Data Mining

I'm not the most diligent miner of my own data, but since a supersecret conglomerate of Sprint-Blackwater-Nike-PepsiCo, consulting with Dick Cheney, is already doing so in the bowels of the information Mordor, I figured I'd see what my numbers could tell me.  

Mostly, not much:

That looks about like my cycling routines over the last month or so:  big peaks when I steal away a day or two of riding, and lulls where I'm doing more working than pedaling.  But every once in a while, something interesting shows up:

I flatter myself to think that this might be one of the few blogs that would turn up results on the google searches for:

1) "hill repeats for battenkill"
2) "Joe Martin Stage Race power profile," and
3) "wheel recommendation for rouge roubaix."

So, intrepid (and geographically confused) googler, the answers are:

1)  A lot (my favorites were 9-12 x 90 seconds seated, sprint at the end)
2)  Tougher than you think for the first stage, and easier than you think for the rest, until the final sprint of the crit; and
3)  I've really enjoyed my HED Ardennes--light, but alloy for increased durability in crappy-surface races, wide rims are nominally aero with 23mm tires, and they are quite comfortable accepting my favorite crap-surface racing tires, Vittoria Pave 25s.  Although I did see a lot of carbon deep-dish wheels there, which (if they can carry you through the rough stuff) must be nice on the long miles between dirt sections, especially in a break.

Now, back to killing some leftover turkey and dreaming about the race-season trifecta of Rouge Roubaix, Battenkill, and Joe Martin.  After working off some of these holiday pounds.

Baby's First 'Cross Race

The short:  Crossroads Clash:  2nd CX4, 4th in the "B" Race, dignified DNF in the "A" race

Race season is dead--long love race season!  Just like the French medieval royal succession, race season has a special way of perpetuating itself, resurrecting itself in the very act of dying.  Maybe it's a testament to cyclists' constant need to prove themselves, maybe it's something more fun. 

I heart staging.  It's always the best part of the race.  Awesome pics pilfered
from 901's facebook page.

This time around, it definitely feels like the fun version--it's cyclocross season in the mid-south, the cold-brewed antidote to roadie self-importance and FTP-induced ennui.  As far as I'm concerned, and I remain an unreconstructed roadie, this is cycling at its best.  Bikes on grass, cowbells, barriers, long socks, unnecessary skinsuits, most of us proudly reduced to miniscule cranksets, aluminum frames and SPD pedals. 

It's a resurrection of another sort, too--of our better younger selves, riding knobby tires back to our ten-year-old cycling origins, swerving in feral packs through the neighborhood, jumping curbs, power-braking, wiping out, cranking until our legs and lungs burn, and doing it all again.  Vive le sport.

I still heart staging. 

On another of the mid-south's long string of remarkable, cloudless fall days, I headed up to 901 Racing's Crossroads Clash for my first 'cross race.  At ten pm the night before, I had swapped the pedals off my mountain bike (still decorated with year-old Wolf River Trail mud, I shamefacedly admit), did a few running dismounts in the grassy corner lot (screw remounts!  No time!) and packed up my race back once again.

On the day of, I managed to caffeinate on the way up, squeeze into the B race (women and children first?!?).  The course, rigged up at Memphis's own Shelby Farms, started 600m short of the start/finish, following a brilliant, fun, winding uphill grass sequence to the final barrier, then into a short singletrack section, emerging onto a grass section with a triple barrier, and after a 1.5-minute TT on the grass, dove into some more singletrack.  After an uphill barrier, the course circled back through the windy uphill section to the final barrier.  

Start/finish barrier, non-instagrammed

Giddyup!

After a quick neutral lap, we were off. It was everything I thought it would be, and more.  The phrase "dirt crit" crossed my mind as the pack went into the trees for the second time.  The pace was high--I was hitting my redline repeatedly.  This is good for me, I thought.

I was near enough to the front, and coming out of the singletrack, I goofed going over the logs, slowing up the riders behind me.  I'll have to work on that.  On the grass again, I managed to surge past two or three riders, and a quick check confirmed I was near the front--there was one single-speed racer, one woman, and one other CX 4 in front of me.  I was consistently slow through the second singletrack section--or other people were consistently able to catch up, perhaps--but I managed to hold my own and open up gaps on the grass, most laps.

Start-finish barrier.

By the second or third time through, I was hitting the triple barrier on the back side of the course smoothly--in stride, kicking the back wheel of the bike up, and holding my speed.  It took a while, figuring out which foot wanted to come out of the pedal first, which side I had to come off, which foot to begin running on.  A few times, especially the uphill barriers, I got caught with my right foot down, unclipping my left, and still trying to get off the left side of the bike...try it.  It's a no-go.  Once, in the heat of otherwise racey efforts, I had to grab the brakes as I nosed the front wheel into the barrier.  That can't be right.  For a whole lap, my fancy mtb shoes with the cable lock came undone (luckily, not broken), but the right wrist has regained enough flexibility to handle such mid-race on-bike fine motor skills.  Luckily, I got it all mostly figured out, or at least well enough to not lose position as the race proceeded. 

About a third of the course was (mostly) easy singletrack

I found myself in second in my race with a few laps to go, and after some strategic recovery riding on the final lap, managed to hold off another rider for 2nd in the class, 4th rider in the B race.  Like a big boy.

I surged up the final twisting grass sequence, holding position, and thankfully didn't have to spring full-bore at the final barrier.  I don't know if I could have figured out my unclipping and running in a full-on sprint. 

I think I might need a slightly longer stem.

After a quick recovery, I was slated to get into the A race.  My legs were still pretty blasted, and I was lobbying to skip the neutral lap, but--unbeknownst to me--that meant the whole thing was go from the gun.  Crap!  I found myself all the way at the back of the back.  Had we started this fast in the B race?!?  Probably.  Are my legs that cracked?  Indeed.  Some dude went down, disappearing in a cloud of dust, at the bottom of the first hill, and I slid out on my left side.  That was disheartening, although no bad effects beside some grass in my lever.  I just didn't have any legs, though, couldn't catch up, and just felt unsteady the whole time, so at the next-to-last barrier on the first lap, I just nosed off the course and went to collect my half cup of beer and $50 before adding in a few minutes of riding in the park. 

Great job, Matt West and crew!  It was a good day.  If I'd listened to the right people, I might have known--every day at the cross races is a good day.  Vive le 'cross!

The log barriers coming out of the woods.

Stick a Fork in It...

...2012 Racing season is over.

The Short:  3rd place, LA/MS district cat 3 road race championship.

The Long:  Don't call it a comeback, because I did get back on the bike in a "racelike effort" in a "timed event" in July...

Ryan's Lesson in Aerodynamics

...but I did come back to bucolic Natchez, Mississippi, for my (now) annual pilgrimage to the Louisiana/Mississississississippi Racing Association Championships.  I was looking to wrap up the wrist in an ace bandage, get on the bike one last time, test the legs after a little layoff, and stick a fork in 2012 road racing season.

Davis and the Race Wagon

The cat 3 LAMBRA race is 72 miles on a 5-mile circuit in a state park, 14 laps starting at the low point, going up along a dam on the edge of a pleasant swallow- and redneck-infested lake, turning net uphill for the next 2 miles through a series of 30-second kickers with short downhills.  The back half of the course, with a few rollers, twists through a bunch of fast and sometimes sketchy park-road curves for a net downhill into the start-finish.  The uphills are not long enough to drop people, and the downhill half encourages chasers to catch back on.  There have been breaks before, but not many in the cat 3 race.  Add to that a small field--16 (3 more than last year!)--and it looked like it would be, as usual, a race of attrition.  Add in Blair Krogh, who has done nothing but win this year (from breaks, in sprints, on a cross bike, on trails, in crits, in TTs), and I assumed that the race would be all about staying with the strong guy as long as possible. 

The race was mellow for the first hour--that was very similar to the 2011 edition.  There were a few little giddyups, but the course and the small field don't encourage attacks early.  Everyone covers everything, because there are no teams to chase--if the strong rider got a long leash, that might be it.  The field would break up trying to chase him down.

At the one-hour mark, though (and my power files confirmed it) the energy level went way up, and two or three of the strong guys kicked and punched each other until just six of us remained.  This was good news for me, since in 2011, we had the whole field together until the very last lap--this time around, the field had shredded by the halfway mark.  Power data confirmed it was a bit more surgey and strenuous than 2011.  The pace then moderated a bit, but I found myself cramping.  I was drinking copiously, electrolytes and gatorade, and it wasn't even that hot.  (It might have something to do with the big hole in my June and July training.  I don't know.)  But I diligently shirked my pulls, despite the New Orleans kid yelling at me, and let the strong guys do what they do as I sucked wheel.  Soon after, a stronger rider flatted and had to wait for the wheel truck--he never came back.  Lead group down to 5, I was almost guaranteed a better placing than my 2011 6th place.  The next lap, we dropped the 2010 winner, who looked like he had been training for the track exclusively...huge haunches but he got put in difficulty on the hills.  I was 4th or better, and doing all I could to moderate my effort for the oncoming slaughter. 

The turn onto the dam; I was scrupulously obeying the speed limit, of course.

With 5 laps to go, Krogh rolled forward above the feed zone--not attacked--and I let him, stupidly.  The New Orleans kid jumped across, and was left with the gap and the other rider.  I weighed my options.  I could jump across (they had a 100m gap) and fight my increasingly serious cramps and the two strongest riders for podium spots.  I didn't feel good.  I was mindful that my longest ride since early May was just over 3 hours long.  Just as the two strong guys pulled away, the 4th place rider, John, who was leading in the LAMBRA season points competition but quickly dying, made me an offer I couldn't refuse:  work with him to keep him in 4th place points, and I could have 3rd.  I took the deal.

Riding it out.

As anticompetitive or wussy as it was, it was the right thing for me--at least twice a lap over the next 4 laps, my legs would lock up, sometimes near-catastrophically (like, can't even keep the pedals turning, everything was so locked up).  The New Orleans kid had worked too hard, and Krogh dropped him like a bad habit within a lap and soloed in for the win.  I would have been dropped even more quickly, with the cramping.  Having John share water and pace me whenever the cramps attacked was nice, and on the long net downhill I was able to spin up to a high tempo pace, better than he could manage.  So we finished together, John waved me ahead for third, and we put a bit more time into the chasers, keeping his series points safe. It was by far the most cramping I've ever experienced.  I'm not sure if it was the heat (moderate), some pre-race hydration mistake (possibly), not drinking enough early (unlikely), or maybe just inadequate endurance (most likely?) but I'm deeply uninterested in ever cramping like that again. 

(Blog alert:  electrolyte post coming up!)

The "podium":  at least it was in the shade.

I was lucky to take 3rd, and lucky that the hard mid-race efforts were early, and split the small field so completely that I could maintain my position.  At any rate, it was a good weekend:  I made a comeback of sorts, got on the podium of two states at once, added 4 points to my upgrade total (to sit 2 points shy of my upgrade all winter), confirmed the wrist's racing fitness, and left myself a little to improve upon in 2013.

Davis in Ole Miss colors

Davis, in his first cat 4 race, drank less, worked harder, and still managed to hang on for the field sprint, which soon-to-be cat 3 Adam Morris took in a strong sprint.  It was a more climactic finish than the 3 race, for sure.