I behaved in any sort of sprinterly manner, so I know I have room for improvement.  Battenkill 2012 is in the books, and with two podiums in two years, I have no regrets.  As importantly, I got to spend the ride home and the rest of the weekend with good friends.
 

In the presence of cat 2 greatness.

Who doesn't love chocolate milk?

Load the Car and Write the Note

...I am headed north.

It's Battenkill Week.  Time to gear up for Deiter Drake's self-proclaimed toughest one-day race in the US, the so-called American "Queen of the Classics."  I'm not disputing the claim--it certainly seems to be a successful event, and I'm looking forward to my second go-round with the gravel, the dirt, the vicious northern cat 3s and the covered bridge waiting to clip my elbow as I jockey for an inside line in mile 5.

I'm loading the car and writing the note...

• Bike:  check.  Generously rassled repeatedly into race shape over the last month by the hard-working folks at Oxford Bicycle Co.
• Gear:  It's a long way to go without a helmet.  Or shoes.
• Beer:  check.  A sixer of Lazy Magnolia's best, payment for a free night on a couch.
• Dog:  uncheck.  Annie, not racing, gets to enjoy the modern-day luxuries of an indoor-outdoor suite (without me having to grumblingly open the door), puppy pals, play days, and unlimited treats.  Lucky her.
• Training:  check.  Got the plan, stayed compliant, and only had a few workouts at the end where I had to ask myself what I had gotten into.  It gave me one bad week with a strangely gimpy left knee, a few spring races with up-and-down results, and a wonderful feeling of tapering freshness in the past week.
• Car food:  Lara bars, apples, bananas.  Lots of water bottles.  I can't help that I weigh ten pounds more than I did last season, but I can at least try to eat healthy on the road.
• Warm clothes:  check.  Did I mention it's been 70-80 degrees down here consistently for the past month?  What?  It's not like that everywhere?  I might have to go back to arm warmers?!?
• A full night's sleep:  whoops.  But you do what you gotta do.

Almost ready to turn the key and crank the road tunes.  Three separate days of driving after classes and I'll be lining up for the start.  I love starts.  A new day, a new race, a new category, new forms of suffering and a new finish line--here we go.

Racing Season 2012: Breaking the Seal

So, a month deep into racing season 2012, I'm just popping the cork on blogging up my experiences.  So hang on, people:  I'm claiming my fifteen minutes of (self-published) fame.

So this is my forum for posting up some race reports, process the lessons and experiences of training and racing, playing with online graphic design (bear with me) and getting the writing juices flowing (i.e., distract myself) from my academic work...which has to happen on deadline at least some of the time.

So it's a little late to post my first race reports from 2012, but I can do a retrospective roundup.  It's been a good winter training (not Tommeke good, but pretty good, I'd say, for a cat 3 in his first offseason).  But it's also my first spring racing in the Dirty South, so I had very little idea of what to expect down here.

What I did know:

• There's not many racers in The Velvet Ditch.
• There's only one local race, and it's on a weekend that I would like to reserve for (what I hope to be) my annual humiliation.
• There are a lot of driving miles between southeastern races.
• My car gets 25mpg at best.
• You can only cancel classes so many times before your students start taking the initiative and canceling on their own.

So far, I've ridden a fairly slack offseason, used my residual fitness to pedal hard and eat dirt in a few local mountain bike races, and finally, at New Year's, put myself on a training plan aimed at Battenkill...perhaps my one cast-in-concrete season goal.  I've done some tune-up racing, tried to relearn the lessons of last season, and have followed the plan religiously so far--bringing me to the last week before The Big Race.

Bate your breath:  race reports and musings to follow...