Race Report(s): Northampton Cycle-Smart International cat 3 2009

As always the photos are courtesy of my lovely wife

I went in to NoHo feeling good. This was one of my "A" weekends, so I had built my training around being fit and rested for these races.

There were a number of goals for this season and most of them revolved around beating friends who have consistently bested my in the past. The list and results are as follows:

1. Rosey-beaten at Green Mountain Cyclocross/VT Verge (and others)
2. Yash--Green Mt.
3. Sebastien Dumont--Results swing back and forth
4. Cary Fridfich--New Gloucester--Both Days
5. Colin Holmes Reuter--10/18/09 Wednesday Night SuperPrestige (obviously, this isn't a sanctioned event, but I take what I can get)
6. PVB--10/18/09 SuperPrestige
7. Colin Holmes Murphy--Never

As you can see, prior to this race weekend, I had accomplished most of my goals for the season, including podiuming in a Verge race (twice). But Murphy hung out there. Colin has been smoking me so badly that he doesn't even show up as a rival on my crossresults.com page.

The Racing--Day 1

I got there early, warmed up and thoroughly inspected the course. I was confident that I was going to put forth my best effort.

The race was relatively uneventful. It started fast, I was near the front and stayed there. Riders attacked and few got away. On the first or second lap, I found myself gaining on CHM.



I caught him on the run up and then rode his wheel for a few turns, hesitant to throw down the gauntlet with so many laps remaining.




Soon, it became obvious that I would travel faster if I took the initiative in the corners and handled the rooty sections with an unobstructed line.

I waited for Holmes to take a corner wide. I turned a tighter radius while carrying more speed. I accelerated before Holmes was able to. I got a gap.

Photo courtesy of Josh Garlich

Eventually, I saw Holmes and Rosey start working together a few seconds back. This scared me.

Sometime near the end of the race, I was riding with Evan Huff. God damn it. I have been beaten in the last lap of uncountable cross races by this dude. Usually by less then 3 seconds, sometimes 10ths of seconds. He is becoming my white whale. He bested me for the last paying spot, 5th to my 6th.

I held off Murphy. Sad though it is, this is currently the highlight of my season.

Overall a good day.

Day 2-

With Murphy bested and Cary in the Verge leader's jersey, my goals for the race should have been minimal. But during preride/inspection, I began to believe that it was my day. I got that nervous feeling that you get when you can taste victory. Anyone who has ever targeted an event and then been confident about their chances of a really good result knows the feeling I mean.

Again, I was in the top 10 in the prologue loop. The pace was super high. Attacks were coming thick even before we entered the first lap. It was my day. After Chris Laflamme had settled into the front of the lead group, setting a high pace, I attacked the straight away leading to the sandpit.

I entered the sandpit alone with a small gap. I had ridden into the pit "step through" style fully intending to dismount with momentum and run the sand instead of risking a crash and a first lap pileup. Others behind me rode the sand faster than I was able to dismount/run/remount. My attack was absorbed and answered within 30 seconds of my initiating it.

I was still in the lead group, but taking on water. I watched Huff, Laflamme and Murphy ride away from me, as if in slow motion. It wasn't dramatic, a gap just opened and grew. I could have slayed myself to stay with them...but I chose to stay back. It was still lap one and many matches were being burned. I figured that those dudes were racing like fools. They all ended on the podium.

The rest of my race was tame. I'd get in a group, ride wheels in the straights and get in front on the upper deck. I maintained position. The weight of the Verge leader's jersey had pulled Cary back. I could see him chasing on opposing sections. Again, Cary is no joke. He kept me honest in the corners, helped me keep the hammer down.

On the last lap, I was in a group with Mike Wissell, James Morrison, and a local named Jeremy, all solidly inside the top ten. On the upper deck, I gapped them by taking a good line through the roots.

I went super fast down the launch ramp and came into the S turn after the RR tracks too hot.





I made the first corner but my line made it impossible to negotiate the second. I tried to cut hard left to correct. I had a full speed crash. While my file treads gave way easily, I beleive that I would have crashed with any tires. The impact was loud enough that me and my bike slid so far that people started running over. Friends went to get my wife. Morrison asked me if I was OK as he passed, the tone of his voice implying that he believed that I wasn't.

I got up, pissed. I wasn't hurt. But I was pumped full of adrenaline and annoyed about loosing spots. I passed Wissell in the next set of corners and got on Jeremy's wheel. I attacked him, but he countered and wouldn't let me get the advantage. Jeremy rode me off his wheel and outsprinted me for 6th. Morrison was out of sight.

7th is a great result. But it wasn't my day. I have no scratches, cuts, bruises, or marks as a result of my last lap crash. Maybe it was my day.

New Gloucester—Maine Verge—Day 2 Cat 3: RMM FTW WTF?

All Photos are Courtesy of my lovely wife, who spent our first anniversary photographing this race. For Reals.



Those of you who know me know that I have perfected many ways to suck on a bicycle. Poor bike handling, lapses in training, general lack of fitness, advancing age, inability to produce and maintain adequate power, mechanical failures, chronic dehydration, under resting/poor sleep schedule, lack discipline, inability to lose weight, love of fine foods, un-preparedness, poor planning, attacking at the wrong time, inadequate warm-ups, going out too hard and blowing up: these are all part of my regular repertoire of bicycle racing maneuvers.

Somehow none of that applied on Sunday. Note: I ate poorly on Saturday night: meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, fried samosas, coconut and chocolate mousse, and caramel and salt gelato; I had less than 6 hours of sleep that was interrupted more an average of once every 20 minutes (seriously); my bike was not running properly 3 hours before the race; and I didn’t feel warmed up on the starting line.

I got a front row start and was about 5th when we hit the mud. Serious mud. Deep terrible mud.





The whole race was a slog. While there was a woods section with hidden rocks and roots, for most of the race we were riding so slow through 3-5 inches of thick mud, that the penalty for crashing was nil. Since I had finished a solid 3rd the previous day, I was more confident than normal. I attacked riders and didn’t hesitate to leave the less-deep-mud (two inches and less viscous, as opposed to the 4-6 inch deep peanut butter mud in the less desirable line) to pass, often swerving wildly and burning huge matches.

I have a new power dosing strategy in cyclocross. I go out hard on hole shot and spend about 5 more minutes in the red zone. Then, instead of staying on the rivet and inducing the well-known gentleman’s slide, I dial it back to a sustainable pace. I still

But my real strength was the climbs (I never thought that I would say that). By sheer force of will and savvy line selection, I was able to ride all of the climbs, while most of my competitors were forced to run some of the climbs some of the time. As I am believer in the psychological side of cyclocross, I attacked people hard in the woods, on both the sketchy descents and on the tractionless climbs. To my way of thinking, if you are going to attack someone, do it with panache, make it convincing, make it look painful. My goal when I ride away from someone is to shut the door decisively. If you really dig in and accelerate through a difficult section, such as a muddy climb and your competitor can’t answer, you have dealt them a blow.

In lap one, I passed Cary. Despite having bested Cary the day before, it felt like a foolhardy move. Before this weekend, every time I have attacked Cary, I was made to regret it within minutes. Actually attacking Cary is usually the point in a race that signals my inevitable implosion. This time when I looked back over my shoulder a minute later…nothing but daylight.






Somehow after a lap, I was third or fourth on the road.

Chris La Flamme of Embrocation went off the front early and got a good-sized gap. When I finally realized that I was a contender, the gap seemed like an insurmountable minute. Greg Burbridge, Saturday’s winner and third in the Cat 3 Verge Series was in second.

La Flamme fell back. I could tell it was him by his bright orange gloves. I made fun of them on the start line. Then the announcer was making fun of them. Anyway. I caught Chris in the pit area heading towards the barn. I accelerated and moved away from him, but he swerved and got on my wheel. Unfortunately for me, this was leading into one of the few sections where a draft would help him.

I drilled it through the barn took the greasy cement corner at speed (lots of riders crashed here) and hung it out on the hard pack descent. At the bottom was a hot, wet right-hander studded with sharp rocks in the apex of the turn. I had been practicing railing this corner BMX style with my right foot out and both tires in a full drift. This corner led to another right that fed into to a speed-scrubbing mud bog followed by the start of the greasy forest climb.

My goal here was to take the corners at a higher-than-prudent speed (for a B rider) in order to enter the bog with enough momentum to carry me through it. I got the gap, but La Flamme stayed close at the base of the climb. La Flamme PVB’ed, but held on for a hard fought and well deserved podium spot. Interestingly, Chris’s gloves allowed me to monitor my gap. They were so bright that I could pick him out of a bunch of riders even when he was more than a minute back.

I’ve never beat Burbidge in a clean race. And after his convincing win on Saturday, I didn’t think that today was my day either. I was more concerned with getting passed than catching Greg. As I have stated before, I’d rather accept 2nd, than gamble first and end up 7th.

I kept the hammer down and looked over my shoulder on straight sections. I got mixed up with the juniors and had to make a bunch of sketchy passes. While I tried to be safe, the whole course was greasy and rutted. you could point the bike in the general direction that you wanted it to go, but you had to allow it to steer itself. Right after I passed Ryan Packard (seriously classy kid), I swerved wildly from one side of a sketchy descent to the other, chopping every possible line that Ryan could have taken to avoid me. Unflustered, Ryan braked and passed me while I bobbled and then allowed me to pass him after I was back under control.

I was surprised when I saw Burbidge up ahead. Seriously, I was about to take the lead in a VERGE RACE!





I passed on a climb, riding hard. Greg cheered me on, stand up guy that he is.

I rode alone the rest of the race, passing juniors, eventually overtaking the junior leader. I dialed my effort back to hard tempo, saving energy for a late attack if I was reeled in. I kept looking back, waiting for Cary, or Hustin, or Wissell, or La Flamme, or Burbidge to shut it down.

After the race, someone asked me what it was like riding the last lap of the race all alone, knowing that I was about to win a Verge B race. Well, it was like the first time you have sex. You are thinking “Oh. My. God. I am really going to have sex! This girl/boy is going to let me hump them! This is seriously going to happen! Wait, do I have condoms? Do I know what to do?” You get idea.

Turns out I knew what to do. I looked over my shoulder, zipped up my jersey and and pointed at the photographer while making a stupid face.




But the aftermath…that I don’t know what to do with. Some have strongly suggested that I upgrade.

Am I really elite race material? I don’t feel any different than the dude who blew his front row start at Gloucester a couple weeks ago, the dude who was never able to beat Cary, the dude who…Anyway, I have the points, but have not entered “mandatory upgrade” territory. Also, while I raced well today, I didn’t crush anyone. I am not even close to approaching the point where I am dominating the B race.

I’ll spend my rest week thinking about it, but I don’t feel like an elite rider yet.