I’ve been doing a local time trial southeast of Springfield, IL (my hometown) for the past five years now.  It’s not sanctioned, you get nothing for winning, and results are posted without placings.  Similar to our FCTT, New City is truly you against yourself.  The course has been used for decades now and measures out to an exact 10.85 miles.  Strava says 10.9, but you’re wrong Strava.  It’s an out and back course that’s about as flat as a pancake besides a very slight rise after the turn around.  The only marker to where the turn around is located is a bright pink “X” painted in the middle of the road.  You have to be pretty vigilant or you’ll fly right by it.  You don’t pin any numbers on, but rather write your assigned number on your hand with permanent marker so you can yell it out as you cross the finish line to help timers.  It is about as grass roots as a time trial gets.

As a matter of fact, New City was the first “race” I ever competed in back in 2009 when I was just getting into cycling.  I showed up riding my mom’s old 1980 Cannondale road bike, with gym shorts, hairy legs, and tennis shoes on.  I think I threw down a wicked fast time averaging 18 mph or something.  As I got into triathlon and riding more, my dad started letting me borrow his TT bike and I eventually got my own.  I’ve now ridden with the exact same equipment (maybe a change in skinsuit here and there) since 2010.  Besides some variation in weather, everything has been constant.  For the past three seasons, it’s been the best way for me to see how fit I really am compared to the past. 

I threw down my best time back in 2011 when I had just decided to focus on road racing and stop all that silly running and swimming.  Ideal conditions that day left me coming in at 23:37 at an average speed of 27.5 mph.  It was a fast day for sure.  While I didn’t do New City a lot last season (living in Chicago for the summer), I never came close to that personal best.

Now, I come into 2013 feeling great.  I actually have a training plan, a coach, and clearly defined goals for the season.  Sadly, these are three things I hadn’t really done in the past.  However, my spring target race, Joe Martin, didn’t go as planned.  My time trial was purely mediocre.  While I did well finishing with the main group on the 110 mile road race on Friday, the third stage was a disaster as I missed the time cut and was promptly cut from the GC, not allowed to race the criterium the following day.  It was a bummer, to say the least.

After Joe Martin, I was kind of in limbo.  I had come into the race with aspirations for a top 10 on GC and surprisingly watched the peloton ride away an hour into the third stage.  I wasn’t really sure if I was as fit as I thought.  So, I turned to the testing grounds I had used for years:  New City.

I went out there on Wednesday night with my dad and rode a personal best, something I hadn’t been able to say for a couple years.  It was the same crowd that I’ve gotten to know over the years, really nice weather, and that same TT feeling of “I want to curl into a ball and die”.  I came in at 23:11, averaging 28.1 mph, 26 seconds better than my PR back in 2011.  Power was a tad lower than I expected coming off of a cold, but I couldn’t be upset with the result.  Better yet, I’m now 35 seconds off the course record.

With an up and down spring, physically seeing that I’m the strongest I’ve ever been is a true confidence booster.  This is one of the reasons why I love time trialing, especially on a course you’ve consistently competed on for multiple seasons.  Your performance truly dictates if you’re stronger or not.  You might pay attention to times of guys you’re usually close to, but for the most part you’re solely focused on if you’ve gotten faster or slower.  There’s no luck involved with time trials and there’s no drafting.  It’s purely a race against your own mind and body.  As Bradley Wiggins has said, “keep turning the screw until it breaks… you never know how high you can tighten something until it breaks.”  My target race for the season is U23 TT Nationals in Madison, WI.  Time trialing is certainly coming around for me this year and last night at New City only reaffirmed this.  Here’s to a good summer of racing.

Jake

Let me say first and foremost thank you to my teammates, specifically Aaron Delabre and Byron Knoll (sorry if I misspelled that), and also to Adam Herndon and Rob Curtis for being the best announcing team ever (Rob’s wheels aren’t half-bad either).  Now without further ado, lets get race reporting!

Win #1: Juniors 15-18: It’s a Trap!!!!
It was a very small field, probably due to the snowy, Milan-Sanremo-esque conditions (yes I have now unofficially won a spring classic).  It ended up being 6 xXx juniors Vs 2 from our rival gang, the 87th street Chicago Velo Campus (little did they know they had fallen into a trap).  The race played out very quickly.  Ben attacked and got away, CVC chased hard for a bit, but unable to catch Ben “the fighting Irish” O’Malley pulled off, then I attacked and bridged.  The next lap we got Kyle with us and about a minute gap on the CVC, we all sat up (CVC too), and discussed who would win the race.  All Ben wanted was a podium sweep, and we had that, so I gave Ben and Kyle each a prime and took the win. as Rob Whittier told me after the race “thank you for the most boring finish ever”.

Win #2: Cat 4: Shrek Wins!
Ahhhh, the NikosAttack(tm) possibly the most stupid and yet somehow effective tool in my arsenal (and the only one).  It’s pretty simple: I attack from the gun….and that’s it.  Anyway, that’s what I did in the fours race.  I had a hole shot worthy of any cyclocross race as I took off with the fury of Shrek after Donkey tried to make waffles in his ogre hut.  Anyway, I had a good gap after lap one, and won the prime Adam had decided to put on the first lap before the race “so Nikos will be able to win something” Aaron Delabre and Byron then got up to the front and blocked hard.  Delabre ended up then winning the $50 field prime announced on the second lap, and my gap was already up to 30 seconds.  As I rode deeper and deeper into the pain cave, increasingly having to remember rule #5*, I was encouraged by a very ecstatic Ben O’Malley, and my personal photographer for the day, Max Ryan (who later complained I never gave him any chance to get shots of the pack), as well as a more and more excited Adam Herndon, even more motivating with a microphone, and every single course marshal.  Thanks to Delabre and Byron blocking back in the pack, there was no chase whatsoever, just me avoiding many opportunities to use my other tactic: crashing badly for no apparent reason.  With 4-5 laps to go, I had about a 40 second gap, and by two to go, I was fist pumping the air as
I went by the spectators.  As I came across the Finish line, it still hadn’t hit me that i had won.  It wasn’t until halfway through the cool down lap that it struck me: “holy s***, i just won in a solo break from the gun”.  As I finished my cool down lap, I saw Ben and Max running toward me from the pace car.  I immediately grabbed both of them in an overenthusiastic bear hug, accidentally backhanding Max’s very nice camera (yes, even in my moments of glory i’m still Shrek and a huge klutz, at least the camera was fine).  I repeatedly thanked my teammates, cooled down, and consumed approximately 45.6 billion donuts, which Ben had knowingly grabbed immediately.

Win #3: John Fraser Memorial TT: Wait, I Thought I Just Did This Yesterday!

This time however, I had a much more well equipped bike. In a huge (some might say ill-advised, given my history with the ground) show of confidence by my amazing mentor, Bill Barnes lent me his rocket ship of a tt bike.  At the tt, having never ridden an actual tt bike before, I was shaky in the huge crosswinds, but still managed to easily take the 4’s by a comfortable 18 seconds over an only 9.3 mile TT course (a time that would have put me 5th in the 3’s).  Bill’s bike went like a bat out of hell though.  I felt like a fighter pilot the whole time, and I definitely didn’t make machine gun noises when I passed riders ;(  Thanks to a tailwind over the second half, and the coolest not-my-new-tk1 bike I’ve ever ridden, I had a great day, and rounded out a great, undefeated weekend.

(why can i write this effortlessly, but cant get an essay done to save my life?)
*Rule #5: HTFU (Harden The F*** UP)

Gapers Block Criterium is a 4-day series held at Calumet Park, hosted by Half Acre Cycling.  This year marked the 5th anniversary.  The races are open to everyone, new and experienced, and are held at the beginning of the season to give newer racers a chance to get their feet wet, in these so-called “practice crits.” 

Tuesday Night:
I missed Monday’s races due the commemoration of my people’s exodus from Egypt (Passover), and started with the Tuesday night race.  Here’s how it went.  I retrieved my bike from the office where I had stashed it, and made my way down to Calumet Park (95th St) by about 5:20.  I changed into my riding gear, and jumped on my bike to check out the simple rectangular course.  Tuesday night it was a counter-clockwise loop, starting and finishing on the west side of the loop (Avenue G).  I bundled up (it was in the upper 30s) and pedalled around the course 5-6 times, taking note of the wind, and obstacles including rough road, potholes, cracks, manhole covers that might throw me during the race.  Then I stopped to register at the tent and pick up my number. 

The women’s race was called for 6:50.  I watched the men’s Cat 5 race, and then took a few more practice laps.  I lined up, they gave out a couple of raffle prizes, then the whistle blew and off we went!  My goal was to stay with the pack, which I was able to do for about 1/3 of the race.  In the straights and going into corners, I would catch the riders in front of me but then would start to drift back as the group sprinted out of each corner.  As I drifted to the back of the pack, it required more and more effort to hang on after each corner.  About 2/3 of the way through the race my legs were feeling the effort, and I was off the back, so I decided to ride as hard and fast as I could to finish without getting lapped.  I was able to do this for a while, but long story short, I did get lapped, first by the ridiculously strong Annie Byrne who had broken off the front of the pack to earn herself a HUGE GAP (amazing!), and then by the pack, but not until the last 2 corners.  It happens.  Not bad for a first crit ever.  I had planned to watch the men’s race, but unforunately the city of Chicago decided to turn off the streetlights in Calumet Park, so the Cat 4/5 men couldn’t race.

Wednesday Night:
To shake things up a bit, Half Acre reversed the direction of the course.  The warmup and preparation for the race went the same or better, I was feeling good, practiced a couple of sprints.  A couple of XXX teammates showed up for the women’s race too.  The goal for Wednesday was the same as last night’s had been, STAY WITH THE PACK.  Whistle blew, off we went.  This time I directed all of my energy to staying in the middle of the pack, rather than at the back.  I took every opportunity to coast or pedal easily behind someone in order to have enough power in my legs left to sprint out of every single corner.  And guess what? IT WORKED.  I stayed with the pack for the entire race, finishing the half hour race with an average of over 20 miles per hour.  YES!

Thursday Night:
So, I tried to figure out the difference between the Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s races.  Was I faster?  Or just smarter in my riding?  Or was everybody going slower?  I asked around and according to others who had been in both Tuesday and Wednesday’s races, Wednesday’s race was appreciably faster, so I guess I rode smarter.  My goal of night #3 was to repeat night #2, to make sure it wasn’t just luck.  April and I were the only 2 women racing for XXX on Thursday, with the exception of the remarkable Sue Wellington, who raced with the men’s 4/5s (and did GREAT), so we were aiming make the team proud.  My start was horrendous.  I was in way to hard a gear, and I fumbled clipping in (and I could swear I heard someone laugh at me), but shook it off and took the same strategy as the night before, stay with the other riders.  This time, though, I took every opportunity to move up within the pack.  If I saw a gap in front of me, I’d put myself there.  This took more confidence in my bike-handling skills than sticking to the back, but was worth it.  I was never off the back of the pack, and mostly somewhere in the middle to the back end.  Again, I took every opportunity to save energy by drafting.  The race was quick, there were some fast accelerations,and I felt strong, with energy to spare.  I kept my eyes peeled for people speeding up, listened for gear changes, and made sure to be in a good gear to sprint out of each corner.  In the last couple of turns the pack spread way out, and I was towards the back (but I knew I still had a few people behind me).  Since I didn’t have any riders right next to me, I took a good line throught the last corner, and sprinted as hard as I could for the finish.  I saw a rider in front of me, and I was determined to pass her.  And I did.  AND THEN I PASSED THE RIDER IN FRONT OF HER.  And then I was neck and neck with another rider; I have no idea who crossed the line first (since they only ranked the first 12 finishers and the rest of us got 13th place by default), and I don’t care.  The improvement I made over the 3 days of racing was mindblowing.

THANK YOU HALF ACRE CYCLING, YOU ARE AWESOME.  I CAN’T WAIT FOR LINCOLN PARK.

Cat 4’s: the empire strikes back
The fours race started out normally enough, with a few bumps and a few jokers, but quickly descended into utter chaos.  The race soon became about survival.  at the end of the race, i rolled across the line somewhere around mid-pack, happy to have finished without crashing.  i felt liked i had survived 45 minutes of Russian roulette.

He was right.  Skippy Super Chunk, to be precise.  We were doing a short recon ride Friday night and the Killer Gravel Road Race was looking like it would be a Killer Mud Fest.  The truth is, I don’t like mud.  Or, more to the point, I don’t know what to do with it.  I’ve never done a ‘cross race, never even been on a mountain bike and the one gravel race I did last fall was so dry it might as well have been pavement.  Nonetheless, here I was with my newly built ‘cross bike out for her debut race.  The course starts out in town but turns to a dirt (i.e. mud,) road about 3 miles into it.  Almost immediately you hit three progressively steeper climbs—the Three Sisters.  Here we sat atop the Third Sister.  My pulse was racing and I was aghast to find it took every gear I had just to get here. This was my first race of my first full season of racing and I wanted it all to start well.  Instead, it looked to surely be a disaster.

The morning of the race was colder than forecast—well below freezing—which meant that one could expect little thawing of ice in the early waves.  I was lucky (?) enough to be in wave 5 of 16.  Each wave was separated by 3 minutes.  Still, my age group was huge—144 men age 40-42 and most of them starting in that wave.  We launched out of town on the firm pavement for a few miles and I made sure to move up near the front of the pack. If I was going to sink into the mud I wanted to be one of the first to do so. 

Then a strange thing happened.  We turned off the pavement and on to Yeckley Road and I looked up to see thick, hard-pack dirt.  I don’t know if it was groomed over night or the cold just hardened it up but I realized it wasn’t peanut butter any more. 

This is different.  I can race on this. Game on.

Without hesitation, I opened the throttle into the descent of the first Sister and before I knew it, I was up and over the Third Sister still in mid-cassette.  Thank you SLO, and thank you adrenaline!  I was passing everybody.  While it was a huge field, it was also very spread out and I realized I wouldn’t stay with any one group for the duration.  Nonetheless, I thought I should find a buddy to at least share some work.  Without any xXx’ers around I found the strongest, most agile rider nearby and followed his wheel.  He took good lines—maneuvering through the mess of bone-shaking potholes, icy patches, fallen riders, slower riders and about 1000 dropped water bottles.  We traded a few pulls and then he fell off.  Again I was on my own but that was OK.  I felt strong—really strong—and with the constantly undulating terrain, the downhills would offer me an occasional break.  I knew I could keep this up for a while if I had to. 

About that terrain: Don’t think that just because the dirt was packed that it was easy.  It was not! Parts of it were definitely more chewed up and some sections were very icy. I saw riders going down all around me and had a couple of skids myself but managed to keep it upright. At least twice I got a “nice save” from nearby riders.  I guess 25 years of playing the drums have taught me something about balancing on my butt.  I kept moving up and getting more confident—about my fitness, about my bike handling, about my choices.  Spending a week in SLO did wonders for my climbing but also my shifting.  Some of of the rollers were manageable in the big ring but others definitely were not.  I didn’t want to fatigue myself in too big a gear.  On this day I seemed to be hitting all my shifts perfectly—keeping my cadence right where I wanted it, moving to the big ring as I crested and sometimes “shifting with my legs” to just power up over hills that others were falling back on.  On the steepest grades I was hesitant to get out of the saddle too much for fear of skidding but it didn’t seem to matter.  Most of the people I was passing now were guys from the earlier waves on mountain bikes and, with the drier roads, I flew past them on the rollers
. 
About 12 miles in I hooked up with a fairly strong rider in an orange kit.  He was riding a ‘cross bike and pushing an enormous gear.  I think it was a compact but might have even been a 52: always down in the cassette and at a very low cadence. We traded pulls on the paved sections but it was uneven.  He would ride strong and then fade.  He would fall off and then, a few miles down the road, he would show up again.  In the dirt we’d hit the rollers and I’d drop him. Then on the flat sections he would appear on my left kicking a steady 70 RPM.  Still, I was happy to have a wheel to be on for a bit.

With about 10 miles to go I started to sense I was doing pretty well.  The race was chip timed so I couldn’t really gauge it by the pack.  Still, my unscientific analysis was that I was passing many, many more people than were passing me.  Now I started to think about staying upright—I was one pothole or icy patch away from ruining what was turning out to be pretty good race. Also, was it just me or were my bars rotating down ever so slightly?  All of this bumpy terrain had me thinking I should have checked my stem bolts with a torque wrench.  I was glad when we hit the final stretch of pavement leading back into town.  I wasn’t so happy to see that Orange Kit guy had managed to crawl his way back and was now a bike length in front of me with a little over a mile to go.

Here’s one more thing about Orange Kit Guy:  he had enormous legs.  The dude just looked like a bike racer.  I had no idea what wave he started in or if this was going to end in a sprint but I wagered that with his gearing and his quads he would probably out sprint me.  I also new that he would push that big gear until he was tired and decided I would attack when I saw him start to fade about 1 mile from the finish.  Sure enough, I got a pretty good gap on him but I had jumped too soon.  There was just too much road left and he recovered to pull ahead of me going into the last turn.  The finish line was closer to the corner than I had expected but I gave it what I had.  I jumped again.  Not happening.  I saw I wasn’t getting around him.  I was pretty exhausted and hoped the chances of us competing in the same age group and wave were relatively remote.

No such luck.

Out of 144 riders in my age group I came in 11th with a time of 1:54:29.  Orange Kit was #10 at 1:54:28.  However, rather than get down about 1 second, I choose instead to paraphrase that great guitarist/philosopher Nigel Tufnel: while most top 10‘s only go up to 10, mine goes up to 11.  It’s one better than 10. 

Which is to say, on that icy, technical course and that huge field, I’m extremely happy to start my season with that result!

When Worlds were announced, I initially only bought tickets to go watch the elite races over the weekend. I kept telling myself I didn’t have the fitness to race Masters Worlds. But the idea kept gnawing at me and I finally decided I would be crazy NOT to race. So I registered and booked a hotel that was literally a 3 minute ride to the venue. So close you could do your trainer warm up in the hotel room and pedal over for staging. (Something I wish I would have done actually.)

As it’s getting closer to the date, I nearly bail on the whole thing. The demands of having an infant in the house were taking more and more of my time and my training into the winter really declined. I was really beating myself up over the fact that I wasn’t going to be at my best for Worlds. Not that I had any illusions I would be racing for a top 10 or whatever, but it was a high level race and it’s only natural to want to be at your best. But with support from Melody and a series of “getting stoked” texts with John Boggs, I kept my head straight and decided to stay in the race. I would race as hard as I could with what I have and leave it at that. My goal is to race in the final.

Tuesday night at Louisville. Rain. Tornado sirens. Rain. Little sleep. My qualifier is at 11:30, course opens at 8:00 for pre-ride. Even as I approach the absolute disaster area that is the race course, it didn’t dawn on me that things might be delayed and off I go to pre-ride. Much of the course is under water and It’s a mucky mess. I ride two laps and I’m soaked, covered in mud. We then get official word of the 2 hour delay. I get my bike power washed and head back to the hotel and wait for my race, getting in a quick nap.

Top 24 in my heat make it to the final. I’m staged in the 4th row. I look up to see Melody and Owen at the start line. This makes me happy. I’m glad I’m here. Off we go and as we move off the pavement and hit the muddy water, it was like hitting a huge puddle with your car. Spray everywhere. It was kind of funny actually. I was afraid of people going down at that point and pulled off the gas a little bit. But we all managed it safely, at least as far as I could tell. Once we were in it, the mud was relentless, a deep river mud that sucked on your wheels. It felt like riding though sand with some joker holding onto your saddle the whole time. After riding clean in my pre-ride laps, I thought I could manage my lines. But in the scruff, I go down twice on the first lap, dropping my chain on the second crash, losing precious spots as I curse my Paul chain keeper. I’m back on and ride cleanly through the rest and take back a few spots, but fall short of a qualifying spot and finish 30th.

That was the hardest 2 laps of anything I’ve done and now if I want to race in the final I have to do it again, in 2 hours. I briefly consider bailing, but quickly drop that idea and mentally prepare to race again. The top 8 from the Repechage round will make it into the final. We’re racing for the last row!

I had my bike power washed between races, so it’s looking good. I, however, am not. Off we go and it’s much the same. I know what to expect and how to get through it, which was nothing more than grinding it out and staying upright. No other race tactics come into play in these conditions. I ride clean. A group of us quickly separate and we were being told by some spectators that we were in the top 8. That was a relief and I was really hoping they weren’t just messing with us. I was with 3 other guys and we kept going back and forth. It was actually kind of fun and we were pretty confident we were all in the final as nobody was close off the back. On the second lap, I lost my shifting and was stuck in my easiest gear. I lost a little ground on the flat, extra muddy sections as one click down was the ideal gear for me, but it wasn’t enough to make a difference. I come down the hill on the final lap to someone yelling “you’re number 7” to me. And so I’m in the final. Relieved.

The cold rolls in, which I’m happy to see. Anything to harden up that course I think. I’d rather deal with frozen ruts than that muck. But the morning’s races, sunshine and warming temps into the mid 20’s quell those hopes. I pre-ride a few sections and quickly realize that conditions on Friday are actually worse than Wednesday. The course is 1/3 frozen and 2/3 muck. The slow speeds from the mud made the ruts hard to maneuver through, no momentum. I finish my warm up on a trainer in the big tent and see pit crews running around trying to gather materials to clean the bikes. Guys are running out to gas stations and hardware stores for supplies. Windshield washer fluid seemed a popular choice. (The power washers had been left out in the cold and were now frozen and useless.) At this point I’m realizing just how bad it is out there.

I line up, number 79 of 80, checking in! I’m wearing my spiffy new skin suit and feel bad for what I’m about to subject it to. Off again with a little less of a splash this time. Within a 1/2 lap, I realize that my bike is getting very heavy. Everything is sticking, immediately freezing to the bike and building up at an alarming rate. The brakes are practically useless, but somehow I can still shift. By the second lap, my bike is barely ridable and I knew that would be my last lap. I saw the pit crews frantically trying to clean bikes as I hobbled by the pits. As I approached the last steep descent before the finish, I decided to run my bike. I had ridden the hill every time before, but my bike was in such poor condition that I didn’t trust it and there was no way I was risking a downhill crash at this point. I was happy and disappointed to be pulled. I placed 67th out of 80, gaining 12 spots from my staging position. After my race I grabbed some tasty Frites with mayo and a Sierra Nevada, and chatted with a couple from Colorado who came out to watch for the week. By this point, my bike is completely frozen up. Nothing would move. I throw it up on my shoulder and walk back to my hotel, satisfied with my result.

In the end, I am very happy I decided to go through with racing at CX Worlds. I learned a lot about personal expectations, balance and preparation. It has me motivated to try some higher level, regional CX races this year. I have to say that the people there were the friendliest damn people around, both the racing crowd and the locals. I encountered some of the most supportive and friendly racers I’ve seen, nothing but smiles and encouragement. That says a lot about our sport and I’m proud to be associated with it. Louisville is a great town and I look forward to heading back to race the USGP event there. You should go!

Fast forward 3 months or so, the bike is all cleaned up, things are loaded up, and we’re ready to head south to Louisville.  Two other teammates, Andy Anderson and Chris MacFarland, are racing as well, and we’re all looking to have a great time in Louisville.  Tuesday afternoon sees rain in Chicago, delaying getting on the road and getting down south later than expected after forgetting my toiletries bag and a few other things.  That night torrential downpours set in to the area, topped off with tornado sirens a little after 4 am Wednesday morning.  Not exactly the best lead in for my qualifying heat.

Wednesday morning after a short sleep, I’m up early with both boys, and tired.  Decided to skip the 8 a.m. pre-ride session and grab breakfast.  Light rain is still falling from the sky.  Andy and I head over to pick up our race numbers.  While picking them up, we hear about some of the damage the storms have done.  The whole course was supposedly under a couple inches of water and starting races were delayed 2 hours.  Silver lining to the storm clouds though, through the random draw, I’d be the 3rd rider called up for my heat.  So we drove over to check out the course.  Organizers and volunteers were hard at work doing what they could to get the course in a ride-able shape.  There was a lot of water on the course, and it was sure to be a sloppy, muddy, good time.

After some good time in the pool “relaxing” with the boys, we headed back over around noon to check out the course.  The amount of mud and slop was really indescribable.  I’ve really never seen a course like that.  With the conditions, not wanting to spend time cleaning the bike twice in one day, and multiple racers advising to absolutely not do it, I opted out of the pre-ride.  Heat races had also been cut from 3 laps to 2 laps to make up for the delay in the morning.  Got in a good warm up, seeing several pros riding around the area, and then rolled to staging on my sweet new PSIMET tubulars.  Top 24 in the heat advance to Friday.  I haven’t had many front line starts in cross, but I could definitely get used to the view up there.  Unfortunately my awesome wife was lugging 2 boys around in the mud and missed the great photo op.  Whistle blows and we’re off.  The start is on pavement for 65 meters or so, into a pond of mud.  Water and mud everywhere (just like when your mom told you not to ride in the rain), it was good to be in the front here, and shortly into it is where the pace slowed.  It was like riding through sand the whole lap, and though only 2 laps long, one of the hardest races I’ve ridden.  I finished 14th, so I was in and very happy about it.

Wednesday night and all day Thursday a cold front moved in to the area.  There were some good snow showers passing through the area, but not accumulating.  That afternoon, we rode over to check out course conditions.  Temps were dropping throughout the day, and the course was still sloppy with temps hovering around freezing.  We picked up our numbers for the championship that afternoon, I had 42nd in the callup after times from all 3 heats were tallied.  Went to bed hoping for the course to harden up overnight.
 
Friday morning came and woke up to a light dusting of snow.  I drove over to check out the course shortly after breakfast.  The course was frozen solid for the early races, with ruts everywhere and ice where puddles of water were the day before.  Unfortunately with the forecast of mid-20s and lots of sunshine, I didn’t think it would last.  After lunch, we headed over to warm up and get ready, and as I had suspected, the course was back to a slow, grinding slopfest. Got a good warm up on the trainer under the tent out of the elements and then headed to staging.  Starting in the middle of the pack I planned to get as far up the front as I could after the whistle.  A slight chilly delay in our new, slick Pactimo skinsuits, and then we were off.  Immediately off the pavement into the slop, a guy goes does right in front of me.  Through some luck I squeaked by.  The slop seemed to be even slower than Wednesday.  Rounding a corner into the hole shot, I hear another crash beside me, and then another one behind me.  I’d made it through all of those safely and started focusing on the next rider in front of me.  About 1/3 of a lap through, I dismounted to run.  Some sections were faster on foot that trying to pedal through the wheel sucking mud.  I thought wow, this bike seems really heavy.  The mud was piling up at an alarming rate, and freezing hard as concrete to the bike.  My brakes were frozen stiff with the mud and I had to dismount to go down the couple hills.  Things only continued to get worse as the second lap came to an end and I was pulled.  I think only the top 10 riders actually finished the whole race.  The guys who were still out there had pit crews working feverishly, and were changing bikes twice a lap.  Without that kind of support, there was no hope to finish.  Final results had me listed at 55th, which although a little bummed due to the conditions, I was very happy with that finish.  I was more focused training and preparing for these races than I ever have been and very satisfied with the level of fitness I’d brought to the race.  Sometimes the intangibles have a different plan for your day.  Hey, that’s racing.

On Saturday, the rest of the course was frozen hard and fast.  I received a good call up in the front row and chose my spot.  After a lot of hard work in a grueling CCC series, and a couple of good results, it was nice to have my work pay off with a good Crossresults ranking.  After pre-riding the course a few times yesterday, I knew I wanted to be towards the right because I felt the right side offered the smoothest and fastest line.  I waited for the whistle in silence with some really fast racers, including the Flatlandia guys, Gatto, and Euro-crosser David Lombardo.  We were off and with a good start, I was able to maintain position and get clear of all the elbows and handlebars.  By the time we exited the beginning of the course, we were single file with me sitting around 6th wheel.  We approached the hill full throttle, bounced our way down, and sailed across the course in the jet-stream tailwind.  The course and our speed began the stretch out the field.

The first move came within the first lap and saw Lombardo and Miller gain some separation on five or six of us.  I passed a rider and attempted to cover the move going into the headwind dragging three along, but I was unsuccessful as the two leaders now smelled blood in the water.  They increased their speed and worked the course so that their gap increased.  We now became a chase group of four during laps two and three.  This is my favorite type of course because I’m able to keep the pressure high for a long time, and I did so for two whole laps remaining mostly in the front trying to catch the leaders and trying to drop one or two of our group.  Mr. Haupt once flicked his elbow in the headwind and I had no problem pulling through as hard as possible.  I began to realize, however, that I would need to change plans as we began lap four with around three to go, because my pressure was having no effect on my competition.

I managed to pull off the front and get on a wheel to breathe a little and assess the situation.  The two leaders were now gone, and the four of us were now fighting for the third podium position.  We all took shots to the gut and face as the three of them punched and kicked with all their strength.  We covered attacks and counters, and used all our might to concentrate on the few little technical sections like the triple zig-zag double-barrier.  We all rode it once, ran it later, and one time some of us ran it while others rode it.  One of us rode the high line through sand, the same line Powers would later ride in the Pro race.  On one of these laps, Mr. Haupt flicked his elbow with me on his wheel, this time though, I did not pull through.  I could hear Busteed over the speakers illustrating our tactics to those watching.  While coming up on one lap to go, I began to feel fresh again.  I was second wheel into the headwind through the start/finish with the last lap bell clanging.  We rode up the little paved rise, turned and prepared for the “S” curve.

I have a lot of experience on this course, and there was one race last year where I found myself in a group of four with one to go.  During that race, I waited for one late moment to launch an attack in hopes of winning.  It didn’t work.  Thanks to Warren Cycling, I know my strengths and weaknesses with sharp clarity, and I knew I couldn’t wait for the end today.  I would not make that mistake again.

As we approached the “S” turn, the rider in front eased up and looked back at me.  I attacked into the turn.  It wasn’t pre-planned; it just felt good.  The others would now have to decide whether or not to use risky speed in the turn in order to defend the move.  I knew that this would be a good first place to begin a series of attacks with constant high pressure.  You couldn’t go full gas through the turn, but you could after you exited, and that created a good gap for me.  They closed it slightly while going into the next technical turn, but it hurt them.  It hurt all of us.  I attacked with everything I had up the hill and buried my chain into the small cog on the way down.  Another gap now grew, and it stretched slightly.  We hammered and camp up on the far side of the wheel-pit, where I was absolutely shocked to see Lombardo running with his bike on his shoulder.  He was waving one arm trying to flag his pit person.  Really sorry about that David, but holy smokes! We all realized that there were now two UCI podium spots up for grabs with a half lap to go.

As we maneuvered through the zig-zig, through blurry vision, I was able to see that there were still racers behind me.  This was okay though, because my plan was to hurt myself enough throughout the lap, so that by the end, my three competitors would not be able to beat me sprinting.  After I remounted I delivered my final attack, which I held until I could see the pavement of the start/finish.  I heard Kirby yell something about sprinting for second! I got out of the saddle and with my hands in the drops, I sprinted as hard as I could, which was probably tantamount to the attacks I had previously delivered during this last lap.

A little bad luck for one guy is often someone else’s good luck.  Last Saturday, I had the good luck.  My tactical racing prevented a four person sprint at the race’s end, which I would have probably lost.  So tactics with a little luck had me throwing my bike at the line for second place.  I never looked back, but know now that Mr. Haupt was strong enough to chase me down after the zig-zag, and smart enough to use my slipstream to beat me at the line.  I was very happy to share the podium with him, and congratulations to Mr. Miller on his well-deserved win.

                                                  *

Coach Randy often reminds athletes to always try to imitate in practice what you will experience in competition.  So on Sunday, I lined up for the earliest race, the 8:00 40+ masters race because that is when I’ll start my race at nationals next weekend in Verona.  In the morning, we found the start/finish area and entire beginning straight-away covered in smooth, slick ice.  I would never dream to practice on anything like this, and would instead avoid it at all costs! But, we lined up anyway and calmed ourselves by deciding to not go hard over the ice.  A few racers even announced a neutral start until safely over the ice.  It was funny to begin a cross race in the saddle.  We all stayed in the saddle because you would slip and fall if you shifted any weight and disturbed your delicate balance.  We went hard though, and still took some risks.  I managed to maintain a good position at second wheel.  After the leader’s back wheel slipped dramatically in front of me, we all lined up and rode the safest line off the ice.  Whew!

I stayed second wheel until we left the first off-camber section.  With the hill straight ahead, and with good ground under our wheels, we were now free to fly.  I passed the leader and pedaled up and down the hill and through the straight-away as hard as possible.  I had caused some damage.  Looking behind me, I saw only two riders on my wheel.  I eased up a bit, still keeping it fast, but not fast as possible, or not “Met het hol open,” if you’re familiar with the Dutch version.

As the three of us carefully rode a couple laps, I thought about how to win the race, or actually, how not to lose the race.  The ice was my main concern.  One fall on it could result in a missed podium or worse.  I weighed the risks with USAC cyclocross nationals next weekend, and it was easy to decide that I would not take ANY risks.  Nationals was my main concern.  But how to win?

If we remained together by riding at this pace, then eventually, someone might attack, taking a risk, and maybe causing a slide-out.  Or perhaps the slide out would happen while covering the attack.  I didn’t want to be a part of quick and sudden attacks, nor did I want to attempt to out-sprint a racer on ice, so I decided I wanted to be away off the front, even if it meant riding alone for three laps.  Also, I did not know these guys, but I knew they had fast legs, good skills and crafty tactics.  On the next section of safe ground, I applied high pressure and kept at it for a lap until I had created a gap.  It is hard to ride solo because you might be tempted to ease up on the throttle.  I did my best to gauge the time gap, and I heard someone yell out that I had ten seconds.  I wasn’t too comfortable with that, so I tried to race even faster, except over any section that was covered in ice, and there were plenty!

With one to go, I knew I would win the race, barring any mishaps on the ice.  I managed a careful post-up, but even that made me nervous because I was thinking about not being able to race in Verona because I took my hands off the bars on ice!

Thank you to Chicago Cyclocross Cup, the Indian Lakes Hilton, USAC, ICA, the announcers, all the volunteers, all the clubs, all the hecklers and shouters and to everyone who came out and helped make the 2013 New Year’s Resolution so fun and memorable.  See ya in Wisco!

Hear about a race.  Register for a race.  Go to a race. 

Finish in the middle or quit because I’m angry I got dropped.

I’m sure somewhere along the line, the sheer amount of times I’ve done it have made me a little better, but one thing I know has helped has been changing my pre-race prep to something like this:

Hear about a race.  Search internet for previous year’s race reports.  Look at the course.  Decide if course is suited for me.  Register regardless.  Plan out attire.  Pre-ride or pre-scout the course.  Race. 

Finish race in the middle, or the front because I felt particularly great that day.  Occasionally get dropped or quit because something broke.

It was with this new and slightly improved strategy that I heard about the Lowell 50 gravel grinder from a teammate, started scouring the internet for blog posts, and read a few.  One theme seemed to be somewhat recurring.  Since this is a mixed mountain bike/road bike/cross bike type of race, mountain bikers have a different take on racing than us roadies do.  I read more than one race report complaining of “skinsuit wearing roadies” showing up to this race, and complaints of wheel sucking and drafting.  So basically, road racing. 

So, I did the only prudent thing I could think of, and showed up with a perfectly clean cross bike that matched my long sleeve skinsuit perfectly.  Our team’s reputation had apparently preceded me, as we overheard someone say “Oh look, xxx is here too.” with some modicum of either respect, annoyance, or worry in their voice, on our way to registration.

I lined up near the middle behind all sorts of racers.  Mountain bikers, road bikers (with 23c tires and 53/11 cranksets), tandems here and there, you name it.  As one big mass start event, I knew I’d have little trouble moving up to the front before I needed to.  At the airhorn’s signaled start, I decided to just get up to the front immediately, which took very little effort at all.  The pavement rollout seemed to be neutral by consensus, if not officially.  By the time we hit turn one I was around 6th wheel or so.  Turn one was a short climb, and right about there, the group started to fracture into the different races within the race.  About a mile later the first real gravel climb of the day came, and knowing that I climb like uh, facebook’s post-IPO stock price, I got in the front to limit the damage.  Turns out I wasn’t really in deep trouble like I would be in a typical road race.  The few folks on road bikes got some separation, and the guys on mountain bikes started fighting their suspensions as they stood up.  We crested the climb and the terrain turned back into pavement.  This was dangerous as the smooth tire crowd ahead had about three seconds at this point.  At this point I was realizing that I’d brought a knife to a gun fight, and what I thought was going to be gravel was really just very, very hard packed dirt.  Absolutely nothing you couldn’t manage on a road bike.  Note to self for next year.

I decided that letting the road bike group get away was a bad idea and decided to bridge up to them.  This was probably the biggest effort I put in in the entire race, and it was no more than 15 minutes in at this point.  I started to doubt my ability to hang with this group for the rest of it.  Regardless, I made it up, and took a solid group of 10 or 15 guys on various bikes with me in the effort.  One of the smooth-tires attacked again within seconds, and I fell back to 5th wheel or so to hope someone else would chase.  They did, and we let him dangle out there for probably 5 miles or so.  At this point I look back and realize there’s only about 25 or so folks left in the group, so I know I’m in the group that’s going to finish in front.  This group is too big to fail.  I’m in a good place.

Attacks happen from this point here and there, but nothing is really allowed to get away again after the first smooth-tire guy stayed off for so long.  I’m really happy that the group I’m in all seem to be very good riders, even the few mountain bikes that have made it with the mostly cross-bike crowd we’re in ride like they know what they’re doing.  I start to make talk where I can, asking ages, starting to try to decide who’s a threat and who’s not.  The overall finish is a possibility, but I know I can’t outsprint the smooth tire guys without a lot of luck (the finish is long and on pavement), so I’m aiming for age group victory at this point.  As we got closer to the finish, things heated up a lot.  Several times I was in my max gear of 46/11, spinning out on tailwinds and slightly downhill spots.  Kudos to anyone on a mountain bike who managed to stay at this point.

We made the final transition to pavement and the all-in race finishing moves started.  None but one looked very dangerous to me, but the one that did I got blocked from following.  So much for the overall with 500 meters to go.  I looked around and realized I could probably salvage a top 5 or so, and got on a good wheel into the finish.  A guy I would later find out was my only 30+ competitor left at the finish.  He seemed to blow up right before the line and I came around him with inches to spare and did a textbook bike throw to pip him at the line. 

After the race, chip timing would show him having beaten me, and gotten second.  I thought this was a pretty good result, and felt good about the day.  The announcer mentioned something about reviewing the video, but I wasn’t sure it applied to me or not.  Turns out it did, and as the race is scored on wheels, not chips, I barely edged out my competitor there for first.  It was a good hour or so before podium ceremonies, and 3rd place had gone home, but I knew I had one thing to do before I left: 

Get a picture of a skinsuit wearing roadie on the top step of the podium.

2011 was a small improvement; I qualified for both the scratch and points race finals, where I took 11th in both. I also did the individual pursuit, and got 11th. Consistency, I guess. But saying definitively that I was the 11th-best endurance track racer in the country left a sour taste in my mouth, because I thought surely I was in the top 10.

They say the third time’s a charm, so I ate a bunch of Mallow Oats (generic knockoff of Lucky Charms) in the weeks leading up to this year’s race, just to be safe.

I came in with what could easily be considered lofty goals: Win a national championship by beating everyone in the points race, and get 2nd to Bobby Lea in the pursuit. A silver in that event, I said to several people, would be my equivalent of the gold medal, since Bobby is currently putting down times right around 4:30. No one but Taylor Phinney has gone faster in the last six years.

So there I was, Thursday morning, warming up for my first event, the pursuit qualifier. The top 4 move on to the finals, where 3rd place races 4th for the bronze medal and 1st goes against 2nd for the gold/silver. I wanted to qualify for the finals in the individual pursuit, but secretly wouldn’t have been happy with 4th or 3rd. I wanted to know what it felt like to lose to an Olympian. I’d somehow convinced myself over the preceding couple months that this was a legitimate goal.

The pursuit is a straightforward event. Sixteen laps of the 250-meter track from a standing start, with one guy starting from each straightaway. Hence the name: you’re chasing that other guy. Nothing to it but getting out of the gate, riding really fast and pacing oneself. The pacing ultimately comes down to sticking to a set schedule, and the schedule can be estimated by previous times over 4km, as well as known five-minute power. The previous month I had put down my personal best at Omnium Nationals in Rock Hill, SC, with a 4:46. I can easily shave a few seconds off that, I told myself.

That time in Rock Hill was good enough to make them seed me 4th in the qualifiers, which means nothing, really, except that I raced in the penultimate heat, and was able to see the times of everyone who went before me. The idea is that the people in charge roughly estimate who has the best chance of putting down the fastest times, based on previous national-level events, so that the times get progressively faster until the last guy, who’s the previous year’s national champ. The two guys to go after me were Bobby Lea, who would undoubtedly go faster than I, and Dan Holt, whom I beat by an insurmountable margin of 13 seconds at Rock Hill.

All I had to do was beat everyone who went before me, as well as Zack Noonan, the guy starting on the opposite straightaway in my heat. Noonan was one of the ten dudes who beat me last year.

When it’s your turn to go, they place your bike into the starting gate, and once you climb onto it, the countdown begins. Fifty seconds to get inside your own head just a little bit more than you already have for the past few weeks or months or years. Not that many people showed up to spectate at 8am on a Thursday, but the whole place gets fairly quiet, and you’re able to hear your own thoughts. Jobs are forgotten, girls no longer matter, and you can almost taste the pain you’re about to inflict upon yourself. A metallic taste, like swallowing a pill.

The pursuit is straightforward, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to master. Every velodrome is different, so a 4:46 at one place may correspond to a 4:43 at another, because of wind conditions, humidity, whether the surface is wood vs. concrete, etc. The only constant from one effort to the next is how much power you’re applying to the pedals.

Chris Hoy talked about how at the 2008 Olympics, he sat and watched all the guys go before him in the Kilo, and he saw guys set lightning-fast time after lightning-fast time. It didn’t phase him. Not even when, if I recall correctly, Theo Bos put down a new Kilo world record. Hoy just kept going through his warm-up routine, thinking, Well OK, now I just have to go faster than that. Textbook confidence.

Fast, German, recently naturalized U.S citizen and all-around nice guy Stefan Rothe was in the heat previous to mine, so as I sat in the chair trackside waiting my turn to ride, I watched him put down a blistering 4:43. The new fastest time. Dave saw me watching the scoreboard and tried to divert my attention, tried to keep me focused on my ride, because he knew what time I was aiming for. But he didn’t realize I needed to look at the scoreboard, needed to see Stefan’s fast time, because this piece of information changed everything: I still knew I’d set the second-fastest time and get to race Bobby Lea in the finals, but in setting my own schedule at 4:43, I’d sold myself short. With my form, I now knew I could possibly go sub-4:40. Only question is: would Noonan do the same?

Once the race started, I knew I was flying. I was going one- to three-tenths of a second faster than my schedule every lap, and at one point even held back a bit for fear of blowing up and losing time at the end. Quick mental calculations done while on the absolute verge of complete body shutdown doesn’t always yield calculator-accurate results, but I knew I was going as fast as I needed to in order to set the new fastest time. Every lap was so much faster than I’d anticipated. Dave was yelling splits for me, and I could sense his giddiness at how fast I was going. That was a really cool feeling, in a race that’s normally as eerily solo as can be, to hear my teammate, the guy who’s been perhaps the most instrumental in my budding cycling career, feeling the speed and feeding on the power. I quickly got Noonan in my sights. He was never in fear of being caught, but I knew I didn’t have to worry about him beating me. The laps counted down, and I ended up saving way too much for the final couple laps. Whoops. I stopped the clock, now four kilometers after takeoff, and and saw the scoreboard read 4:40 and change. I had beaten Stefan and set the new fastest time.

Bobby would beat my time in the next heat, I knew, but I had gotten second place. I’d race an Olympian later that night in the gold medal final, lose to him, and win myself a silver medal.

But because just losing to an Olympian isn’t quite cool enough on its own, I decided, with the help of Randy, to try to put a good scare into Lea. In the gold medal final, I went out on his schedule, set on both making him nervous when he realized after 1.5km that he was level with me, and also making sure to force him to race all 4km to earn his gold medal. I promised myself I would not get lapped.

Tom was calling splits, and also giving me a hand signal each lap to tell me whether I was up, down, or level with the olympian. For the first three laps, we were level. After the fourth lap, I was ahead. Ha! For a split-second, I told myself it was possible to beat him, to win gold. Then the split-second ended, and my legs laughed maniacally at my silly wishful thinking. We were level for a couple laps after that, but then my lap times plummeted, and the second half of the race hurt. In the final kilometer, with the race already well-decided (and not in my favor), I could sense Bobby was on the same straightaway, mere feet behind me. I was determined not to get lapped. I think I felt his breath on me during the final lap, when I just barely squeaked away from him as he crossed his finish line. A half-lap later and I crossed my finish, somehow putting down a 4:39 despite the fact that I felt like I’d never ridden a bike slower for the final 2km. New PR, and mission accomplished.

A silver medal in the first event of the weekend, only losing to a now-13-time elite national champion.

In other words: complete success.