Jeremy on Biking

Minuteman Cross Race

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:49:00 -0400

Since I didn’t manage to make it to the Minuteman CX race last year due to some alarm setting failure and mid-week races are hard so I didn’t make it to the Midnight Ride of Cross prior to Gloucester, this was my first time heading out to the Bolton Fair (.. in Lancaster). In an interesting scheduling setup, they had the cat 4 race at 11am but also interestingly, with the juniors. This plus the proximity made it a great race to have Kara and Madeline come out to watch and cheer me on which was super awesome.

Venue was good. Nice, simple grassroots race without a ton of vendors, tents, etc. While I appreciate the production value of a Gloucester or a Providence, I think that these sorts of races are what it’s really all about. A pre-ride of the course showed it to be more muddy than I expected and there were a fair number of slippery turns coupled with some power, especially on the first half where there was some significant-for-a-cross-race climbing. And there was some decent wind gusting which could be an interesting obstacle of sorts. Glad to still have Oscar’s tubulars but wondering a bit if I was going to have the lungs/legs for racing. One way to find out, though.

With the staging having me starting in what would have been the third row, I had a goal of making it into the top 20 for the day. But we ended up staging behind the juniors which meant I was probably on the 5th row or so. They got us started and I took off. I had another halfway decent start and managed to move up a decent amount by the grass and put on the power through the first uphill to get past most of the juniors and a decent chunk of my field. But it hurt. A lot.

Wood chips as a sand pit alternative. Photo courtesy of Kara Katz

Course was pretty nice. The wood chips were a nice little touch and it wasn’t too boring. The flyover was out for safety reasons so only two sets of barriers to force dismounts. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t find my power for the most part. And it was pretty turn-y and turns are still my nemesis — I slow down way too much for them and then have to work way too hard leaving them. Anyone want to volunteer to help me out with cross cornering? Seriously. I need it.

Passing a guy and trying not to have course tape get tangled up. Photo courtesy of Kara Katz

At one point, Marty from Geekhouse caught me and we had a good little thing going for a lap or two where we’d pass each other back and forth. But one time through the deep mud just sucked me in and he got away from me, never to be caught again. Was probably some of the windiest time but it always seemed to be a cross wind so I couldn’t just draft and recover.

Anyway, kept sliding back but whenever I’d look back, I’d see another Quaddie (there were four of us in the race — Jim, Justin, Pat and myself) and push a little harder to stay ahead of them. That ended up being effective and I was the top finisher from the team, 23rd of the 81 finishers (90-ish starters?). 3:30 down on the winner.

Not too unhappy with it but had hoped for a little bit better. It was a pretty clean race for me outside of the cornering being kind of like a moron. And I was sick the week before and haven’t been training well regardless with all of the move related stuff.

So going to try to get in some solid training over the next couple of weeks — intervals and some skills work. Really do need to get the cornering down. Hopefully the results I want will then follow.

Russ Campbell gets what might be the best race face photo of me ever

Providence Festival of Cross Day One 2011

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:33:27 -0400

catching up on the blogging… this was written earlier in the week but not posted. Oops! And sorry, no photos since it’s late getting up to begin with!

Providence was another early morning for the cat 4 race since our start time was 8 am and it’s just over an hour away. Was able to swing car pooling so headed down with Justin leaving at 530. Made it to the venue and finding parking was the predictable pain - there isn’t enough and the signage wasn’t great at that point. But parked, registered, pinned up, etc and went out to pre-ride the course. Felt pretty good about things - very similar to last year’s course where I did fairly well and legs seemed to feel good.

Lined up on the right hand side of the fourth row and waited for the start. When it came, I managed to clip in and get going fast moving up a bit through the pavement which was good. Hit the grass probably around 20th and settled in to try to have a clean race. A few guys passed me early in the grass but I knew I was just getting going so didn’t let it bother me and kept them in sight through the first turns. Hitting the section after the pit, there was the predictable wipeout (grass was a little slippery, easy to take it too hard) and I avoided the mess moving up a little

Most of the rest of the race was pretty much the same. Was in a little group of about five guys for the most part and was pretty strong and staying near the front of it. I’d over cook a corner and get passed but then make it up on a power section. Then on the next to the last lap, I had mostly broken free and was working towards the next group when I managed to overshift and drop my chain. Couldn’t get it back on so had to dismount and fix it too slowly watching the guys from my group pass me. Got back on the bike and pedaled hard and was close by the time we made it back around but I was kind of toasted from the effort and skittish of making the same mistake twice so they got away on the last little technical section

Still pushed hard and held a guy off to end up 22nd of the 94 starters which I was pretty damned happy with. Chilled for a while, checked out the veloswap, watched some racing and then headed home.

Unfortunately the ride home was accompanied with some wheezing and an increasingly worse cough which meant that I bailed on the Sunday race and haven’t ridden at all this week as I tried to get over it followed by just enough cold rain that I didn’t want to risk it returning.

Gloucester Gran Prix of Cross, Day 2

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:33:57 -0400

Woke up again dark and early Sunday morning and was pleased to (not) hear any rain falling. Especially after the overnight storm which had woken me up. Got ready, bike in the car, etc and was ready to go. As I was doing so, the drizzle started. By the time I reached Peabody, it was pouring. Great. Another rainy morning. But then the yellow Mavic car got on the highway a few miles further along and the sky started to clear.. As Chip said, kind of poetic but it was a good start to my day.

Got to the course and the rain had stopped. Was running a little behind but did the usual. Picked up my number, got it pinned on (it was a day for the skinsuit), did a lap, cursed the beach bit and following 33 stairs, rode a tiny bit of the lap again, then went to staging. Warm up? Who wants warm ups. As we waited on the line, it started to drizzle again but it didn’t really get beyond that.

We started and I had something approaching a decent start. Not great. But decent. Was able to get going and moved up a little on the uphill paved section. We hit the grass and I started playing “don’t lose ground”. Did reasonably well at it and decided that the goal of the race for me was going to be to ride it smooth. Find the flow. Push, but not too hard. Ride within myself and ignore the rest.

Top of the staircase of doom, photo thanks to Roger Cadman

And you know what? It was a solid plan. I consistently picked people off. First it was Russ. Then it was Pat. Then it was chasing down the ECV guy with the bunny ears. And each time, I just kept it smooth and steady and was able to stay in front of them. Maybe the course just worked for me — it wasn’t super duper technical, although it had some spots. There was plenty of grassy power stuff which tends to work pretty well for me. In any case, I had a good for me race and ended up 45th of the 98 starters. 15 places better than the predictor said so can’t complain too much.

Flowing through one of the gentler turns, photo thanks to Roger Cadman

There was, though, still one problem. Mud was making it tough for me to clip into the Eggbeaters. I probably lost a few places due to that on the gravel-y power back section when I couldn’t clip back in to pedal hard. After the fact, I discovered that the cleat was actually loose on the right shoe which probably didn’t help. But I’m close to deciding to throw in the towel on the Eggbeaters and just go back to the SPDs and see if I can deal with the knee wonkiness on long rides with some cleat adjustments. We’ll see. This weekend is probably their last chance to be redeemed.

And yeah, it’s almost this weekend. Friday night. Bag is almost finished being packed. Bike is ready. And I head down to Rhode Island in like 7 hours. So time to go watch some tv and then fall asleep.

Gloucester Gran Prix of Cross, Day 1

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:58:39 -0400

Wow. What a weekend. I only did one day of Gloucester last year so decided I had to do the double this year. Then we ended up moving jus over a week before and I was a little sick the middle of the week. Not the best recipe for good results but I figured I’d still go out and have a good time. Especially since I was going to be borrowing my teammate Oscar’s tubular wheels with a set of Fangos. Been considering getting a set of tubulars for cross and since he was going to be out of town, asked if I could borrow and he said sure. So I picked them up Friday night, put a cassette on them and said “good enough!”

Saturday morning started super early as Charles wanted to get there by 6-ish so we would have plenty of time to set up the Quad tent, get out numbers, warm up and check out the course. As we’re driving up, the rain started to fall. Well, guess it’s about time I got in a good, muddy race. We get there and it’s still dark. We figure out where we’re going to put the tent and put it up. Then registration, number pinning and all that jazz. Then it’s off to check out the course a bit. Of course, it’s early and so no one who actually knows the course is there yet and we end up riding part of the Sunday course. But hey, so it goes. Plus side, the rain basically let up / stopped.

Charles got on the trainer and I decided to go visit the ever wonderful Mavic guys to see if they could make my shifting less sucky. They did. ¹ Then a little bit more warming up on the course and found where we had gone wrong earlier and checked it all out. Initial impression? Hard course. The mud run-up that was hard last year when dry but holy crap hard when wet and slippery, a set of stairs, normal double barrier, a fly over and lots and lots of off-camber turny stuff. For someone who is really a road rider but fakes it during cross season, not the best combination of stuff…

Staged and was glad that it wasn’t raining but then it started drizzling again as we waited. Then we were off. And I screwed up the start. No real good reason why… it’s on pavement, I was in the right gear, just didn’t manage to get clipped in and powered up fast. I probably didn’t lose any places but I certainly didn’t gain any. Need to do some more work on my start!

The first lap was a bit of a mess. Lots of traffic, I failed entirely at moving up. I did at least dismount and run some of the sections where traffic was stupid and probably did okay as a result. But kept going hard. Nice thing was that the tires/wheels were awesome… could definitely tell the difference of the lower pressure on some of the off-camber-y stuff but I just am not good at that stuff and so slid out a few times.

Second lap was a bit better. Rode a little cleaner and slid out a bit less. Honestly a lot of the rest of the race kind of blurs together. I do have a memory of hearing two laps to go but then having three. But it seemed that the cat 4 field had to do more laps in general both days due to the winner² so it may have been related to that. Also, on the last lap, I was getting close to catching Russ but then I pushed a little too hard in a corner and went down losing some time and then not being able to make it up and catch him.

I ended up just a bit muddy… photo thanks to Abel Tomkinson

Overall, ended up 57th of 111 on the day by outsprinting a guy on the finishing uphill (in that I sprinted, he didn’t but I’ll take it!). Better than the prediction (61st) but not as well as I hoped. After the race, the weather cleared pretty much entirely and I got to hang out and enjoy the day watching all of the races except the last half of the elite men. Was pretty awesome to have a bunch of the Quad team there cheering each other on, watching races, and just generally being team-like.

Then it was home to rest and recover and get ready for day two on Sunday which I’ll do a separate post for…

Side note: the Mavic guys just rock all around. Seriously. They are awesome in their support of New England racing of all disciplines. ↩
Same guy, both days. He’s currently signed up for the cat 4 field of Providence this weekend. Hope he upgrades as he was waaayyyy faster than everyone else ↩

Bike Racing! QuadCross 2011

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:09:00 -0400

Sunday was the unofficial start of the New England cross season with QuadCross. As the race that my team puts on, I was fairly involved with some of the aspects of making it happen but most of the credit goes to Ted Packard for once again carrying the torch. This year, we were lucky and had the help of the Newbury Comics CX team and the Threshold team. Both were out in force for the course setup on Saturday which I had to miss due to some house purchase/moving related stuff. But I got to the venue early on Sunday morning and was like “hmm… there are a lot more cars here than I expected”. That’s about the time I realized it wasn’t cyclists. Turns out it was guys for the paintball field who were having to go in the other entrance due to road work on Sudbury Rd. Anyway, they got on their way and I started helping with some final course-work + getting registration going. Then went off to find my bike and get ready since I was in the first race.

Actually succeeded at doing some decent warm up laps for one of the first times ever. Did a few laps and started to dial things in. Course was going to be fast and seemed fun. Felt reasonably good, although more sleep and less stress would have been preferable. Kept checking to see that things were going well and almost missed staging. Damn it. Made it just in the nick of time and slid into where I was supposed to be staged. Most people reasonably did staging by their number but not everyone and the officials weren’t super picky about it. First race of the season, first race of the day, first race for a number of the riders. Usual spiel and we were off. Annnndd I spectacularly failed at getting my foot clipped into the pedal. Damn it. Recovered as best I could but not the start I wanted. Lot of traffic going up the hill and through the first section to the sand pit where I just ran it making up a tiny bit of time. And then again failed at clipping in. Which was pretty much the theme of my race. But start kind of drilling it in the woods and slowly start creeping my way back up a little bit. It hurt but I didn’t feel awful when I was pedaling. Even the run up could have been worse, although I really do need to spend a little bit of time running outside of races. At one point, Thomas from Geekhouse caught up with me and we battled a little ala much of last season but then at some point he bit it in a corner and I didn’t see him again. Also at one point, I completely flubbed the Newbury barriers; Thom and Roger were nice enough to say it’s early season and just keep going (which I did) but it nagged at me. I just couldn’t get the kind of flow I wanted going.

Ended up 31st of 60-ish starters rather than in the top 20 like I was hoping. Fitness felt there-ish. Technical side, not so much. And I need to figure out why I was having pedal/shoe problems. Might be the new pedals (switched to Eggbeaters from SPDs). If so, back I’ll go. But worth at least giving a little bit more training time.

Anyway, finished the race, out of the chamois and then spent much of the next lot of hours running around to help where needed, cheering on racers, catching up with people and just generally not recovering.

As the day drew on, I somehow managed to convince myself that I should do the singlespeed race too. I sort of blame Chip and Conor but really it’s mostly just me. I don’t have a singlespeed bike, so I grabbed some zipties and rode over to put on the clean kit. Then around the parking lot and grassy field. My legs were wondering what sort of stunt I was trying to pull but I basically went for “shut up legs!” and kept rolling around. Went to the starting line and figured what the hell, I’d start at the front for at least one race ever. We attempted to talk the official into a shorter race but failed and then we were off. And I was promptly near the back with only a few guys behind me. But at the same time, I had no pressure. This was a lark. I just wanted some more time on the bike to work on the skills. So I put my head down, continued telling my legs to shut up and concentrated on riding clean laps. And you know what? It worked pretty damn well. I actually had my fastest lap in the singlespeed race and none of them were really “off” time-wise. Not sure if it was the smaller field, the lack of pressure or just it being more time on the bike but I felt good. At some point, I passed Thom of Newbury and decided my goal for the rest of the race was to stay ahead of him (sorry Tom!) and I succeeded. Didn’t manage to catch my teammate Pat on his first race of the day but came close at one point and then just had a little bit of sloppiness to throw things off.

… and now it’s like three weeks later and I haven’t actually posted this. So just going to do so and not do any editing or photo adding like I had planned.

Everyone stops at the General Store

Sat, 14 May 2011 11:30:50 -0400

Everyone stops at the General Store

Sterling Road Race, Cat 4

Mon, 09 May 2011 11:00:06 -0400

I’ve considered doing the Sterling road race a few times, but it hasn’t worked out in the past. Usually because I’m a terrible procrastinator when it comes to registering in advance and it always fills up. But I signed up sufficiently in advance for this year’s addition and was looking forward to it. After racing at Wells two weeks ago, I felt like my fitness was coming along nicely. Then, life happened for about two weeks and my training fell apart.

Oh well, I decided that just meant I’d be fresh. Got a ride from a teammate (thanks John!) and we made it out to Sterling in good time. Being there brought back lots of memories of cross as the start of the road race was the same middle school as the cross race from Thanksgiving weekend. We did the usual pre-race dance with registering, (sort of) warming up, etc and rolled up to the line as a team of three — myself, John and Brian. Our strategy: not much of one. Need to have a better one.

The neutral start was pretty civil. Big group ride where we could take the entire lane for a little over two miles. And it was a big group; I think that we were at the 100 rider field limit or at least pretty close to it (apparently 90 according to road-results). Definitely the biggest field I think I’ve been in for a road race. But felt pretty good about it.

We went up the big hill, across the start/finish line and the speed picked up some. But I felt pretty good sitting in the middle of the pack. Nothing too crazy, got a good look at the course. I was starting to feel my lack of a real warm-up, but was hanging and figured that’d improve. And by part way through the second lap, it did and I started to feel more comfortable. On the back stretch along Rt 12, I decided to see how moving up would go and managed to work my way to near the front of the pack with relative ease. But since there was to be a KOM prime, I knew I wasn’t going to stay there and didn’t feel like being caught up in that as I knew it would come right back together. I wasn’t planning to kill myself for a water bottle or something ;)

Third lap was where there were a few bobbles. A guy went down for no apparent reason two in front of me and slightly to the right, but I managed to avoid him without real difficulty. Then, on the back stretch something funky happened at the front leading to a bunch of movement and John almost taking me out. I stayed upright thanks to some practice with that with the MIT cycling team a couple of years ago but I started giving a little more space than I should have afterwards.

Fourth lap was okay, although was hanging out more at the back than I should have. So as we crossed the finish line to begin the fifth and final lap, I wasn’t in great position for the surge which happened. I struggled and barely maintained contact. The next little hill (which honestly, was the worse one for me every single lap) I lost contact and the pack got 15 secs up the road from me. Shit! I thought. But put my head down and kept riding. Then the master’s field passed me and they ended up neutralizing us. Yay! Caught back on. Sucked wheels around the course until just before turning back onto Rt12.

And that’s point that my left thigh started cramping like mad. I watched as the pack rode away and tried to get some fluids and electrolytes into me as quickly as I could. It helped a little, but the pack was too far down the road and despite some effort, I couldn’t pull myself back So I put my head down and just wanted to slog to the finish and not be passed by anyone who was left behind me. And in this, I was at least successful even though the other thigh cramped up also.

I turned to do the climb one last time and at least made it look good for Kate and Jen, who had ridden out to cheer the three of us racing. I crossed the finish line and was glad for the few mile spin back to the middle school to flush out the insane amounts of lactic acid in my legs at that point.

End result: 64th of 90 starters, about 3.5 minutes down on the pack and almost 5 down on the guy who apparently got away early on and won solo. John was 20th and Brian finished behind me after having a few mechanical mishaps along the way. I would have liked to have done better, but it is what it is.

Lessons learned:

Be better about drinking in a 40 mile road race. Seriously. Both bottles should be empty.
And eating too. At least shot bloks.
Get my training back on track as the lack of recent miles in my legs certainly didn’t help thing.
Need to do more training with short, punchy efforts and a short recovery to better handle the surges of a race.

Overall a very nice race. The course is awesome; almost all good pavement and a good mix of hill and flat. Might even have been scenic but it’s not like I had a chance to pay attention. And Minuteman does a really nice job of putting on a race. Tons of support, marshalls at every corner, traffic being adequately directed around us, well run registration. Seriously, kudos guys. I’ll definitely be back for this one in the future.

Wells Ave B Race, Easter Sunday

Sun, 08 May 2011 21:04:45 -0400

It’s been two weeks and I haven’t really written this up. So quick version.

Raced the B race at Wells Ave for the first time on Easter Sunday. Looked like there was a chance of A and B fields being combined which I wasn’t psyched about, then Jeremy Powers showed up and I was even less psyched and then they decided to run the fields separately.

Race was hard but felt overall good. Was too far back to bridge when the split happened but still got some really good efforts. Need to work on short time power for sprints / bridging and also on not going too early for sprints (there was a prime for the second group, I started waaaaayyyy too early).

Need to do Wells more.

Route that I took for the Ronde. Full blog post with the...

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 22:36:59 -0400

Route that I took for the Ronde. Full blog post with the details here.

Ronde de Rosey 2.0

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 22:32:00 -0400

I don’t know when I first ran across a blog post about last year’s Ronde, but when I saw Chip talking about this year’s edition, I knew that I needed to get in on it. 60 miles, mix of road and trails, on cross bikes, April. Sounds pretty awesome, no? And to top it all off, also a fundraiser for Bikes Not Bombs. So I gathered up a few of my Quad compatriots and signed us up as a team of four. Some shuffling later due to schedule changes and it ended up being myself, Jim, Gerry and Walter. A solid crew for a long ride across roads and trails.

We got to the Washington Square Tavern in Brookline and there were already a ton of people there. Seriously, there were enough bikes that it was tough to get past on the sidewalk. Checked in and waited for our latter half start time. And then we were off. For some reason, I couldn’t get my Garmin to follow the route (grr), so we ended up having just the cue sheets to set us on our way

The route ended up being great and (mostly) easy to follow without getting lost. Riding on a variety of roads (including some new ones for me) and then riding some of the trails in Rock Meadow Conservation area, the Arlington Great Meadows, Whipple Hill, Prospect Hill, a long stretch along an abandoned rail line (finding where this ended for us was our one spot of getting lost-ish), a lot of riding along the top of aquaducts and then Cutler Park. And only two parts that were super sketchy ;-) The first being the trestle bridge along the abandoned rail line (tried not to look down, but still yikes!) and also going down the back side of Prospect Hill.

Our team was making pretty good time for the first half or so of the ride. But then I noticed something funky was going on with my cleat. Thought I had just managed to move it out of position so stopped to check it. But it looked fine. Then I noticed that my pedal wasn’t screwed in all the way. Removed it and tried to put it back in, but it wouldn’t go all the way in, leaving probably two turns of the threads outside the crank arm.

But it looked like it wasn’t going anywhere, so on we went with me trying to be a little easy on it and not standing for any climbs and doing more run-ups than I would have preferred to avoid too much torque on the pedal. Then, pedaling along in Cutler, my foot goes flying a little and all of a sudden I am pedal-less. The threads completely stripped from the crank and so I was down to just being able to use one pedal. But the rest of the team was up ahead of me. So I took off trying to catch up to them. When I realized that the course at this point was an out and back, I turned around and headed back to the entrance of Cutler. 3 miles of trails with one pedal done.

I weighed my options in the parking lot as I waited for the rest of my team to make it back out. I could do the 7 miles left as a set of one leg drills. Or I could try to get a ride. So I did what any self-respecting cyclist would do… I started riding towards Brookline after letting them know. It was an interesting experience. But I made it back and actually ended up getting there in front of them as Jim was bonking and needed to stop for water.

I ended up with a ride time of 4 hours and 30-ish minutes for the 55 miles of riding I did. And I had a blast. Thanks to Rosey for organizing and everyone for coming out to make it a ton of fun. And next time, maybe I’ll remember to pull my phone out and take some photos.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to look for a new crankset for the cross bike…

Spring!

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 20:50:47 -0400

It’s officially spring. Woo! Of course, that means they’re saying there might be snow tomorrow. Blah. Oh well, it’s a rest day on a rest week.

I’ve been quiet here, but I’ve been getting out and training. It’s been a long winter of base training but I’m feeling a lot better on the bike than I’ve felt in a while. The real proof, as always, is in the pudding of racing. Which I’ll start doing a little of in a few weeks but the real target races are from mid-May and into June.

Should try to get back into the habit of taking some photos on rides as the scenery becomes more than just dirty and gross snow. And race reports will come with the racing.

2010 Retrospective

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:36:09 -0500

And now that I’m caught up on race reports, I can actually try to sit down and do a retrospective on the year (well, the cycling side at least).

2010 was a year with a pretty significant change for me in that my daughter Madeline was born. Obviously becoming a parent comes with a need for some adjustment of various things and one of those things was the amount of time on the bike. This was especially true the beginning of the year. I ended up with roughly 4300 moving miles and 267 hours of saddle time, not including what I did on the commuter bike. Respectable, all things considered. Not what I got during 2009, but I’m actually pretty happy with it looking back. On other fronts, however…

I only ended up actually doing one road race, Myles Standish way back in April. I went in with at best mediocre fitness and just managed to hang with the pack til the finish. While I talked about doing more, I never quite got motivated. The combo of not really training (the difference between riding and training is huge), being busy at work, not wanting to have to drive and spend the day away from Kara and Madeline, and other excuses I kept coming up with conspired to keep me from doing other races.

This was also the first year since I started riding again that I didn’t do a charity ride. I had intended to do the Seacoast Safari but logistics surrounding if Kara and Madeline were going to come up, etc proved tricky so I never ended up registering.

Fall, on the other hand, was the highlight of my cycling year. I finally gave in and picked up a cyclocross bike, the last of the 2008 Fuji Cross Pros at QuadCycles, at the urging of a few of my riding friends. I started out riding a little bit of trails, then did a skills practice or two and then it was off to racing. Since I hadn’t raced cross before, I had little pressure and just was going out there to have fun. After enjoying myself in the first couple of races, I started actually training so that I could do better and saw myself improving. All told, I ended up doing eleven cross races in the season. The relative closeness of the races coupled with their relatively short length was a great combination. Also, they are a lot more spectator friendly which was good for getting Kara and Madeline out to see me ride.

So a mixed year. And honestly, if it weren’t for picking up cross in the fall, I’d actually be inclined to say that it was a bit of a dud year on the bike.

Given that, what am I thinking for 2011? First off, I’d like to get back to doing some racing on the road this spring. Racing is just a lot of fun. Even if some chunk of my racing is just going down to Wells Ave in Newton, that’d be positive progress. Although I’d like to do a few more “real” races too. I also want to actually do a charity ride, probably Seacoast, again this year. It’s a good thing to do and I have fun doing it. Obviously, I also want to do cross again in the fall. And I think that training through the spring and summer for road racing along with trying to get my skills more solid will make my cross racing better.

So with all that, let the training for 2011 begin.

The Rest of the 2010 Cross Season

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:02:00 -0500

Okay, I started slacking and race reports stopped being written. So now you get a few race reports for the price of one! Don’t you feel lucky?

Baystate Cyclocross 2010

Okay, on to the first set. The weekend after Thanksgiving, I had signed up to race both days in Sterling at the Baystate Cyclocross race. No one else seemed to be going up, so I roused myself ass-early on Saturday to get there in time for the rocking 8 am start. But it was a quick drive out so I got there with plenty of time to register, check out the course, etc. Also, I’m remembering that it was pretty damned cold. But I started out in my typical near the back position and slowly worked my way forward. But honestly, I was sucking. The course was pretty twisty and I was doing myself no favors with my shitty cornering. Still, managed to pull out 23rd out of 40, pretty much entirely based on powering through some of the straight sections.

Came home, rested and spent an hour or so watching cross videos online. MUST. CORNER. BETTER. Woke up the next morning, repeated the head down and got ready to race. On the pre-ride, really liked the course. And appreciating the time I spent thinking about cornering and feeling a lot more comfortable with my cornering. We line up, start and off we go. Unfortunately, after the parade lap, I get hosed after the set of stairs as I suspected might happen with the small space and the drop of death (seriously, there was something spray painted saying basically YOU WILL DIE). But settled in and got prepared to just move my way up as we go around. We get to the halfway point of the lap which was a couple of tricky 180s on hills and I end up getting pushed into one of the stakes/the tape. But it’s racing, so get back on and get going again even though I’m now basically in last. Pretty soon it’s apparent that I’m going nowhere fast as my rear tire is flat. Start running around the course but then I remembered that there’s not neutral support and I don’t own any pit wheels. Decide that’s that. It was pretty much a given that I’d have a DNF at some point, although not the reason I would have chosen. Packed up, headed home, and made it out on the team ride on the road bike so that I could salvage a little bit of the day.

NBX Grand Prix of Cross 2010

Now I had planned to have Sterling basically be it for my season aside from Ice Weasels. But the DNF from the second day at Sterling wasn’t a good way to end things, so I signed up for Saturday down in Warwick at the NBX Grand Prix of Cross. I rode down with Oscar, which was good as we talked a lot about things to think about around the team. Got there, registered and did the usual recon as a warmup. We lined up and we were off. The start was uphill on pavement so I pushed hard and moved forward a bit on it before we hit the grass. But then we got to the sand along the beach and man, that sucked. Running is so not my strong point, especially running followed by a runup. But I suffered through it and tried to stick with a group. I was encouraged by keeping Ron largely in sight through most of the race and stayed ahead of Oscar and Fred. End result was 48th of 98 starters. A much more satisfying result and I felt like I was racing reasonably well, even though I was tired and (apparently) starting to get sick.

Ice Weasels 2010

Last race of the season fro me was to be the 3/4 race at Ice Weasels. Now, Ice Weasels has a reputation of a party where a cross race breaks out and I’d have to say that’s largely true. Since I was doing the 3/4 race, I had a luxuriously late start which was helpful with Kara and Madeline coming down as well. Unfortunately, I had basically been off the bike since NBX the previous weekend due to being sick and it showed. I had no handling and no power and it showed. The course was super bumpy and I felt more beat up halfway through the race than I’ve felt in a long time on the bike. I suffered through it, got lapped by the leaders (who seemed to be taking things way too seriously) and ended up finished 60th of the 71 starters.

And that’s a wrap!

And with that, my first season of cyclocross was over. I had a blast and am looking forward to next year. I’m hoping to have better fitness going into the season and also do some things to take my skills up a notch so that I can get better results. That said, for my first season, I’m pretty happy with how things panned out. Thanks to my friends who kept trying to talk me into trying cross out until I finally did, the more experienced guys on the team for showing me the ropes, the rest of the Quad team for coming out to help make the races fun, and Kara and Madeline for putting up with my eleven cross races in three months.

BRC Shedd Park Cat 3/4 Race

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:30:44 -0500

Oh hello Internet. I hear you like race reports. So here! These do seem to be getting later and later each week, though. I blame wasting too much time on twitter and stalking on crossresults

I knew I wanted to do the race up in Lowell since everyone said it was awesome, but I did my usual stupid procrastination and the Cat 4 race filled up before I registered. Argh. But, there was a 3/4 race. So I decided that the pain cave would be a pleasant place to live for 45 minutes and I signed myself up for the 3/4 race.

I woke up Sunday morning early and was like “oh hell yes, I can sleep more”. But I didn’t. I woke up and took Madeline to play for a bit so that Kara could sleep. Helping a nine month old walk quickly around the living room is a good way to start your warm-up, right? Then made myself some oatmeal (thanks Bob’s Red Mill!), ate and finished getting my stuff together as well as helping to get stuff together for the rest of the family to come up and spectate.

We get to Lowell and I go to try to get in some quick course recon as it’s in between races. I get in about half a lap before the next race starts. I pick up my number and keep rolling around to keep warm and try to loosen up a bit more. Then, I manage to get in a good full lap before I have to stage. There’s lots of good here. Even the parts that aren’t good for me are good.

We line up to stage and since we’re staged by crossresults points and I’m a lowly cat 4 in a 3/4 race, I get to line up exactly at the back. I mean, I’m pretty used to it. We start and I basically manage to be something like three guys from the entire back of the pack as we finish our parade lap.

Party at the back! Photo (and all photos in the post) thanks to Kara Katz.

Okay, maybe I’d like to have moved up some during the parade lap around the track. Oh well. It’s becoming the norm for me that I start at the back and then just end up working hard to work my way as far forward as I can. For some reason, though, I’m having a hard time kicking it into gear. But somewhere around the middle of the first lap, I clicked into gear and started actually racing.

Rather than bore you with a ton of prose, I will instead give you links to some more of the pictures that my wife took with quick twitter-like commentary on each.

Waffle tent. The Wheelworks guys were out with a waffle iron and 20 pounds of belgian waffle mix doing hand-ups. It was awesome.

Suffering on one of the ride/run ups. I was able to get up each at least once, but I also failed at least once on each. Pushing up one of them.

Remount at the top.

One of my first victims (Thomas Estrada) as I push hard to close down the gap.

Got him!

O hai. I can’t corner worth a damn so have to put my foot down. Yeah, I know I need to work on it.

Vaguely reasonable barrier technique. Apparently there were people bunny hopping these. Not me. And I probably could get some better bike carries.

Sloppy attempt at the ride-up, unclipping to run it before I lose the momentum.

Did a better job on it on the next lap. This might have been the lap that I took the waffle handup. It was awesome. I mean, it was tough to chew while riding along at LTHR, but I choked it down.

Sprinting for the line…

And I take it! It being 60th. But look at that pain. And I won the race that I was having against a small group of five-ish guys.

All in all, I had a great time and racing up wasn’t at all the disaster I thought it would be. I didn’t come in last and I actually feel like I did okay. And really, I loved loved loved this course. The sections from the photos were great but I also really really liked the little back section with the gravel road, the grassy power section and the track.

Final photo again, fan number one. All bundled up and enjoying the swings.

For more photos, check out the set my wife put up on flickr.

Plymouth Cyclocross

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 20:58:18 -0500

This is only a little late. But I haven’t raced yet this weekend!

One weekend. Two cross races. Actually that’s the norm for cross racing in New England but I’ve just been doing one day of racing, even with the two day events. But I felt like it was time to change that and so I signed up for both days of the Plymouth race last weekend

Leading up into the weekend, things didn’t go great. Wednesday/Thursday I felt kind of rundown and sick so didn’t do my usual training plan. Was feeling better on Friday and then got to sleep at a good time. Woke up Saturday morning at the crack of dawn and still feeling better. So down to Plymouth we go. I get there and go out for a lap to recon the course and have a set of “really?” thoughts. Lots of essentially single-track with wonderful obstacles like the tree stump in the middle. Definitely a different style of course than the ones I’ve raced. But I line up and actually get a halfway decentBut I line up and actually get a halfway decent place. The whistle blows and we are off. Of course, the guy next to me has some kind of mechanical and starts swerving but I push and get out in front of the mess. Unfortunately as I go, I find myself unable to put out any real power and my asthma is kicking in hard-core. And so begins my gentleman’s slide from probably 10th to more like 47th. Kara was at various points on the course taking pictures and cheering me on but to no avail. John Plump was also on the sidelines giving encouraging words on his rest weekend but also no help. The only real help was when Bill Maidment caught me as I was starting the last lap. I was able to push and stick with him only letting him go right before the finish. But if he hadn’t shown up, I probably would have slid further back.

Oh well, bad day. I’m still signed up for Sunday so I spend the rest of Saturday focused on resting and recovery so that Sunday can go better

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early again and drove down by myself to Plymouth. Get there, pick up my number and do a quick lap. Okay. More ridiculous-ness. I think I now understand the phrase “jungle cross”. Also, I’m feeling super-sluggish. Worse than Saturday. But I figure I’ve paid, I’m there and I have my number on… I might as well at least see if the adrenaline rush gets me going.

So I make my way over to where everyone is staging and while I think I had an okay spot, we have to go through this tiny little entrance to line up. Okay, fine. Last row it is. We start and I didn’t really rush to make up some position. And that turns out to be wise as we squeeze through the first tiny gap one at a time mostly walking bikes. Argh. I hit the mud and for some reason feel a lot more comfortable on it than the day before even though it’s actually more slippery and wet.

I make my goal for the first lap keeping up with Oscar and manage to do pretty well for the first chunk of the course. I’m feeling a little bit better as I really get moving. Then, on the little downhill s curve, I take the corner a little tight, catch myself from going into the tree but instead kind of go off the bottom of the course. Oops. Get back on the bike and start hammering. Weirdly, I now start feeling even better. Adrenaline for the win! I pass Oscar before the end of the first lap and pretty much stay in front of him the rest of the race.

The rest of the race is largely a blur. I Successfully rode through the sand pit some, failed and had to dismount and run some. I successfully rode through the mud every lap even though my tires had zero bite and I was sliding all over the damn place. Tried to tuck myself behind big guys on the grass straight which had the worst headwind and used that section to recover. Slowly worked on moving my way up. At the end of the last lap, I could see two guys ahead of me reaching the sand pits and dismounting and (with John Plump’s again helpful urging!), I pushed hard to catch and pass them and succeeded by the time we hit the pavement. I shifted and sprint hard but don’t quite have it and one of the two catches and passes me. Still end up 44th of the 66 starters which is better than I started and feeling a lot better than I had the day before.

And thus I was able to do my first weekend of double races without dying. Not my best results, especially Saturday. Still good experience and feeling positive about the idea of double weekends in the future.

Canton Cup 2010

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:13:12 -0400

Finally. Another race. I had intended to do the MRC race two weeks ago, but failed to actually set my alarm and get up. Oops. Then, last weekend I couldn’t manage to get up to Maine for the weekend to do DECX. So it’s been a bit since I’ve raced. I’ve been getting out on the bike, though… both on the road and also some trail riding on the cross bike. But I’ve been failing on getting any skills practice in. But, errr, no time to practice like a race, right?

The nice thing about the Canton race is that it’s super-close and the Men’s 4 race isn’t the first field at 8:30 am. Instead, I had the luxuriously late start time of 10:15. But I knew that to get in a pre-ride of the course, I’d need to get there before the first fields went off at 9:30. Luckily, was able to get everyone up and out of the house (as I was to have my cheering section present!) so that we got there right before 9. I quickly got ready and headed out to hit the course. Did two laps to pre-ride and warm-up some checking things out with Jim, Gerry and Richard. Seemed like a good course, probably fast.

Then, I registered and had a little bobble finding Kara to drop off my stuff before heading to staging. But, luckily (or not), staging was even more insanity than my previous experience of a race without ordered staging. Everyone clustered on both sides of the road as we waited for the women and the cub juniors to finish. All of the Quaddies (Jim, Gerry, Richard, Paul and myself) were standing around together and largely trying to stay warm. And then, as the previous race wrapped up, something like 130-150 riders crowded into the start area. On the plus side, I was near the front. On the downside, I was completely boxed in with barely enough room to move at all. But what can you do.

The whistle is blown and off we go. Since I had people on all sides of me and they were a little slow, I got off to a slow start. Seriously need to work on my starts since, you know, I might do better if I didn’t have to just make up for a piss-poor start through all of the race. But I managed to keep Jim in sight and as we went off-road, I started to make my way up. As we reached the first set of barriers, I was right with Jim. Over the barriers, I remount and then I see Jim’s rear wheel fly into the air in front of me. “SHIT SHIT SHIT” goes through my head as he goes down and the guy behind him runs into him. I’m right there and have no choice but to hit the other guy’s rear wheel and slightly go down onto my knee and hand myself.

A quick mental check as people are passing me and then it’s back on the bike. At this point, there’s a lot fewer people behind me. I start riding and the bike is making a little bit of a rubbing sound, but nothing seems seriously wrong. So time to see what I can do to make up for lost time. As I get to the sharp turn onto the little paved bike path, I cook it a little bit too hot on the outside and almost go down, but luckily, someone was coming around on the inside and I basically stayed up through a slight touch of my hip to their bars. Next mis-step was the ride-able dirt uphill at the end of the path. I was in a bunch of around 8-10 people and one of the guys slowed down at just the wrong point leading to me putting my foot down, unclipping but basically doing a push and roll up rather than just dismounting, carrying the bike and running to the barriers immediately following. But I continued to steadily work my way forward.

The second lap was a lot less eventful, just a lot of “okay, next to pass this guy” and slowly work my way forward. A couple of turns again over-cooked but nothing too bad. For the most part, the lap was a blur. The one thing I do remember is being behind Bill Maidment and having him say “is that Jeremy?”, responding yes, and then not long after taking off and trying to gap him. Sorry Bill :-)

Going hard on lap 2, trying to make up time and pass people
(photo courtesy Kara Katz)

Then the third and last lap. At this point, I can see Richard, the only Quad rider left ahead of me (Richard — nice job with your start, btw). I dig deep, but I’m starting to fade a bit, the chasing wearing me down. Still, I keep moving forward but I’m getting sloppy. On the back half of the course, I keep having to put out a foot going through the corners costing me a lot of valuable time. I hit the pavement of the final stretch probably 10-15 seconds behind him and make up a lot but can’t quite pull it off.

Going for the finish, trying not to let up until the end!
(photo courtesy Kara Katz)

End result, 59th out of 130 finishers. I managed to meet my goal of being in the top half of the field and also managed to beat Jim, although not really in a way that I wanted. Even though he was fine and finished the race as well.

I got a few comments from people afterwards about looking a lot more sure of what I was doing than at previous races, which is good as I’m starting to feel like I have half a clue of what I’m doing. Still more to learn and improve on, but if there wasn’t, where would the fun be?

And really, I’m having a ton of fun. Being back in the racing saddle is all kinds of goodness. And one nice thing about cyclocross races is that they’re spectator-friendly enough and short enough that Kara and Madeline come out to watch and cheer me on. The same can’t be said for road races and is only sort of true with a crit. But I’m (hopefully) not going to let that stop me when spring rolls around.

My number one fan also has a great time at the races!
(photo courtesy Kara Katz)

Center of Harvard is beautiful this time of year

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 11:39:51 -0400

Center of Harvard is beautiful this time of year

Mini-review: Cygolite ExpiliOn 250

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:23:37 -0400

It’s definitely fall and one of the things that comes with fall is an earlier sunset. Which means riding home after sunset when commuting. Which means a need for good lighting. The past few years, I’ve used a NiteRider MiNewt which has been great. It’s plenty bright for commuting on the streets of Cambridge and Arlington as well as the Minuteman bike path, it’s rechargeable, the battery life is long enough that I don’t have to charge it every night. Pretty awesome. The one downside is that there’s both the light and the battery pack. Which is kind of a pain to remove and put back on every day as I lock my commuter up in a location that, in a perfect world, wouldn’t be my first choice.

So in some of the Interbike coverage, I noticed that a few companies were starting to have nice sized rechargeable headlights which are all in ones. Also, unlike my older MiNewt, they use a standard mini-USB port for charging for the occasional times that I forget and need to do a charge at work. I looked at my options and over the weekend, took the plunge and picked up a Cygolite ExpiliOn 250. NiteRider also has a similar option, but I weight weenied and went with the Cygolite (something like 130 grams vs 190). Also, it was what was in stock at REI for me to use my 20% off coupon on (yay impulse buying!)

Tonight was the first time I got to use it as last night I was home before dark. And I have to say I’m impressed. The light output from the LED definitely seems like an improvement even over a light that’s just three years old. It’s a bright blue-ish white and seemed to have no problem lighting up the entirety of the Minuteman as I rode along at 16-18 mph on my way home. There are three different brightnesses, but I’ve only really played with the highest thus far. I’ll be trying the others over the next few days.

Also, the handlebar mount for the light is solid. If I have one complaint about my old light, it’s that the o-ring mount always felt like I was about to break it as I removed and reattached the light every day. No such complaints here. There’s a bracket much like the one you find on cheaper, non-rechargeable lights, but it’s got some significant improvements. First is that rather than just a sliding piece of plastic, there are these heavy duty plastic inserts that snap into place for non-oversized bars. Then instead of a simple thumb screw to tighten, there’s a bit more beefy of one that just feels more secure. The other nice thing is that there’s the ability to swivel the mount slightly to change the direction of the light from being just straight ahead. This is super useful to be able to adjust for the fact that you may not be placing on the bars where it’s pointing straight forward. It also comes with a helmet mount, but I haven’t really checked that out as I’m running a non-rechargeable light on my helmet anyway.

Anyway I’m pretty happy with the light at this point. Definitely a nice and worthwhile upgrade. The one thing I do need to do is order a second mount as my commuter is the only bike with non oversized bars and I do end up doing rides in the mornign and taking one of the nicer bikes into the office on a regular basis. And I’d like to have a light so I don’t feel like I then need to leave at 4 pm :-)

Disclaimer: this light was purchased by me and not provided by any company for endorsement. Blah, blah, blah.

Lesson learned

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:53:39 -0400

Just a simple one for today: Don’t forget to actually set the alarm clock if you want to wake up early enough for a race.

Nothing scheduled for this weekend, next up is Canton on the 30th.

Providence Festival of Cross 2010 (Day 1 Only)

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:42:57 -0400

In true fashion of race report blogging, I’m just now getting to writing about Providence from last weekend and it’s Thursday night. Deal.

I woke up ass early and headed down to PVD with a couple of the other guys on the team who were doing the 35+ race. It was nice not to have to drive and I actually ate and drank a bottle of water as I was on my way down in stark contrast to last week. We got there with just about an hour to spare prior to the start of my race, so I hurried up to the registration tent to pick up my number. Went back, pinned my number and went to do a quick lap of the course to combine recon + warmup. Side note: a course recon is not a sufficient warm-up. I am not ready for a race effort after this. First thoughts were that it’s not a particularly easy course.

During the lap, I also noticed that my front tire was running a little lower on pressure than seemed wise and was going to go add some air but then they started calling Cat 4s to staging. Shit! I guess I’ll have to hope it holds and I don’t pinch flat! I make my way over to the staging area where we sit around and wait to stage most of the way at the back since we were staging by reg order and I registered late. Not that other methods of staging really put me closer to the front.

The countdown starts and we’re off. Immediately, I’m off to a bad start — I can’t quite make fast progress and so going into the hole shot, I’m now nearly at the back. But unlike previous weeks where that’s where I stay, I start to slowly make my way forward. I make little deals with myself, saying that I just have to pick off the next guy and I slowly make my way forward.

And this basically works… I manage to move up through the straight-ish sections, I lose time in the sharp turns, I manage to mostly hold my own on the barriers and runups, and I only basically cut people off every single lap on the sharp little climb with the hairpin at the top as I avoided falling over. BUT I DIDN’T FALL. TAKE THAT HILL!

Last lap comes around and I’m really starting to hurt. But I’m neck and neck with the Geekhouse guy that I’ve been swapping places with for the entire race and I can’t let him beat me. So I dig deep and start pushing. I get a little bit of distance on him and am gaining on a guy from Brown. One of the Brown guy’s teammates eggs him on saying that I’m going to catch him but that just makes me want to go harder so I do. Then dude from Brown wipes out in the turn, making me basically have to put my foot down to avoid going into the metal fencing letting Geekhouse catch up to me. NOOOOOO!!!!

We’re neck and neck through the little paved section and then when we get back into the root-covered, dirt, grass-y section, I manage to start to pull away from him again. I was sure he was going to catch me in the little section right before the staging area, but I manage to stay away and reach the pavement for the final sprint to the line. And there’s a guy ahead of me. I shift and dig deep to try to catch him but he just barely edges me out at the line. But I tried and that made it more awesome.

I pull over, ready to pass out, and am glad to be done with that. Basically 41 minutes for the four laps and I felt like I was actually racing for a lot of it. End result was 50th out of the 85 starters. Yay racing! Yay improvement!

Afterwards, I hung out in the infield/expo section checking out some of the vendors and watching some of the other Quaddies (JohnB got 2nd in the 35+ Cat 4 field, upgrade time for him!). And then I watched and cheered on a variety of people in the women’s 3/4 field. It was a good day.

Next up, (probably) the MRC race this weekend…