Wednesday, 31 May
Our 3-mile prologue at the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic started at a fruit warehouse and rolled along, ultimately more up than down, through orchards (newly sprayed, from the pervasive smell) on the hills above the Columbia River. Mt. Hood was a sentinel in the distance, gazing down at us across foothills and more orchards.
The thing I learned today is not to believe what everyone tells you about a course. That may be a very good thing to keep in mind through the stages ahead at this race, because nobody has said a kind word about a single one of them—except perhaps about the always-great views of Hood. The race organizer added a half-mile to previous years’ prologue, giving us an uphill start, a quick downhill, and then on to the rollers.
The course had been described to me by many people as being downhill, then uphill, with a little kicker to the finish. My description of the course is rollers with a short little hill at the finish. True enough, you couldn’t ride the whole thing in your big ring, but the “hill” before the kicker wasn’t much.
What no one had mentioned but was significant for me was the really rough pavement. Combined with a cross-headwind, it made for a little more thrilling bike ride than I hope for. I was flying along at 25? mph, hanging on for dear life and wondering what would happen if I encountered a big bump and a big gust at the same time. The Shimano neutral support guys knew where to be—about 200 meters past the end of the worst rough section.
My ride was okay. It probably would’ve been 10-15 seconds faster if I’d been able to preride the course. I got caught behind a car that dawdled along the course, riding its brake lights. I didn’t know what it was going to do, and I didn’t what to slam into it if it stopped abruptly. And then the marshalls at the last turn up to the finish thought their job was to yell encouraging things rather than direct riders to turn. It is kind of a cool finish: the gradient doesn’t get steeper but the diameter of the curve as you go up the hill gets tighter and tighter so you don’t see the finish line until you’re about 20 feet from it.
We had a few spits of rain while we were sitting on trainers (but everyone here seems to be like Dave H. and wouldn’t even let me observe out loud that there were wet specks on my bars), and a little more of a sprinkle on the way back, but nothing that affected the race or even really hastened our packing up afterward.
I just HAVE to mention what a great sponsor today's stage had: The Fruit Company. I guess it was their warehouse and parking lot that we used for staging. They had a table set up in front of their building and gave out beautiful apples and pears and fresh pineapple juice. You could take the enormous Anjou pears, or they would slice them up for you. I am really looking forward to my smoothie tomorrow morning!
TRIA had a couple of top 10 finishers today, and I managed 22nd in a field of 72. Tomorrow we will ride on much of the course from the Wasco Wild West 75, except that there’s an added section with a left turn, a sketchy descent, a really sharp (“acute”) right turn, and then hairpins down a 1% descent to the finish. I remember that both Martin and I were thankful that we weren’t on our single bikes in the wind on that course, but I guess I’ll get to find out what that experience will be like.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Mix it up
Sunday, 28 May
Ski to Sea is always about the most fun I have on my single bike all year, and it's not even a bike race. Well, it is, but it isn't. Ski to Sea is a 7-sport, 8-athletes-to-a-team relay race from the Mt. Baker ski area to Bellingham Bay. The road bike leg (leg #4) is a 36-mile TT with some climbing but a net elevation loss. If you've never experienced it, you cannot imagine the buzz in Bellingham leading up to the race as everyone tries to compare teams, who's going well, who that unknown cross-country skier is, etc. etc. And I am quite sure the next few days in that town are spent memorizing and dissecting the results for discussion all summer long and into the planning for next year's dream team, which begins...well, maybe today.
This was my fifth year racing at the event, all five of them with the Boundary Bay Brewing Co. team. Our captain/manager Janet goes out of her way to recruit amazing female athletes from the U.S. and Canada--national champions, national team members, inspiring women all the way around. Boundary Bay has a winning tradition at Ski to Sea, finishing first in the women's division since before I started on the team. But every year is a new challenge. Janet still dreams of a top-10 overall finish. Unfortunately, as more men's teams get tougher and tougher, that goal slips out of reach. That's not to say that some of our women aren't right up there stunning the male competition with amazingly fast times.
The bike leg of Ski to Sea starts at the DOT station about 8 miles below the Mt. Baker ski area on the Mt. Baker highway. The first half? of the race goes down the highway, there's a right turn at Kendall, then a left turn onto South Pass Road, which takes you all the way to the finish in Everson. There's some fairly technical descending, a few hard little hills, and lots of power-along-in-your-biggest-gear downhill.
In the other legs of this race, it's all about how fast you can go, how strong you are. It's not too hard to predict which team(s) will have the best times. But there's another element to the road bike leg: drafting is legal. Depending on how teammates (cross-country and downhill skiers, plus a runner) do up the mountain, you might ride the whole 36 miles solo, or you might have a traveling companion right from the very beginning. Or, if you're really lucky, a stronger cyclist will start behind you, catch you, and give you a nice draft for at least part of your ride. I've experienced all of these over the years, although it's pretty tough to stay with stronger guys in the hilly parts of this course.
Participating in this race requires almost as much logistical coordination as training. I am thankful for having been completely taken care of in this department by Brian and E'Lana; all I do is show up, and they get me and my stuff up the mountain, arrange to get it down the mountain (we finish 36 miles from where we start), and then find me with warm clothes at the finish and get me and my bike back to Bellingham. Consider that these logistics are played out over 7 legs of this race, and you begin to see the scope of the logistical operation. To add to the challenge, the Mt. Baker highway closes to all traffic a half-hour before the race starts. Athletes who race at the top sometimes don't get back to Bellingham until at least noon--after competing at 8:30 a.m.!
A typical feature of this race is persistent drizzle on Mt. Baker, and this year was no exception. So we were delighted that we had our own tent (thanks, RunningShoes.com) for warming up on our trainers. Since you have to get there so long before you start, there's plenty of time to check out who really showed up to race, who's substituting for whom, and who has what new gear. Race officials announce when the race starts, when the first hand-off is made between the ski legs, and when the first runners hit the road. Then, the tension really escalates as they call out the number of the first runner approaching the run-bike transition. All of us who expect to go out sooner rather than later swarm the start area, not caring so much about the drizzle any more. I was disappointed yesterday to watch just about all the male racing cyclists go out ahead of me; that meant no chance to draft them when they passed. There were a few strong combinations starting just about together, and I knew they'd be fast to the finish.
There's an element that complicates drafting here: what division riders' respective teams are in. Since I'm on an all-women's team, I'm no threat to any guy out there (no comments, please), and some have been extremely helpful in working with me in the past. In return, I don't much care what guys I tow around because I know they're not on a team that can challenge mine. But when guys start drafting each other, they'll pay attention to their individual divisions.
Because I was the first female starter on an all-women's team, I got my very own escort of two motorcycle cops all the way to the finish. At first I thought they were just patrolling the road and would soon go away; then I got annoyed because I felt like a suspected felon on a very short leash (I did not cross the center line, I promise, even though the road was closed); but then I decided to be flattered. I didn't get the draft that Glenn B. did from his pair, but I guess it was nice to have company.
I caught two guys fairly quickly, but then had to completely stop for a minor mechanical issue and they went right by. I passed them again, but then was caught by a group that these two had latched on to. At first I had high hopes for this group, but it was quickly very clear that one guy was doing all the work, and he was not super smooth or consistent. I sat in a little, drove the group a lot, and then the fastest guy and I dropped the others going up the hill into Maple Falls. We worked together for a ways, but then on the gradual downhill to Kendall, he pulled away. I was pedaling as hard as I could in my 55x11, but he probably weighed 80-100 pounds more than me and I just couldn't hold his wheel. Gravity at work. Before the turn at Kendall, I spied another group up the road and vowed to catch them before South Pass. And I did. They didn't even try to get on my wheel, so it was just me and my moto guys all the way to the finish.
Every year I am "challenged" by a few of the bends coming down off the Powerhouse climb and can't quite summon up the nerve to stay in my aero bars. I did better this year. But then in the last few miles as South Pass descends to the flats before Everson, there was such a swirling wind that I had to get out of the aero bars in every bend. I just had no control over the front wheel. I was dreading those 3? 4? 5? miles across the open, exposed valley to Everson with a strong crosswind, but I just put the bike in the middle of the lane (so that I had some road to blow across before I hit the ditch, if a strong gust came along). It was really fast, and bike control wasn't too bad. It had stopped raining for a few miles in the middle of the course, but it was raining again for the finish.
I was pretty happy with my ride this year. Not my fastest time ever, but not my slowest either, and considering that I had to stop by the side of the road, that's okay. I got another TV interview after my finish (same questions as last year, I think), and I remembered to find and thank the moto cops for their attentiveness. I moved my team from 30th to 26th overall, and we moved up to 23rd overall by the finish and won the women's open division for the sixth year in a row.
I suppose one reason this event is so fun for me is because it's an enormous time trial. But it is so much fun to work with athletes from other sports, to see them comparing their times to men and women they know in their sport (just like I do in mine), to hear what made their race fun or hard or both, and just to see the collective excitement of the whole team and our sponsors. And then there's the enthusiasm amassed by 400 teams of 8 athletes each. The "rec" category is huge, a few teams get DQed because they don't make the time cut-offs at particular points, and you wonder how some people can even ride 36 miles on the bikes or in the clothes they show up with. But EVERYBODY seems to have fun, and 3200 competitors having fun is a great thing to share.
All the results are here.
Ski to Sea is always about the most fun I have on my single bike all year, and it's not even a bike race. Well, it is, but it isn't. Ski to Sea is a 7-sport, 8-athletes-to-a-team relay race from the Mt. Baker ski area to Bellingham Bay. The road bike leg (leg #4) is a 36-mile TT with some climbing but a net elevation loss. If you've never experienced it, you cannot imagine the buzz in Bellingham leading up to the race as everyone tries to compare teams, who's going well, who that unknown cross-country skier is, etc. etc. And I am quite sure the next few days in that town are spent memorizing and dissecting the results for discussion all summer long and into the planning for next year's dream team, which begins...well, maybe today.
This was my fifth year racing at the event, all five of them with the Boundary Bay Brewing Co. team. Our captain/manager Janet goes out of her way to recruit amazing female athletes from the U.S. and Canada--national champions, national team members, inspiring women all the way around. Boundary Bay has a winning tradition at Ski to Sea, finishing first in the women's division since before I started on the team. But every year is a new challenge. Janet still dreams of a top-10 overall finish. Unfortunately, as more men's teams get tougher and tougher, that goal slips out of reach. That's not to say that some of our women aren't right up there stunning the male competition with amazingly fast times.
The bike leg of Ski to Sea starts at the DOT station about 8 miles below the Mt. Baker ski area on the Mt. Baker highway. The first half? of the race goes down the highway, there's a right turn at Kendall, then a left turn onto South Pass Road, which takes you all the way to the finish in Everson. There's some fairly technical descending, a few hard little hills, and lots of power-along-in-your-biggest-gear downhill.
In the other legs of this race, it's all about how fast you can go, how strong you are. It's not too hard to predict which team(s) will have the best times. But there's another element to the road bike leg: drafting is legal. Depending on how teammates (cross-country and downhill skiers, plus a runner) do up the mountain, you might ride the whole 36 miles solo, or you might have a traveling companion right from the very beginning. Or, if you're really lucky, a stronger cyclist will start behind you, catch you, and give you a nice draft for at least part of your ride. I've experienced all of these over the years, although it's pretty tough to stay with stronger guys in the hilly parts of this course.
Participating in this race requires almost as much logistical coordination as training. I am thankful for having been completely taken care of in this department by Brian and E'Lana; all I do is show up, and they get me and my stuff up the mountain, arrange to get it down the mountain (we finish 36 miles from where we start), and then find me with warm clothes at the finish and get me and my bike back to Bellingham. Consider that these logistics are played out over 7 legs of this race, and you begin to see the scope of the logistical operation. To add to the challenge, the Mt. Baker highway closes to all traffic a half-hour before the race starts. Athletes who race at the top sometimes don't get back to Bellingham until at least noon--after competing at 8:30 a.m.!
A typical feature of this race is persistent drizzle on Mt. Baker, and this year was no exception. So we were delighted that we had our own tent (thanks, RunningShoes.com) for warming up on our trainers. Since you have to get there so long before you start, there's plenty of time to check out who really showed up to race, who's substituting for whom, and who has what new gear. Race officials announce when the race starts, when the first hand-off is made between the ski legs, and when the first runners hit the road. Then, the tension really escalates as they call out the number of the first runner approaching the run-bike transition. All of us who expect to go out sooner rather than later swarm the start area, not caring so much about the drizzle any more. I was disappointed yesterday to watch just about all the male racing cyclists go out ahead of me; that meant no chance to draft them when they passed. There were a few strong combinations starting just about together, and I knew they'd be fast to the finish.
There's an element that complicates drafting here: what division riders' respective teams are in. Since I'm on an all-women's team, I'm no threat to any guy out there (no comments, please), and some have been extremely helpful in working with me in the past. In return, I don't much care what guys I tow around because I know they're not on a team that can challenge mine. But when guys start drafting each other, they'll pay attention to their individual divisions.
Because I was the first female starter on an all-women's team, I got my very own escort of two motorcycle cops all the way to the finish. At first I thought they were just patrolling the road and would soon go away; then I got annoyed because I felt like a suspected felon on a very short leash (I did not cross the center line, I promise, even though the road was closed); but then I decided to be flattered. I didn't get the draft that Glenn B. did from his pair, but I guess it was nice to have company.
I caught two guys fairly quickly, but then had to completely stop for a minor mechanical issue and they went right by. I passed them again, but then was caught by a group that these two had latched on to. At first I had high hopes for this group, but it was quickly very clear that one guy was doing all the work, and he was not super smooth or consistent. I sat in a little, drove the group a lot, and then the fastest guy and I dropped the others going up the hill into Maple Falls. We worked together for a ways, but then on the gradual downhill to Kendall, he pulled away. I was pedaling as hard as I could in my 55x11, but he probably weighed 80-100 pounds more than me and I just couldn't hold his wheel. Gravity at work. Before the turn at Kendall, I spied another group up the road and vowed to catch them before South Pass. And I did. They didn't even try to get on my wheel, so it was just me and my moto guys all the way to the finish.
Every year I am "challenged" by a few of the bends coming down off the Powerhouse climb and can't quite summon up the nerve to stay in my aero bars. I did better this year. But then in the last few miles as South Pass descends to the flats before Everson, there was such a swirling wind that I had to get out of the aero bars in every bend. I just had no control over the front wheel. I was dreading those 3? 4? 5? miles across the open, exposed valley to Everson with a strong crosswind, but I just put the bike in the middle of the lane (so that I had some road to blow across before I hit the ditch, if a strong gust came along). It was really fast, and bike control wasn't too bad. It had stopped raining for a few miles in the middle of the course, but it was raining again for the finish.
I was pretty happy with my ride this year. Not my fastest time ever, but not my slowest either, and considering that I had to stop by the side of the road, that's okay. I got another TV interview after my finish (same questions as last year, I think), and I remembered to find and thank the moto cops for their attentiveness. I moved my team from 30th to 26th overall, and we moved up to 23rd overall by the finish and won the women's open division for the sixth year in a row.
I suppose one reason this event is so fun for me is because it's an enormous time trial. But it is so much fun to work with athletes from other sports, to see them comparing their times to men and women they know in their sport (just like I do in mine), to hear what made their race fun or hard or both, and just to see the collective excitement of the whole team and our sponsors. And then there's the enthusiasm amassed by 400 teams of 8 athletes each. The "rec" category is huge, a few teams get DQed because they don't make the time cut-offs at particular points, and you wonder how some people can even ride 36 miles on the bikes or in the clothes they show up with. But EVERYBODY seems to have fun, and 3200 competitors having fun is a great thing to share.
All the results are here.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Stoked...in a Stetson
Saturday, 20 May
"Is the rider able to exit the vehicle without assistance?" So began our prerace technical inspection at the Wasco Wild West 75 tandem and recumbent road race. Having never heard such a thing at an OBRA, USAC, or UCI race, I thought, "we're not in Kansas anymore, Martin...."
The WWW75 is an unsanctioned race on a beautiful 18.75-mile circuit about 4 miles outside of The Dalles, Oregon. It features riders and bikes from all walks of cycling life, eager to take on a tough race, hoping to finish, improve on last year's time, and/or win. The event had been on our tandem race calendar for months, and we had no idea what to expect in the way of competition. The promoter told us in advance that we were the "prerace favorites"--pressure like that is hard to live up to. We just hoped it wasn't the equivalent of the Sports Illustrated jinx.
I can't say enough about the course. There were fewer than 20 houses on the entire route, and we saw fewer than 20 cars during the entire race. The topography is typical north central Oregon stuff: close rolling hills, little valleys, range land, sagebrush, wheat fields. And, with the Columbia River Gorge close by, wind is omnipresent. The first 10 miles are rolling, mostly tailwind today; then (into the headwind) there's about a one-mile climb, a little descending, a shorter climb, a lot of descending, and some flats back to the start/finish. And the road is entirely that oh-so-slow Oregon chipseal.
Tandems and recumbents raced separately and, since there was no lead car, the tandems went first because we were "bigger and more visible." Our field featured 6 mixed tandems and one male/male bike. Last year's winners were there, along with a super strong couple we've raced with before. We figured we knew who to watch. Sure enough, that strong couple took off within a half mile from the start (and I was reminded why it would've been a good thing to warm up before the race). A couple of us knew not to let them get away, so we went after them and pretty soon our group was down to just 4 bikes.
I think we set tempo on the climb (I think we did on every lap), and it was a pretty mellow tempo...as in my legs didn't hurt and I knew I wasn't going hard. Still, we were later accused of "turning on the afterburners." At the top, we were down to 2 bikes. Not relishing the thought of 2 bikes rotating for 60+ miles, we more or less waited for that energizer bunny couple, and sure enough they caught us after the descent. But they had trouble hanging with us on the second lap, and they quickly dropped off the next time up the climb.
So now Martin and I were checking out the two boys we were riding with. We had found out that this was their second ride together, that they were from Portland but didn't ride with a team or club, and that the stoker usually rode tandem with his wife. But they seemed strong and knew what they were doing. They were especially good at keeping stats. Martin and I ride without watches or cycling computer; these guys, on the other hand, reported our average speed and lap time every lap. And they seemed to consume a huge amount of food and water. In turn, they were checking us out. "So you guys did Co-Motion last year? You must have done well?" "Yeah, we did okay." "What category do you race in on your single bikes?" "Uh, 2." We found out later that they thought the answer to that second question was their tip that they were in trouble.
After weighing whether we should "go" the third or last time up the climb, Martin opted to wait for the last lap. And it worked (I don't mean to sound surprised--I agreed that it was the best plan). At the bottom of the climb, I thought we were in such a low gear, spinning like mad, that we couldn't possibly drop anybody. But we soon had a gap, and the gear felt much better (i.e., the hill felt much harder), and we worked harder than we had any of the three previous times up the hill. At the top of the second hill, we could see them at the bottom behind us. We pedaled as hard as we could down the descent (into the headwind, mind you) and time trialed along the flats. We had about 2 minutes on them by the finish. At least we didn't have to worry about testing our unpracticed sprinting skills.
To the winners of this tandem race went hats, suitable for winners of a "Wild West" race. I'm not sure how I ended up with the black one (isn't the guy with the white hat the good guy?!), except that I guess my head had swelled less and the black one was a smaller size.
The recumbent race was dominated by a team of Bacchetta guys. Four of them rode together off the front of their race and then split up the last time up the climb. They started just 5 minutes behind us, and we were surprised they didn't catch us. We lapped one poor recumbent rider not once but twice, so their field was really spread out. We had lots of opportunities after the race to ask questions about recumbents, and Martin went for a test drive.
Special kudos go to the race promoter, Clay Smith, and his many volunteers. I was apprehensive about having no lead or follow vehicles (the one sag pickup drove behind that rider we lapped twice), but it was an incredibly safe course. Marshalls were promised at all the intersections, but we got to the first one so quickly that there was not one there on lap 1--and they had gone home by lap 4. There was neutral water at the top of the second climb and at the start/finish line. And (another tip that this wasn't Kansas) there were two porta-potties for our use on the course. The volunteers were just as excited about the event as the racers, and it was just a cool race all the way around. And it was sunny!
Whatever I am going to do with a cowboy hat??
The view from the front of the tandem is here.
"Is the rider able to exit the vehicle without assistance?" So began our prerace technical inspection at the Wasco Wild West 75 tandem and recumbent road race. Having never heard such a thing at an OBRA, USAC, or UCI race, I thought, "we're not in Kansas anymore, Martin...."
The WWW75 is an unsanctioned race on a beautiful 18.75-mile circuit about 4 miles outside of The Dalles, Oregon. It features riders and bikes from all walks of cycling life, eager to take on a tough race, hoping to finish, improve on last year's time, and/or win. The event had been on our tandem race calendar for months, and we had no idea what to expect in the way of competition. The promoter told us in advance that we were the "prerace favorites"--pressure like that is hard to live up to. We just hoped it wasn't the equivalent of the Sports Illustrated jinx.
I can't say enough about the course. There were fewer than 20 houses on the entire route, and we saw fewer than 20 cars during the entire race. The topography is typical north central Oregon stuff: close rolling hills, little valleys, range land, sagebrush, wheat fields. And, with the Columbia River Gorge close by, wind is omnipresent. The first 10 miles are rolling, mostly tailwind today; then (into the headwind) there's about a one-mile climb, a little descending, a shorter climb, a lot of descending, and some flats back to the start/finish. And the road is entirely that oh-so-slow Oregon chipseal.
Tandems and recumbents raced separately and, since there was no lead car, the tandems went first because we were "bigger and more visible." Our field featured 6 mixed tandems and one male/male bike. Last year's winners were there, along with a super strong couple we've raced with before. We figured we knew who to watch. Sure enough, that strong couple took off within a half mile from the start (and I was reminded why it would've been a good thing to warm up before the race). A couple of us knew not to let them get away, so we went after them and pretty soon our group was down to just 4 bikes.
I think we set tempo on the climb (I think we did on every lap), and it was a pretty mellow tempo...as in my legs didn't hurt and I knew I wasn't going hard. Still, we were later accused of "turning on the afterburners." At the top, we were down to 2 bikes. Not relishing the thought of 2 bikes rotating for 60+ miles, we more or less waited for that energizer bunny couple, and sure enough they caught us after the descent. But they had trouble hanging with us on the second lap, and they quickly dropped off the next time up the climb.
So now Martin and I were checking out the two boys we were riding with. We had found out that this was their second ride together, that they were from Portland but didn't ride with a team or club, and that the stoker usually rode tandem with his wife. But they seemed strong and knew what they were doing. They were especially good at keeping stats. Martin and I ride without watches or cycling computer; these guys, on the other hand, reported our average speed and lap time every lap. And they seemed to consume a huge amount of food and water. In turn, they were checking us out. "So you guys did Co-Motion last year? You must have done well?" "Yeah, we did okay." "What category do you race in on your single bikes?" "Uh, 2." We found out later that they thought the answer to that second question was their tip that they were in trouble.
After weighing whether we should "go" the third or last time up the climb, Martin opted to wait for the last lap. And it worked (I don't mean to sound surprised--I agreed that it was the best plan). At the bottom of the climb, I thought we were in such a low gear, spinning like mad, that we couldn't possibly drop anybody. But we soon had a gap, and the gear felt much better (i.e., the hill felt much harder), and we worked harder than we had any of the three previous times up the hill. At the top of the second hill, we could see them at the bottom behind us. We pedaled as hard as we could down the descent (into the headwind, mind you) and time trialed along the flats. We had about 2 minutes on them by the finish. At least we didn't have to worry about testing our unpracticed sprinting skills.
To the winners of this tandem race went hats, suitable for winners of a "Wild West" race. I'm not sure how I ended up with the black one (isn't the guy with the white hat the good guy?!), except that I guess my head had swelled less and the black one was a smaller size.The recumbent race was dominated by a team of Bacchetta guys. Four of them rode together off the front of their race and then split up the last time up the climb. They started just 5 minutes behind us, and we were surprised they didn't catch us. We lapped one poor recumbent rider not once but twice, so their field was really spread out. We had lots of opportunities after the race to ask questions about recumbents, and Martin went for a test drive.
Special kudos go to the race promoter, Clay Smith, and his many volunteers. I was apprehensive about having no lead or follow vehicles (the one sag pickup drove behind that rider we lapped twice), but it was an incredibly safe course. Marshalls were promised at all the intersections, but we got to the first one so quickly that there was not one there on lap 1--and they had gone home by lap 4. There was neutral water at the top of the second climb and at the start/finish line. And (another tip that this wasn't Kansas) there were two porta-potties for our use on the course. The volunteers were just as excited about the event as the racers, and it was just a cool race all the way around. And it was sunny!
Whatever I am going to do with a cowboy hat??
The view from the front of the tandem is here.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Paradise
Thursday, 18 May
Some places are aptly named, and today I visited one: Paradise. Coincidentally, it involved visiting a volcano on the anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
Really, all I need to say is that I rode from Elbe to Paradise and back, on a tandem, in absolutely glorious weather, on roads almost totally devoid of cars. It was too perfect for (very many) words.
We saw a thousand shades of green and wildflowers just beginning to blossom. We rode within eight feet of two deer standing by the side of the road; they didn't freeze, and they didn't bolt. We saw zillions of waterfalls because there were still 8? 10? feet of snow in the parking lot at Paradise and lots of run-off everywhere. We visited (by going the wrong way on a one-way road) a viewpoint that neither of us had ever been to and had our picture taken by a visitor whose husband "rides all over Europe."
Adjectives fail me. It was, well, paradise.
Some places are aptly named, and today I visited one: Paradise. Coincidentally, it involved visiting a volcano on the anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.Really, all I need to say is that I rode from Elbe to Paradise and back, on a tandem, in absolutely glorious weather, on roads almost totally devoid of cars. It was too perfect for (very many) words.
We saw a thousand shades of green and wildflowers just beginning to blossom. We rode within eight feet of two deer standing by the side of the road; they didn't freeze, and they didn't bolt. We saw zillions of waterfalls because there were still 8? 10? feet of snow in the parking lot at Paradise and lots of run-off everywhere. We visited (by going the wrong way on a one-way road) a viewpoint that neither of us had ever been to and had our picture taken by a visitor whose husband "rides all over Europe."Adjectives fail me. It was, well, paradise.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Two out of three ain't bad?
Monday, 15 May
Racing this Mothers Day weekend was in Wenatchee, apple capital of the world. [My heart was at the 40K tandem TT on the beautiful course at Peoria, Oregon, but being there just didn't work out.] Two of the three stages started and finished at the Alcoa plant east of the "town" of Malaga. The drives to and from the race were beautiful (there's still snow under the bottom of the chairlift at Stevens Pass), the weather was sunny and not unbearably windy, Saturday's race schedule left time for snoozing and shopping--what more could you want? Oh yeah...results. I tried for some of those, too.
Our first stage was a 9.x mile TT. Reports from the first riders off were that it was hard on th
e way back because of the wind. Impossibly hard. Even my masters buddies who got back just before I started said it was ridiculous. But the wind while I was warming up didn't seem that bad, and certainly nothing like at the Ice Breaker TT back in March. Fortunately, there was one voice of reason among all the last-minute reports that confirmed what I was thinking, so I wasn't in a complete state of panic when I started.
It's a pretty uneventful TT course, except for the last 750 meters before the turnaround, which are up a fairly steep little hill. I stupidly stayed in my aero bars and should've sat up for a little more power; I was dragging pretty slow at the top. Straight out of the turnaround you got the full-on headwind. It was strong, but it didn't affect my ability to keep the bike in a straight line. And pretty soon I realized that it was hard mostly because it was mostly uphill. This was a combination I could cope with. In the end, I was just 8 seconds off the fastest women's time overall, and I beat all the other masters women.
I'll skip a description of the crit because I pretty much skipped that stage of the race. Let's just say that the highlights of the afternoon and evening were accomplishing my (shopping) goal for Wenatchee and watching friends race well. And breaking the law on the sidewalk in downtown Wenatchee....with law enforcement by my side....
Sunday's road race featured about 2 miles of more or less flat road, 10 miles of climbing broken up by a one-mile (oh-so-sweet) descent, a 2-part (more technical then not technical) descent, and a 9-mile flat road back to the finish. Apart from the pain and oxygen deprivation, the climb is spectacular. There is only one protracted section steep enough to make me cry, and that comes just before the feed zone so you know that help is literally just around the corner.
At the risk of sounding like Glenn B, who can talk himself into prerace fears no matter who is or is not at a race, I was not expecting a repeat of my 2005 performance on this course because the field included several cat 4s (masters women and cat 4s raced together) known for their stellar climbing skills as well as stronger masters women than last year.
Not wanting to have to work my way to the front on the climb, I rode at the front of the group from the start during the 2-mile headwind section to the climb. And nobody seemed particularly interested in coming around me. The climb starts with a short (200m?) pitch, then a few hundred meters of flat, then another short pitch, then a left turn onto the cutest little one-lane (uphill) road through orchards. After a half-kilometer or so, you have a beautiful view of the valley, and this is where I was riding by myself last year. But this year there were still some women on my wheel. Hmmm. Should I get worried yet? No, as it turned out. They didn't blow up, but the gap behind my wheel very gradually got bigger. At about mile 2 of this piddly little road (there are milepost markers), there was a good view back down through a sort of canyon, and I could see the field completely strung out as each rider tried to find her own rhythm.
I have one trick that consistently works for me for plugging along at a seemingly impossible and endless effort, and yesterday I found two more: I just imagined I was trying desperately to stay on Leah G's wheel (as I tried to do at Willamette), and I tried to close the gap to the lead car (I succeeded once!). I got through the hardest section without crying, I found my feeder in the feed zone and got a flawless hand-off (thanks, Tom!), and then had to mentally (physically, too, I guess) deal with all the climbing still ahead. The second part of the climb moves into pine forest, and the sunflowers were profuse. This climbing is not relentless, and there's that mile of luscious descending in the middle. This is really a fun, beautiful climb.
I knew I had to see the radio tower before I was at the top, but I had forgotten about the two tight bends in the very first part of the descent. This was the part of the course I knew I had to work at especially hard because a good descender could make up time on me. But (I think) everybody has to brake in the tightest corners, and the rest of the descending is pretty much straight, so that even I was bombing down the hill. It's hard to keep your heart rate up when you're zooming downhill at 35+ mph. Those 50 women in pursuit were a constant reminder, though, that that's exactly what I had to do.
I got no time checks on the road this year, so I just had to keep motoring along once I got to the flat highway and hope there wasn't a big, organized group about to overtake me. At about a mile to go, I started looking over my shoulder but I couldn't see anyone. I kept checking all the way to the last bend and with no one out there, at least I didn't have to sprint up this finish hill. I was almost expecting to get passed by Dave Z of the masters D field who had started not far behind us, but I was able to hold him off too.
During the afternoon, I drove up the climb twice more behind the men's cat 1-2 race, and I saw so much more scenery than that narrow little window you have when you're riding hard allows. Not only were the sunflowers profuse under the pines, but you could see them spread across meadows a half-mile away. The vistas to Mission Ridge and the surrounding Cascades were spectacular. And there are some pretty cool houses nestled on hilltops up there (along with less impressive doublewide trailers). And watching even the best cat 1 men suffer on that climb was reassurance that they're mortal too. Congrats to Andrew McD for an amazing attack the second time up the hill (he had 3 minutes by the feed zone--and only increased it before his finish) and to rider 808 from Boise who flatted on the highway and chased all the way up the climb to get back into the lead group.
Racing this Mothers Day weekend was in Wenatchee, apple capital of the world. [My heart was at the 40K tandem TT on the beautiful course at Peoria, Oregon, but being there just didn't work out.] Two of the three stages started and finished at the Alcoa plant east of the "town" of Malaga. The drives to and from the race were beautiful (there's still snow under the bottom of the chairlift at Stevens Pass), the weather was sunny and not unbearably windy, Saturday's race schedule left time for snoozing and shopping--what more could you want? Oh yeah...results. I tried for some of those, too.
Our first stage was a 9.x mile TT. Reports from the first riders off were that it was hard on th
e way back because of the wind. Impossibly hard. Even my masters buddies who got back just before I started said it was ridiculous. But the wind while I was warming up didn't seem that bad, and certainly nothing like at the Ice Breaker TT back in March. Fortunately, there was one voice of reason among all the last-minute reports that confirmed what I was thinking, so I wasn't in a complete state of panic when I started.It's a pretty uneventful TT course, except for the last 750 meters before the turnaround, which are up a fairly steep little hill. I stupidly stayed in my aero bars and should've sat up for a little more power; I was dragging pretty slow at the top. Straight out of the turnaround you got the full-on headwind. It was strong, but it didn't affect my ability to keep the bike in a straight line. And pretty soon I realized that it was hard mostly because it was mostly uphill. This was a combination I could cope with. In the end, I was just 8 seconds off the fastest women's time overall, and I beat all the other masters women.
I'll skip a description of the crit because I pretty much skipped that stage of the race. Let's just say that the highlights of the afternoon and evening were accomplishing my (shopping) goal for Wenatchee and watching friends race well. And breaking the law on the sidewalk in downtown Wenatchee....with law enforcement by my side....
Sunday's road race featured about 2 miles of more or less flat road, 10 miles of climbing broken up by a one-mile (oh-so-sweet) descent, a 2-part (more technical then not technical) descent, and a 9-mile flat road back to the finish. Apart from the pain and oxygen deprivation, the climb is spectacular. There is only one protracted section steep enough to make me cry, and that comes just before the feed zone so you know that help is literally just around the corner.
At the risk of sounding like Glenn B, who can talk himself into prerace fears no matter who is or is not at a race, I was not expecting a repeat of my 2005 performance on this course because the field included several cat 4s (masters women and cat 4s raced together) known for their stellar climbing skills as well as stronger masters women than last year.
Not wanting to have to work my way to the front on the climb, I rode at the front of the group from the start during the 2-mile headwind section to the climb. And nobody seemed particularly interested in coming around me. The climb starts with a short (200m?) pitch, then a few hundred meters of flat, then another short pitch, then a left turn onto the cutest little one-lane (uphill) road through orchards. After a half-kilometer or so, you have a beautiful view of the valley, and this is where I was riding by myself last year. But this year there were still some women on my wheel. Hmmm. Should I get worried yet? No, as it turned out. They didn't blow up, but the gap behind my wheel very gradually got bigger. At about mile 2 of this piddly little road (there are milepost markers), there was a good view back down through a sort of canyon, and I could see the field completely strung out as each rider tried to find her own rhythm.
I have one trick that consistently works for me for plugging along at a seemingly impossible and endless effort, and yesterday I found two more: I just imagined I was trying desperately to stay on Leah G's wheel (as I tried to do at Willamette), and I tried to close the gap to the lead car (I succeeded once!). I got through the hardest section without crying, I found my feeder in the feed zone and got a flawless hand-off (thanks, Tom!), and then had to mentally (physically, too, I guess) deal with all the climbing still ahead. The second part of the climb moves into pine forest, and the sunflowers were profuse. This climbing is not relentless, and there's that mile of luscious descending in the middle. This is really a fun, beautiful climb.
I knew I had to see the radio tower before I was at the top, but I had forgotten about the two tight bends in the very first part of the descent. This was the part of the course I knew I had to work at especially hard because a good descender could make up time on me. But (I think) everybody has to brake in the tightest corners, and the rest of the descending is pretty much straight, so that even I was bombing down the hill. It's hard to keep your heart rate up when you're zooming downhill at 35+ mph. Those 50 women in pursuit were a constant reminder, though, that that's exactly what I had to do.
I got no time checks on the road this year, so I just had to keep motoring along once I got to the flat highway and hope there wasn't a big, organized group about to overtake me. At about a mile to go, I started looking over my shoulder but I couldn't see anyone. I kept checking all the way to the last bend and with no one out there, at least I didn't have to sprint up this finish hill. I was almost expecting to get passed by Dave Z of the masters D field who had started not far behind us, but I was able to hold him off too.
During the afternoon, I drove up the climb twice more behind the men's cat 1-2 race, and I saw so much more scenery than that narrow little window you have when you're riding hard allows. Not only were the sunflowers profuse under the pines, but you could see them spread across meadows a half-mile away. The vistas to Mission Ridge and the surrounding Cascades were spectacular. And there are some pretty cool houses nestled on hilltops up there (along with less impressive doublewide trailers). And watching even the best cat 1 men suffer on that climb was reassurance that they're mortal too. Congrats to Andrew McD for an amazing attack the second time up the hill (he had 3 minutes by the feed zone--and only increased it before his finish) and to rider 808 from Boise who flatted on the highway and chased all the way up the climb to get back into the lead group.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
When is climbing NOT training?
Wednesday, 10 May
When you choose a beautiful, sunny spring day and ride your bike on (arguably) the most beautiful road in the entire state, you hardly notice 5000 feet of elevation gain. Until you walk up the stairs at work the next day.
In exchange for having to work last Saturday (and therefore missing the state road race at Elma), I got to take Wednesday off and chose to ride from Newhalem to Washington Pass on SR20. While the cooling towers of the unfinished nuclear plant at Elma are, well, cool, I'll take the North Cascades any day. The round trip was 85 miles, 40 miles of climbing more or less, and an average of less than one car/RV/motorcycle per mile passed going our direction.
This is such a stunning ride that it's hard to say what was best about it. Just the privilege and pleasure of being there is overwhelming. The peaks around Diablo Lake are still
covered in snow and made for beautiful reflections at Colonial Creek. There was a nice little tailwind when the climbing started after the descent to Panther Creek; I have no complaints about going uphill at 18 mph when it's wind-assisted. There was some tough headwind in the 6 or 8 miles before Rainy Pass, and where the ground was completely covered in snow, the wind across the snow was pretty cold. Just when I was feeling tired and slow, I passed a couple on a Co-Motion tandem with a fully loaded trailer; they had stopped to stretch and were clearly taking their time. (Mick found out when he passed that they had taken 3 days to get from Anacortes to Rainy Pass!) At Rainy Pass, there is probably still 4 feet of snow along the road. The DOT crews cut the cutest little parking indentations into the snow bank for folks who want to head into the back country. There's a little less snow at Washington Pass--maybe 3 feet.
The return was uneventful, not super windy (which it often is), so that the descent down to Colonial Creek was screaming fun. Goretex jacket, knee warmers, and gloves were a must for the first 20 miles of descending. At this time of year, there are waterfalls down every rock face, and the surrounding air temperature drops 20 or 30 degrees because the runoff from the snowfields above is so cold. It was like riding through refrigerators.
Flowering currant, ravens, deer, the smell of the forest, and of course all the snowy peaks made all that climbing hardly seem like going uphill at all--and certainly not in the least like training!
When you choose a beautiful, sunny spring day and ride your bike on (arguably) the most beautiful road in the entire state, you hardly notice 5000 feet of elevation gain. Until you walk up the stairs at work the next day.
In exchange for having to work last Saturday (and therefore missing the state road race at Elma), I got to take Wednesday off and chose to ride from Newhalem to Washington Pass on SR20. While the cooling towers of the unfinished nuclear plant at Elma are, well, cool, I'll take the North Cascades any day. The round trip was 85 miles, 40 miles of climbing more or less, and an average of less than one car/RV/motorcycle per mile passed going our direction.
This is such a stunning ride that it's hard to say what was best about it. Just the privilege and pleasure of being there is overwhelming. The peaks around Diablo Lake are still
covered in snow and made for beautiful reflections at Colonial Creek. There was a nice little tailwind when the climbing started after the descent to Panther Creek; I have no complaints about going uphill at 18 mph when it's wind-assisted. There was some tough headwind in the 6 or 8 miles before Rainy Pass, and where the ground was completely covered in snow, the wind across the snow was pretty cold. Just when I was feeling tired and slow, I passed a couple on a Co-Motion tandem with a fully loaded trailer; they had stopped to stretch and were clearly taking their time. (Mick found out when he passed that they had taken 3 days to get from Anacortes to Rainy Pass!) At Rainy Pass, there is probably still 4 feet of snow along the road. The DOT crews cut the cutest little parking indentations into the snow bank for folks who want to head into the back country. There's a little less snow at Washington Pass--maybe 3 feet.The return was uneventful, not super windy (which it often is), so that the descent down to Colonial Creek was screaming fun. Goretex jacket, knee warmers, and gloves were a must for the first 20 miles of descending. At this time of year, there are waterfalls down every rock face, and the surrounding air temperature drops 20 or 30 degrees because the runoff from the snowfields above is so cold. It was like riding through refrigerators.
Flowering currant, ravens, deer, the smell of the forest, and of course all the snowy peaks made all that climbing hardly seem like going uphill at all--and certainly not in the least like training!
Monday, May 08, 2006
I won a WHAT? (redux)
Sunday, 7 May
Last year there was a concerted effort to get me to “do” crits. It was somewhat successful: I didn’t get pulled from the Enumclaw crit until two laps to go (a record for me!), I can almost say I had a lot of fun in the tandem crit at Co-Motion, and I even hung in to get pack time for two almost-crits in El Salvador. But I can still think of lots of better things to do with $20 or $25 than to sign up for a criterium.
This year the plan seems to be to make me sprint. I'm pleasantly surprised that I have apparently learned the mechanics of sprinting by osmosis over the years, because my brain tells me “now you need to do this.” Okay, I’m not delusional and I know I’m not “a sprinter,” but twice now this year I have won a road race in something somewhat resembling a sprint.
This weekend’s sprint came at the end of the master A women’s state road race championship at Longbranch. The race is on a 10.5-mile circuit with one really hard (steep) climb and another steep-enough, stairstep hill. We were combined with the master B women (cat 4s). Not only was it raining steadily at our start, but the wind was blowing too--my favorite.
Everyone knows this race comes down to the hill, so we just rode the first few miles, for once hating the really smooth county road because it throws up so much spray. A straight, fast descent rolls into the base of the climb, and I made sure I was at the front. Given my ineptitude at Willamette at shifting onto the small chain ring, I put the chain somewhere in the middle of the cassette before I tried to shift over. But the chain wouldn’t shift off the big ring. Panic. I cannot ride up this hill on my big ring. After about 5 pedal strokes and shifting back and forth, it finally dropped onto the small ring. I’m sure the women behind me were cursing me for blocking the road while I flailed helplessly for a gear. It’s false flat for the longest time at the top, which is where chasing and regrouping happen. I think there ended up being about 8 in our group here, but I couldn’t get off the front (I’m supposed to be flattered that they all think it’s my job to tow them around all day?) so I never drifted far enough back to count.
After the false flat and some rollers, there are some little descents, a crosswind section where the wind pushed me sideways, and then a tricky little bend over a poorly surfaced bridge over some tide flats. I was happy enough to stay at the front. Besides, now I knew it would take some time to shift onto the small ring for the next hill, which starts right after the bridge, so better to be at the front (and slow everyone else down!). I don’t know if we dropped anyone on this hill. (This is strange: I’m usually the gatekeeper at the back on climbs and know exactly who’s left in a race. Hmmmm.) Then there’s another gradual descent, a sweeping turn where folks sometimes go off the road, and a stretch of bad pavement at 1K to go that’s lots worse than announced at the start line.
This is a race of attrition, and some more folks attrited [wow! that really is a word!] on the second and third times up the hill(s). We tried to organize a paceline after the second time up the hill, but there were women in the group who had no clue what this was or how to do it. So Gina and I sat at the back until we got too scared and then we were back at the front. We were finally down to a gang of four: Gina, her teammate Julie, Karen, and me. Julie and Karen are Bs. Karen seemed very happy to ride at the front--except that she was always looking over her shoulder, which was disconcerting because I wanted her eyes on the road ahead--and I hardly ever saw Julie because she was seeking as much shelter as she could find.
Weather note: at the start of lap three, it was absolutely pouring rain. El Salvador quantities of rain (just about 20 degrees colder). We were lucky it was a short race. On the second time up the lesser hill, you could literally see the water cascading down the hill as we were trying to ride up it. After the third time up the big hill, it seemed to let up, and then it got brighter and you could see farther up the road. That was temporary, though, and it poured again right up until the afternoon session of men’s races started. Then the sun came out and there was beautiful blue sky for the rest of the afternoon.
With any other group of women, it would’ve come down to two separate races: Gina and me, and Julie and Karen. But Gina, who is a far better tactician and sprinter than I, is also a self-sacrificing teammate and wanted to be sure that Julie won her race. She attacked at about 300 meters to go to lead Julie out for the finishing sprint. I knew she was going to attack (just not that early), I thought “there she goes,” and then the little voice in my head that has learned sprinting by osmosis said “and now you get on her wheel.” That took some work. Fortunately, that same little voice did not say “that’s Julie’s wheel,” and Julie wasn’t in sight (peripherally--turns out she was on my wheel). Just when I was thinking there was no way I was going to get around Gina, much less pass her, her sprint started to fade. I waited until well after we passed the 200m sign to go around her. It was still a very long (uphill) way to the finish line and I wasn’t exactly accelerating, but I beat her to the line of duct tape across the road, with Julie on my wheel.
Three hundred meters isn’t very far, but it’s amazing to me how much thinking can go on in that distance. When someone accelerates on a hard climb, I am usually so oxygen deprived that there are no verbal cues in my brain, just the certainty that I have to get on that wheel. But in both this sprint and the one at Kings Valley (the sum total of my vast successful sprinting experience), the thoughts just seem to fly. Do this, do that. It’s as if my brain has been trained to tell me what to do…but it hasn’t been, which is why I think I’ve learned this by osmosis. Okay, there’s not that much involved in sprinting but there seems to be tons of time to think. In years past, my thinking at this point has mostly consisted of "and there they go."
Another observation is about how different people climb differently. Some like to go super hard at the bottom so that it’s a crap shoot whether they’ll be able to maintain enough effort to get over the top. Some just keep a steady tempo. And I know a couple of deviants who like to accelerate (i.e., turn the screws) near the top!
I hope Julie recognizes the sacrifice that Gina made for her yesterday and also learned some things about what teamwork can do for you. Not only did Gina help her at the finish, but I know she was “protecting” Julie and working for her during the race, and there were strategic chats at various points. Gina knows how I race and what I can and can’t do (or will and won’t do). She had at least as good a shot as I did at that gold medal with 1K to go. And yet it was more important to her to make sure that her teammate won her race. And--since she was the number one advocate for making me ride crits last year--maybe she wanted to give me the opportunity to work on sprinting.
Last year there was a concerted effort to get me to “do” crits. It was somewhat successful: I didn’t get pulled from the Enumclaw crit until two laps to go (a record for me!), I can almost say I had a lot of fun in the tandem crit at Co-Motion, and I even hung in to get pack time for two almost-crits in El Salvador. But I can still think of lots of better things to do with $20 or $25 than to sign up for a criterium.
This year the plan seems to be to make me sprint. I'm pleasantly surprised that I have apparently learned the mechanics of sprinting by osmosis over the years, because my brain tells me “now you need to do this.” Okay, I’m not delusional and I know I’m not “a sprinter,” but twice now this year I have won a road race in something somewhat resembling a sprint.
This weekend’s sprint came at the end of the master A women’s state road race championship at Longbranch. The race is on a 10.5-mile circuit with one really hard (steep) climb and another steep-enough, stairstep hill. We were combined with the master B women (cat 4s). Not only was it raining steadily at our start, but the wind was blowing too--my favorite.
Everyone knows this race comes down to the hill, so we just rode the first few miles, for once hating the really smooth county road because it throws up so much spray. A straight, fast descent rolls into the base of the climb, and I made sure I was at the front. Given my ineptitude at Willamette at shifting onto the small chain ring, I put the chain somewhere in the middle of the cassette before I tried to shift over. But the chain wouldn’t shift off the big ring. Panic. I cannot ride up this hill on my big ring. After about 5 pedal strokes and shifting back and forth, it finally dropped onto the small ring. I’m sure the women behind me were cursing me for blocking the road while I flailed helplessly for a gear. It’s false flat for the longest time at the top, which is where chasing and regrouping happen. I think there ended up being about 8 in our group here, but I couldn’t get off the front (I’m supposed to be flattered that they all think it’s my job to tow them around all day?) so I never drifted far enough back to count.
After the false flat and some rollers, there are some little descents, a crosswind section where the wind pushed me sideways, and then a tricky little bend over a poorly surfaced bridge over some tide flats. I was happy enough to stay at the front. Besides, now I knew it would take some time to shift onto the small ring for the next hill, which starts right after the bridge, so better to be at the front (and slow everyone else down!). I don’t know if we dropped anyone on this hill. (This is strange: I’m usually the gatekeeper at the back on climbs and know exactly who’s left in a race. Hmmmm.) Then there’s another gradual descent, a sweeping turn where folks sometimes go off the road, and a stretch of bad pavement at 1K to go that’s lots worse than announced at the start line.
This is a race of attrition, and some more folks attrited [wow! that really is a word!] on the second and third times up the hill(s). We tried to organize a paceline after the second time up the hill, but there were women in the group who had no clue what this was or how to do it. So Gina and I sat at the back until we got too scared and then we were back at the front. We were finally down to a gang of four: Gina, her teammate Julie, Karen, and me. Julie and Karen are Bs. Karen seemed very happy to ride at the front--except that she was always looking over her shoulder, which was disconcerting because I wanted her eyes on the road ahead--and I hardly ever saw Julie because she was seeking as much shelter as she could find.
Weather note: at the start of lap three, it was absolutely pouring rain. El Salvador quantities of rain (just about 20 degrees colder). We were lucky it was a short race. On the second time up the lesser hill, you could literally see the water cascading down the hill as we were trying to ride up it. After the third time up the big hill, it seemed to let up, and then it got brighter and you could see farther up the road. That was temporary, though, and it poured again right up until the afternoon session of men’s races started. Then the sun came out and there was beautiful blue sky for the rest of the afternoon.
With any other group of women, it would’ve come down to two separate races: Gina and me, and Julie and Karen. But Gina, who is a far better tactician and sprinter than I, is also a self-sacrificing teammate and wanted to be sure that Julie won her race. She attacked at about 300 meters to go to lead Julie out for the finishing sprint. I knew she was going to attack (just not that early), I thought “there she goes,” and then the little voice in my head that has learned sprinting by osmosis said “and now you get on her wheel.” That took some work. Fortunately, that same little voice did not say “that’s Julie’s wheel,” and Julie wasn’t in sight (peripherally--turns out she was on my wheel). Just when I was thinking there was no way I was going to get around Gina, much less pass her, her sprint started to fade. I waited until well after we passed the 200m sign to go around her. It was still a very long (uphill) way to the finish line and I wasn’t exactly accelerating, but I beat her to the line of duct tape across the road, with Julie on my wheel.
Three hundred meters isn’t very far, but it’s amazing to me how much thinking can go on in that distance. When someone accelerates on a hard climb, I am usually so oxygen deprived that there are no verbal cues in my brain, just the certainty that I have to get on that wheel. But in both this sprint and the one at Kings Valley (the sum total of my vast successful sprinting experience), the thoughts just seem to fly. Do this, do that. It’s as if my brain has been trained to tell me what to do…but it hasn’t been, which is why I think I’ve learned this by osmosis. Okay, there’s not that much involved in sprinting but there seems to be tons of time to think. In years past, my thinking at this point has mostly consisted of "and there they go."
Another observation is about how different people climb differently. Some like to go super hard at the bottom so that it’s a crap shoot whether they’ll be able to maintain enough effort to get over the top. Some just keep a steady tempo. And I know a couple of deviants who like to accelerate (i.e., turn the screws) near the top!
I hope Julie recognizes the sacrifice that Gina made for her yesterday and also learned some things about what teamwork can do for you. Not only did Gina help her at the finish, but I know she was “protecting” Julie and working for her during the race, and there were strategic chats at various points. Gina knows how I race and what I can and can’t do (or will and won’t do). She had at least as good a shot as I did at that gold medal with 1K to go. And yet it was more important to her to make sure that her teammate won her race. And--since she was the number one advocate for making me ride crits last year--maybe she wanted to give me the opportunity to work on sprinting.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Learning from spam
Friday, Cinco de Mayo
Like most of us, I get rather too much email that I don't want and didn't sign up for. But one today from Predator: Cycling's Journal of Mental Conditioning hits one of my pet peeves squarely on the head. Plus, the pithy words come from Davis Phinney, whom I was lucky enough to meet when he was here in February. Take heed, all ye who live by your heart rate monitors and power meters and hour-by-hour, mile-by-mile training programs:
"I think there is so much information and focus and attention paid to physical work in sport and training, and somewhat technique, but ultimately what has really been bypassed to a large extent is the mental part in the process and the preparation to be successful. It’s been touched on by a lot of people but people go for the salient bullet points and then say “ok, but tell me what to do. I gotta go out and train so tell me how high my heart rate should be, etc. etc.” People just want to be told what to do. They sort of want to click off their brain and just be programmed and then hey, I’ll be successful. I’ll be a good cyclist or runner or what have you. I see that and I’m like, you don’t get it. You actually have to start with your thought process and everything comes from that, everything originates from the power that you have in your mind.
"The most important tool I had was my brain."
Like most of us, I get rather too much email that I don't want and didn't sign up for. But one today from Predator: Cycling's Journal of Mental Conditioning hits one of my pet peeves squarely on the head. Plus, the pithy words come from Davis Phinney, whom I was lucky enough to meet when he was here in February. Take heed, all ye who live by your heart rate monitors and power meters and hour-by-hour, mile-by-mile training programs:
"I think there is so much information and focus and attention paid to physical work in sport and training, and somewhat technique, but ultimately what has really been bypassed to a large extent is the mental part in the process and the preparation to be successful. It’s been touched on by a lot of people but people go for the salient bullet points and then say “ok, but tell me what to do. I gotta go out and train so tell me how high my heart rate should be, etc. etc.” People just want to be told what to do. They sort of want to click off their brain and just be programmed and then hey, I’ll be successful. I’ll be a good cyclist or runner or what have you. I see that and I’m like, you don’t get it. You actually have to start with your thought process and everything comes from that, everything originates from the power that you have in your mind.
"The most important tool I had was my brain."
Sunday, April 30, 2006
I don't crit
Sunday, 30 April
But today I finished a race at Seward Park (okay, it's a pseudo-crit) for the first time since...25 April 1998. On that day, Lysle Wilhelmi (who has since retired from pro-dom) lapped the entire field except me, and I managed to lap 3 other riders. So in 8 years (!) I have done laps here and there on Thursday nights but otherwise managed to escape the whole enchilada. But today I succumbed to peer pressure and doing what I "should" do. The proof is here. And I live to tell the tale.
Actually, it's not much of a tale because I can't say I did much racing. There were 10 of us at the start, 3 Wines of Washington women, 4 from other teams, and 3 of us unlikely to be factors in the race. Not long after the start, Gina (Wines) attacked and got a little gap, and Carrie and Jen bridged up to her. Suz and Tricia (Wines) sat up, blocked, whatever, and nobody seemed particularly interested in going after the others (with so few of us in the race, it's not like you can "block" anyone from getting around on that course). Taylor had to get a wheel change and then launched a couple of pretty good attacks when she came back in from that little rest. But Suz and Tricia kept reeling her in. Amara launched up the hill when she knew she was about done; the fact that she attacked going uphill was a sign that something was up, even before she went backwards. We dawdled around some more, hitting the marvelous speed of 14 mph at one point. How Gina et al. didn't manage to lap the field, I'm not exactly sure. We all knew that Suz was going to jump at some stage. When she did, we waved goodbye and hung in for the few remaining laps. It was sort of a textbook race and it was pretty entertaining to just watch the predictable plot unfold. Okay, it was lame of me not to race, but I was happier being entertained than being frustrated like Nancy and Taylor.
Under (year-old) standing orders to do some crits, I'm workin' on it.
But today I finished a race at Seward Park (okay, it's a pseudo-crit) for the first time since...25 April 1998. On that day, Lysle Wilhelmi (who has since retired from pro-dom) lapped the entire field except me, and I managed to lap 3 other riders. So in 8 years (!) I have done laps here and there on Thursday nights but otherwise managed to escape the whole enchilada. But today I succumbed to peer pressure and doing what I "should" do. The proof is here. And I live to tell the tale.
Actually, it's not much of a tale because I can't say I did much racing. There were 10 of us at the start, 3 Wines of Washington women, 4 from other teams, and 3 of us unlikely to be factors in the race. Not long after the start, Gina (Wines) attacked and got a little gap, and Carrie and Jen bridged up to her. Suz and Tricia (Wines) sat up, blocked, whatever, and nobody seemed particularly interested in going after the others (with so few of us in the race, it's not like you can "block" anyone from getting around on that course). Taylor had to get a wheel change and then launched a couple of pretty good attacks when she came back in from that little rest. But Suz and Tricia kept reeling her in. Amara launched up the hill when she knew she was about done; the fact that she attacked going uphill was a sign that something was up, even before she went backwards. We dawdled around some more, hitting the marvelous speed of 14 mph at one point. How Gina et al. didn't manage to lap the field, I'm not exactly sure. We all knew that Suz was going to jump at some stage. When she did, we waved goodbye and hung in for the few remaining laps. It was sort of a textbook race and it was pretty entertaining to just watch the predictable plot unfold. Okay, it was lame of me not to race, but I was happier being entertained than being frustrated like Nancy and Taylor.
Under (year-old) standing orders to do some crits, I'm workin' on it.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
The return of fred
Saturday, 29 April
A girlie digression. I rode home from work yesterday via the Burke Gilman Trail. This is normally a boring, bumpy way to get a few extra miles. But on Friday it was heavenly. It was a warm afternoon, and all the lilacs and everything else in bloom smelled SO GOOD. I really pitied everyone who has to drive a car to work.
And on Saturday, for once, the rain in the forecast didn’t materialize until AFTER our race. That made conditions at the Green Valley TT pretty close to ideal. A little bit of wind, but not enough to push me around. I heard a complaint that it could’ve been warmer, but no wind and no rain is just fine by me.
I prerode most of the course for my warmup. Nope, nothing new out there since we raced on 10 miles of this 11.5-mile course at the Ice Breaker TT in early March. I was one of the first riders off so I could get back in time to do the whole thing again on the tandem. Martin was chasing me…again…and I asked him to please not catch me quite as soon as last time. It was good to see Kitty being the starter; she was a fixture of my early years of racing. The problem today was that about 30 seconds before my start, she asked “are you still officiating a lot?” I should have left it with a yes/no answer, but there isn’t one, and I got distracted and stopped paying attention to those little rituals you do just before your start. So when she said “3-2-1-go” and I stood up, I discovered that my right foot wasn’t clipped into the pedal. I think there are penalties for the words I said as I tried to recover from that oops move.
But once I was all clipped in (too many pedal strokes later), it felt pretty good. I rode some on the 55x12 but never got down to the 11. I think I was pushing a pretty big gear most of the time, and maybe I should’ve been spinning more. But I didn’t get bogged down. Martin didn’t pass me until more than 5 miles into the course—not long before the turnaround. I kept the gap pretty constant to the turn, but then he pulled away. That road must be more uphill on the return than anyone notices!
I consciously tried to work even harder from the 1K sign to the finish, and my legs were so tired that I wondered how on earth I was going to be able to do this a second time. And there wasn’t much recovery time at this race. I rolled around a little, went back to the parking lot, hopped on the tandem, and we cruised up and down a little bit. My stomach could not bear the thought of a gel, so I had to go with whatever breakfast was left in me. As we approached the start, I reminded Martin that we were still in the middle chain ring and we should probably race in the big ring. Neither of us was very excited about that switch to reality; spinning an easier gear was much nicer for tired legs.
More chatting before this start. Mick was in front of us and Les was behind us, so there was someone strong to chase and another to hold off. We still don’t stand up for these starts, so it seems like it takes a long time to get up to speed on the tandem. But once we’ve settled in and I get down into my bars, it’s just pedal pedal pedal. I can't see when there’s a bend in the road. Fortunately, there are only gentle turns on this course so I didn’t quite tip over when Martin leaned into the turns. Several people commented on how fast we were going when we passed them, but I only saw one person go by in my peripheral vision. No standing up after the turnaround, either, which is kind of funny because both of us barely sit on the saddle as we try to put more power to the pedals to wind it up again.
Bottom line for the day: Fred and her pedal inattentiveness got beaten by a second, but my time was 26 seconds faster than last year. On the tandem, we were 19 seconds slower than last year. What’s up with that?
The view from the front of the tandem is here.
Race results are here.
A girlie digression. I rode home from work yesterday via the Burke Gilman Trail. This is normally a boring, bumpy way to get a few extra miles. But on Friday it was heavenly. It was a warm afternoon, and all the lilacs and everything else in bloom smelled SO GOOD. I really pitied everyone who has to drive a car to work.
And on Saturday, for once, the rain in the forecast didn’t materialize until AFTER our race. That made conditions at the Green Valley TT pretty close to ideal. A little bit of wind, but not enough to push me around. I heard a complaint that it could’ve been warmer, but no wind and no rain is just fine by me.
I prerode most of the course for my warmup. Nope, nothing new out there since we raced on 10 miles of this 11.5-mile course at the Ice Breaker TT in early March. I was one of the first riders off so I could get back in time to do the whole thing again on the tandem. Martin was chasing me…again…and I asked him to please not catch me quite as soon as last time. It was good to see Kitty being the starter; she was a fixture of my early years of racing. The problem today was that about 30 seconds before my start, she asked “are you still officiating a lot?” I should have left it with a yes/no answer, but there isn’t one, and I got distracted and stopped paying attention to those little rituals you do just before your start. So when she said “3-2-1-go” and I stood up, I discovered that my right foot wasn’t clipped into the pedal. I think there are penalties for the words I said as I tried to recover from that oops move.
But once I was all clipped in (too many pedal strokes later), it felt pretty good. I rode some on the 55x12 but never got down to the 11. I think I was pushing a pretty big gear most of the time, and maybe I should’ve been spinning more. But I didn’t get bogged down. Martin didn’t pass me until more than 5 miles into the course—not long before the turnaround. I kept the gap pretty constant to the turn, but then he pulled away. That road must be more uphill on the return than anyone notices!
I consciously tried to work even harder from the 1K sign to the finish, and my legs were so tired that I wondered how on earth I was going to be able to do this a second time. And there wasn’t much recovery time at this race. I rolled around a little, went back to the parking lot, hopped on the tandem, and we cruised up and down a little bit. My stomach could not bear the thought of a gel, so I had to go with whatever breakfast was left in me. As we approached the start, I reminded Martin that we were still in the middle chain ring and we should probably race in the big ring. Neither of us was very excited about that switch to reality; spinning an easier gear was much nicer for tired legs.
More chatting before this start. Mick was in front of us and Les was behind us, so there was someone strong to chase and another to hold off. We still don’t stand up for these starts, so it seems like it takes a long time to get up to speed on the tandem. But once we’ve settled in and I get down into my bars, it’s just pedal pedal pedal. I can't see when there’s a bend in the road. Fortunately, there are only gentle turns on this course so I didn’t quite tip over when Martin leaned into the turns. Several people commented on how fast we were going when we passed them, but I only saw one person go by in my peripheral vision. No standing up after the turnaround, either, which is kind of funny because both of us barely sit on the saddle as we try to put more power to the pedals to wind it up again.
Bottom line for the day: Fred and her pedal inattentiveness got beaten by a second, but my time was 26 seconds faster than last year. On the tandem, we were 19 seconds slower than last year. What’s up with that?
The view from the front of the tandem is here.
Race results are here.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Hooray for teammates
Tuesday, 25 April
The results prove it. Allison is such a great teammate. (Actually, I think she's just a great person and that transfers over to everything else she does.) She and I and Suz and Carrie comprised the riders of the TRIA team at Willamette. At the end of Sunday's stage, when I was trying to motor along on the flats in the last 20K and catch Maria, I was apparently running out of steam because the Allison train came cruising past like I didn't know how to time trial. Good thing I was able to hop on and stay with her all the way to the finish! Left to my own pace, I clearly would've slipped farther down GC. Thanks to Allison's help, I finished 6 seconds ahead of Maria in GC (and 7 behind Allison):
9 08:07:25,03 Beall, Allison TRIA
10 08:07:32,63 Walsh, Martha TRIA
11 08:07:38,23 Lee, Maria Symmetrics
This gave TRIA 3 riders in the top 10! Not so bad for a team with anonymous blue jerseys!
Full race results are here.
The results prove it. Allison is such a great teammate. (Actually, I think she's just a great person and that transfers over to everything else she does.) She and I and Suz and Carrie comprised the riders of the TRIA team at Willamette. At the end of Sunday's stage, when I was trying to motor along on the flats in the last 20K and catch Maria, I was apparently running out of steam because the Allison train came cruising past like I didn't know how to time trial. Good thing I was able to hop on and stay with her all the way to the finish! Left to my own pace, I clearly would've slipped farther down GC. Thanks to Allison's help, I finished 6 seconds ahead of Maria in GC (and 7 behind Allison):
9 08:07:25,03 Beall, Allison TRIA
10 08:07:32,63 Walsh, Martha TRIA
11 08:07:38,23 Lee, Maria Symmetrics
This gave TRIA 3 riders in the top 10! Not so bad for a team with anonymous blue jerseys!
Full race results are here.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A fred has fun
Sunday, 23 April
Today was the big road race stage at the Willamette Valley Classic. It featured two BIG climbs (3+ miles each), three not-quite-so-big climbs (~1 mile), as well as some things that were definitely bigger than rollers. The second half of the stage was on roads I had raced on before; the first half was new. We rode 70 miles, the same as the eliter men’s categories. In a nutshell, it was an absolutely spectacular day on the bike, in spite of an operator error that cost me any hopes of GC respectability. It wasn't epic, it was just good, hard fun.
Our race started at 8:50, when it was all of about 45 degrees. You knew it was going to warm up, but it was hard to convince yourself that you didn’t want long sleeves or shoe covers or knee warmers. The race staged and finished at the King Estate Winery, which perches on top of a BIG hill near Lorane. So the first half-mile of the race was really frigid going downhill.
We rolled along in the valley at such an amiable pace that our follow official pulled up next to us and asked if we knew we were racing! The tempo on the first little hill was pretty moderate, and I don’t think anyone got seriously gapped off. We had our pack pee stop; I had chosen the right day to not wear bib shorts. The first BIG climb came about 20 miles in, and it was probably 3-4 miles long; the course profile shows 1000 feet of elevation gain. Riders kept going off the back until we were down to 10, with Leah setting tempo most of the time. I hung in there all the way to the top, and down the other side, but nobody wanted to drive the pace and the whole field caught back on within a few miles.
The next climb wasn’t so big, but I wasn’t expecting it. I had worked my way through my gears until I was riding on my 50x23, so of course when I shifted onto the little ring, the chain came off. I guess I forgot to turn in my fred license when I upgraded to cat 2. The hill was steep enough at this stage that I didn’t have enough momentum to give me time to get it back on by pedaling, so I had to stop, get off the bike, and put the chain back on. 300 meters off the back is a big gap on a climb when there’s more horsepower at the front than you’ll ever muster. I worked and worked and passed riders. When the pack turned onto Siuslaw River Road—which is where the course became familiar—I was still 200m off the back. Chase, chase some more, and finally I got back on. The double-whammy problem was that Siuslaw has some pretty substantial rollers and I need recovery time after an effort like that. Bad combo. We came to a hill right away, somebody punched it, and I was out the back again.
After that, as they say, I was no longer racing; I was just riding my bike. I rode in little groups of different women. I rode away from some on the climbs, and one rode away from me on the descents. I had a good deal going for a while with Deb on the rollers; I rode on the front on the uphill and sat on her wheel on the downhill. I never got reattached to the front group, and probably I would not have stayed if I had. I set tempo for my little group (which had a different composition at the top than at the bottom) up all of the Wolf Creek climb, and then again on the 5 miles of false flat into a headwind before the descent down to Territorial Highway. At the bottom of the hill, I was riding solo again for the longest time (trying to catch Maria who was maybe 300m up the road) until Allison and Kori came by, and I hung on to the Allison train all the way to the finish. We lost Kori on the last little hill coming up to the mondo climb back up to the finish at the winery.
Highlights?
This was a PERFECT course. The scenery was amazing. You wonder how riding through trees can be so great, but in the Willamette Valley they are dripping with moss, they are just now starting to leaf out, and the sun was trickling through them all. They make a canopy over the road in a lot of places. And there is NOBODY else on the roads. (Except chipmunks!)
Most of the roads were nice 2-lane affairs with a yellow line down the midde. But this is “Willamette” after all, and we had a fair distance on patched, gravely little one-lane BLM/logging roads with branches and fallen trees across half the lane in places. No traffic. More trees. It was truly a taste of the old Tour of Willamette. The kind of stuff we don’t have at home. (Me saying I liked riding on gravel and broken pavement ranks right up there with yesterday’s fun in a technical circuit race for unlikeliness.) The climb where I dropped my chain was on a bitsy little road with no centerline, and you couldn't tell where the edge of the road was because it was covered in gravel and needles. We were given the "whole road" on the first big climb where I stayed with the front group, and it was nice to be able to take the shortest line through some of the corners. After patroling the yellow line like it was the edge of the universe in our two previous road stages, the officials must have figured out there hadn't been cars out on the roads we were on today in months.
After the feed zone on Siuslaw River Road (who were all those people who knew my name?), there’s about a mile of descending with some tight turns. We rode this road last summer in the Co-Motion Classic on the tandem, and as I went around the bends at the top following Allison’s wheel, I was wondering how on earth I managed to hang on to the tandem which was undoubtedly going a lot faster than I had the nerves to go on my own. As if to jar me out of my reverie, a chipmunk scooted out onto the road, stopped about a foot from Allison’s wheel, and turned around. I’m not sure who was more frightened: me, Allison, or the chipmunk!
Getting to race with Alice is always fun because you know she loves the sport but she doesn't treat it like rocket science and is just out for a good, hard effort. There aren't many wheels I would rather ride on because you just KNOW she's got the bike handling skills to avoid anything. It was great to see her in the front group on the big climbs today. Maybe someday we'll have to get her to take a time trial seriously. It was also good (in a perverse sort of way--you know she'll make you suffer) to have Leah back after her crash at Cascade last July. And it was a pleasure to race in an elite women's peloton. After the first day, there was not a sketchy wheel in the bunch. It's going to be hard to go back to Tuesday nights with masters and cat 4-5 men.
Oh, and the weather? For all those people who didn’t come to this race “because it always rains at Willamette,” it was 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky at our finish.
I think maybe I had more fun today being a fred out the back than I would have if I had been trying my damnedest not to get dropped by the pros and 1s in our pro-1-2 field. I didn’t win, I wasn’t even the first loser, but I had a lot of fun. It was one of those days that makes me appreciate being able to race my bike and ranks right up there in top 10 days on the bike. Thanks to Richard Sweet and his army of volunteers and OBRA folks for starting a new Willamette Valley tradition. It really is a “Classic”!
Today was the big road race stage at the Willamette Valley Classic. It featured two BIG climbs (3+ miles each), three not-quite-so-big climbs (~1 mile), as well as some things that were definitely bigger than rollers. The second half of the stage was on roads I had raced on before; the first half was new. We rode 70 miles, the same as the eliter men’s categories. In a nutshell, it was an absolutely spectacular day on the bike, in spite of an operator error that cost me any hopes of GC respectability. It wasn't epic, it was just good, hard fun.
Our race started at 8:50, when it was all of about 45 degrees. You knew it was going to warm up, but it was hard to convince yourself that you didn’t want long sleeves or shoe covers or knee warmers. The race staged and finished at the King Estate Winery, which perches on top of a BIG hill near Lorane. So the first half-mile of the race was really frigid going downhill.
We rolled along in the valley at such an amiable pace that our follow official pulled up next to us and asked if we knew we were racing! The tempo on the first little hill was pretty moderate, and I don’t think anyone got seriously gapped off. We had our pack pee stop; I had chosen the right day to not wear bib shorts. The first BIG climb came about 20 miles in, and it was probably 3-4 miles long; the course profile shows 1000 feet of elevation gain. Riders kept going off the back until we were down to 10, with Leah setting tempo most of the time. I hung in there all the way to the top, and down the other side, but nobody wanted to drive the pace and the whole field caught back on within a few miles.
The next climb wasn’t so big, but I wasn’t expecting it. I had worked my way through my gears until I was riding on my 50x23, so of course when I shifted onto the little ring, the chain came off. I guess I forgot to turn in my fred license when I upgraded to cat 2. The hill was steep enough at this stage that I didn’t have enough momentum to give me time to get it back on by pedaling, so I had to stop, get off the bike, and put the chain back on. 300 meters off the back is a big gap on a climb when there’s more horsepower at the front than you’ll ever muster. I worked and worked and passed riders. When the pack turned onto Siuslaw River Road—which is where the course became familiar—I was still 200m off the back. Chase, chase some more, and finally I got back on. The double-whammy problem was that Siuslaw has some pretty substantial rollers and I need recovery time after an effort like that. Bad combo. We came to a hill right away, somebody punched it, and I was out the back again.
After that, as they say, I was no longer racing; I was just riding my bike. I rode in little groups of different women. I rode away from some on the climbs, and one rode away from me on the descents. I had a good deal going for a while with Deb on the rollers; I rode on the front on the uphill and sat on her wheel on the downhill. I never got reattached to the front group, and probably I would not have stayed if I had. I set tempo for my little group (which had a different composition at the top than at the bottom) up all of the Wolf Creek climb, and then again on the 5 miles of false flat into a headwind before the descent down to Territorial Highway. At the bottom of the hill, I was riding solo again for the longest time (trying to catch Maria who was maybe 300m up the road) until Allison and Kori came by, and I hung on to the Allison train all the way to the finish. We lost Kori on the last little hill coming up to the mondo climb back up to the finish at the winery.
Highlights?
This was a PERFECT course. The scenery was amazing. You wonder how riding through trees can be so great, but in the Willamette Valley they are dripping with moss, they are just now starting to leaf out, and the sun was trickling through them all. They make a canopy over the road in a lot of places. And there is NOBODY else on the roads. (Except chipmunks!)
Most of the roads were nice 2-lane affairs with a yellow line down the midde. But this is “Willamette” after all, and we had a fair distance on patched, gravely little one-lane BLM/logging roads with branches and fallen trees across half the lane in places. No traffic. More trees. It was truly a taste of the old Tour of Willamette. The kind of stuff we don’t have at home. (Me saying I liked riding on gravel and broken pavement ranks right up there with yesterday’s fun in a technical circuit race for unlikeliness.) The climb where I dropped my chain was on a bitsy little road with no centerline, and you couldn't tell where the edge of the road was because it was covered in gravel and needles. We were given the "whole road" on the first big climb where I stayed with the front group, and it was nice to be able to take the shortest line through some of the corners. After patroling the yellow line like it was the edge of the universe in our two previous road stages, the officials must have figured out there hadn't been cars out on the roads we were on today in months.
After the feed zone on Siuslaw River Road (who were all those people who knew my name?), there’s about a mile of descending with some tight turns. We rode this road last summer in the Co-Motion Classic on the tandem, and as I went around the bends at the top following Allison’s wheel, I was wondering how on earth I managed to hang on to the tandem which was undoubtedly going a lot faster than I had the nerves to go on my own. As if to jar me out of my reverie, a chipmunk scooted out onto the road, stopped about a foot from Allison’s wheel, and turned around. I’m not sure who was more frightened: me, Allison, or the chipmunk!
Getting to race with Alice is always fun because you know she loves the sport but she doesn't treat it like rocket science and is just out for a good, hard effort. There aren't many wheels I would rather ride on because you just KNOW she's got the bike handling skills to avoid anything. It was great to see her in the front group on the big climbs today. Maybe someday we'll have to get her to take a time trial seriously. It was also good (in a perverse sort of way--you know she'll make you suffer) to have Leah back after her crash at Cascade last July. And it was a pleasure to race in an elite women's peloton. After the first day, there was not a sketchy wheel in the bunch. It's going to be hard to go back to Tuesday nights with masters and cat 4-5 men.
Oh, and the weather? For all those people who didn’t come to this race “because it always rains at Willamette,” it was 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky at our finish.
I think maybe I had more fun today being a fred out the back than I would have if I had been trying my damnedest not to get dropped by the pros and 1s in our pro-1-2 field. I didn’t win, I wasn’t even the first loser, but I had a lot of fun. It was one of those days that makes me appreciate being able to race my bike and ranks right up there in top 10 days on the bike. Thanks to Richard Sweet and his army of volunteers and OBRA folks for starting a new Willamette Valley tradition. It really is a “Classic”!
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Martha moves up
Saturday, 22 April
Weird things happen in bike races. In WVC stage two today, I moved from the bottom of GC to 7th with one 16-mile time trial. It had some hills and a tough headwind on the return, but I only got out of the saddle once, never had to use the small chain ring, and used my 55x11 a few times. I was a long way off the winner's time but happy enough to finish 6th. Miranda got her revenge for my win at Jack Frost, beating me by 8 seconds today to take the massive $5 prize for 5th on the stage.
This was a double-stage day. Stage three was a 5.2-mile circuit with a big climb on the course profile. Our 6-lap race was shortened to 5 laps while we were on the road because the race was running behind schedule. Reports from the riders in fields that raced earlier were that the descents were a bit sketchy (which meant I would not be happy). We figured the race would get blown apart by the climb and aggressive riding on the descents. It turned out to be a pretty fun race.
At the end of the first lap, I wondered "where was the hill?" It was a big-ring drag, not really a "climb" at all, and so it didn't really have the potential to split up our race (not that a few didn't try). There were some sharp turns in the descent/rollers section, some of them at pretty good speed. Kori went off the road on one of these, using her mountain bike skills to keep it upright in the gravel and not get tangled up in the wire fence. The wind kicked up, but most of the course was sheltered so it wasn't a factor. I stayed in the pack (well, on the back of the pack), which was better than I expected. It really showed how deceptive course profiles can be. And either the women in our race were riding conservatively or I might be getting used to these sort-of-technical races.
While we all waited for our traveling partners in the men's 1-2 race, Deb and I had a picnic dinner with some of the BC girls in our race. When Deb caught me buying a bottle of beer in the supermarket to go with my panini, I explained that I was just taking a page out of the training program of one of her teammates. She said, "don't you need a whole case?!" The Canadians were dumbfounded when I sat down with my bottle, then they admitted that they thought it was great that you can buy beer in supermarkets in America!
It was so fun to race in the warm sunshine, to have a good TT, and to be happily surprised by a fun race on a course described as a big crit.
Weird things happen in bike races. In WVC stage two today, I moved from the bottom of GC to 7th with one 16-mile time trial. It had some hills and a tough headwind on the return, but I only got out of the saddle once, never had to use the small chain ring, and used my 55x11 a few times. I was a long way off the winner's time but happy enough to finish 6th. Miranda got her revenge for my win at Jack Frost, beating me by 8 seconds today to take the massive $5 prize for 5th on the stage.
This was a double-stage day. Stage three was a 5.2-mile circuit with a big climb on the course profile. Our 6-lap race was shortened to 5 laps while we were on the road because the race was running behind schedule. Reports from the riders in fields that raced earlier were that the descents were a bit sketchy (which meant I would not be happy). We figured the race would get blown apart by the climb and aggressive riding on the descents. It turned out to be a pretty fun race.
At the end of the first lap, I wondered "where was the hill?" It was a big-ring drag, not really a "climb" at all, and so it didn't really have the potential to split up our race (not that a few didn't try). There were some sharp turns in the descent/rollers section, some of them at pretty good speed. Kori went off the road on one of these, using her mountain bike skills to keep it upright in the gravel and not get tangled up in the wire fence. The wind kicked up, but most of the course was sheltered so it wasn't a factor. I stayed in the pack (well, on the back of the pack), which was better than I expected. It really showed how deceptive course profiles can be. And either the women in our race were riding conservatively or I might be getting used to these sort-of-technical races.
While we all waited for our traveling partners in the men's 1-2 race, Deb and I had a picnic dinner with some of the BC girls in our race. When Deb caught me buying a bottle of beer in the supermarket to go with my panini, I explained that I was just taking a page out of the training program of one of her teammates. She said, "don't you need a whole case?!" The Canadians were dumbfounded when I sat down with my bottle, then they admitted that they thought it was great that you can buy beer in supermarkets in America!
It was so fun to race in the warm sunshine, to have a good TT, and to be happily surprised by a fun race on a course described as a big crit.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Windy Willamette
Friday, 21 April
Now I remember what I don't like about stage races with the word "Willamette" in the name: being at the bottom of GC. At the old Tour of Willamette, my goal every year was not to be last. And I think I achieved that goal, although sometimes it was pretty close, especially when 10 women would DNF on the last day (and all of them below me in GC, I swear). But today, at the new Willamette Valley Classic, well, what can I say: I get to go first in the time trial tomorrow morning.
We did 3 laps of a pretty flat 16- or 17-mile circuit. It was windy when we arrived and only got worse during the race. I just can't ride in the wind. The bike doesn't go where it's supposed to, and I seem to spend all my time and focus keeping it from migrating across the yellow line or diving into the ditch. Only by some miracle did we escape a huge pile-up in the last lap when a gust blew several women into each other. Our official could not figure out why women kept going across the center line: they weren't attacking, the wind was pushing them.
I got gapped off in a cross-wind section at the end of the second lap. The follow cars passed me, and then stopped cold in the middle of the road (one in the left lane, one in the right lane) as we came around a corner to start the last lap. WTF??? That sure didn't help my chase-back-on effort. And about a mile or two after I did get back on, they neutralized us so that the cat 1-2 men (break, then pack) could pass. That was like a 3-mile rest stop for us, and there was another one several miles later when a huge 1-2 chase group went by. If you're doing the math here, you'll realize there were only about 3 miles left, the first one with a huge cross wind, then a long tailwind straight (great for those lead-out types), and then a right turn and 1K (more cross wind) to the finish. Quite a few people started to sprint at the 1K sign (you could see the finish line), but needless to say they weren't the first ones across the line. And the woman who did win schooled everyone else with about 30-foot gap at the line.
I hope to rebound a little in GC with our 16-mile TT tomorrow morning. But the afternoon circuit race sounds like my race from hell. So I guess I just look forward to long, long climbs (one of which I know all too well--I'll be sure to point out where the logging truck went over the edge to anyone within earshot at that point) on Sunday. And maybe if I hold my GC position at the end of the race, I can DOWNGRADE back to cat 3!
Now I remember what I don't like about stage races with the word "Willamette" in the name: being at the bottom of GC. At the old Tour of Willamette, my goal every year was not to be last. And I think I achieved that goal, although sometimes it was pretty close, especially when 10 women would DNF on the last day (and all of them below me in GC, I swear). But today, at the new Willamette Valley Classic, well, what can I say: I get to go first in the time trial tomorrow morning.
We did 3 laps of a pretty flat 16- or 17-mile circuit. It was windy when we arrived and only got worse during the race. I just can't ride in the wind. The bike doesn't go where it's supposed to, and I seem to spend all my time and focus keeping it from migrating across the yellow line or diving into the ditch. Only by some miracle did we escape a huge pile-up in the last lap when a gust blew several women into each other. Our official could not figure out why women kept going across the center line: they weren't attacking, the wind was pushing them.
I got gapped off in a cross-wind section at the end of the second lap. The follow cars passed me, and then stopped cold in the middle of the road (one in the left lane, one in the right lane) as we came around a corner to start the last lap. WTF??? That sure didn't help my chase-back-on effort. And about a mile or two after I did get back on, they neutralized us so that the cat 1-2 men (break, then pack) could pass. That was like a 3-mile rest stop for us, and there was another one several miles later when a huge 1-2 chase group went by. If you're doing the math here, you'll realize there were only about 3 miles left, the first one with a huge cross wind, then a long tailwind straight (great for those lead-out types), and then a right turn and 1K (more cross wind) to the finish. Quite a few people started to sprint at the 1K sign (you could see the finish line), but needless to say they weren't the first ones across the line. And the woman who did win schooled everyone else with about 30-foot gap at the line.
I hope to rebound a little in GC with our 16-mile TT tomorrow morning. But the afternoon circuit race sounds like my race from hell. So I guess I just look forward to long, long climbs (one of which I know all too well--I'll be sure to point out where the logging truck went over the edge to anyone within earshot at that point) on Sunday. And maybe if I hold my GC position at the end of the race, I can DOWNGRADE back to cat 3!
Saturday, April 15, 2006
The heck with Seabeck
Saturday, 15 April
Today was payback for those three dry Saturdays we had at Mason Lake in March. It made the Tahuya-Seabeck-Tahuya road race an ugly epic this year. On a good day, it's a tough 65-mile loop. On a bad day, it's awful.
The forecast was for rain, rain, cold temperatures, and high winds. But the forecasters were wrong: instead of wind, we got snow! It's amazing that I did not hear of a single crash, and although I saw some horribly cold riders, I don't think there was any irreversible damage.
It was pouring rain and 42 degrees when we got to Tahuya (which is on Hood Canal), and it just never stopped or warmed up. Nobody really warmed up before our race--because of the rain. We staged--in the rain. We bowed our heads and thought warm thoughts of Brad Lewis and his smiles and encouragement for everyone (thanks, Effie!)--in the rain. We should have also thought happy, supportive thoughts for Emily, who's an active member of our peloton and past participant in this race.
Backtrack a little here. After Thursday night's laps in the rain, I developed a hacking cough. I don't feel sick, but it sounds pretty bad. After the first kilometer of today's race, I could feel every breath like a knife in my lungs. Probably not a good thing, eh? After another kilometer or two, my hands and feet were soaking wet and well on their way to numb. So. Ride 65 miles in steady, cold rain, or not? This is not rocket science. I rode to the top of the first hill (about mile 5) and turned around and went back to the car. Lots of the men who had started before me were already there.
All our cars in Tahuya were jammed in one small parking lot like we were at a football game, so there was no getting out to go to the feed zone (like anyone would have wanted a bottle of cold water!) or drive the course to pick up hypothermic riders. I was able to give refuge to two returnees who were locked out of their carpool buddy's car, and I maybe helped out a little at the finish line. And I heard so many stories of snow, shivering too hard to control the bike, inability to grab the brakes because of numb hands, willingness to abandon bikes if only someone would offer a ride back to Tahuya.
I never once thought I'd made the wrong decision for me. But there must be a more competitive side to my character than I acknowledge. When I got home, I was grumpy. I considered the day pretty much a waste of time. I didn't do anything constructive, I didn't do anything I enjoyed, I didn't get a workout, I didn't see much that was beautiful (on a clear-ish day, this course has a fantastic view of the Olympics), and I saw lots of people suffering. And I'm so behind in my training because I rode just 11 miles today!
Today was payback for those three dry Saturdays we had at Mason Lake in March. It made the Tahuya-Seabeck-Tahuya road race an ugly epic this year. On a good day, it's a tough 65-mile loop. On a bad day, it's awful.
The forecast was for rain, rain, cold temperatures, and high winds. But the forecasters were wrong: instead of wind, we got snow! It's amazing that I did not hear of a single crash, and although I saw some horribly cold riders, I don't think there was any irreversible damage.
It was pouring rain and 42 degrees when we got to Tahuya (which is on Hood Canal), and it just never stopped or warmed up. Nobody really warmed up before our race--because of the rain. We staged--in the rain. We bowed our heads and thought warm thoughts of Brad Lewis and his smiles and encouragement for everyone (thanks, Effie!)--in the rain. We should have also thought happy, supportive thoughts for Emily, who's an active member of our peloton and past participant in this race.
Backtrack a little here. After Thursday night's laps in the rain, I developed a hacking cough. I don't feel sick, but it sounds pretty bad. After the first kilometer of today's race, I could feel every breath like a knife in my lungs. Probably not a good thing, eh? After another kilometer or two, my hands and feet were soaking wet and well on their way to numb. So. Ride 65 miles in steady, cold rain, or not? This is not rocket science. I rode to the top of the first hill (about mile 5) and turned around and went back to the car. Lots of the men who had started before me were already there.
All our cars in Tahuya were jammed in one small parking lot like we were at a football game, so there was no getting out to go to the feed zone (like anyone would have wanted a bottle of cold water!) or drive the course to pick up hypothermic riders. I was able to give refuge to two returnees who were locked out of their carpool buddy's car, and I maybe helped out a little at the finish line. And I heard so many stories of snow, shivering too hard to control the bike, inability to grab the brakes because of numb hands, willingness to abandon bikes if only someone would offer a ride back to Tahuya.
I never once thought I'd made the wrong decision for me. But there must be a more competitive side to my character than I acknowledge. When I got home, I was grumpy. I considered the day pretty much a waste of time. I didn't do anything constructive, I didn't do anything I enjoyed, I didn't get a workout, I didn't see much that was beautiful (on a clear-ish day, this course has a fantastic view of the Olympics), and I saw lots of people suffering. And I'm so behind in my training because I rode just 11 miles today!
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Pacific Raceways
Tuesday/Thursday 11/13 April
Another assumption not to make: never assume that you won't someday be doing what you now shun. Persuasive friends have a way of converting the weak-minded, or at least those with lame excuses.
A year ago, the thought of me racing at Pacific Raceways could not have sounded more unlikely. It's an hour's drive from home (more, if rush hour traffic is its typical self). It involves going around in circles for an hour, a privilege for which you pay $12. But then friends started to mess with my mind and suddenly I found myself sucked into this new racing scene and in less than a year I have become a proselytizer myself and this week I went twice. And it was rewarding both times.
The boys race on Tuesday nights. As usual, I started with the masters. I hope they went ballistic from the gun, because it sure seemed that way to me. After a few laps, I was way too uncomfortable and sat up to wait for the 4-5s to catch me. I'm hanging out in my usual spot on the outside of the back of their pack when a little voice next to me says "Martha, ya gotta move up." I was puzzled because I thought I was pretty incognito in that field. It was the sweeeet Mr. Stangeland on a solo mission from the 1-2 field, cruising past the 4-5s like they were standing still (never mind that he was one of them a year ago). Actually, I think he was using them for camouflage so the 1-2s wouldn't see him when we passed them going the other way. He didn't stick around to chat (dang, I should've gotten on that wheel!) and went on to win his race by more than half a lap (these are 2-mile laps). It turned out that the 4-5s weren't much slower than the masters. And the track was the tiniest bit wet, and several spots were super slippery. When I watched guys slide all over the surface on the drag strip on the next lap, I just sat up and let them ride away. Better to end the night of racing early than sliding across the ground. That meant I got to watch Jamie cruise to his incredible margin of victory, a habit to which he is apparently becoming quite accustomed. It also meant I missed the crash in the masters race that took down more than a handful of riders, some with painful damage to bodies and bikes.
Girls get the track to themselves on Thursday nights. And this time the track was more than just the tiniest bit wet--it was pouring and there was a half-inch of standing water on the smooth stretches of pavement and giant puddles everywhere else. Women's racing at SIR is a learning experience in a safe riding environment. There are some cat 2-3 "coaches," and the women who turn up to race are divided into the cat 4 racers and the beginners. My "job" as a "coach" tonight was to ride with the beginners, giving them tips on riding on the wheel in front of them, cornering, bike handling, etc. And when somebody got dropped, I towed her back up to the field. It was 45 degrees, raining steadily, water spraying everywhere, and you could hardly see anything (it was twilight). And these women were enthusiastic and had FUN! They attacked and countered, they sprinted, they chased back on, they rode through puddles like two-year-olds. Sometimes I really need an attitude check about bike racing, and these women provided it in spades. One thing's for sure: for the new racers who turned out tonight, bike racing can only get better!
I guess it's a stretch to say that I race at PR. But it is fun, and racing with the masters last year proved to be effective training. If working out with the women on Thursday nights continues to be this motivating, I can't imagine a better combination: intensity and inspiration.
Another assumption not to make: never assume that you won't someday be doing what you now shun. Persuasive friends have a way of converting the weak-minded, or at least those with lame excuses.
A year ago, the thought of me racing at Pacific Raceways could not have sounded more unlikely. It's an hour's drive from home (more, if rush hour traffic is its typical self). It involves going around in circles for an hour, a privilege for which you pay $12. But then friends started to mess with my mind and suddenly I found myself sucked into this new racing scene and in less than a year I have become a proselytizer myself and this week I went twice. And it was rewarding both times.
The boys race on Tuesday nights. As usual, I started with the masters. I hope they went ballistic from the gun, because it sure seemed that way to me. After a few laps, I was way too uncomfortable and sat up to wait for the 4-5s to catch me. I'm hanging out in my usual spot on the outside of the back of their pack when a little voice next to me says "Martha, ya gotta move up." I was puzzled because I thought I was pretty incognito in that field. It was the sweeeet Mr. Stangeland on a solo mission from the 1-2 field, cruising past the 4-5s like they were standing still (never mind that he was one of them a year ago). Actually, I think he was using them for camouflage so the 1-2s wouldn't see him when we passed them going the other way. He didn't stick around to chat (dang, I should've gotten on that wheel!) and went on to win his race by more than half a lap (these are 2-mile laps). It turned out that the 4-5s weren't much slower than the masters. And the track was the tiniest bit wet, and several spots were super slippery. When I watched guys slide all over the surface on the drag strip on the next lap, I just sat up and let them ride away. Better to end the night of racing early than sliding across the ground. That meant I got to watch Jamie cruise to his incredible margin of victory, a habit to which he is apparently becoming quite accustomed. It also meant I missed the crash in the masters race that took down more than a handful of riders, some with painful damage to bodies and bikes.
Girls get the track to themselves on Thursday nights. And this time the track was more than just the tiniest bit wet--it was pouring and there was a half-inch of standing water on the smooth stretches of pavement and giant puddles everywhere else. Women's racing at SIR is a learning experience in a safe riding environment. There are some cat 2-3 "coaches," and the women who turn up to race are divided into the cat 4 racers and the beginners. My "job" as a "coach" tonight was to ride with the beginners, giving them tips on riding on the wheel in front of them, cornering, bike handling, etc. And when somebody got dropped, I towed her back up to the field. It was 45 degrees, raining steadily, water spraying everywhere, and you could hardly see anything (it was twilight). And these women were enthusiastic and had FUN! They attacked and countered, they sprinted, they chased back on, they rode through puddles like two-year-olds. Sometimes I really need an attitude check about bike racing, and these women provided it in spades. One thing's for sure: for the new racers who turned out tonight, bike racing can only get better!
I guess it's a stretch to say that I race at PR. But it is fun, and racing with the masters last year proved to be effective training. If working out with the women on Thursday nights continues to be this motivating, I can't imagine a better combination: intensity and inspiration.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
A little perspective
Sunday, 9 April
Anything I achieved on the bike this weekend is sadly overshadowed by a tragic event at the Boat Street crit in Seattle on Sunday evening that took the life of an all-around great guy, Brad Lewis. He always had a smile on his face, and that's how I'll remember him. My thoughts and prayers are for his family and those who were with him at the race.
Brad loved this sport, and I hope I can pay tribute to his dedication by affirming why it was important to me this weekend. But I am reminded that it is "just bike racing," and so many things are so much more important. Treasure every single one of those things.
Up until the phone call on Sunday night, it was a good weekend--and this entry was going to be titled "I won a WHAT?!" I won the finishing sprint at the Kings Valley road race outside Corvallis on Saturday. I don't sprint, much less win them. It only proved my number one rule of bike racing: never assume anything. Those who know me are thinking that everyone else must have been DQed for crossing the center line or abucted by aliens. Nope.
By some stroke of good fortune, the rains stopped just as the first race rolled out of the parking lot. We had a couple of miles of light rain after the first lap, but other than that the race was dry. The combined women's field had 25 riders, and things were pretty sedate on the first lap. It's a 19.5-mile lap, with the finish line being about 16.5 miles into the third lap. The part of the course I remembered from years past was The Hill, which is the last kilometer up to the finish. I did not remember all the painful little rollers in the first five miles of the course. And oh yeah, there's that pesky headwind section out on the backside of the course, where the road is flat but the riding is tough.
[One hysterical note I almost forgot: the women staged behind the masters men, and while they were listening to the official's litany, I noticed that the guy in front of me had carbon wheels--and fenders!! Only in a masters race!]
After the first time up the hill, we were down to about 15 riders. The second lap was a little friskier and we lost another 5 or 6 women on that trip up the hill. This time, we got organized on the fast section after the hill and rotated our paceline around the first part of the course. Laurel attacked on one of the rollers and dangled 100m off the front for maybe 2 miles. Kori and I chased her down on the longest "roller," but the rest of the group caught us before we could get any farther away. So everyone settled in to wait for the last time up the hill. There were only two cat 4s left with us, and somehow they got stuck riding on the front for a couple of miles (more headwind) while we all rested up for the inevitable. Thank you!
We had been passed about a half a lap earlier by the cat 1-2 break, and then by a 2-man group trying to bridge. At the 1k sign, our follow official warned us that a 20-rider group was about to overtake us, but it was unclear whether we WERE neutralized, we would BE neutralized, or we should just go like hell to finish before them and get out of the way. Laurel opted for the latter interpretation, jumped immediately, and got a good gap. I think she didn't realize how much headwind there was. Kori and I were kind of stuck behind those cat 4s and others in the group and took a while to get out and launch after her. Kori got a head start, but I caught her within a hundred meters or so. I wasn't sure whether to sit on her wheel or pass her. I knew I should sit behind her if I wanted to "outsprint" her, but I also really wanted to catch Laurel, and Kori wasn't closing that gap. So I went around her, thinking that she would hop on my wheel. I also figured Andrea and the rest of the group were lined up behind me. I was surprised at how quickly I caught Laurel. I was worried, though, about whether we were supposed to be acting "neutral," so I kept to the right side of the road. We were not, in any case, allowed to take the whole road at 200m.
This all played out in very slow motion. It's not a steep climb, maybe 5%, but it slows us down (and wears us down) plenty, and the headwind was very much a factor too. It flattens out to a false flat at 200m, but your legs don't really notice. Two thoughts were going through my head: one I wasn't familiar with (there's no one between me and the finish line: go go go), and one I know all too well (there are 8 women sitting on my wheel, about to surge around me when they put some power into their sprint effort). But nothing happened at 200m, or 100m, and even at about 75m I still couldn't sense anyone moving up on either side. So I put my head down and just went for it. It turned out that only Andrea was on my wheel, and at the last second I knew she was moving to come around me. It was close, but the finish line came before she passed me. I was amazed at how much time there was to think in the sprint, and, in hindsight, I'm pretty surprised that I never once thought about turning around to look back. And those crowds at the finish line are great when they are yelling to actually motivate you, not just applauding your effort for finishing.
The promoter of the race has a special trick at the awards ceremony. Every envelope of prize money has a picture on it of a famous pro rider winning a famous race. If you can name the rider and the race pictured on your envelope, you get bonus bucks. Right up there with my inability to sprint is my failure to recognize ANY bigtime bike racer, so I was prepared to be embarrassed. But (don't assume anything, remember), the rider on my envelope was last year's winner at Kings Valley, Nicole Demars, with whom I have raced many times (ex-pro, now mommy, who lives in Eugene). And of course I recognized her. The winner of the cat 1-2 men's race gets a crown and has to pose with an "ermine" robe (this is KINGS Valley, remember), and I got an enormous bouquet in a vase/decanter that's etched with the name and date of the race. Nice touches! (Thanks for the photo, too, Scott Goldstein!)
Sunday was another race in Oregon, the 10-mile version of the Estacada time trial east of Portland. (It increases to 20 miles as the season goes on.) We got there in time to preride the course and to admire how spectacularly beautiful it is. It's on a two-lane highway that's closed farther on due to snow, and it runs down in the bottom of the Clackamas (?) River gorge. It winds and twists (and undulates) along the river, past lots of promontories and rock cliffs. Really, really scenic.
The race starts out uphill, then down a fast, quick descent where I was thankful for my 55x11. Then you twist and turn and dodge divets in the roadway from rocks falling off the cliffs. There's not too much shifting on this course, so you just go. After the turnaround, I was really surprised to get back into (and stay on top of) the 55x11 for long stretches. That little hill in the last 1k is pretty tough, and then it's false flat, and then finally it's downhill for about the last 200m so you're flying by the time you cross the finish line. Once more, I just managed to hold off Andrea and had the fastest women's time of the day.
It all seemed so sweet, and then so insignificant when I learned of Brad's death. It was a privilege to be part of a sport with you, Brad, and to know that we relished and cherished some of the same things.
Anything I achieved on the bike this weekend is sadly overshadowed by a tragic event at the Boat Street crit in Seattle on Sunday evening that took the life of an all-around great guy, Brad Lewis. He always had a smile on his face, and that's how I'll remember him. My thoughts and prayers are for his family and those who were with him at the race.
Brad loved this sport, and I hope I can pay tribute to his dedication by affirming why it was important to me this weekend. But I am reminded that it is "just bike racing," and so many things are so much more important. Treasure every single one of those things.
Up until the phone call on Sunday night, it was a good weekend--and this entry was going to be titled "I won a WHAT?!" I won the finishing sprint at the Kings Valley road race outside Corvallis on Saturday. I don't sprint, much less win them. It only proved my number one rule of bike racing: never assume anything. Those who know me are thinking that everyone else must have been DQed for crossing the center line or abucted by aliens. Nope.
By some stroke of good fortune, the rains stopped just as the first race rolled out of the parking lot. We had a couple of miles of light rain after the first lap, but other than that the race was dry. The combined women's field had 25 riders, and things were pretty sedate on the first lap. It's a 19.5-mile lap, with the finish line being about 16.5 miles into the third lap. The part of the course I remembered from years past was The Hill, which is the last kilometer up to the finish. I did not remember all the painful little rollers in the first five miles of the course. And oh yeah, there's that pesky headwind section out on the backside of the course, where the road is flat but the riding is tough.
[One hysterical note I almost forgot: the women staged behind the masters men, and while they were listening to the official's litany, I noticed that the guy in front of me had carbon wheels--and fenders!! Only in a masters race!]
After the first time up the hill, we were down to about 15 riders. The second lap was a little friskier and we lost another 5 or 6 women on that trip up the hill. This time, we got organized on the fast section after the hill and rotated our paceline around the first part of the course. Laurel attacked on one of the rollers and dangled 100m off the front for maybe 2 miles. Kori and I chased her down on the longest "roller," but the rest of the group caught us before we could get any farther away. So everyone settled in to wait for the last time up the hill. There were only two cat 4s left with us, and somehow they got stuck riding on the front for a couple of miles (more headwind) while we all rested up for the inevitable. Thank you!
We had been passed about a half a lap earlier by the cat 1-2 break, and then by a 2-man group trying to bridge. At the 1k sign, our follow official warned us that a 20-rider group was about to overtake us, but it was unclear whether we WERE neutralized, we would BE neutralized, or we should just go like hell to finish before them and get out of the way. Laurel opted for the latter interpretation, jumped immediately, and got a good gap. I think she didn't realize how much headwind there was. Kori and I were kind of stuck behind those cat 4s and others in the group and took a while to get out and launch after her. Kori got a head start, but I caught her within a hundred meters or so. I wasn't sure whether to sit on her wheel or pass her. I knew I should sit behind her if I wanted to "outsprint" her, but I also really wanted to catch Laurel, and Kori wasn't closing that gap. So I went around her, thinking that she would hop on my wheel. I also figured Andrea and the rest of the group were lined up behind me. I was surprised at how quickly I caught Laurel. I was worried, though, about whether we were supposed to be acting "neutral," so I kept to the right side of the road. We were not, in any case, allowed to take the whole road at 200m.
This all played out in very slow motion. It's not a steep climb, maybe 5%, but it slows us down (and wears us down) plenty, and the headwind was very much a factor too. It flattens out to a false flat at 200m, but your legs don't really notice. Two thoughts were going through my head: one I wasn't familiar with (there's no one between me and the finish line: go go go), and one I know all too well (there are 8 women sitting on my wheel, about to surge around me when they put some power into their sprint effort). But nothing happened at 200m, or 100m, and even at about 75m I still couldn't sense anyone moving up on either side. So I put my head down and just went for it. It turned out that only Andrea was on my wheel, and at the last second I knew she was moving to come around me. It was close, but the finish line came before she passed me. I was amazed at how much time there was to think in the sprint, and, in hindsight, I'm pretty surprised that I never once thought about turning around to look back. And those crowds at the finish line are great when they are yelling to actually motivate you, not just applauding your effort for finishing.
The promoter of the race has a special trick at the awards ceremony. Every envelope of prize money has a picture on it of a famous pro rider winning a famous race. If you can name the rider and the race pictured on your envelope, you get bonus bucks. Right up there with my inability to sprint is my failure to recognize ANY bigtime bike racer, so I was prepared to be embarrassed. But (don't assume anything, remember), the rider on my envelope was last year's winner at Kings Valley, Nicole Demars, with whom I have raced many times (ex-pro, now mommy, who lives in Eugene). And of course I recognized her. The winner of the cat 1-2 men's race gets a crown and has to pose with an "ermine" robe (this is KINGS Valley, remember), and I got an enormous bouquet in a vase/decanter that's etched with the name and date of the race. Nice touches! (Thanks for the photo, too, Scott Goldstein!)Sunday was another race in Oregon, the 10-mile version of the Estacada time trial east of Portland. (It increases to 20 miles as the season goes on.) We got there in time to preride the course and to admire how spectacularly beautiful it is. It's on a two-lane highway that's closed farther on due to snow, and it runs down in the bottom of the Clackamas (?) River gorge. It winds and twists (and undulates) along the river, past lots of promontories and rock cliffs. Really, really scenic.
The race starts out uphill, then down a fast, quick descent where I was thankful for my 55x11. Then you twist and turn and dodge divets in the roadway from rocks falling off the cliffs. There's not too much shifting on this course, so you just go. After the turnaround, I was really surprised to get back into (and stay on top of) the 55x11 for long stretches. That little hill in the last 1k is pretty tough, and then it's false flat, and then finally it's downhill for about the last 200m so you're flying by the time you cross the finish line. Once more, I just managed to hold off Andrea and had the fastest women's time of the day.
It all seemed so sweet, and then so insignificant when I learned of Brad's death. It was a privilege to be part of a sport with you, Brad, and to know that we relished and cherished some of the same things.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Indoor time trial
Thursday, 30 March
This was my last indoor TT of the season at CycleU, the tenth I've done since the middle of November. I had no great hopes or goals or expectations tonight, but something happened on the way to the finish line. And--my goal every time I race my bike--I learned something.
Martin said I went out really hard. The course starts with a gradual downhill so you get some momentum. I thought I was spinning pretty fast (maybe it just LOOKED like I was going hard) and should've shifted into a bigger gear. But when the course went up, I didn't have to shift down and powered right up the first hill.
For once there was someone next to me who was riding at just about my speed for the first half of the course. We swapped back and forth between being second and third; the CompuTrainer program projects tons of data on a screen, including how many feet you are behind the rider ahead of you. I found that when I was 5 or 6 feet back, I could put in a few really hard pedal strokes and catch him and pull ahead. Eventually we settled into a long climb and the gap between us went to double digits and then triple and I couldn't catch back up. But the extra efforts I put in to try to keep this guy from pulling away did amazing things for my results. Thanks, Ian! I thought you were supposed to be smooth and steady in a TT and not have little jumps and surges, but maybe I'll have to try super hard pedal strokes intermittently to catch that ghost rider just a bike length ahead in my next TT.
My time was a lot faster, my average watts were significantly higher, and my heart rate was as low as ever. Go figure. I'm gonna go back and try this again in the summer to see if I get overtrained, plateau, or really do get stronger as the season goes on. I don't think I'll beat tonight, though.
I knew Martin was tired tonight when he got off his single bike and SAT DOWN before we "warmed up" for the tandem ride. But he/we took off like a shot at the start, harder than last time. I shift a lot on my single bike, and it seems like he shifts hardly at all on the tandem, so I think our cadence probably varies by as much as 25-30 rpm during the race. At one stage I thought we were spinning like mad and wished he'd shift to a bigger gear. Oops! We didn't have a bigger gear! We were just 6 seconds off our fastest time, which wasn't bad considering the effort I must have put in on my single bike and his claim to just being tired.
So thanks Adrian and Kristi and Craig. Over 4.5 months, my average watts increased by 31, my max watts by 80, I took 90 seconds off my time--and my HR was exactly the same. And I gained 5 pounds. Okay, I was in rehab/recovery mode when I started, but numbers like that are motivating!
This was my last indoor TT of the season at CycleU, the tenth I've done since the middle of November. I had no great hopes or goals or expectations tonight, but something happened on the way to the finish line. And--my goal every time I race my bike--I learned something.
Martin said I went out really hard. The course starts with a gradual downhill so you get some momentum. I thought I was spinning pretty fast (maybe it just LOOKED like I was going hard) and should've shifted into a bigger gear. But when the course went up, I didn't have to shift down and powered right up the first hill.
For once there was someone next to me who was riding at just about my speed for the first half of the course. We swapped back and forth between being second and third; the CompuTrainer program projects tons of data on a screen, including how many feet you are behind the rider ahead of you. I found that when I was 5 or 6 feet back, I could put in a few really hard pedal strokes and catch him and pull ahead. Eventually we settled into a long climb and the gap between us went to double digits and then triple and I couldn't catch back up. But the extra efforts I put in to try to keep this guy from pulling away did amazing things for my results. Thanks, Ian! I thought you were supposed to be smooth and steady in a TT and not have little jumps and surges, but maybe I'll have to try super hard pedal strokes intermittently to catch that ghost rider just a bike length ahead in my next TT.
My time was a lot faster, my average watts were significantly higher, and my heart rate was as low as ever. Go figure. I'm gonna go back and try this again in the summer to see if I get overtrained, plateau, or really do get stronger as the season goes on. I don't think I'll beat tonight, though.
I knew Martin was tired tonight when he got off his single bike and SAT DOWN before we "warmed up" for the tandem ride. But he/we took off like a shot at the start, harder than last time. I shift a lot on my single bike, and it seems like he shifts hardly at all on the tandem, so I think our cadence probably varies by as much as 25-30 rpm during the race. At one stage I thought we were spinning like mad and wished he'd shift to a bigger gear. Oops! We didn't have a bigger gear! We were just 6 seconds off our fastest time, which wasn't bad considering the effort I must have put in on my single bike and his claim to just being tired.
So thanks Adrian and Kristi and Craig. Over 4.5 months, my average watts increased by 31, my max watts by 80, I took 90 seconds off my time--and my HR was exactly the same. And I gained 5 pounds. Okay, I was in rehab/recovery mode when I started, but numbers like that are motivating!
Independence Valley Road Race
Saturday, 25 March
What a great new race in Rochester, Washington! Field sizes were small in the morning, but the afternoon turnout was better. We all thought this was a new course until one of the cat 1-2 guys told us he'd raced there 21 years ago! The cat 1-2-3 women raced in the afternoon, so I did my usual warm up of helping at registration until 15 minutes before my race start. I heard plenty of horror stories as the morning racers rolled back in from their finishes, and I was getting worried about the size of the hills that were reported out there.
In fact, I was so busy listening to reports that I was about the last to line up for the women's race--which meant I started at the back again. The roads were narrow, so there was no moving up during the neutral 2-mile rollout. And as soon as we got on the course, a TGH woman went off the front. We let her dangle out there for the first mile, which was a false flat/tailwind section. I think her aim was to get a running start at the first climb, but we reeled her in about 200m after the road started up. It was a stairstep climb, with a flattish spot in the middle.
Most of the group stayed together over the top of the hill, but then it strung out on the twisty descent after. Men reported hitting 50+ mph on this, but my max speed for the day was 41. In the run-out at the bottom there was a sharp right turn, and things pretty much came back together after that. We settled into that antiracing tactic of the women's peloton--rotating paceline--for the next 10 miles through rolling countryside with a good (?) headwind.
Another right turn, and another climb. This one was shorter and not quite as steep. Carrie went to the front and rode hard enough to pop a couple more women off the back. Another twisty little descent, and then about 5 miles of pretty flat roads into the finish line. And then another lap (2 x 19.5 miles for the race).
The road was narrow enough that you didn't want to be at the back of the group on the "big" climb, or you'd get gapped off and have to make a huge effort to get back up to the front. So I stayed at the front. And at the top there was no one with me. Sweet! I was so sure someone was going to punch it on this descent on the second lap and I would go backwards out of the group. Maybe I had enough of a gap so that I would still be in the front group by the bottom of the hill?
Not exactly. After the sharp right turn at the bottom, I looked back and saw that I had probably 15 seconds on the next group. Head down, pedal hard, off I go. Between the headwind and the undulating road, it was about impossible to keep a steady rhythm. But every time I looked back, all I saw was empty road. After maybe 5-6 miles, the lead car dropped back to give me the time gap. Did he say 15 or 50? With 50 seconds, I probably had the race locked up. But come on, Martha, how could you have gotten 50 seconds? Both TiCycles and TGH were riding strong in that pack, and neither they nor Gina were going to just sit up. Okay, it must be 15. But I still can't see them. About a mile before the second climb, they closed the gap enough that I could see them (it was only 15 seconds). If I rode as hard as I could, they would probably blow by me on the second hill. I eased up just a tad, and they caught me with about 1/4 mile to the hill.
As we made the right turn onto the last climb, Suz (who had already raced with the Master As in the morning) said "here you go again." I was hoping to just hang on. I didn't quite, but I caught back on in the first part of the descent (!). TGH and TiCycles were driving that front group, trying to keep other riders from catching back on, and we were flying along. I managed to pull through, but every little roller hurt. There was no cat-and-mouse in this group in the last few kilometers, and when the hammer went down at 200m, I had nothing left.
It's an interesting course. The climbs are tough enough to favor climbers, but after the hardest climb there's a long stretch to catch back on before the next one, and then after the second climb, there's still plenty of descending and flats for sprinters to motor back to the front of the race. I'd love to see the finish moved to the top of one of the hills. :)
Thanks to Erik and Dave for starting a new Northwest race tradition. Word of mouth about this course is going to bring out lots more riders in 2007. And thanks to Eric for his kind words about my descending--it's nice to surprise some of the people some of the time!
Race results are posted here.
What a great new race in Rochester, Washington! Field sizes were small in the morning, but the afternoon turnout was better. We all thought this was a new course until one of the cat 1-2 guys told us he'd raced there 21 years ago! The cat 1-2-3 women raced in the afternoon, so I did my usual warm up of helping at registration until 15 minutes before my race start. I heard plenty of horror stories as the morning racers rolled back in from their finishes, and I was getting worried about the size of the hills that were reported out there.
In fact, I was so busy listening to reports that I was about the last to line up for the women's race--which meant I started at the back again. The roads were narrow, so there was no moving up during the neutral 2-mile rollout. And as soon as we got on the course, a TGH woman went off the front. We let her dangle out there for the first mile, which was a false flat/tailwind section. I think her aim was to get a running start at the first climb, but we reeled her in about 200m after the road started up. It was a stairstep climb, with a flattish spot in the middle.
Most of the group stayed together over the top of the hill, but then it strung out on the twisty descent after. Men reported hitting 50+ mph on this, but my max speed for the day was 41. In the run-out at the bottom there was a sharp right turn, and things pretty much came back together after that. We settled into that antiracing tactic of the women's peloton--rotating paceline--for the next 10 miles through rolling countryside with a good (?) headwind.
Another right turn, and another climb. This one was shorter and not quite as steep. Carrie went to the front and rode hard enough to pop a couple more women off the back. Another twisty little descent, and then about 5 miles of pretty flat roads into the finish line. And then another lap (2 x 19.5 miles for the race).
The road was narrow enough that you didn't want to be at the back of the group on the "big" climb, or you'd get gapped off and have to make a huge effort to get back up to the front. So I stayed at the front. And at the top there was no one with me. Sweet! I was so sure someone was going to punch it on this descent on the second lap and I would go backwards out of the group. Maybe I had enough of a gap so that I would still be in the front group by the bottom of the hill?
Not exactly. After the sharp right turn at the bottom, I looked back and saw that I had probably 15 seconds on the next group. Head down, pedal hard, off I go. Between the headwind and the undulating road, it was about impossible to keep a steady rhythm. But every time I looked back, all I saw was empty road. After maybe 5-6 miles, the lead car dropped back to give me the time gap. Did he say 15 or 50? With 50 seconds, I probably had the race locked up. But come on, Martha, how could you have gotten 50 seconds? Both TiCycles and TGH were riding strong in that pack, and neither they nor Gina were going to just sit up. Okay, it must be 15. But I still can't see them. About a mile before the second climb, they closed the gap enough that I could see them (it was only 15 seconds). If I rode as hard as I could, they would probably blow by me on the second hill. I eased up just a tad, and they caught me with about 1/4 mile to the hill.
As we made the right turn onto the last climb, Suz (who had already raced with the Master As in the morning) said "here you go again." I was hoping to just hang on. I didn't quite, but I caught back on in the first part of the descent (!). TGH and TiCycles were driving that front group, trying to keep other riders from catching back on, and we were flying along. I managed to pull through, but every little roller hurt. There was no cat-and-mouse in this group in the last few kilometers, and when the hammer went down at 200m, I had nothing left.
It's an interesting course. The climbs are tough enough to favor climbers, but after the hardest climb there's a long stretch to catch back on before the next one, and then after the second climb, there's still plenty of descending and flats for sprinters to motor back to the front of the race. I'd love to see the finish moved to the top of one of the hills. :)
Thanks to Erik and Dave for starting a new Northwest race tradition. Word of mouth about this course is going to bring out lots more riders in 2007. And thanks to Eric for his kind words about my descending--it's nice to surprise some of the people some of the time!
Race results are posted here.
Tandem training
Sunday, 19 March
I confess up front that this entry is mostly to test the blog software. But it was a great training spin on the last day of winter, so it's worth saying that much at least.
This was one of those double-ride tandem Sundays. First, we join up with Hank's ride, a "spirited" trip around Mercer Island. Everybody pushes the pace as hard as they can; we manage to mostly hang on for the uphill sections, and then everyone sits on our wheel on the switchbacks on the east side of the island. There's one painful drag just after we get onto the island that is a killer when you've raced the day before, and another short steep hill on the other side that you cannot just sprint up on the tandem. After we give everyone an awesome lead-out for the finishing sprint (but can't wind it up fast enough to take the sprint ourselves), we head back across I-90 to Leschi.
The early part of the Leschi ride this week was sedate. This never happens. Martin was using the brakes rolling down Rainier Avenue! I was testing out some new handlebars and was all ready to go hard with my head down--but there was nowhere to go. After the usual pause at Coulon Park, we rode hard up McDonald's Hill; Clint and others politely waited until a third of the way up the hill before they came around us about 5 mph faster. The tandem can go faster on the rollers (well, down the rollers, anyway) after the top of the hill than a single bike, so (with hard work) we caught almost all of those lighter climbers before we got to Coal Creek.
Todd told us afterward that our pace across May Valley was like motorpacing for everyone on our wheel. We (the tandem) turned on SR 900 to take a shortcut to Issaquah due to "time constraints." We managed to again get the tandem up Cougar via the zoo. This feat amazes me. We passed one poor soul who, as Martin said, would not give in and shift onto the small ring of his triple, so he was barely moving (we, however, could not be so concerned with appearances and were in about the lowest gear we could find). There's a really steep right hairpin near the top of the first half of the climb, and we were going so slowly by that stage that we had some navigation issues. But we were able to get in and out of the saddle on the stairstep rollers at the top.
Lots of fun descending back down to I-90, caught the faster members of our original group as we approached 405, and had a nice trip back across the bridge in the sunshine. We got helpful feedback on both rides about our riding style(s). Total miles for me: 89 (71 on the tandem).
Martin's tabloid comments about this ride are here.
I confess up front that this entry is mostly to test the blog software. But it was a great training spin on the last day of winter, so it's worth saying that much at least.
This was one of those double-ride tandem Sundays. First, we join up with Hank's ride, a "spirited" trip around Mercer Island. Everybody pushes the pace as hard as they can; we manage to mostly hang on for the uphill sections, and then everyone sits on our wheel on the switchbacks on the east side of the island. There's one painful drag just after we get onto the island that is a killer when you've raced the day before, and another short steep hill on the other side that you cannot just sprint up on the tandem. After we give everyone an awesome lead-out for the finishing sprint (but can't wind it up fast enough to take the sprint ourselves), we head back across I-90 to Leschi.
The early part of the Leschi ride this week was sedate. This never happens. Martin was using the brakes rolling down Rainier Avenue! I was testing out some new handlebars and was all ready to go hard with my head down--but there was nowhere to go. After the usual pause at Coulon Park, we rode hard up McDonald's Hill; Clint and others politely waited until a third of the way up the hill before they came around us about 5 mph faster. The tandem can go faster on the rollers (well, down the rollers, anyway) after the top of the hill than a single bike, so (with hard work) we caught almost all of those lighter climbers before we got to Coal Creek.
Todd told us afterward that our pace across May Valley was like motorpacing for everyone on our wheel. We (the tandem) turned on SR 900 to take a shortcut to Issaquah due to "time constraints." We managed to again get the tandem up Cougar via the zoo. This feat amazes me. We passed one poor soul who, as Martin said, would not give in and shift onto the small ring of his triple, so he was barely moving (we, however, could not be so concerned with appearances and were in about the lowest gear we could find). There's a really steep right hairpin near the top of the first half of the climb, and we were going so slowly by that stage that we had some navigation issues. But we were able to get in and out of the saddle on the stairstep rollers at the top.
Lots of fun descending back down to I-90, caught the faster members of our original group as we approached 405, and had a nice trip back across the bridge in the sunshine. We got helpful feedback on both rides about our riding style(s). Total miles for me: 89 (71 on the tandem).
Martin's tabloid comments about this ride are here.
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