CANCELLED!!!

The day before professionals would race in what has become to be known as the hardest one day race in the world (the Paris-Roubaix). Here in New Orleans we cancelled a race. Not because of weather conditions (while raining and windy in the morning, the day actually turned out to be pretty nice), but because the weather the night before had covered our Lakeshore Drive with mud and debris from the lake.

I called my coach to get a work out to replace the race; and soon realized I would have rather done the race. The TT would have been 8.5 miles. Instead I now needed to do 2 x 5 mile intervals. My numbers from the power meter were OK but not anything to brag about. I’m pretty happy considering that it’s still kind of early for me and I am still not feeling right from the crash last week. I do think that I would have done better in a real TT because of the pressure, the environment, warm-up, and focus that are naturally a part of a race.

Sunday I did The Giro group ride. It was pretty hard. I wanted to sit in and see how my sprint was going but the group started to break apart at the front and I tried to go up front to help bring it back together. I didn’t attack just rode to the front and started to gradually increase the pace. I was only going ~45k when I looked back and only one guy was on my wheel. A couple others bridged up and I pulled the group most of the way up to a few guys in front of us. From then on out we were doomed. We couldn’t catch the 4 guys in front of us and we were managing to stay ahead of the main group. It stayed like this the entire way out! Kenny B. is riding pretty well and put in a pull that shelled the 4 other guys that were with us. We eased up a little to allow them a chance to get back on but I was more intent on catching the group in front. In the sprint at the turn around Kenny once again put on the hammer. I held on the longest but let him go about 400m from the finish to ride in at my sustainable speed. A few seconds later he looked back and eased up letting me get back on for a nice lead out.

On the way back, we stayed together on Chef Hwy. I attacked with about 1k to go before the sprint line and only 2 came with me. They easily passed me in the last 200 meters but I was surprised that nobody else was there. We had a sizable gap on the group at the finish. After that a group rolled off the front and we once again were chasing. (BTW: I decided that I don’t like chasing) After we came back together we were rolling with a stiff wind when I heard scraping metal on the ground. CRASH!!! If it were a race I’m sure the pace would have picked up but being the friendly bunch of guys we are everyone stopped to help in the scraping of the carnage off of the pavement. It was nothing serious just some guys that touched wheels. Thankfully I wasn’t in it. From there on out nobody was motivated. I rode at the front of our group which turned out to be the first group pretty much all the way back to the lakefront. I was surprised that no one tried to sprint past me on the bridge. I didn’t pick it up too much but just stayed seated and set a nice tempo. After the ride I went up on the levee to fight the winds by myself to end up with a total of 4 hours riding on the day. I felt good and could have probably done more but I was also a little motivated to get home.

Next week is the MS Grand Prix. I am hoping that I will be going well for the race. Ideally all road rash, bruising, and stiffness will be gone.

The Price of Priceless

Gas to go to Cuba Race $20
Hotel Room $45
Race Entry Fee $35
Food $25

Crashing less than 25 miles into the 83 mile road race
Cracked Atmos Helmet $150.00
Shattered Orion Tubular Front Wheel ~$200

Priceless Part:
Thinking your shoulder is not broken :)
Chasing to try and get back into the race :(
Pulling out of the race after a 20 mile chase :(
Being so sore that you wish you had road rash instead :(
Getting a picture of you and your wheel :)
Knowing you crashed at approx. 27 mph and can walk away (while limping) :)
Trying to figure out how to replace the equipment you've destroyed :(



Total cost = in excess of $475



Best Part - Not Getting the Chance to finish the race and see where your fitness is. :o(

The Cross Over

Starting out in the sport was a progression of several steps: first Boy Scouts and Backpacking, then Adventure racing (which I viewed as backpacking a backpacking race with other stuff thrown in for good measure), and then Mountain Biking. I stop here because this is the critical point. In my mind I started off thinking it was good for Adventure Racing to improve my skill’s etc. Then I started to develop and decided that I liked the effort and that this was something that I wanted to do. I became a Mountain Biker. Now repeat the last three/four sentences and replace “Mountain Biker” with “Road Racer” and “Adventure Racing” with “Mountain Biking.” Now I am truly a road racer. But once, maybe twice, a year I like to think that I am a Mountain Biker so I go to the local MTB races and show them what we brought back in the day. Usually I do pretty well at these and most of the time podium. This time I didn’t.

Last weekend I did the “Battle of Baton Rouge” MTB race. Well, I might have done better then the last place I finished if I had actually showed up more than 10 minutes before the start. Nonetheless I managed to get ready and get to the line with a few minutes to spare in which I spent riding up and down in front of the start line. Into the woods we went; last position. Cool, I need to warm up and will turn on the gas on lap two, right? Turning on “The Gas” evidently meant going 10 seconds faster on the 2nd lap than the first; I only found this out by looking at the results afterwards. Yeah so things were hard and I was riding as fast as I could. Fitness was great and skills really sucked; especially in the mud and wet conditions. So, on the 4th of 5 laps I manage to crash. Not a big deal – it’s an MTB race. Except this is how I know I am now officially a roadie. I find the only piece of concrete in the entire woods to fall on! Pretty lucky I know. SO, I’m all mad that I crashed and end up crashing again. This time not on concrete (I couldn’t be that lucky) but still going down in the mud. So instead of my lap times getting faster as the race course dries out they got 3 and 2 minutes slower respectively compared to the first 3 laps. In my defense, the last lap I was already out of it mentally and settled on riding it in instead of quitting (I really wanted to quit though). So in my final lap a guy caught up to me and I rode behind him until the very last stretch (where I decided to go fast again) and basically talked to him the entire time. He didn’t talk back (after all he was racing) but it kept me entertained.

So this might have been my last MTB race, I am pretty determined to sell my MTB. I will get another one eventually, but intend to ride for fun from now on.

Coming up this weekend is the CUBA Road Race. Its one of the three “real” road races we have around here. (The three being Rouge Roubaix, CUBA, and MS Grand Prix.) I am hoping to have a good result but twisted my knee last night running and it’s a little tender. We’ll hope for the best.