Race Report: Quad Cross 2010 Elites: WWRMMD? He'd Pull

Special Thanks to Pedal Power Photography for providing images (excepting Kyle's sad face). Thanks.

First off, I like this race. Its very local (Cary and I prerode the course the night before the race). It is a nice challenging course with lots of tight turns and some good power sections. There are even a few places that require a bit of finesse. Its essentially a grass crit punctuated with a few tricky sections. It is a well organized grassroots event that has built on its popularity every year. I consider this the season opener.

My race is fairly easy to sum up. I got a front row start. Didn't pay attention, and the whistle caught me unawares. I got jostled off my bike as I was clipping in, nearly crashed. I was close to last coming into the hole shot.




I fought back for a few places, battled with Colin Murphy,





a troubled David Wilcox (I think he had some sort of mishap that relegated him to the scrum),






Cort Cramer and a troubled Mike Rowell.

I was feeling pretty good and felt like a lot of the race had passed (felt like more than half). So I decided to look up at the lap cards on the next lap. 8 to go. I was crushed. Colin says that I audibly cracked inside. I am pretty sure that I cursed, maybe gesticulated wildly to indicate disbelief. Either way, I knew I was screwed, but not for the normal reasons.

My lower back has been troubling me all week. Saturday, I put in a few efforts, which did not help matters. The morning of Quad, I was even questioning if I could race. But the prospect of putting the screws to an under trained Cary Fridrich (yeah, I now realize that I underestimated The Mantis),





new dad Colin Murphy (that didn't really go my way either)

and triathlete Cort Cramer (this was going OK, but I realize that this is a temporary state of affairs) was too much to leave on the table. Anyway, my back was spasming slightly for the whole race. The spasms built to a crescendo of agony which left me unable to turn the pedals.

It actually broke down entirely on the back section as I was powering up the little hill after the loose corner through the sand. I was on my way to closing down a small gap I had allowed to open between the Colin/Wilcox group, as was my plan since I seemed to be taking this section faster than Colin (I'd let a gap open before this section and shut it down easily in it).





I was feeling good, having taken the sandy corner well and was on my way to shutting the gap down before the curb.

My back completely locked up. I slow pedaled to the start/finish. I pulled. I had no choice. I was unable to actually keep a bicycle moving even at back of the pack cat 4 speed. In fact, I was unable to pedal up the little hill after the pavement. I walked to the officials stooped over in agony. I asked the officials to DNF me.

I am filled with shame. If I had scored a decent result, Colin Reuter inferred that he would have comped my race fee at The Night Weasels Cometh, aka Usurper of October 6th's Wednesday Night SuperPrestige. $38 out the window. I may be forced to raise the WNSP "donation" in order to recoup this shameful loss.

I was not able to "Reap" anyone, as Kyle Smith has become quite fond of saying. Speaking of which, Da Kylah crashed pretty hard and broke some bones and will be off the bike for a few weeks, send him your regards.



He likes wine. And fine foods. And attractive ladies. Bring these things to him.

Even though I am extremely uncomfortable (I am not allowed to take effective painkillers) and the doctor ordered me off the bike at least I didn't actually break anything, so I shouldn't complain.

As for the fast folks. This dude put the screws to Adam Myerson and pulled off the win:

Big congratulations to Dylan and Pedro's.

This guy:

While I raced with Wissell last year and beat him occasionally, I never saw him during our race. He must have gotten faster.

The Mantis finished in the money. God Damn It! Coach, altitude tent and EPO have all moved to the top of the agenda!

Race Report: Turtle Pond 2010 cat 3: GG Bavolar Works The Break

The real race report is on the team blog. I have just a few short comments. Nonsense really.



My job was to either get into an early move, and then if the early stuff failed to stick, sit in and sprint. As always, if we got a man in a promising break, I'd control the front, breaking up any chase efforts and sitting on and thwarting bridge efforts.


As Gary states in his report, I expected Embrocation's Rapha celebrities to be a factor in the race, as both PVB and Mr. Dunn can climb well and have deep hardman credentials.

My early moves didn't stick, despite having some good company on a couple of attacks.

After what I decided would be my last attack of the early laps, a big group went up the road. It had over 10 riders and representatives of most of the stronger teams present, CL Noonan, NEBC, Threshold and 2 Svelte riders. I found Gary and asked him to bridge to the move. He jumped and succeeded in getting into the group.

At this point, there was confusion at the front of the peloton. With all of the strong teams represented up the road, no one was willing to pull. The pace slowed considerably. PVB and Jeremy Dunn drifted to the front and I told them that it was their job to chase. They laughed me off, pointing out the the move was still in sight. Since I am good friends with PVB, I explained that I was serious, that the move was likely to stick. I was hoping that he'd take the hint and try to bridge up to it while that was still a possibility. He didn't. PVB and Jeremy spent the rest of the race fruitlessly attempting to get away (every chase was quickly marked and neutralized) from a slow peloton, trying to get a paceline started and grumbling about how much the situation sucked.

Since the break was gone, I started resting for the sprint for 13th. Man, I really wanted to finish 13th. I still chased down bridge attempts and remained vigilant at the front, but I sagged on the big climb, allowing myself to drift from the very front of the group to the very back, sometimes even loosing contact, knowing that someone would work with me to get back onto the peloton within minutes.

On the last lap I made arrangements with Dave Montes to stick with me on the climb, so that he could pace me back to the main group when I allowed myself to get dropped. Uneventfully, Dave and I got back into contact and went to the front so that we'd be in position when things started heating up.

Spaits made a few promising attempts to attack the main group in the last lap. At one point he got away with a small group that included Jeremy Dunn. They took a wrong turn, or failed to turn and thus lost their advantage.

A few attacks were reeled in. Nick Mashburn worked the front, chasing moves down. He was clearly working for Svelte sprinter Mike Sabatini, as Sabs was sitting in while Nick kept the group together.

The sprint was textbook. Svelte and CB were at the front, ramping up the pace in the final 2k. I had instructed my teammates, Dave and Spaits, that all I needed from them was to keep me out of the wind up until we were done with the fast descent and inside the 1k to go mark, which they slayed themselves to do (Thanks Dave and Matt). I then marked Sabs's wheel, tucked in and waited, as Mashburn was giving him a fast leadout from the front of the group, that put me in 3rd wheel with 1/2 a kilo to go.

Since the sprint was slightly uphill, I waited an extra few seconds before jumping. When I did go, I had the road to myself. I felt like I was going to win 13th place. Then, as I came screaming toward the finish, I noticed that there was a traffic jam of pace and follow cars stopped on the finish line, in my path of travel. I sat up. As much as I wanted 13th place, I didn't think that it was worth crashing over. I coasted in 15th.

GG stayed in the break and got 8th. Gary has been having a rough season on top of his thwarted cross season, so I was glad that he was able to get into a successful move. While the team may have been hoping for a better result, I am happy that most of our race went according to plan and that Gary affirm that he can hang with the tough guys of cat 3 New England road races.