The Right Race

After Saturday's Wicked Creepy 'Cross in Bennington, I wasn't sure I wanted to race on Sunday. Yes, I had a good ride there, but I felt flat and couldn't get the power to the pedals when I needed to. Really I think I was just blocked from not opening up hard enough on Friday, but mentally I am at a point in the season when I feel like any more bad luck or crappy rides could really break me. So I was actually riding around in 2nd place contemplating dropping out. What the hell is wrong with me?!

Anyway I got over it. I was pre-registered for the HPCX UCI race down in New Jersey, but I was dreading the 6 hour round trip and felt ill-equipped to score UCI points given the relatively strong field.

So after putting racing out of my mind and going to see Paranormal Activity with Charmaine for Halloween, I wallowed around Sunday morning, packing the car while protesting that I didn't want to race, and really testing Charmaine's patience to its outer limits. Finally I decided to go, but then decided not to once I was on the road, so I turned around and went to Vermont, instead. Really.

Ethan Gilmour and Me, running the Birch Logs
Photo Courtesy of Alan Atwood

I mean, I love racing, I love Vermont, and I love cyclocross. I even love the solitary drives through the fall foliage that are a part of cross season, and I love getting amped about prize money and UCI points. But what I really love is that feeling when the balance between community and competition is just right, and for some reason the folks at the West Hill Shop in Putney always manage to get that right. In fact, this was the first 'cross race I ever did (2005, 5th in the B race) where I felt like I might actually be good at this, and it was under similarly unlikely circumstances. Maybe it's the mountains, maybe it's the foliage, but Vermont is good for my soul. A solo drive to Jersey in search of UCI points that I may or may not have had the legs to get, however, did not seem good for my soul. I was right.

The field was small this year, owing to the fact that there were a ton of local races scattered around New England this weekend, but my buddy Al Donahue was there and we had agreed on a no-holds-barred rematch from the day before. Kirt Fitzpatrick was there, too, and he has been riding well lately, as was local Vermont lad and U23 Euro mountain bike shredder, Ethan Gilmour. So it promised to be a classic Putney: laid back and fun, but with just enough fast guys to make a real race out of it.

Al got an uncharacteristically quick start, but I sneaked past him for the hole shot and led through the barriers and onto the first batch of slick, muddy turns before the birch log two-step and the whoop-de-doos. Man I love this course! Honestly, there are few courses around that are simply as much fun to ride bikes on. Anyway, I stayed in front all the way around the corn field for the first lap, then Ethan came past me and led us into the run-up the first time. At this point Ethan, Kirt and I had about a 5 second gap on Al, who looked to be closing, and the rest of the field looked far away, save for Evan Huff who was chasing on his own in no man's land. Things stayed this way for the next two laps with Ethan and I doing all of the work until Kirt attacked us as we approached the run up for the 3rd time. He railed the turn at the bottom and sprinted up the hill, opening a small gap which he then lost when he couldn't get into his pedal. It looked frustrating. Once he clipped in he proceeded to sprint out of every turn for the next lap really keeping the pressure on Ethan and I...and then he blew up. After the 4th time up the run-up we kept at it and when we looked back the next time through the corn field Kirt was fading fast and Al was now about 10 seconds down as well.

Me leading Ethan into the woods
Photo Courtesy of Alan Atwood

This was motivating and we stayed on it, trading pulls, working well together and running the legs off of each other each time up the hill. We kept it steady until 3 laps to go when Ethan got frisky and started to attack me. I didn't really attack him back much since he didn't seem to be hurting at all. I took the opportunity to jump around him and lead the technical stuff a couple of times, hitting it hard out of the corners and hoping to gap him but each time he got right back on with no problem.

Now anyone who knows the Putney course knows that if you're racing against an evenly matched rider, then the race is to the top of the run up since the finish line is less than 100 yards away at that point. As a rule, the first rider to clip in at the top of the hill wins the race. I felt like I was pulling a little harder than Ethan, but I also didn't think I could drop him and ride it in solo, so I decided to bank everything on a last lap attack through the cornfield, and if that didn't work I would do whatever I could to win the race to the top of the run-up.

Sure enough he jumped me first in the cornfield, I stuck it, then countered, he got right on me, and stayed glued to my back tire through the back-to-back 180's leading to the road. I led onto the road but didn't pull hard and kept my eye on his shadow. When he jumped I made sure he didn't gap me, and then I countered hard to his left when he was looking over his right shoulder. Yes, I did go around the cones in the middle of the dirt road, but in a situation like that, cones seem like a suggestion to me more than a hard and fast rule. We drag raced to the last turn rubbing shoulders, and basically it just came down to him braking first. Fortunately we didn't crash coming into the hill. I'm no great runner but I sprinted as hard as I could up the hill, clipped in and wound it up to the line. Judging by the shadow on the ground it looked like I had enough room to sit up and celebrate but something told me not to, and it's a good thing because Ethan surged hard at the last minute and in the end I only won the sprint by a wheel or so. But I won!

Sure, it's a small, local race, but it's a New England classic and honestly, I don't get to win all that often. Given my fatigue and frustration lately, and given the fact that (no secret here) my biggest competitive enemy is my head, I was just really happy to stay focused all the way to the line and not make any mistakes. And taking the win in front of guys I respect like Ethan, Al and Kirt felt really, really good. Maybe November is my month again...I never do exactly the same thing in September, but invariably I seem to go better in November every year. Go figure.

Thanks for reading,

-n

Retro Race Report: Maine #2

So to rewind a couple of weeks, let's get back to Sunday Muddy Sunday in Maine.

Following that Saturday's freezing cold slip-slop fest, there was a lot of work to do in the way of bike maintenance and laundry. My teammates Justin Lindine and Emily Curry and I set up a sort of assembly line in the hotel room (Justin did most of the work, he's like that) and soaked and then re-soaked all of our gear, stuffed shoes with newspaper, etc. Sunday morning was spent finding a laundromat and re-cabling our non-shifting bikes. This was not really so unpleasant because the sun had come out and graced us with a beautiful, New England fall day, the kind they make postcards out of.

We rolled up to the course a nice leisurely couple of hours early, speculating optimistically that the sun would have dried out the course some, and besides, they can't really be using the same track as yesterday, right? Right?! Wrong.

As soon as we saw a mud-drenched Roger Aspholm come through for his bell lap (way off the front, nice one Rog!) we knew we were in for another hard day. Only given that it had stopped raining and the sun was out, the mud was no longer soupy, but of a chunky, peanut-butter consistency that sticks to everything and adds 10 lbs to your bike and about 2 lbs to each shoe. The proverbial long day loomed, but at least it was warm and sunny.

The long and the short of it for me was a bad start, then a bad crash that left me tangled up with another rider on the ground in 6 inches of mud, still clipped into my pedals. By the time I got up and moving again (this was 2 minutes into the race) I was the last man on the course and about 30 yards--the length of the run/ride up--behind the next rider in front of me. Yes I wanted to quit, but I had been pretty determined to finish both races this weekend because I haven't finished two races in a weekend in many weeks, so I slogged on, passed a lot of people, and much to my surprise worked my way up into the top 15 after a couple of laps. I was finally having a good ride after weeks of crap legs and bad luck! Then my seatpost came loose.

At first the bold slipped and the saddle just tilted back at a 45 degree angle, which sucked but was bearable. After a lap like that and with 2&1/2 laps to go in the race, the bolt loosened almost completely and I was left with a saddle that had about 3 inches of travel, fore and aft, and almost as much side-to-side wiggle. For whatever reason I was determined to finish my reasonably good ride, so I dealt with it and pressed on, hollering at everyone I knew in the pit that I needed a bike (since I only have one at the moment) but of course nothing was available. I thought about getting my pedals fitted to a neutral bike but it seemed like I would lose more time than if I just kept riding, so I just kept riding. Then I got a flat.

Fortunately the flat came about 1/2 a lap to go and the mud was so thick that I was actually able to ride it a good portion of the time, though it did give Phil Wong the opportunity he needed to get away from me before the finish. Through a combination of running and riding on the rim I managed to hold off the next couple of guys behind me for 16th place, but a much more interesting 16th place then the previous day's.

And Justin got 2nd, missing the win by a wheel or so, but that's old news.

-n

November Redemption?

So last Sunday in Maine I endured every kind of bad luck imaginable and finished 16th, same as Saturday. Yes that does mean that I was actually riding well and feeling good, but that turned out not to be worth a whole lot.

Yesterday I got 2nd at the wicked awesome, Wicked Creepy 'Cross in Bennington, and I had a good time rocking around the course with Al until he dropped me and took the win. But more on that later.

Today however I had a lot of fun at one of my very favorite races up in Putney, Vermont. And I won! Sure it's a small local race, but it's a New England classic, and I have actually had my heart set on winning it at least once for years now. After all of my existential moaning and frustration lately, a little good news, some sunshine and just enough slippery mud to be fun, paired with pretty good racin' legs was just what the doctor ordered. UCI points are for suckers. And hats off to Ethan Gilmour for racing hard all day and coming within about a wheel of stealing the win from me.

Full reports to follow, now it's paper gradin', tryin' to sleep, confused body clock post daylight savings time uh-huh time. KnowhadImean?

-n

The Rain in Maine Falls Mainly in the Bike Race

Verge NECCS Race #7: Long drive, cold rain, more cold rain, sloppy-slip-slop course conditions, warm-up in the car, shivering, line up, race, crash, race, pass guys, get passed, ride clean lines, fall down some, finish 16th. Pineland Farms is pretty.

Not my best ride today, and not my worst. Given the conditions, I'll take it. The victory for me was keeping my head in the race and being competitive enough to keep at it and finish the durned thing. I felt like I had more in me, and I was riding the slop well, but I couldn't run up those hills AT ALL. My legs got so cold I felt like I was dragging cinder blocks around. Then there was a badly timed chain drop and when I took big risks on the sketchy descent to try to make it up, I got stuck in a bad rut and crashed pretty spectacularly. Slightly bruised back, no big deal, keep it movin'. Some good guys dropped out of the race today, so I felt pretty good, given my recent failures and tantrums, that I found a place in my head I could go to have fun and stay mentally present. Small victories.

It's still raining, I'm huddled in a hotel room at the Super 8 Motel in Lewiston, Maine, and they don't have a laundromat. Off to find one in the car tomorrow morning...too tired to do it tonight, and we already murdered the bathtub. So much mud!

Tomorrow? We'll see.

-n

Toronto #2: Better

I sat on that last post for awhile before I put it up, and although my mood has improved considerably since then, I feel like the hard times are as blogworthy as the good times; it's the arc of the whole experience, the whole season, that creates any sort of story at all.

So Sunday in Toronto was much better. The result(a lackluster 24th) doesn't reflect it, but I had a solid start, worked my way up to 15th, and was racing well in a shape-shifting group of 3-5 guys for most of the race. With 2&1/2 to go I got a shifter caught in some course tape when I came wide through a turn and I spent the next couple of minutes wrestling with my bike/chain drop/tape wrap/shit storm. Needless to say a mess of guys passed me while I was doing this and the gap quickly got too big for me to catch them back. That was a bummer, because I was having the first reasonably good ride I've had in weeks...and I still managed to screw it up. Oh well, at least I had fun this time, and Charmaine was skulking around the course, popping out from behind trees, smiling cheerfully, taking pictures and being awesome, which helped. And how about that sunshine? It was a really fantastic weekend, and the Midweek Cycling club is to be commended.

Still not there yet, but I'm getting a little closer.

-n

Toronto #1: Again

I'm running out of ways to describe bad races. I suppose that considering the burnout, and the fact that I only rode my bike on Wednesday and Friday (for 45 minutes) this week, and the cracked rib and the sore throat I've been walking around with...well, I suppose the real surprise is that I actually felt good on my wee spin last night and was looking forward to racing today.

Long story short, I was having a tough day following a solid first couple of laps when I slid out on an off-camber and dropped my chain. I was in a hard-earned 25th place out of about 40 guys and I was sliding backwards like a stone, the ski hill was killing me. Putting the chain back on took longer than it should have and I was stuck in the middle of the damn hill, or more accurately, right at the bottom of the final pitch. When I contemplated running to the top or trying to remount mid-hill, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I quit.

I'll start tomorrow and try to have fun and re-discover the reasons that I do this. It's funny how when things are going well with racing it all seems so self-evident, and when it's like it has been for me this past month, well, all of the positive stuff seems pretty far away.

Better days.

-n

Coldtober

It's cold in here. I can see my breath, actually, in my apartment. Yes I have spoken to my landlord, no I am not confident she will figure out before the day is over.

On a lighter note I actually finished a bike race on Sunday with no crashes or mechanicals. I did stack it pretty hard in warm-up trying to get used to riding clinchers again, and I bruised a couple of ribs, but what can you do.

So yeah, day 2 in Providence was a lot of fun even though I had a pretty mediocre ride. The depth of North American 'cross is getting really impressive, though, which is both encouraging and discouraging all at once.

And this week I finally committed to getting all of the rest I actually need and not trying to squeeze in confidence building, energy draining workouts between race weekends anymore. Hopefully my good legs will show up in time for Toronto this coming weekend.

That's it for now, back to work.

-n