Weekend Recap

As this is a cycling blog I feel that I owe you all a little more insight into the Tucson Bicycle Classics (TBC), i.e. the stage race I did this past weekend. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to race, as my road bike was still “missing” on Thursday night and the TBC kicked off on Friday with a three mile time trail. So I was rather stressed out on this Friday morning, trying to figure out where my bike had landed, as it was supposed to be here Thursday… turns out it was here Tuesday but FedEx didn’t leave me a note (I would think they didn’t even try to deliver it to my apartment, as I was home all day Tuesday…) and dropped it off at the office. So I grabbed the bike, pulled it out of the box, threw it in the van and off I was for Tucson.

The first stage was a three mile time trail with a “brutal 5% climb followed by rollers and a 6% grunt to the finish” (yep, that's what it says on the home page). Reading this, I played it a little conservative at the start to have something left for the “grunt” at the end. I still caught two guys who had started ahead of me but it turned out that I didn’t go hard enough anyways. I kept waiting for the climb to kick in but it was more a false flat with 2 (very short) ramps… so I ended up 10^th, 40 second down. I might have done better if I had known the course but having my tt bike here would have helped a bunch. The steep sections were short enough to power over and it was really windy. But reading the description, it didn’t really sound like a tt-bike-course and I didn’t have my tt bike here in Phoenix anyways. So no point dwelling on that issue.

The second stage was an 80 mile road race with, supposedly, “approx 700’ of climbing, including a solid, sustained climb just after the S/F line”… I must have a wrong understanding of “sustainable” or at least I must have missed that part of the course. To make matters worse, it was darn windy again. My main issue was that I didn’t know whom to watch, as it is early in the season and I haven’t raced a lot of those guys here in Arizona; so I decided to watch for the well placed riders on GC… and missed the three-man-break that stuck and stayed away. Well, my mistake but I still tried to get away from the pack with 10 miles to go. I got a gap all right, but not enough, so they reeled me back with 5 k or so to go. Fortunately, I was able to recover and still finished second out of the group, i.e. 5^th for the day. GC position didn’t change, as the three guys from the break were now in front of me but three that had been placed higher in the tt got dropped. At least I got some upgrade points out of it!

Stage three on Sunday was a circuit race on a 5.8 mile course. I had driven over the course on my way back home on Friday and was really looking forward to it as it promised to have some climbing… at least going the direction I drove it. Unfortunately, we raced it the other way round; a nice long, straight descend and no sustained climbing (again!). Why does that always happen to me? The course could have been so much more fun if it had been run the other way round… But oh well, nothing I can do about it. Anyways, it turned out that the racing time of just under two hours was way too short to break up the pack. Nevertheless, two guys managed to get away at the start of the race. There was a time bonus halfway through the race and I had determined to go for the 10 seconds, as everything was pretty close together and those seconds would have put me in 5^th or so. So I attacked hard and nearly caught the couple but not quite. Darn. Sounds familiar? What I’ve been doing all year long so far: close, but not close enough. The end of the race played out similar to Saturday: we had two guys off the front (yeah I know, I should have known, but to my defense, I was blocked in when they went and I hesitated just a little too long) and so I tried my luck with an attack in the last lap. For whatever reason, every time I attacked, I either had EVERYONE react, or no one! Well, so I found myself chasing alone, a couple of seconds in front of the pack and 30 sec behind the lead duo. I nearly secured the third place this time, but got swallowed with 50 meters to go… no comment. Needless to say, I was rather in a bad mood after the race but, after sleeping over it, it might have had something good to it after all: I stayed in 10^th place overall but the guy that won on Sunday moved up and ended up two seconds behind me. Probably, if the pack hadn’t picked it up to chase me down and I would have sat in, those two seconds would have been lost too. So there is always a bright side to everything.

I hope your eyes aren’t sore after this SUPER SHORT post (I promise to post after each stage next time if I can). This coming weekend should be rather fun, as the NMBS is in town and I get to play in the dirt again. The guys at BH gave me one of the mountain bikes to race on. It’s a Pivot Mach 4 and should be great fun (it looks awesome, that’s for sure). For those of you who don’t know: The guys at Pivot actually import BH, so they only do BH road bikes and their own mountain bikes, Pivot. Check it out at http://www.pivotcycles.com/

Quick Update

Sorry, I’ve been kind of slow with my postings lately but I was pretty busy and stressed out. For one, I had some friends from Germany over for a while. This was really fun, as those friends are my biking buddies (and gals) from back home and they brought their bikes over with them. So I got quite a bit of “good old mountain biking” during the two weeks they were here. Unfortunately, this also meant that I was on the road quite a bit because they wanted to also see something of the country (i.e. Grand Canyon, Sedona…). So there went my posting-time.

On top of it all, my road bike took forever to get to Phoenix and only arrived just in time for the past weekend. This was very helpful as I had registered for the Tucson Bicycle Classics, a three day stage race in Tucson. So I pulled the bike out of the box, threw on some wheels and put in the seat post and off I was to the race. All in all it was ok, I finished 5^th in the road race and 10^th overall… not what I had hoped for but, considering that I went with the wrong moves and missed the important ones (as always…), I have to be happy that I didn’t end up further down.

Today’s race ended on a slightly bitter note because I came close to a good finish but only close: I was chasing a lead duo alone but got swallowed by the pack with 50 meters to go… well, better luck next time. At least I got a great workout.

More Travel

It appears that even when I’m not racing, I am on the road all the time. I just got back from a short trip to the Grand Canyon. I met with a couple of friends from Germany who happen to be there on vacation right now. I spend the weekend up there, getting some nice riding in at 6000 ft. Weather was nice too but the nights where rather cold.

As you can’t go to the Grand Canyon and not hike a “little” to admire the scenery, my friends decided that it was time to ignore the warning signs that state that it is “absolutely not recommended” to hike down to the Colorado river and back in one day. So we set out and pretty much walked for the better part of 6 hours; turns out that this is just as strenuous as (or even worse than) base mile riding and provides a good workout: my legs, back and shoulders are pretty sore today… Nevertheless, we made it down to the river and, after a short swim, back up. The views were absolutely incredible and the whole canyon looks totally different from down there. It was definitely worth the effort!

As a nice side effect, I am absolutely fed up with hiking now and am really looking forward to get back on my bike. I hope that my road bike finally shows up tomorrow so that I can get back to work. In the meantime, I’ll just sit back, recover and let the experience and impressions from yesterday sink in some more.

Back in Phoenix

Holliday is over. We got back from San Diego last Saturday and what can I say? It was great. It felt good to get off the bike for a little bit and relax. But it wasn’t all fun and games. As promised, we tried surfing… well, kind of. I actually managed to stand on the board a couple of times but, man, it was quite a workout. The pros make it look so easy but it is hard work… which translates into a lot of sore muscles. Never the less, it was a lot of fun.

Today I was back on the bike and put in some solid hours. Next race for me is the Tucson Bicycle Classics and I’m really looking forward to it.

Where did my Luck go?

As I am typing this I’m sitting on the plane back home to Phoenix. It feels good to know that I have an easy week in front of me and that I am going to get to spend some time with my girlfriend. As a matter of fact, I will be sitting in the plane later today again, heading out to San Diego: Oh yeah, it’s beach time!

Anyways, I finished my first racing block yesterday with the Rouge Roubaix race in Louisiana and what can I say: even though the outcome wasn’t as I had hoped for, I still had a blast. For those of you who never heard of this race: It is a 100 miles over rather bad roads with 3 gravel road sections (adding up to about 30 miles of dirt overall) and some decent climbing. This in itself would have made for a fun race but we finally were able to work as a team this weekend too. The Metro Volkswagen Cycling Team pretty much controlled the whole race, from the start to about mile 80. It was a beautiful thing to watch: 3 to 4 guys setting the tempo at the front, keeping a nice tempo, sheltering the others. Everyone did their job exceptionally well. Gordon, Anuthee and Parker set the pace leading up to the first dirt section; Will, Peter, Mike and Joe pulled us to the second one before Peter joined in to lead me and Nathan right to the bottom of the steepest climb of the day, right at the start of the last dirt section. From there on it was up to me to establish a break and go for it. This all worked out perfectly well for a couple of miles: I pulled away on the climb and had a solid gap to the next guy, who himself had a good lead over the first bigger chase group. I was feeling really good and was going strong. By the time I was about halfway through the last dirt section, I started to ease up and pick my line a bit more carefully. This, apparently, was not the best idea: just as I was starting to play it safe, I must have hit something, even though I didn’t feel anything. All I know is that my rear tire blew and was flat within a second with a dime-sized gash in the sidewall… Mike was the first of our guys to reach me and immediately sacrificed his rear wheel, but by this time about three groups and 5 minutes or so had gone by. With Nathan and Peter’s help, I managed to get back into the second chase group but that was about it. The guy that had been chasing me alone before I got my flat managed to stay away, even though the group chased hard. I am pretty sure that I could have finished right there with him, had I been able to avoid the flat. But that’s racing, I guess.

So we had a somewhat disappointing finish to a great day. On a positive note, the girls had a very good race too with Shannon finishing third. Also, as mentioned earlier, the team worked really well. So I guess with a little more luck next time we might finally start winning some races soon ;-)

For now, I’ll have a little break from racing. This week will be an off week for me. That’ll be nice, only some easy training and some time off the bike. And if the weather holds up, I might even be able to try my luck at surfing in San Diego! That should be fun…

Never Trust the Weather Forecast

Ok, so the forecast was wrong... again. I wouldn’t mind so much if it erred on the good side (say, 80 degrees today instead of the predicted 35) but that’s not what happened today. Anyways, after fighting through rain, hail, sleet, snow, rain again, snow again… earlier today for two hours, I finally had to call it quits as the roads just got a little too slippery. I managed to make it back to the shop (Mad Duck) and, by that time, I was just happy to be out of that sludge. I hopped on the trainer for a little (just to warm back up and, honestly, I planned on getting back out there and at least ride home as soon as the roads cleared a bit). Well, everyone who knows me knows that I’d rather ride outside in the nastiest weather than spin on the trainer but, needless to say, the roads never cleared and I ended up finishing my ride on the trainer (woo-hoo: 3 hours of fun!!!). After that, Debby picked me up (in a WARM car) and we made it home safely.

All in all, I managed to get the hours in I had planned for but it wasn’t as much fun today. At least one thing went the way I had planned: I got my hot chocolate as soon as I got back!

Tomorrow will be a travel day, as the team will be leaving for Rouge. It will be a rather long drive but I bet it will be a lot of fun as a lot of guys are going down, so the trip should be entertaining. Also, the weather is supposed to be nice down there this weekend. At least, that’s what the forecast says…

Back to Work

Yeah, I must say I wish I had more time riding my mountain bike. I really had a blast this weekend in BarH. But now it is back to “work”, i.e. putting in hours on the road bike; or rather on my TT bike. After playing around with seat position and height as well as bar setup all afternoon, I think I finally found an agreeable position. I’ll have Clarence at Mad Duck double check it tomorrow before I take it out for my 5 hour training ride… no, wait: a short spin… well, we’ll see how it goes. Looking at the forecast (rain, low 30s, 20+ mph winds), I’ll probably be home sipping hot coco in no time; but then again you got to do what you got to do! I just hope I don’t get any frostbite ;-)

Playing in the Dirt

Yesterday I got the opportunity to race at the Bar H Bash, a mountain bike race of the Texas State Championship Series at Saint Jo. As in the last couple of years, the event was a lot of fun and very well organized, thanks to Cap and Tobin’s tireless efforts. Well, as the team had a weekend “off” (i.e. no racing) and the event was sponsored by Mad Duck Cyclery and Yeti Cycles, I got a chance to get back on a mountain bike for a change and see how far my skills had already degenerated after riding on the road that much ;-). As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad and I managed to finish the race in third place. This was not quite the result I had hoped for, but I still had a great time. The fact that I got to ride the new Yeti ASR Carbon only added to the fun! Rachel also raced and came in second in her class.

All in all, everyone had a blast, no crashes and got a great workout. I had forgotten how different mountain bike races were from the rather steady efforts of road racing. There’s no sitting in and rolling with the pack; you have to red-line it from the get-go and never look back. But then again, this is just part of what makes riding your mountain bike so much fun. And if nothing else, this weekend was a perfect preparation for Rouge-Roubaix, the next “road” race the team will tackle this coming weekend. With plenty of dirt roads, this race should hopefully be just as much fun as it was yesterday!