More Flats?!

Something’s not right here: I got another two flats today while training... And the crazy thing is that one flat happened while I sat on the trainer this morning… Well, I hope this will do it for this year with flats. Let’s hope for the best.

NMBS Results

So results are finally posted... I came in 45th yesterday after my two flats. Looking at the results, I was running somewhere between 20^th and 25^th when I got my first flat… That puts me in 27^th overall. Not too bad, after all.

For more results go to http://bluewolfevents.com/results

Good Times, Bad Times... NMBS Style

Good news first: my form seems to be getting better and I am starting to feel stronger on the bike; Pivot Mach 4 is an awesome bike: climbs great, handles super snappy, is nice and stiff and the rear suspension works! Weather was fine too; support from all the guys at Pivot (especially Jason) was tremendous . Thanks again for that.

Result: not so good. I don’t want to whine too much, so I’ll try and keep it short: it started all wrong before the race even began. I was sitting 23^rd overall, and, according to the promoter, this should also have been my starting position for the CC race today… was not! I lined up somewhere in the second to last line (i.e. somewhere around 70^th place). As the course doesn’t offer too much passing opportunities, that was great of cause. But we didn’t even make it into the single track, as a bunch of guys locked handlebars and went down about 100m into the race. Fortunately, I didn’t go down but got stuck behind the carnage, so that wasn’t too good either. Anyways, after that I started to get in a groove and was working my way through the field (in the process of which I inevitably hit a cactus; I still got some in my little finger on the left hand…) until, halfway through the second lap my rear tire blew out. I know, in an earlier post I complained that the course was too fast and groomed… so that is what I got for that remark. I fixed it but by the time I got going again I had dropped back some 15-10 positions (I had worked my way up into the top 30 before disaster struck). I got back on the bike and started to pick up some of the guys that had just past me when, about a lap later, I found myself standing at the side of the course again, fixing, again, my rear tire… Needless to say, this pretty much ended all my hopes for the day of a good finish. I caught some of the stragglers on my way into the finish but I guess I was pretty far of the back at the end. I couldn’t find any results posted before I left (which was pretty much after everyone else, including the promoter, had left) so I don’t know where I finally came in and how that screwed up my overall ranking at the end of the day…

So there you have it. I just hope that next weekend will be better. To end on a positive note: I didn’t crash and I didn’t get selected for the doping test yesterday, so no harm done there; and, I still had a lot of fun.

There only remains one more thing to say:

METROVOLKSWAGENFIGHTNEVERDIES, so I’ll keep trying!

NMBS Short Track

PAIN! That’s all I felt for the better part of 20 minutes this afternoon during the NMBS Short Track race here in Phoenix; and it still wasn’t enough to not get pulled. Well, I made it to the two-to-go-part of the race, so I was pretty close to finishing the race. I think I finished somewhere just inside the top 30 or so, so that was ok. Especially after having to run up the only steep hill every lap due to a) traffic, b) deep sand thanks to all the other categories that ran up it before us, and c) lack of power on my part when I had a clear shot at it. Anyways, it was still fun (even though painful) but, man, even the so-called pros need to work on their breaking techniques: going into the downhill on the first lap, it was so dusty thanks to everyone in front locking up their breaks that I could see absolutely NOTHING! I really don’t know why you had to hit the breaks in the first place but I find myself contemplating this pretty much every race I’m in. Anyways, I bombed down it flying blind… and made it though no problem thanks to the Pivot. So, all in all, a successful day. Except, I forgot to check the USADA board afterwards… hopefully I wasn’t picked but I guess I’ll find out tomorrow…

NMBS SuperD

Did the first stage of this weekend’s Nova NMBS race here in Phoenix today, which was the SuperD. It was a really long course (winning time just under 16 min) and not a lot of elevation loss, i.e. a lot of pedaling. It actually felt more like a Short Track race intensity wise. I came in 22^nd out of a 70 plus field. I’m pretty happy with that, as I was within a good minute of the leader and, given the length, that was really good. It also gives me some hope for tomorrow’s Short Track event; the goal is to stay in the race and not get pulled and, with today’s time, this could just be possible. Then again, I will have to start from ways back and might get stuck in traffic. We will see tomorrow.

NMBS is Back in Town

Just got back pre-riding the course for the NMBS in Phoenix this weekend and what can I say? It hasn’t changed since last time… unfortunately! Still the same fast, groomed course with Texas-style climbing i.e. nothing. Well, it’s just for fun anyhow, right?

The NMBS in Phoenix this year will be in the form of a stage race, so we’ll kick it off tomorrow with the SuperD. I’m still not sure if I should take it easy and play it safe or go balls out but I guess as soon as I’m on the line tomorrow this question will solve itself. It should be a lot of fun anyhow, even though there is a lot of pedaling and no technical stuff but my Pivot will get me trough it! I really love the bike and it is perfect for this kind of racing: stiff, turns well and also climbs great (even though I wont need that this weekend).

We’ll continue on Saturday with the Short Track and have the Cross Country race on Sunday. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes…

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/