Category Archives: Cycling

Hey everyone,

Due to time constraints and the fact that both of these races finished similarly, I decided to write a single post for both of them. After racing Gonzales, I felt strong and very confident – the week afterward, during my usual weekend ride with SCCC, I rode aggressively (probably to the ire of my packmates) and I realized that I could drop the group for long stretches at a time. However, by the time I came back to the 5:30 A.M. MPPPL ride I noticed that I had accumulated fatigue over the long, four-month buildup that I had initiated in March and started fading and getting dropped again, even after putting in serious efforts during my training. I felt that perhaps I had to rest, so I spent 2 weeks doing relatively little training and started to build up again after I came back from California. Unfortunately, that derailed plans for a serious aggressive effort at Chappell Hill, though I did make some good progress on my late-season training cycle. I told Philip that I planned on racing Chappell Hill so he let me borrow some deep-profile clinchers for the weekend:

My Cronus Ultimate, equipped with HED Jet 6 clinchers

The deep rims help with the wind, but the type of rim – clinchers, tend to be heavy for racing so I felt concerned that they might hinder me on the rolling terrain at Cotton Patch. I tried out the wheels the day before the race and they felt fantastic – I was able to ride away from my usual group and I easily held a 25mph pace over them over the course of 8 miles or so into a headwind until I slowed down and waited for them to catch up. I got a good amount of sleep before the day of the race since my field started at 11:00 – but that meant that I would have to ride in the scorching 100+ degree heat at midday. When I arrived at the course, one of my Cat 5 teammates, Said Assali told me that he imploded in his race and advised me to conserve as much energy as possible and to not do too much work, if any at all. I agreed with his opinion, since that tactic helped me finish well on last year’s course.

After the start we quickly picked up the pace as the fist leg of the race went downhill, easily reaching speeds of 42 mph+. However, I thought we would slow down as the race settled down but unfortunately that didn’t happen – the race was very fast from the get go and the peloton showed no mercy – I had no chance for any breathers, or points in time at which I could relax, eat, drink, or think of a strategy for my teammates. Attacks frequently flew off the front and each time the group chased them down so they couldn’t get away. After 1.5 hours of hard racing the group put in another acceleration right before the feed zone and I got dropped. I checked my average speed which was 24 mph (I averaged 21.2 mph at last year’s race) on rolling terrain – the fastest I had ever put in over that interval of time over that type of terrain – faster than I had at Gonzales. I decided to finish the race to put in more training, but unfortunately I veered off course and got lost and spent about 30 minutes trying to find my way back and I ended up last out of the finishers. I did find out that 23 of the riders quit the race which made me feel slightly better about sticking it out. I think overall, the aerodynamic profile of the rims compensated for their weight. Bill Krause finished well for Shama – getting 11th.

I continued to train on my usual schedule and I felt pretty good for Cotton Patch coming up the week after in Greenville. I drove there after work and I only managed about 5 hours of sleep since I had to start at 8:10 AM the next day.

Staging for the women's race – photo taken by Team PACC

I talked to Bill at the beginning and he forgot to bring his kit to the race so he had to borrow some clothing from someone else. Anyway, the pace felt pretty easy at the beginning of the race – we had a strong tailwind and we could push 27-30 mph without too much effort. However, when the course moved into the wind attacks started to pick up and the pace was tough just like it was at Chappell Hill. I kept telling myself to stick it out for at least 2 hours but my legs gave in after 1 hour and it was no good. My last point of contact with the pack happened to be at an intersection when the lead motorcycle turned the wrong way and took all but 6-8 riders with it. I was with those 6-8 men and they decided to launch a fierce attack to take advantage of the mishap. I wasn’t able to stay with their acceleration and by the time the pack caught up with me they were all pissed that someone had the nerve to attack like that. However – when you’re racing you have to take advantage of every opportunity you get – though winning in this situation would not be the prettiest way to win a race. By this point the peloton had broken up in pieces and I got 2 guys to work with me to start sweeping up lone riders along the way. After about 10 minutes we saw some bodies sprawled out on the road and realized that there had been a crash in the chaos. As we continued the race, we picked up riders one by one and formed a group of about 10, taking turns doing work into the heavy headwind and crosswind. We eventually caught the Cat 5 group and passed them up. I felt good because this was a sign that I was making progress – last year I struggled in a lot of the Cat 5 races but this time, I was able to easily pass a field of 50 men racing against each other while I was in a smaller paceline of just 8 men (two other racers dropped off by that point). However, the paceline I was in were putting in a brutal effort – with about 14 miles to go, my legs gave up and I dropped back but finished the race, 33rd/45th, which was better than Chappell Hill. Afterward I learned the riders that I had dropped decided to pace themselves back by drafting off the Cat 5 racers – which is illegal and can result in disqualification. I was somewhat angry but since none of us were in contention anyway I let it slide. I checked the average speed before I got dropped which was about 23.7 mph – close to that of Chappell Hill – and much faster than I was riding last year. I’m getting stronger but perhaps the long term endurance isn’t there yet. Bill finished well in 15th place and I’ll probably end up helping him at Fort Hood next weekend – the last race of the season!

Hi everyone,

I haven’t written a race report in a long time and there are some races that will have to be skipped (Chappell Hill, Fort Hood, Walburg, Pace Bend, Fredericksburg, Acadiana) due to time constraints. For a quick summary, I’ll just say that I had some good results at the end of last season (Chappell Hill, Fort Hood – see race results), and some bad results (Walburg, Pace Bend, Fredericksburg, Acadiana) after I decided to upgrade to a higher rank in amateur cycling. This is known as ‘catting up’ through the 5 categories in USA Cycling. Male riders (women have 4 categories) start at “Category 5” and move up through the ranks, to Category 4, 3, 2, and 1, from which professional teams recruit talented riders. Once a male rider reaches category 3 he is considered “pretty good” by his peers, whereas the top two categories contain the elite riders and the bottom 2 categories contain the inexperienced riders. Anyway, in order to move from Cat 5 to Cat 4 a rider needs 10 mass starts in road races or criteriums, to move to higher categories after that a rider needs to place high in finishes in order to earn a requisite number of points. I had 10 starts by the time I left college but I was advised not to move up until I became better. After my results at the end of the season I decided that I was ready to move up, so I submitted my application and was approved for the Men’s 4 races for the 2011 season.

Most competitive cyclists consider category 4 to be not much tougher than category 5, and looking back I find this opinion to be mostly true, but at the beginning of the season I struggled and felt like I would never become good enough to compete at the next level – I had the flu in February and I was dropped after 5 minutes at my season opener at Walburg, and subsequently dropped at the very beginning of the next 4 races. I can attribute some of my lack of performance due to looking for employment during that time period, but some of it was also due to pure laziness. However, at the beginning of March, I was able to secure employment and regain focus – I started riding with the Shama Cycles team every Tuesday at 5:30 AM and eventually reached around 8-10 hours of training per week. At first I dropped at the end of each ride but I eventually became strong enough to keep up, or at least catch up to the group after a hard pull or sprint. Philip Shama, owner of the shop and team worked with me to get the correct fit on the bike and recommended some equipment changes including a lower stem, shorter crank arms, and narrower handlebars. I felt strong enough at the beginning of June to try racing again at Fredericksburg but I still dropped early, although I was able to hang on for about an hour at the Sunday race. This was the first indication that I first started improving so I began to do intervals like I did last year – except with a staggered pattern – 8 x 4 minutes, 4 x 8 minutes, 2 x 16 minutes, and 1 x 32 minutes – 4 sessions of 2 hours each over 2 weeks, take the next week easy, and then start the pattern again the week after. I got about halfway through this schedule when my next set of races came up at Louisiana. I noticed a significant improvement in my time trial speed – about 23 mph, which was far faster than any time trial I had ever done (fastest was 18.9 mph). My friend Ken Day averaged 28 mph over the course, so that pretty much blows my time away – although I know I’m moving in the right direction.

A typical 5:30 AM Tuesday Ride. Photo taken by Philip Shama

During dinner Ken and Jon Sanchez gave me advice on my training – one of the things Ken mentioned was that at the end of each hard workout I should feel tired in a way that I don’t want to ride my bike anymore. However, most of the time I feel like I can ride quite a bit more so as time passes I’ll gradually increase my interval time to cover up most of the 2 hour training blocks – probably up until I have enough stamina to do 2 x 32 minute intervals or 3 x 20 minutes. Also worth noting was including maximum efforts and recovery – both of which I haven’t really been paying attention to. For recovery I’ve been making an effort to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep, since in March I was getting about 6 each day. Both of them advised me to also be aggressive while racing. Even though I may get a better result by sitting in the pack and conserving energy, I’ll be gaining better fitness if I attack and be aggressive off the front – even if that means dropping later on. It’s better to learn these things now than to wait until moving to Category 3 to try them and make mistakes. So on the next day’s road race, I tried staying near the front and taking pulls to bring back a breakaway – after about 2 hours I was pretty much spent so I used my last ounce of energy pulling my teammate Doug Baysinger back to the front after Jim Perrin, the eventual winner, attacked the bunch. I dropped off the back after that last pull but hopefully that effort let Doug, whom I knew was stronger, save some energy. If I had stayed near the back I’m pretty sure I would have been able to get a pack finish but I did learn a lot about what goes on in the front – and like Ken said, it definitely is smoother up there.

Alright – so here’s the main race report. After completing a schedule of intervals I felt strong going in to today’s race, Come and Take It at Gonzales Texas. I woke up at 4AM and went out to McDonald’s but found out it was closed, so I ate some caffeinated energy blocks to keep me awake until I reached another McDonald’s about an hour west on I-10, where I loaded up on 2 cups of coffee, a hash brown, and a sausage McMuffin. After I reached the course, I warmed up for about 20 minutes and met up with Doug, but I found out he was racing in the 35+ category so we wouldn’t be racing together. However, when I made my way to the starting line I found another Shama Cycles member, Bill Krause. Before the start, I saw that there were some heavy hitters – James Perrin of Bike Barn – who won Acadiana, and Tak Makino and Jaxson Appel of Texas Pro Health. I had ridden with these three riders each Saturday over the last year and I knew they would be strong. However, I only had one main objective for the race and that was to stay with the bunch until the finish since I hadn’t done that since I moved up to Cat 4. I felt pretty good about the course because it didn’t include most of the things that I’m bad at – such as strong winds, technical turns, or long climbs, but that also meant that the pace would be high when chasing down breakaways so I would have to pay attention to any unexpected surges that might happen. At the start, the pace was tough – around 27mph – 31mph as some people tried moving off the front but Jim, Tak, and Jaxson kept the race under control and no one got very far. About midway through the course Bill attacked off the front so I sat back and let the others do the chasing. Unfortunately he was caught shortly after but managed to stay with the pack. I moved up to the front right before they caught him and I was contemplating a counterattack, but I figured that I needed to focus on my objective so I pulled for a couple of minutes and moved back after a turn.

Tak Makino of Texas Pro Health rounds a corner during the crit on the previous day. Photo credit goes to Propaganda Bike Shop.

For the last 11 miles, attacks were coming quite frequently and every time the bunch chased them down. The hills were also getting steeper so this was when my legs began to hurt and run out of energy. Bill asked me how I was doing and I told him I was okay, but I was worried that I would get dropped. However, it was mostly the rough road vibration that was making me uncomfortable, and in terms of stamina I felt like I had a good amount left. At about 4 miles to go there was a steep hill and I knew this was where the final selection would be made, so I told myself that I was going to give it my all to stay with the pack on this hill – fortunately it was a lot easier than it looked and I felt fine after we went up it, and at this point I knew I had met my objective and that I wouldn’t drop toward the end. About 2 miles to the finish I started planning an attack, and about half a mile later Jim went on an attack – I yelled at the bunch to keep in contact with him as he was dangerous – and we did, and after that more people tried moving off the front and that’s when I decided to attack – however another rider was blocking my position and I kept screaming at him to either move up or move out of the way but he didn’t budge – I don’t know if he did that on purpose or if he was too tired to move. Anyway, I was angry but it was my fault for not being in the front earlier – so I moved all the way around to the other side and moved up front for the bunch sprint. I kicked in at about 200 meters to go but it was a little too early – I passed Jim, but Tak and Jaxson and the eventual winner passed me up and when I reached the line I counted 8 bodies in front of me, so I thought I got 9th or 10th place, but it’s hard to tell when everyone is so close and you’re not sure who passed whom and when. However, as I was packing my things Bill Fiser told me that I had gotten 7th and my first points towards my Cat 3 upgrade! I was pretty happy with the result but I think I had enough energy to take the win had I positioned myself better earlier. The course speed averaged 23.7 mph, so the speed has been steadily creeping up as the year moves on.

The peloton charges up the final hill, riders jockeying for position. Photo by Rouse Bicycles.

Right now everyone is telling me that I must have it easy on the climbs but I actually find that to be a weakness and I get dropped easily on long climbs – it’s hard to discover your strengths at an early stage but I think I’m developing into more of a puncheur – one who is not a pure sprinter with top speed but can accelerate quickly and go on short breakaways- since I’ve done last minute breakaways before and can finish high in the bunch sprint if I don’t get dropped, but I’m not sure yet because I’m still learning. There is something glamorous about being able to hold off a charging bunch after an attack so I’m hoping that’s what I’ll become, although it may very well be that I’m genetically a climber. Anyway I think right now it’s more important to focus on my weaknesses because if I don’t do that I won’t be able to get myself into a position to use my strengths. So, I’ll hold off on max efforts for now and focus on stamina and resisting the wind through my interval schedule, and work on my cornering at Memorial Park. My goals for the next race, Chappell Hill, are to be aggressive and ride at the front – although from my experience it will be hard for a breakaway to succeed, depending on the weather. However, I don’t think I need the validation of being able to stay with the bunch so it will be better for me to attack and risk my placing than to not be aggressive at all. Hats off to Bill Krause for his breakaway effort and Tak and Jaxson for their strong finishes, and thanks to Phil Shama and the rest of the Shama crew for helping me with everything!

The final bunch sprint – Charles Holsen takes the win. Photo by Rouse Bicycles.

UPDATE: Some news since I last posted – I’d like to congratulate Bill Fiser for finishing 5th in the Road Race and earning enough points for his Cat. 2 upgrade!

Hey everyone,

I’ve got a long overdue report of a race that happened last August, called Memorial Park Criterium. This was just one particular iteration of the Memorial Park Criterium Series, which happens every summer. Unfortunately, I did not know about the series until my friend Ken Day wrote in his blog about his participation…and crash. Anyway, over the summer I’ve been riding with a club called the Space City Cycling Club, which leaves at Bike Barn every weekend at around 7:00 – 7:30 AM for about 60 miles around Alvin and San Jacinto. They have 4 groups based on speed, 14mph, 17mph, 21mph and 24mph. I started with the 14mph group and quickly moved up to the 21mph group where I did the majority of my pack riding for the latter half of 2010. After a while, I decided to ride with the 24 group but I’ve been getting dropped a lot since they tend to go past 34mph at times, speeds at which I cannot hold tempo for long periods of time…yet. In addition to riding with the club, I’ve been doing my own speed work called interval training, which involves doing alternating efforts of hard/easy riding. Intervals help improve the power which you can produce at lactate threshold and help you get accustomed to the high-intensity of racing. Many people who are unfamiliar with cycling don’t realize that racing involves a series of sharp accelerations and cool downs – unlike the steady tempo that may seem intuitive to a novice. Thus, doing easy/hard alternating efforts helps one train like they race. With respect to racing, I had taken a break from racing for over two months, and I was ready to get back into competition, hoping that all my work paid off. Side note – You will notice in the photos that I am riding a new bicycle. I bought one of the team bikes before I graduated and this is the first race at which I rode it.

Registration

Before the race, I had just spent about a week in Chicago so I only had about a week after I got home to train for the race. Thus, I wasn’t exactly sure of myself if I would be able to perform well, but since I had performed somewhat poorly in the last handful of races my expectations were low for the race, “stay in contact for 15 minutes, that’s all I’m asking. If you can do more then do it.” Remember, crit racing is very short, only 25-60 minutes but the speeds are very high, and often average higher than 25 mph, even for very technical courses, so you’re more or less at lactate threshold the whole time. On the day of the race, I had just passed my second actuarial examination so I was in good spirits. My dad and I drove to Memorial Park that afternoon and I did the usual routine – unpack, prepare my bike, register, and warm up.

Warming up before the race

I did a few warm up laps and a couple of high-intensity efforts to gauge the corners of the course. In my opinion, they weren’t bad at all. There were no U-turns, unlike the Driveway, and the roads were not too cracked, though they were not smooth like that of the Driveway. I felt like I wouldn’t have nearly as much fear cornering as I would have had at the Driveway. After the warm up, the Cat 5 racers lined up. I saw one rider wearing a regular t-shirt and jeans shorts and I was wondering if he was half-joking. I didn’t see him again after we started so I was assuming he was new to the race. Anyway, after we were all sizing each other up for the few awkward minutes of waiting, the race officials blew the whistle and we were off.

Rounding the last corner before the next lap – the big guy gave me a good draft

Immediately, the speeds kicked up to about 24mph, but I was getting a good draft off the people in front of me so I wasn’t bothered at all. I continued to use my tactic at the Driveway of mimicking exactly how the rider in front of me cornered, so I wouldn’t lose my mind when we went through the corners fast. After a few minutes we started seeing a few attacks off the front but none of them went anywhere. About a couple of laps later, perhaps the 8th minute or so, the person in front of me bolted off of the pack and I followed him – soon we formed a 4 man breakaway but that lasted only a few minutes. The race continued in a similar fashion, with people jumping off the front and getting reeled in. At one point my fear of cornering got the better of me and I accidentally cut someone off – the people behind me yelled at me, so I was a little started but I knew they yelled for good reason – for the safety of all the riders involved. I heeded their criticism and made an effort to stay steady the rest of the race.

Rounding the corner, again

When I finally reached the 15-minute mark, still in contact with the pack, I knew I had reached my goal, so I tried to stay with the group for the remainder of the race. I was doing remarkably well, staying near 8th position for most of the race. At the final lap one of the riders decided to put in an attack and I followed him. Soon, I passed him in the front and I was leading the race at the final lap! It felt incredible, I never thought I would be in such a good position at this point in my training. However, near the last 300m of the race, I ran out of steam and the tempo picked up for a sprint finish – I wasn’t able to compete in the sprint but I stayed with the pack until the end, my first pack finish in a race since Tunis-Roubaix, my first race.

Following the attack!

First, the bad news. Of course, I didn’t win. I went too early and had I not attacked at the end I would have had enough energy to contest the sprint. Then again, it was probably better for me to at least try to attack so I could gain the experience of doing so, since, after all, it was just a minor criterium race. Second, I was too apprehensive in the corners, still. I had improved, but it’s still not at the level where I feel that others can trust me with my handling skills, so I will continue to work on that. Otherwise, everything else went better than expected, I had made my goal and exceeded it, and I knew that my hard work and interval training was paying off, and that I was moving in the right direction.

Leading the race at the final lap

Hey everyone,

The final race of the SCCCC 2010 season took place on home soil on the outskirts of Austin at Manda, and on the UT Pickle Research Center north of campus. It would have been nice to have the race directly on the main UT campus, but logistical problems like cost and scheduling prevented us from doing so. It would have been great publicity for the team if we could have had a campus crit around the Darrell K. Royal Stadium, so if any of the officers happen to stumble across this post, I would suggest that you do everything in your power to stage this race in a location visible to our fellow students!

The team met at the CPE parking lot.

Anyway, I got to wake up slightly later at 6:30 AM for today’s race since it was held in town. At 7:30, the team met up in the CPE parking lot and we headed out to the Manda area for the race. The course would be the exact same as the one at Ronde von Manda, so I knew we would have a lot of wind, just like at Manda. When we got to the course, we signed in, set up our bikes, and warmed up. When I was signing in, I tried to downgrade to the D category, but I wasn’t allowed to because of the Conference Championship rules. That would rule me out of the D category TTT, which I really wanted to do because I had been training with Marc and Chi-Che the whole season. Anyway, my registration would put me on reserve for the C category TTT, with Stephen Salazar, Matthew Stottlemyre, Trent Boyd, and Robbie Booth.

Jacob loads the bikes onto the trailer.

After warm-up, we lined up at the start line, along with teams from Texas Pan-American (a team I had not raced against before), Baylor, Rice, Texas A&M, MSU, UH, and an assortment of other minor teams. I didn’t have any lofty goals for this race, mainly because I knew I would get dropped eventually because of the strong crosswinds during that day. Thus, I had a simple goal in mind, to make it further than I had at Manda, at which I dropped after five minutes of racing.

Steve, me, and Chi-Che before the start.

Immediately after the start, Trent took a flyer but no one chased him because the race was still neutralized, and the headwind reeled him back in shortly afterward. I stayed near the front drafting behind Matt and the Texas Pan American team. At the fifth mile, things started heating up and there were some accelerations at the corners in attempt to drop the weaker riders. My cornering had improved slightly but I was still not brave enough to tilt my bike to the limit, so I ended up wasting energy at each corner when I had to accelerate after the apex. Anyway, as soon as we hit the tailwind section of the course, a rider from Rice rode the gutter too aggressively and crashed headfirst over his handlebars. I’m not sure if he finished the race. For those of you who are unaware of the term “riding the gutter,” riding the gutter is a tactic in which the rider riders close to the edge of the road in order to make it hard for others to draft behind him, or “suck his wheel.” Drafting behind a person riding the gutter is somewhat nerve-wracking, not only because you can’t see anything in front of you, but also because you have no place to maneuver if an obstacle emerges. Riding the gutter, although a useful tactic, carries risk because it’s harder for the rider to handle, and increases the risk of crashing. I was glad that I wasn’t behind the Rice rider when that happened, but I know a crash will happen to me eventually, given enough miles.

At the start…

After going 35 mph+ in the tailwind section, we made a right turn into a crosswind, with Rice leading the pack. The pace had slowed down considerably to around 16mph as we were all playing cat-and-mouse with each other. At this point, Trent attacked the pack and Robbie chased him down, as did the rest of the pack. I heard a rumor that Trent was a Cat 2 Track rider, but only a Cat 4 road rider, which allowed him to race in the C category. Thus, the viciousness of the attack was not surprising, and the pack broke apart into about five different groups. I happened to be in the second-to last group with another rider from Texas A&M, and after catching our breaths, we knew the race was over. However, I still had some other priorities, one of which was to finish higher than last, which had happened at DFW. I knew the UH guy who outkicked me last time was still behind me so I wanted to finish ahead of him.

The Texas A&M rider didn’t help very much, however. He didn’t pull or make any effort to keep us ahead of the guys who were trying to catch up to us, so I suppose he knew that our race was already over and he wanted to just take the rest of the way easy. Somewhere during the middle of the second lap, we saw a battered and bruised rider from Rice walking in the opposite direction – I suppose it was the Rice rider that had crashed, or maybe another rider with mechanical. During the tailwind section my legs started to cramp up from my former injuries, and they gradually got worse as the race went on. After completing the second lap, I saw Trent on the sidelines because he had dropped out of the race. I was somewhat upset because he was the one who broke up the pack and dropped his teammates, only to drop out of the race later because he wasted too much energy. If he had spent his efforts helping Robbie or Matt, we would’ve had a chance to win. On the third lap, or at about mile 36, the UH guy caught us, and another guy from Rice shortly afterward. At about 1k from the finish, I had cramped up so badly that I dropped behind, but I still managed to finish. My legs were cramping up so badly that I had to ask Chi-Che to catch me as I rolled in at the finish. The results showed that I still finished ahead of another rider, a slight improvement over my last C category race.

After the race, Matt asked me if I wanted to take his place in the TTT. Since I could barely walk, I declined. Before the TTT, the team went out to eat at subway where I talked to Marc and learned what had happened in the D race: Three Texas Tech riders broke away from the pack and Marc followed them, but they eventually dropped him. Marc found himself in no-man’s land with another rider from Baylor, and managed to finish fifth, a personal best for him.

Since I wasn’t racing in the TTT, I volunteered to be a corner marshall, making sure riders didn’t turn where they weren’t supposed to. The job wasn’t hard, I just had to stand at an intersection and point in the direction of the course. I felt kind of bad because Trent dropped out of the TTT race, leaving the C-team with only 3 riders, one short of the customary 4. Had I aggravated my injury, I would have been able to help. For those of you new to the TTT, or Team Time Trial, It’s an event similar to a regular time trial, but with each team starting together, but separately from other teams. You have 4 members in each team, and each teammate can draft off of each other. Teams are released 30 seconds apart. If one team should catch another, they cannot draft off the team they catch, and vice-versa. The team that gets caught must let the team that catches them pass them, or else face a penalty. The team with the least cumulative time wins. Anyway, while I was volunteering I managed to take some pictures of the race:

Texas Pan American D

Texas Tech

Texas A&M C

Texas C

MSU B

MSU Women A

MSU A

Today wasn’t really a good day for Texas, except for Marc, who finished 5th in the RR and 2nd in the TT. We were down on manpower in the A team, because a lot of the officers were on that team and had to host the race. And furthermore, Tokarski crashed out of the A race, and his injuries were so bad that he had to go to the hospital. He has since recovered, however. The Crit the next day wasn’t much better, but Marc again had good form and finished 5th in the D race. I had to stay home because my legs were inflamed, and I had to take a week off the bike to recover. On the bright side it’s been about three months since this race and I can say that I’ve improved a lot. I’ve been doing intervals and I’ve regularly had averages of 21mph over 60 miles and my highest average was 22 mph. I haven’t raced since the close of Collegiate season, but I’ve had my sights set on the Metro Park Crit next week and a few more late-season races next month.

Hey everyone,

The final day of Fort Davis began at 5:30 AM when I woke up to get breakfast. Dalton and Varela would start later in the day so they got to sleep in for about another hour. After getting ready, I walked over to the main building where the race officials kept the spare wheels to look at the results from the previous day’s races. It turns out that I got 36th, which wasn’t great but fell into my expectations. Dalton got 4th in the Men’s 3 and Varela got 2nd in the Men’s 4, putting both of them at about a minute and a half down on their respective GC’s. With a good effort, both of them had a chance of taking the GC.

At breakfast I had scrambled eggs, potatoes, a biscuit, bacon, and some sausage. I made sure to eat a lot in order to have enough energy to be competitive at today’s stage. I would be going over the same hill climb as that of the first stage so I had to keep my expectations realistic. Thus, I simply aimed to go further than I did last time without getting dropped, so I wanted to make it over the first two tough gradients with the pack.

After breakfast I headed back to the cabin to get dressed. I brought along three gel shots and a power bar to eat at breakfast, hoping to get about 1,000 calories in before start time. Luckily, today’s stage would start right outside of Prude Ranch so I wouldn’t have to do any riding in order to get there. As soon as I got ready I headed out to the gate to sign in.

Mt. Locke looms in the distance, we had to climb over it during the race…

It turns out that a handful of riders called it quits but most of the peloton remained intact from the previous day. The weather was somewhat cold at the mid 50’s so I decided to bring my arm warmers with me to stay warm. To my dismay, the guy I had talked to yesterday had abandoned after the time trial, and I hoped he would stick around for the road race. After the start the race went at a more sensible pace than that of the day before. Most of the riders knew that we would have a hard time getting over the first climb so we didn’t have any attacks on the rollers, giving me an opportunity to conserve my energy.

I made sure to stay in the front of the pack to keep out of trouble, I maintained 4th-10th position in the pack to make sure I didn’t have to do too much work, and the ride to the climb went by smoothly, and I felt much better in comparison to the day before. I saw that John Guidry, the guy who finished right in front of me on the previous day’s hill climb and passed me in the time trial, also positioned himself near the front. I knew from the previous day’s results that I would probably be able to keep up with him on the climbs so I made sure to stick around him (it turns out that he’s a much better flat rider, scoring good results in the early season races). As soon as we hit the climb the pace went up rapidly, however. I made the selection after the first upward gradient and knew I could do at least one more. When we hit the first false flat (a false flat is a section of land that still goes upward, albeit at a lower gradient) I looked behind me and saw that a couple of riders dropped back which made me feel somewhat good about myself. The second gradient was tough, but I still managed to hang on at mid pack for the next false flat. What really killed me was the third upward gradient. As soon as we hit the slope John started to fall backward and I fell with him. After I started seeing other people pass us I decided to pass him and try to catch on to the back. I made it back to the front of the peloton, but my effort was too much, and I waved to the others to get past me.

I saw a guy from TCU pass me up and I knew I had beaten him at Tunis, so I made sure to keep him in sight for the rest of the race. After taking some time to catch my breath, I caught a group of two riders, but dropped one of them immediately. The other rider and I took turns pacing each other until we caught another rider, and one other rider from Texas Tech caught up with us.

After we reached the summit of the climb I hammered our group forward in order to gain some time on the short descent. In doing so, I dropped one of the riders and the three of us who remained took turns pacing. We went through a series of steep rollers and hit a long descent at 50mph. The Tech guy was a fantastic descender but the other guy who was with us couldn’t handle very well and I ended up lagging behind him because I didn’t want to pass him up. When we hit the bottom we caught up to the Tech guy and the rider who was with me apologized for descending slowly. Soon afterward we caught the TCU rider.

We saw another Tech rider ahead of us, so the Tech rider lifted the pace to catch his teammate and dropped the three of us. The TCU rider then dropped us. We took turns pacing each other until we hit the halfway mark at which we had to turn around. After the turn around point the guy I was with dropped me and I found myself alone for about the next five miles, after which I was caught by a group of three riders and we took turns pacing each other. We dropped one of them before we hit the main descent at which one of the riders in our group took a daredevil descent to the bottom. We were going faster than 50mph and I got dropped on the way down.

Fortunately I saw the TCU guy about a mile in front of me and I made it my goal to catch him before the finish. I was caught by a group of about five riders and a man in a neutral support vehicle was following us. Every now and then he passed us and pulled over to the should and started yelling at us to catch the guy in front of us (the TCU guy). Right before Heartbreak Hill, the finishing climb, we saw the TCU rider in our sights so I decided to attack the group and after riding past the TCU guy, I sprinted up the hill and finished ahead of my group.

The P/1 bunch sprint.

After the race I went back to the Cabin, grabbed a soda and drove back to the finish line to pick Dalton and Varela when they finished. I got to see the endings of the rest of the Men’s races, the P/1, Category 2, Category 3, and Category 4. The Pro/1 pack was very impressive and they finished as a group. When I saw the Cat 3 pack coming over the horizon I got out of my van to watch the finish. I saw Dalton in the group so I cheered him on in the bunch sprint. He ended up getting 10th in the Road Race and 6th in the GC.

The Cat 3 bunch sprint.

After meeting up with Dalton we waited for Varela at the line. Unfortunately Varela blew up near the end of the race and finished 20 minutes back. Considering that he got 2nd on the first two stages, however, I would say that he had a good race. When I checked the results I ended up getting 24th on the Road Race and 28th out of 50 starters in the GC, moving up about ten places. I can’t really say much about how well I did other than that I’m improving, but I still have a long way to go. I had a great three days out in west Texas and the experience was very good for my development as a cyclist.

Daniel crosses the line.

Clay and Daniel taking a breather after the race.

One last photo before heading home.

For photos of my adventure, click on the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038340&id=1529070024&l=72bb6381a7