Two races done, one rib damaged (repairing well), one week off. The ridiculous thing was that my damage came after the last race when I wasn't paying attention while riding slowly back to my car. The only thing that you can do for damaged ribs is not to laugh too much, don't sneeze, don't cough.
The last race, cyclocross at a Central Park (not the Central Park) turned out to be a loaded race on a tough course. Very rough grass sections, mercifully dry, with a lot of rises and sharp, fast turns made for a very hard effort. I gave pretty much what I had but was disappointed not to catch the guy ahead of me - a frantic sprint effort to catch him at the finish left me 1/2 a tire width short. The rider ahead of him led by 6 seconds leaving me 6 seconds from 13th place, the field median.
The highlight of the day was getting a call up. As I've described before, this is a rare privilege for the proletariat but the start was wide enough for the small field to only fill two and a bit rows. The moment of fame was great. Seeding for this race was done based on the NJBA standings. As my semi-pro teammate and I have discussed, placing in this competition is a greater accolade than you'd expect from a NJ state series. There's no requirement of state residency to be granted points (and a placing in this competition) so it could be thought of a national competition. Furthermore, there's not even a US residency requirement as all that's required is a 1 day USA Cycling membership which means that Belgian ringers can participate for a princely $10. As such, it could be described as a world championship of sorts. A call up in that is really something.
Cyclocross is sort of a meeting point between the cultures of road- and mountain biking. The bikes themselves look like road bikes but have knobbly tires and brakes more similar to mountain bikes. Road races are exclusively on paved roads (apart from a few exotic races), mountain bikes are off-road and cyclocross races are a combination of the two with a few other things thrown in. As a result, there are CX racers that come from road biking backgrounds and some that are predominantly mountain bikers.
It’s probably because I started out as a roadie (in more ways than one) that I'm not used to the upkeep required on a 'cross bike which is closer to a mountain bike in terms of upkeep. Fussy brakes (to work well in mud and sand), damage to bits that I didn't know existed (like derailleur hangers - the repair and replacement of which has been more due to my poor bike handling than the nature of the sport) and indeed in the couple of months that I've been riding this bike I've crashed more often than I did as a kid.
I've been fortunate enough so far to have done no damage during a race but kept that part of the sport for training and rides chasing my accomplished off-road cycling buddies on the trails. Until last Sunday that is. About 2 mins into the start of the MAC series HPCX 35+ race at Jamesburg NJ, I was trying to overtake on a bumpy grassy section and changed down a gear to hear my chain rattling around is if it had dropped off the chainring. I started trying to recover only to look down to find that the chain was broken - the end of the race for me. I don't know how it happened - either a faulty part or weakened from one of the many crashes that I've had in training to this point. It was a real bummer to retire out of this race as the conditions were perfect and I'd had a pretty good start. A number of our non-CX team members had shown up to shout for us which made it worse. It's all part of cyclocross I was told.
The uncharacteristically warm and dry cyclocross season so far changed in respect of the former yesterday. The NJ state championship was held at the Cyclocross at the Hidden Valley Club in north west NJ with a forecast maximum of about 40 deg F or 5 deg C. It was below freezing when we arrived for warmup. The course was long with lots of turns, primarily on bumpy grass with a run up stairs and a single barrier as well as a couple of sand pits. The cold in warmup and waiting at the start soon gave away to a comfortable heat of the race. I had a reasonable start but once again found myself shoogled further back than I'd have liked. I rode pretty well and drove hard to catch and overtake a number of riders finishing about 20th which gives me a princely couple of points in the NJ series.
I was happy with my performance, especially as my cornering was where I was making up time on my opponents. Last week I suffered a lot in training with a strong riding partner which probably also helped. There was a particularly good local ale on tap after the race which added to the enjoyment of the sunny late morning after the race.
This week is a very busy one of work and travel so any training I do will need to be done before 6.30am. Likely indoors on the trainer watching a bit of TV news between the commercials.
Next Saturday is another NJBA race, then a hard week of training for me before a week off in the sunshine.
Coming back to the topic of the differences between road and mountain biking and racing, one of the local mountain bikers, Slonie, wrote a comic strip on cyclocross. He talks a bit about the sport, what it's like and has one page on the versatility of cyclocross bikes. Having ridden the CX bike on a few mountain bike trails, I know what he means about what you need for that purpose:
I also agree about what he said about CX bikes. You can read the whole comic strip here:
One week of illness, one week of travel (pork, beer and not much sleep) meant that my next race hurt a lot. To rephrase a well used saying about fitness and cycling form, if you're in good form, it hurts just as much but for less time.
My last two races were part of the New Jersey Bike Association (NJBA) Cyclocross cup. The good part about this series in contrast to that of the Mid Atlantic Cyclocross (MAC) series is that I get to race in the 45+ rather than the 35+ competition. The bad news is that there isn't a B race - the NJ 45+ is also open to the top fuel. The other good thing about the NJ series is that the fields are smaller (20-30) than the MAC series (90-100). The difference in field size is huge when it comes to the start.
In many of the road races that I've ridden, the start is relatively tempered with the pace picking up through the event, an occasional breakaway or surge forcing a hard effort until the crescendo of the finish where the huddled pack explodes into a blast of frantic sprinters. The start of a race in cyclocross is almost the opposite.
More than any other type of cycling race, your position at the start has a great bearing on your probable place at the finish. The start of a race often comprises the only flat, straight and open section of the course. Once you're through that section, passing becomes harder. In addition, the first significant obstacle, be it mud, sand, a climb or some other hurdle, gets congested with the large field descending upon it. This means crashes and a general slow down for those at or behind the congestion - in some cases about 90% of the field.
For these reasons, it is essential to get as far ahead as you can as quickly as possible without completely blowing up in the process. As such, the start of the race seems to require the biggest expenditure of energy.
One of the things that I've really enjoyed about cyclocross is that it combines fitness, power & bike handling as key ingredients for a good result. As yet, I've not managed to summon the correct proportions of these, but I'm becoming more aware of what's needed. Its certainly the case that all of these are necessary to get a great start but there's one other very important part of starting well - your status or rank in the field.
Based on the series results to date, the leading riders are "called up". This means that the fastest riders are allowed to start at the front, bit like Formula 1 racing where laps determine pole starting position. In most cases, there follows a scrum to fight for the places behind those gifted few who are called up. I've also found that in some of the big field races (like the last one at Granogue in Delaware) that order of registration is also used for call up. To my cost, I found out that being the 90th person to register for the race means that you get to start at the back. The photo below (taken by Isobel) shows the start of the 35+ race at Granogue. The chiseled athletes at the front know what they're doing, preening in the respect that comes with the call up. The rest of us were hoping that we were in the right race. I'm the tall rider with the red helmet in the distant right of the picture.
Another lesson learnt: whatever it takes, don't start at the back.
All things considered, I had a pretty good race on a tough course on a very enjoyable day with my family who came out to see what all the fuss was about 'cross.
Next is a lot more travel, a weekend break and then another MAC race at the end of October before the NJ series resumes with the State CX championship.
Yesterday I spent 3.5 hrs driving to and from my first cyclocross race, the Nittany Lion Cross, in Trexlertown, PA. 3.5hrs driving to suffer intensely for 40 minutes. Doesn't make a lot of sense but I had as much fun as I've ever had in a bike race. I'm hooked.
Start of the B Masters' Nittany Lion Cross
After a few weeks of learning to ride off-road with plenty of encouragement from my team-mates, I got hold of a cyclocross bike and started learning how to ride it. Part of this learning experience revitalized my wheel truing skills after hitting my rear wheel on a log at high speed on a training ride but I digress.
Cyclocross or 'cross' for those in the know, is a type of bike racing held in the autumn and winter comprising a few laps of a short (roughly 2 mile) course over pavement, wooded trails, grass, hills and obstacles forcing the cyclist to dismount, carry the bike and then remount.
There a few different stories about how cyclocross racing came about, my favourite describes the origin of the sport around 1900 when European road racers would race from one town to another. They were allowed to cut through farmer's fields, over fences or take any other shortcuts in order to make it to the next town first. These races allowed for off-season training and the difficult conditions increased the intensity at which the cyclists were riding and improved their on-the-road bike handling abilities. Forced running sections, were incorporated to help deliver warm blood to the feet and toes, as well as exercise other groups of muscles.
Since then, the sport has taken on a huge following in Europe and more recently in the US where, according to USA Cycling, it is the fastest growing competitive form of cycling. Apparently Lance Armstrong contributed to this surge after his inadvertent cyclocross display to avoid the terrible crash of the unfortunate Joseba Beloki in the 2003 Tour de France.
(It's nice to see that even a pro like Lance sometimes does the double jump to get on his bike.)
It turns out that it takes quite a bit of getting used to this sport. Dismounting and mounting at full gallop without looking like a clown is one thing in practice, doing it when you're completely cooked at the end of a race is quite another. I read somewhere that there are about 100 things that you can get wrong in a cyclocross race, if you manage to get 50 right, it's a great race.
The conditions were perfect for the B Masters 35+ race. Cool, dry and sunny with a fast course with little technical difficulties was a very good introduction for me. I didn't get a great start but started overtaking people pretty quickly and by the end of the 2nd lap thought that I'd gone out a bit too hard and was in danger of blowing up. As I'd been warned by many, this type of racing has you at full gas the whole time.
There were plenty of crashes on the slippery turns that seemed to get worse on each lap. In comparison to road racing, crashes are much more forgiving here as you're falling from a lower speed on grass, sand or mud rather than at 40 km/h onto the tarmac. I managed to avoid a couple of crashes by dismounting and running around them.
I was glad to have taken some sage advice and invested in some very good tubular tires (sic). These allow you to run a much lower pressure and so bounce less and keep better traction. I was also surprised as to how hard it was riding on the "flat" grassy sections. These actually aren't flat at all, it's like riding over corrugated iron with padding. No doubt without the tubulars, my bones would have been shaken a lot more than they were.
I'd been blocked behind a rider for at least a lap leading into the final barriers and I managed to pass him before having a good dismount, run and remount. My fellow rider and occasional training partner, Chris, was a few yards ahead and I worked hard to keep up with him and we pulled ahead of the other 3 that had been more or less together for the last 5 minutes. With the finish just ahead, I knew that I didn't have to worry about blowing up and so decided to make a go of getting past Chris as we entered the finishing straight. We both sprinted flat out and crossed the line close enough to warrant the announcer to call it as a photo finish. I don't know what the final result was but I was very pleased with my effort. I came somewhere in the 30s out of the field of around 80.
A fantastic day and I'm looking forward to the next one. Apparently, that one was as easy as it gets ...
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Update: Bad news was that I only placed 42, good news was that I nosed Chris in the sprint!
For the 3rd year in a row, I rode in the auto road bicycle race up Mt Washington on Sat Aug 21. Following a disappointing race up Mt Whiteface in June I had trained hard and had reached my lowest weight in 25 years in an attempt to improve on my performance of the last two years. In the week leading up to the race, I felt prepared and relaxed and on numerous occasions when asked if I was nervous about the race I responded, "no, it's just a bike ride up a hill" or "I'm well prepared" or similar. Indeed I didn't feel anxious at all until Friday afternoon when I arrived at registration at the foot of the hill to meet my team mate fellow-sufferers. From the toll house at the base, the clear weather gave an uninterrupted view to the peak. I started remembering what it was like to go up that road and for the next 18 hours I was a nervous wreck.
Like last year, a cloudless sky faced the 600 or so cyclists to be launched in 5 waves up the 7.6 mile 4600' climb. A good turnout of top notch riders were sent off by cannon fire at 8.35am followed by the seniors, vets and then the rest of which I was a part. I managed to get close to the start line and selected my smallest rear cog (12T) for the only 50 yards or so that it would see use during the race. The gun went off and we hurtled along the tiny flat section before the cacophony of gear changes under full strain began. I was determined to start very slowly this year, for the first mile I wanted to keep well below the 280W or so that I thought I could average for the race and in spite of feeling as though I was falling backwards through the group, my power was close to 300W. I knew that I'd see many of those passing me in about 15 minutes or so gasping like landed fish so I kept trying to calm down and on we rode.
The group started stringing out very quickly and by mile 2 I started picking up the pace and tried to find the little shade that there was on the sides of the road as by now we were all pretty warm in this the most sheltered part of the course. As expected, the early adrenaline soaking had blown up many a rider's reserves and I started passing riders from earlier groups at this point.
I was expecting to go through a mentally low point around mile 4 as I had before but it didn't come and instead we reached the treeline with the glorious view of the valley it affords. There's not a lot of time to enjoy the view but on seeing how far down the start was, I had the first feeling of real accomplishment as to how much work I'd done. Shortly after mile 4 begins the steep long dirt section that lasts almost a mile. It's tough rounding the corner to see a long line of riders in pain stretching up into the sky but on we went, marking off minor victories one at a time like the next rock, catch the rider in the red shirt and so on.
My low point came at the end of the dirt section at Cragway turn where you turn and on a clear day get the first view of the summit since being at the bottom. It's still a hell of a long way up at that point and it's easy for your mind to start slowing you down. Quite a few training rides for this race were done with Doug on Sandy Hook where we'd do 3 loops at full effort. The 3rd loop for me was always mentally tough and I have mapped out in my mind the achievable milestones that give me something to aim for; the gatehouse, the missiles, the turn, the batteries and so on. Knowing that I was about that far in terms of hurt and effort left to go, I did the same thing at that point, imagining the rest of the climb as part of the Sandy Hook training ride. The gatehouse is at that corner and on I ground.
On reaching the 6 mile marker I knew that this was going to be a good result for me. My power readings had held up and I was feeling OK (relatively this means very good). I had a short panting conversation with a rider from Chicago who was recovering from cramps. I realized that it wasn't that far before the road flattened out and I encouraged him on and in so doing decided that it was time to burn my remaining reserves. I took one last sip of drink, drained the rest onto the road and imagined that I was nearing the gatehouse on the last lap of a Sandy Hook threshold sufferfest.
It's hard to describe what it's like at the end of this race for those haven't done it before. There's a lot of people yelling, crowds on either side of the road and really motivates you to give everything you have (and a bit more). Before I knew it I was at the foot of the final wall and remembered to ride almost into the crowd on the left before driving as hard as possible up the ramp to cross the line in 1:22:33 - my best time and almost 6 mins faster than my previous record. As happens to most at the top, I could barely breathe let alone see, but after a couple of mins wrapped in the finisher's blanket and adorned with the medal, the pain had gone.
Doug had a very difficult ride and cramped repeatedly as did Art. Darren rode well and it was good to see all at the summit.
This was undoubtedly the best race I've had from the view of improvement, preparation and execution. I was happy with my result but not quite as happy as I should have been.
The first year I did this race, my time was 1:28:00. Last year I was better prepared and managed 1:27:59 and suffered on the hottest race day ever. My target this year was 1:24, still some way away from one of my major cycling goals (in fact my toughest goal) of doing Mt Washington in under 1:20 but I'm old enough to know what is realistic to achieve in the time that I had and so a 4 min improvement to me seemed like a good goal.
Had I done 1:23:50 something, I would have been ecstatic. But my time was just a bit too close to where I ultimately wanted to achieve. This feeling is the closest that I've experienced of what's called the "uncanny valley". The uncanny valley is a hypothesis developed in the 70s as a description of a response in humans observers when robots (or nowadays other human likenesses such as those developed in animated films) look or act almost but not quite like humans. The idea is that as an image of a human improves say from 50% to 90%, observers like the improvement, they react more warmly to the facsimilie. This reaction continues as the likeness improves further, say at 95%, people like the humanoid even more. But at some point, say 96%, there's suddenly a sharp drop off in how people react - they revolt against the image. This fall in the graph of response over likeness is called the uncanny valley.
Anyway without going into the existential, religious or evolutionary theories as to why we behave like this, as far as my Mt Washington result was concerned, I just got a bit too close to my ultimate goal to avoid asking questions like, could I have gone faster, trained a little bit harder, lost a few more lb and so on.
Fortunately, these concerns were washed away quickly in the merriment of the great evening party that followed but I started thinking that in spite of what I'd said about not doing it again next year, maybe 2011 will be the year ...
For those so inclined, I've included an image of my ride performance as recorded by my PowerTap.
