The Spin Cycle

USPRO Crit Championships

A gallery of great pictures at the Northbrook Velodrome website from the USPRO Criterium Championships at Downer's Grove, including pictures of Robbie Ventura losing it in the last corner. Nasty!

Great Day for the USA

Dede Demet-Barry scored a Silver, and Tyler Hamilton and Bobby Julich Gold and Bronze for the USA Cycling team in the Individual Time Trial today. Both Tyler and Bobby have had their demons this last year, and it's good to see them have a day in the sun. Viatcheslav Ekimov, who rides for US Postal, rounded out the Men's podium with the Silver medal riding for Russia.

Strange Days

In the aftermath of a (to me) disappointing Master's Nationals, three days of vacation were about what the doctor ordered. I didn’t even want to look at a bike, let alone ride one. So, of course, the first weekend after coming home is our State Criterium Championships (for those of you who read this that are not cyclists, or don’t follow bike racing, a criterium is a multiple-lap race on a road course. The laps are usually short, and the course is usually flat, though lately promoters have got it in their head that there’s no such thing as a good bike race that doesn’t have at least one hill). So after three days of vacationing, the assignment from the coach was to do three-hour long rides Thursday and Friday, the Criterium on Saturday and another long ride on Sunday to get “back on track,” as it were.

So I packed up the truck on Friday night, and drove an hour and a half to the Great White North of Atlanta (Roswell) for the race. I arrived exactly one-half hour before the race started due to a mistake in the estimation of the travel time from East Alabama, where sometimes it seems I live. This left ten minutes for registration (which was still over and hour and a half better than the USCF can do it in their hometown), and 15 minutes for warm-up.

It is here that I’d like to put a special note to all race promoters, past, present, and future. Now that we have this globe-wide Inter-web thingie, it’d be awful darn convenient (and save time to boot) if you would pull your head out of your collective arses and put all required releases/waivers/forms up on the internet so that enterprising individuals like myself can fill them out ahead of time. It really is a simple thing, if you think about it. Or do you do this stuff to purposely frustrate us?

Luckily, my legs were still good from the night before, and 10 minutes on the trainer is all I need to feel ready to go. To make things even better, the first 3 laps of the Men’s 30-39 race (the promoters combined the fields of the 30-34 and 35-39. This is usually done to save time) are more of a parade than race, which just allows for even more warm-up. But soon, the racing, and the hilarity, ensued.

The first bit of hilarity was the fellow who thought I needed his brand-new 10-speed Dura-Ace derailleur. I assume this is what he wanted, because he tried to run it into the spokes of my front wheel. Twice. After I had put a warning hand on his hip to let him know I was there. Other memories from the race: The whoop-de-do manhole cover on the back side of the course (three times!), the guy who rode up the gutter and crashed (in front of me) because he ran out of road, and then being at the back of the pack shortly afterwards, because my heart couldn’t take anymore after coming to a complete stop to get around said crash. I almost gave up the ghost there, and I remember one teammate asking if I was all right. Since I was able to think of a snappy answer (though I didn’t have the air to say it really loud), I figured I was OK for the duration. So I rode in the back for the next 8 laps or so, waiting for the final four laps to start moving up.

When they announced 5 to go, I remember thinking that I didn’t feel all that bad, and that if I felt no worse with 2 to go, I’d try my chances in the sprint. So I started moving up, which is easy to do if your brain is oxygen deprived, because all sense of self-preservation goes right out the window when your body craves more O2 than you can possible inspire. By 2 to go, I’ve moved up to the top 15 or so, which is where I like to sit in a sprint: far enough forward to be out of most danger, far enough back to make excuses if you don’t do well in the sprint. It is at this point that I’ll note that it’s about 400 meters from the exit of the last corner to the finish line, most of it uphill - especially the last little bit before the line. So as soon as we come flying out of the corner, everyone stacks up on the right side of the road, looking around at each other to see who the first idiot to lead out the sprint would be. One person they weren’t looking at was me (I’m waaaaaay back, remember?). Never one to pass up a chance to demonstrate my stupidity, I go with everything I have from about 300 meters out. Up that dang hill. The only person able to respond is Tony Scott, and he catches me about 20 meters before the line. But I had opened up a large enough gap to assure 2nd place, and because Tony is 34 years young, that makes me 35-39 State Criterium Champion.

Strange days indeed.

Into Thin Air

The 7-11 velodrome in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is exactly 6125 feet above sea level, in the sprinter’s lane. This is some 5000 feet higher that Atlanta, presenting problems for any endurance athlete that wants to go race there.

Luckily, I am not an endurance athlete.

I have, however, spent considrable time these last 6 months training specificly for the Kilometer Time Trial, and this event (Master’s Nationals) in particular. When you train for one specific race, though, the fickle finger of fate can flick you good, and I couldn’t duck it. The week before Nats, I came down with the shingles.

Normally, this in and of itself would not be a problem – the pain associated with the rash was (for me), not nearly as bad as, say, road rash, and I thought that I could handle it. Unfortunately, you have to agressively fight the virus if you do not want that pain to become a semi-permanent part of your life, and that mean anti-viral medications. Tuesday night, seven days before I was supposed to travel to Colorado, I found out that I was allergic to the anti-viral meds that I was on – and I found out the hard way. 103 degree fever, blood pressure 190/110, and a migraine headache for three straight days. I felt immediately better once I stopped taking the meds, but the training that I missed was a critical part of my “taper” for the event. My coach worked out a plan to get me somewhat back up to speed, but I was going nowhere near as fast as we were expecting me to. Needless to say I was somewhat disappointed.

Once in Colorado, the first order of business was to get to the track and get some riding in. I’ll tell you right now – you most certainly do notice the altitude. I was fried from a single flying 500. Hooked up with some other Georgia folks, including NARC’s own Bill Thomsen (thanks for supplying the tent, Bill!), who was at his very first Master’s Nats. I’ll let Bill tell his own story, but to me, it looked like he had a good time, except for one attack of a carbon-starved mag trainer. But that’s Bill’s tale to tell. What goes on at Nats stays at Nats, and all that.

The first day was the 200m TT (for sprint seeding) in the morning, and the main event, the Kilo, in the afternoon. Did I mention that the USOC managed to not only mess up registration (took me 1.5 hours to reg – and I was about 30th in line – this despite having pre-registered!), but they also forgot to buy the lights, so no night racing. This means no between-sessions naptime, and that makes me a NOT happy camper. Us old men need our naps.

The 200 goes OK, I do my PB, beating my old time from 1988 by 0.02 seconds, but I’m disappointed, because I wanted to do a sub-11. Colorado is definitely the place to do fast times, and I do a mediocre ride to score and 11.13. Off to lunch, the back to the ‘drome for the afternoon session. Warmup goes well, and I feel like Captain Fantastic – until the rain comes. 10 riders before I’m slated to go, the heavens open up for 2-1/2 hours of cold, wet, but exciting (nothing like sitting an open velodrome in the lightning!) rain delay. The sun eventually returns, but when I get back on the trainer to re-warm, my legs feel like lead, and my lungs are worse. Thouroughly demoralized, I go to the start line wondering if the gods are conspiring against me. Once the clock starts the countdown, though, the race face kicks in, and everything goes away except for the ride. I do a new PB of 1:09.6 (my first time ever under 1:10), but the feeing is bittersweet, because I keep thinking how I could have gone much faster had circumstances not conspired against me. Good enough to win? Probably not – Anton Quist rides a 1:04.8, setting a new world record for 35-39 year men. That’s fast, folks.

Once the afternoon session for Wednesday wraps up, I get to wait until Saturday for the sprints. The waiting, as Tom Petty sang, most definitely is the hardest part. Once again, I almost drive everyone around me insane over Thursday and Friday. Saturday finally comes, and I feel pretty good. First ride is a 3-up against Kenny Williams and the generic "some other dude.” Kenny is the guy that beat me in the finals last year (by kilo’ing me three times in a row), so I race the stupid race, marking Kenny the whole way. In the process of which, I totally forget that Mr. Generic is pretty fast too – and Mr. Generic shows just how fast he is by sending me to the repechage. In the reps I ride agains Kenny again, and this time I extract my revenge, beating him and sending him home for the day. In the rep final, I ride against Colorado native Steve Prokopiw (yes, I can pronounce that!), and the new two-lap format plays to my advantage, allowing me to advance back in to the semi-finals. Disaster rears it’s ugly head once more between sessions when, practicing for the Madison the next day, I crash as my partner and I were practicing handslings. The road rash wasn’t bad, but the slightly separated shoulder sure didn’t make the afternoon’s prospects any brighter. I was paired against Steve Alfred (top seed – fast as a motorcycle. A fast motorcycle. Two rides is all it takes for Steve (Alfred) to send Steve (me) to the 3rd-4th place ride. At least the shoulder didn’t hurt much. I win the 3-4 ride 2-0, against Mr. Generic Guy from the first round, so a bit of cold revenge is served up by YT.

The last day I was teamed up with two friends for the team sprint. This event I Silvered in last year, riding with two friends for Atlanta. This year, there are no illusions – Steve Alfred and Anton quist had first place locked up tight. The race was for second, and we fell short by 0.2 seconds. Third place can really hurt sometimes.

And that was it for this year: 3rd in the sprints, 3rd in the team sprint, and 6th in the kilo. Not a banner year, but not bad considering I thought I was dying the week before. Next stop: Elite Nationals in Frisco, Texas!

Thanks for reading!