Monthly Archives: March 2010

The Driveway promotional poster.

Hello everyone,

This is a race report of my first participation in this year’s Driveway Series, a series of weekly criteriums that last from daylight savings time to fall back weekend. I’ll probably keep this short because the race was only 30 minutes. Anyways, a little info on the Driveway. It’s basically a race held on an auto-racing course, except on Thursday evenings they lend it to the PURE Fitness people for bike races. The races are mainly used for training and gaining experience, but it’s icing on the cake if you win. The competition for the series overall title is based on a points system, in which points are awarded to the top finishers, with more points going to the higher finishers.

I decided to take part in the 4/5 race which contained new people like me, as well as the more experienced Category 4 people. Category 4 means you’ve participated in at least 10 races, but most people don’t move up from Category 5 unless they’ve finished well in the lower races. The location of the race had me confused for a while, because you have to exit the highway on a narrow street that had no indicator sign for when it was approaching. Thus, I missed my exit and continued for another 10 minutes are so until I realized I was lost, so it took me a while to find the course.

Unfortunately, after registration there was no time for me to warm up. I was a little annoyed, but it was my fault for missing the exit and there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. When they called our group to go up, I looked around and saw Robbie, along with a few other Texas cyclists with whom I’m not well acquainted. The race wasn’t too fast to begin with, but it was pretty intense. In my field there were 75 riders, definitely the largest pack I have ever raced in. This was the smallest field of the day, too! When we hit the first corner, Robbie had someone cut in front of him and he had to swerve as well, and someone yelled at him to hold the line, although there was nothing he could do. The first few turns were pretty scary for me as I have never cornered at such a high speed before (22-24mph). I told myself, however, that I would have to learn how to corner well eventually and it’s a noted weakness of my previous races, so I decided to trust my gut and just do exactly what the person in front of me was doing.

I tried to follow traditional turning guidelines, such as putting my inside pedal up, leaning my bike, and leaning my body in the other direction. It turns out it worked! I was able to corner much more smoothly than in the previous races, though I still need to improve. The bike can lean over a lot more than one would expect…it feels like you’re going to tip over!

After the first lap someone crashed and there was some panic in the field. People were braking, swerving left and right, and I just tried to find a clear line through the chaos. I was able to stay upright, thankfully, and I continued on. Unfortunately, the crash caused a split in the field and it took me a lot of effort to stay on…that’s why you have to stay in the front, I guess. I was able to hang on for another lap, but when the third lap came around I was getting pretty tired. It was going to be a very hard 30 minutes, and I had never done a crit that long before.

People were starting to fall off the back as the race increased in intensity. After I blew up, I tried to keep a reasonable pace and wait for some people behind me to pick me up so we could work together. Eventually three guys caught up to me, and I was able to latch on. We formed a paceline, though I didn’t contribute very much since my legs were burning. The people watching cheered and told us to work together. One by one, we picked up stragglers from the field and we had a pretty good paceline going. Some people decided to hang on to us, while others couldn’t hold the pace and dropped back. It was very exciting.

After about 25 minutes, the lead group lapped us. It was pretty chaotic as they tried to pass us. One of the guys in our paceline tried to catch back on to the group, which pretty much broke apart our paceline. I’m not even sure if such a move was legal in this race, because in the other criteriums I participated in, this was not allowed.

I think by this point the race was pretty much decided as they only count the top 20 finishes, and so the directors pretty much told everyone to vacate the course. I met up with Robbie afterward, he told me that his bike had leaned over so much that his pedal hit the ground while in the up position. That’s pretty far. Unfortunately, his pedal ran into his back tire and knocked the bead off the rim, which made it unrepairable. So, he asked me for a ride back and I agreed to take him.

I wanted to watch the other race, the pro/1/2/3 race which contained some professional riders, as well as good amateurs. Anyways, it was a weekday and I pretty much need to get back to town, so we decided to leave. I think overall, the race went better than the last few criteriums I’ve participated in, even though I didn’t hang on to the pack as long. The main improvements were in cornering, and the fact that I didn’t finish alone. I think there were plenty of people behind me, but I wasn’t really sure because by the time the race finished, the scene was pretty chaotic and you couldn’t really tell who lapped whom, and so on. That’s why the race officials only count the first 20 riders. I still have to work on sustaining a high power output for an extended period of time, but it’s improving. This race was much more intense than the collegiate races I’ve participated in, and I clocked in an average of 21mph, which was 4mph more than the first criterium I participated in, so it’s a good sign.

Hey everyone,

This is a race report of the final event of DFW weekend, the Jesuit Ranger Roundup. Unfortunately I woke up late because of some confusion over daylight savings time. Thus, we had to leave the apartment 15 minutes after we woke up, so I woke Joseph up and we hurried over to the race course.

We arrived in time to register and get ready. I decided to try my luck in the C’s race this time, so I asked the conference director to give me an upgrade. This would put me in a faster and longer category for today’s race. As Joseph was helping me pin our numbers up, we saw a pack of riders lining up to start, and he asked me if they were the Collegiate D group. At first we thought it was the juniors, but I recognized the riders in the pack and it was definitely the D group. Joseph had missed the start! So I told him to just grab his bike and hurry over there so as to not fall behind. The first couple of miles of the race were neutralized, so he had no problem coming back.

I had about an hour to spare before my start time, so I used it to study for my Government exam, as well as keep warm since it was around 45 degrees outside due to daylight savings. As I stayed inside my van, Sean and the other team members arrived to get ready. Soon, the officials called my group to go line up. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my extra set of wheels, so if I were to get a flat in the race, it would all be over. However, I wasn’t too concerned because the roads were pretty smooth and I had good tires, so the likelihood of a flat was very small.

In Collegiate cycling the Women’s B group starts together with the Men’s C. The two groups usually ride together in the neutralized zone, but afterward the men usually pull away from the women. It was nice to have them on board for a little while though because they can be fun to talk to. Anyways, the race started and we were off. The two Texas Tech guys who finished 2nd and 3rd at the A&M road race had also catted up and were racing with me. They’re actually pretty good, as they’ve gotten some good results in the C races already.

When the neutralized zone ended, the men broke away from the women and the race was on. After about 5 miles an attack occurred off the front and I decided to follow. When I bridged up to the group, they slowed down and the peloton caught us. The pace of the first lap was pretty fast. I was getting sore as we climbed up the hills but I was still able to hang on. When the second lap started another attack occurred, and I decided to bridge up. But again, they slowed down and we got caught.

Towards the end of the second lap we took a sharp right-hand turn and an acceleration happened in the group. I soon found myself hanging off the back and I got dropped as my splinter group tried to catch the pack. I had no idea what happened in the front for the rest of the race…

I decided to ride at my own pace so as to not blow up for the rest of the race. I contemplated quitting after the second lap, but I saw another rider struggling to keep up with the group ahead of me. I thought that if I tried hard, I could catch him and we could work together so as to not be alone. Thus, I gave it my best and did a personal time trial of about 8 miles in order to catch that guy. I was really digging in deep and when I was coming close, I saw him pass another guy who happened to be one of the remnants of the Masters category (age 35+). At first I thought that man was a collegiate rider so I was delighted at the thought of three of us working together. However, when I looked at his bib number I found out he was not collegiate, and thus we could not work with him since it’s against the rules.

Thus, when I saw the collegiate rider in my sight, I yelled at him to wait up. I’m not sure if he heard me, but I finally bridged up to him and took over the pacemaking. The rider happened to be Oliver Rivera of the University of Houston, and he rode in the C group last year, so it was good to have a more experienced rider with me. He told me that the C group this year was much harder than it was last year. It’s probably the way it is because of the creation of the new D group, which would contain the majority of last year’s C’s. To balance the other groups out, the lower B riders of last year would now be in this year’s C group, making the competition steeper.

Me and Oliver Rivera hanging off the back…

On the final lap we were about to be passed by the A’s. When I saw them coming by us, I was surprised to not see Sean anywhere in the group, so I had no idea where he went…Anyways, the rest of the race was pretty uneventful as Oliver and I took turns pacing. At the end of the race Oliver sprinted ahead and I decided not to contest the finish, though in retrospect I probably should have just to practice.

So, my first race as a C rider was pretty disappointing. There were a lot of things I did wrong, as I did not drink or eat enough during the race. Furthermore, as I said earlier my cornering skills aren’t spectacular. I think if I had stayed with the pack at that sharp hand turn, I could of held on for a few more miles. Anyways, I’ve decided to move back down to D’s in order to gain more experience, and ride in a group of riders with whom I can compete.

When I came back I met up with Joseph and we decided to go home. He told me that while his race wasn’t great, he did make it back to the pack and was able to finish ahead of a few riders. I don’t have too much info about what happened in the B race, but I heard that Ken Day was able to get into a winning breakaway containing a few riders. I think Roy Bracey got the better of Ken in that race since he won. Ken Day got fourth, disappointing for him, but I think he had a very good weekend.

Sean Kearns represented us in the Mens A.

Profile of the course.

Hey everyone,

This is a race report of the first event of the Dallas/Fort Worth race weekend. So, the Friday before the event was a pretty busy day for me. I had to leave at 3:00 PM, so I needed to make sure that I would be able to run all of my errands, as well as put in a light pre-race ride before I left. Since I wanted more control over what time I arrived at the race, I decided that this time I would drive and transport my bike myself. Thus, I headed out to Target and Home Depot in order to pick up some travelling supplies, and I purchased a plank of wood, along with a quick release skewer to hold my bike in place as I drove. When I got home, it took me about an hour to construct the bike holder:

Packed up and ready to go.

I only had about an hour to go out so I did a quick ride with a few sprints. When I back home, I packed up and drove to the CPE parking lot where I met the rest of my teammates. For Category A, Sean was our one-man team. We had a very strong Category B team with Hogan, Geisinger, Ken, and Jacob. For Category D we had me and Joseph. Whitney would ride in Women’s A, and Danielle would ride in Women’s B.

We left at about 3:45 and we had horrible traffic the whole way. After taking us two hours to get to Waco, we decided to take a break and get dinner at Jason’s Deli. After another two hours of driving, we finally got to Dallas where we stayed at Joseph’s brother’s apartment where we spent the night. However, I didn’t sleep all that well. Fortunately, I was able to wake up at 5:00 AM to go get breakfast and arrive at the race course.

There were some registration issues so the race started about an hour and a half late, which gave me ample time to warm up. It was pretty cold outside, about 50 degrees farenheit. I had never done a time trial before, so I asked Ken for some advice. He pretty much told me to go as hard as I thought I could for about thirty minutes. I had also read elsewhere that most people who are new to time trialing usually started out too hard, which made it difficult to put in enough effort towards the end. For those of you who aren’t familiar with time trialing, a time trial is a type of short race in which everyone starts individually, as opposed to a mass start race in which everyone starts together. For this particular time trial, the course was roughly 12 miles long with riders starting 30 seconds apart. Riders are not allowed to draft, and drafting will result in either a time penalty or disqualification. The person who completes the course in the shortest amount of time wins the race.

When the start times were posted up, I learned that Joseph would be my thirty-second man, and I told him to go hard and try not to get caught by me. When the race officials called my group, Joseph and I lined up. When it was my turn to go, one of the race officials held me upright by my saddle to let me clip in. It was pretty cool because I didn’t have to mount my bike in the traditional way. Anyways, another official started a countdown from five seconds, and then I was off.

The profile of the course isn’t as bad as it looks on that graph up there. You can see that the elevation difference is only 100 feet, which isn’t far at all. I would say that non-climbing specialists and even pure sprinters wouldn’t have a difficult time with it. It was mostly just rolling hills.

I tried to go hard, but not too hard so as to burn myself out. After a few minutes of riding I could see Joseph in front of me. I knew I was a little bit more experienced than Joseph, so I knew I would probably catch him as the race went along. I didn’t want to catch him too early just in case I tried too hard, so I used Joseph as a sort of carrot to gauge my progress. After about 4 miles, I was only about 20m away from Joseph, so I decided to speed up to make the catch. Unfortunately, as I was about to do this, my own thirty-second man from OBU came from behind me and passed me up, so for a moment it looked as if the three of us were riding together. It only took a few seconds to spread us apart, and I decided then to pass Joseph. I decided to let the OBU guy go because I wasn’t sure if I could hold his pace. At the 5 mile mark I saw another guy from Oklahoma University and I was about to catch him. I was very excited because I didn’t expect to catch two riders in the TT…I wasn’t even expecting to catch one. It’s a little unfair though, because the OU guy wasn’t using clipless pedals, and his bike wasn’t as good as mine. So after the 6th mile, I passed him up. The last half of the course was brutal. I looked behind me a few times to see if my minute man was anywhere close, but when I looked back I saw nothing…a good sign. When I looked ahead, it seemed like the OBU guy caught another guy, which means he caught four riders! I knew he would finish with a very strong time. I thought about accellerating to catch the guy in front of me, but I decided that it would take too much effort, as he was going pretty fast as well.

When I reached the finish line, I was so out of it that I couldn’t put in the effort to sprint. It looks like I tried too hard at the beginning even though I didn’t think I was trying hard at all…a rookie mistake. I’ll think of that next time when I go to Fort Davis Hammerfest next month.

I didn’t know the results until Monday, when I learned that I got 10th place, which was the middle of the pack. Joseph finished three or four places after me. A Rice guy won the race, beating Jay Coleman of OU by one second, who had previously won almost every race since the beginning of racing season. For men’s B, Ken podiumed by getting third, a very good result for him considering that he was sick the week before. I think maybe I could have done what Ken did: he was passed by the eventual winner, Roy Bracey, but he decided to use Roy afterward as a carrot, and thus finished with a very good time. I think if I had done that with the OBU guy, I could have gotten a better result. It wasn’t a bad result for a first time trial, but it was a little lower than I thought I would be since I passed two guys. Anyways, I was slightly disappointed because I finished right behind three Rice guys, and I wanted to beat at least one of them in the time trial because we make fun of them a lot whenever we play football against them. I guess cycling is a kind of way for them to get revenge against UT…sort of, not that many Rice kids actually care about football. Nevertheless, since I finished right behind them I know that I’m just nipping at their heels…I’ll just keep training until I can beat them.

Hello everyone,

This race report covers the second day of the Texas A&M race weekend. After the road race, my legs were so sore that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle the criterium the day afterward. For those of you who don’t know what a criterium is, it’s a type of short race held on a short track of about 1 mile long. The total race time is only 20-60 minutes, so you’re pretty much going full-blast for the entire race. The courses tend to be very technical, and bike handling skills can play an important part in a racer’s overall result.

I didn’t sleep well that night since it was my first race weekend and I was worried about how I would perform. Since Marc, my roommate and fellow D racer, would have to go early in the morning, we woke up at 5:30 AM, got breakfast and headed out for the course at around 6:30. The course was at the George Bush Library on the Texas A&M campus.

When we arrived, Sean realized that he had left the keys to the trailer at our Hotel, so I was pretty annoyed because I wouldn’t get to warm up at all before the race started. For criteriums, warming up is very important since you’ll be going very fast as soon as the race begins. When we arrived, I already saw Jay Coleman of Oklahoma University warming up. He’s probably the best rider in my category and he’s won most of the races so far, including the road race the day before.

Anyways, Josh arrived with the keys about 10 minutes before the start time and I tried to warm up the best I could. Robbie ended up having a flat tire so he spent his warm-up time fixing the flat. Luckily, Marc brought his bike in his own car so he was able to warm up for about an hour. When they called us to line up I noticed that the Rice team was there. I thought this was a little unfair, since the Rice team wasn’t there to race the day before under the brutal conditions we had. Anyways, that’s collegiate cycling for you…When we started, the pace was very fast from the beginning. I was probably only able to stay in contact with the main group for about half a lap, until I ended up in a splinter group with Marc and a handful of other riders. Unfortunately I have very poor cornering skills and was losing time at every single corner. Eventually I couldn’t hold on to Marc’s group and fell off the back.

At the end of the race I learned that Robbie stayed in contact with the front group and finished 7th or 8th, I forget, but considering that he had almost no warm-up time, the result is very impressive for Robbie. Jay Coleman of Oklahoma ended up winning, and Marc finished with his splinter group, and I finished shortly after them – a very disappointing result on my part. My main points of error were cornering and maintaining a high-level of output. I’m usually good at accellerating, but I’m not so great at sustaining power…I’ll have to improve on these aspects the next time, I guess.

The Men’s C group contained one of our riders, Matt, who stayed at the front the whole race and finished an impressive 5th. The A&M C team was very strong and they controlled the field the whole time, sweeping the podium.

When the B group lined up, we had Josh Hogan, Josh Geisinger, Daniel, Jacob, and Trent – a very strong team. Josh Hogan and Daniel were able to stay in the front group for the entire race. However, one of the MSU riders, Roy Bracey broke off the front and went solo for most of the race…that guy’s ridiculously strong. He flatted at least twice in the road race and still managed to finish second. The race pretty much had Roy off the front, with Daniel and Hogan’s group chasing behind. Geisinger was in the main peloton, and Jacob and Trent fell off the back early on, but they were eventually able to catch back on at the end. However, Roy was so strong that he lapped the main group, so the race officials decided to neutralize the main group and let only Roy, along with the chase group containing Hogan and Daniel, to finish. Thus, Roy won spectacularly, and Hogan and Daniel scored two impressive top-5 finishes.

The Men’s A group contained Michael, Joeseph, Joey, Sean, and Kyle. The A group riders are very impressive…some of them are on the verge of going professoinal. It’s pretty much top of the line. The race went as follows: a breakaway group that contained Joesph and a handful of other riders went off the front at the beginning…and stayed off the front. Most of the big teams had people in the break so the peloton did not put on a serious chase effort to catch them. Joey was having some difficulty at the beginning and abandoned early. The breakaway group was allowed so much time that they lapped the field, making it a mess for the race officials. I was confused as well so I didn’t get to see who won the race. Anyways, Joeseph scored a very good result from his breakaway effort.

As for my first weekend of bike racing, there were some good things and there were a lot of things that could have gone better. I scored a good result in the road race, but I need to work on my handling skills, as well as general race-sense such as warming up, communicating, riding with the pack, and so on and so forth. I’ve already had another weekend of racing after this, and the reports will be up soon.

After the men's A race: Michael, Joeseph, Kyle, and Sean.