Did another MTB race today. The Cat1s started with the pros, and I started with the Cat2s. Yes...I looked around at everyone else on the starting line, noticed that they were a bit hairier than I expected, and then looked down at their number plates. Then I started pedaling, really, really hard.

The short period I gave up at the start ended up costing me. I murdered myself to get back up to my field, and ended up in the top half of the Cat1 field for the day, although only 6th of 9 or 10 in my age group. Could have been a lot better, but I stacked it hard in the feed zone trying to snag a water cup from a volunteer. I'll never directly complain about people spending their day to help me race bikes, because I've done it at ABD events, and I appreciate all of the hard work people put in. But a little basic education regarding "proper" hand-up methods would go a long way. Pulling the hand in, cup-in-digits, as a racer attempts to reach for a much needed sip or three of water, is a great way to cause a crash. And, gasp, that's what happened, as I ran afoul of some sand/dust, tried to bring it back onto the hardpack too quickly (some looming tree stumps probably didn't help), and the front wheel slid out. Like going off the road on a road bike, riding in gravel, trying to bring it back on too quickly, and eating shit. Same thing. A resultant dropped chain, stopping and starting again, and a false flat uphill lead to me losing a good 30-40 seconds. As I rolled into the finish, two guys in front of me had just crossed the line. Fuck. That stings.

On a rare positive note, I've learned how to handle my bike, at least on the flats, in a respectable manner. Still a bit skittish going downhill, but I was able to hold the wheels of plenty of people as I happened upon them on the tight and narrow. Repetition does wonders for you skills, and a 38mi MTB race presented a lot of opportunities to turn at speed. I hate to say it, but Bend definitely has an advantage over Hood River in that regard. I have to KILL myself to get to the top of Post Canyon in order to get some downhill at speed; in Bend you just roll out to any of the local trails, go up or flat for a while, then start railing a nice gentle descent.

Mt. Hood from the office parking lot, directly south of town; Mt. Hood from I-84, probably 30mi east of town; Syncline, which is much bigger than it looks. You can't see the cars that are driving by on WA-14, but you can see the old highway and the new highway, top and bottom. I think there's 60-70ft between them, elevation-wise. You can get a 6000ft ride in at Syncline in a two hour stretch, easily, if you have a decent pair of legs.

Off Day.

Of the 5 people who read this thing with any degree of regularity, 3 or 4 of you know that I rarely take a day off the bike. And more often than not, when I do take a day off, it's not because I NEED a day off. It's simply because life gets in the way, or like today, I just didn't feel like it.

Instead I drove down (out?) to Portland to drop off a check, in order to pay for new team clothing for this summer. Hopefully it (team clothing) gets here quickly. The season is approaching a rolling boil, and I haven't done anything more than two different weekly crit/circuit series, and a couple of MTB races. The weird thing about racing in Oregon is that the road and MTB scenes are over by July or early August, or so it seems. Hell, tomorrow is the OR State XC championship, and they've only had 3 races in the series so far.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day on the bike. I can feel it. I'm looking forward to riding tomorrow, and hope that the weather holds up. Never know around here. It can be pouring 5 miles away at Post Canyon, and dry as a bone on the east side of town.

Bike Racing...for Real

When I first heard about the opportunity to move out here, I promised myself that every race I did would have some sort of epic climb, and that I'd get so used to high altitude that when I descended upon the mere mortals of the Midwest, the air "down there" would be like soup to me. Thick, and delicious soup. With potatoes in it.

Well, I started my season off in typical less-than-grand style. A series of also-ran appearances on the road, winning a mountain bike race, making the "podium" (4th...top 5 in MTBing...which I didn't stick around for) in another upon upgrading to the next level, not a single road race (yet), a couple of Tuesday night Portland International Raceway (PIR) efforts, and finally, this week's iteration of the Hood River Criterium Series.

Let me preface this by saying that yes, I realize that my racing achievements are few and far between, so for me, it's the effort that counts.

Race recap:

18 starters. 4 corner industrial (several breweries, actually) crit with a set of railroad tracks to cross on the back stretch. A solitary rider went up the road, got 5 seconds, and I jumped after him. I caught up to him shortly, and we began putting time into the field. We were away for somewhere around 15 laps, and as the field began shattering behind us under the constant attacks, we lapped two riders. Normally I'd hope that they would have the good sense to remove themselves from the course, but they weren't getting in the way, and they more than likely drove 60 miles from PDX, so I had no problem with them getting in some training miles.

I have to give credit where credit is due; my partner in the break was killing me. Or maybe I was killing myself. Either way, a quick run down shows that he did about 60% of the work during our escape. Although it appears that I was taking slightly faster pulls, albeit of shorter duration. 320w during that ~30min effort.

Now for the downer. We both began running low on coal, and steam production faltered. Or the 6 man chase behind had enough power that we were doomed regardless. Whatever. We were caught with 4 laps to go, and shortly before we were swept up, I told my break partner that I'd do whatever I could to help him at the end of the race. He was stronger than me, and I appreciated him not attacking me towards the end of our time off the front. So, for the next two laps, I chased down everything I could, and then blocked when he and another guy attacked with two laps to go. With 3/4ths of a lap to go, we started to close in on them as people started attacking out of the new chase group, and I attempted to bridge up to them solo. Failed, and ended up not only blowing what little I had left, but dragging the guys I was trying to ditch up to a decent position. I rolled it in for 8th. Break partner ended up winning the race, which was pretty cool. Not a great result for me, but my legs are coming around, and I'm getting some speed to go along with the endurance/time trial strength I've been building.