Sam's UCLA weekend report

February 12, 2006 Sam
On paper, todays race is hard enough, as I mentioned yesterday. But I definitely made it much tougher than I needed to today by attacking halfway through the second lap of six and attempting a solo break. I was hoping that someone else would eventually ride after me and give me someone to work with. But alas! I rode 3.5 laps alone until one of the later fast breaks caught me and just kept going (this was Chris’s three man group). I had been out riding alone at just below time trial pace for about 2 hours, so I was trashed. I had absolutely nothing left. At one point I thought I may have a chance at winning when I had about 5 minutes on the group, but it was pretty much a suicide mission to begin with that early on, especially since every downhill I had to tuck alone and the wind picked up as the race went on. All in all I was glad I went for it…it was a good learning experience and I figure you have to try crazy plans like that every once in a while because sometimes they’re just crazy enough to work. Also, the race was a big success because Chris ended up getting second to pro rider Kyle Barbary. The best part of Sundays race was having KO and maggie there, though. It was so exciting and inspirational to ride past them every lap, having never had real fans at one of our races before. They also played the key role of handing off food and water to us every time we went by the feed zone. I wish I could have done better on the one day they came to see us race… oh well. You win some, lose some. I’m still happy about yesterday.

February 11, 2006 Sam
We’re in Palmdale, California; about an hour and a half north over the mountains from school by car. It’s almost eight and Chris and I just woke up a while ago from significant naps. I also just received a pretty professional massage from Chris, who I’m training to be team massuese #2. Massage sure makes a difference—my legs were all knotted up from todays effort. It was a 20 km time trial (actually about 21.5km) on an out and back course in the middle of the desert. Luckily Chris and I secured race times one after another early on so as to avoid any afternoon wind. Chris went first and I went a minute after him, on the chase. The course had about 300 feet of climbing (minimal) and a tailwind on the way out with a fairly nasty headwind on the way back and a slight downhill over-all. I went out quite hard to begin with and never really back it down. I was really happy to be able to sustain a high heart rate the whole time without letting it creep down. The hills I came to I basically sprinted up and took the next downhill and flat section to ‘recover’. Using Chris as my target I pushed as hard as I could all the way to the finish. I ended up placing third. More important than the placing though was that I think today was my most intense and concentrated effort that I’ve ever done. I’m really satisfied knowing that all the B.S. I’ve gone through to be fast today was worth it, because I couldn’t have pushed myself any harder than I did. Chris and I are really nervious/excited about tomorrow where we climb a monster 9000 feet of climbing in 80 miles. Whew. I hope we feel as solid as we did today…

A battle of attrition

This road race was described to us as a battle of attrition: 6 laps of 13 miles and 1300ft of climbing each. Brutal. You either got it or you don't.

One way to test this? If you have huge guts, you do what Sam did: try an early break only 1.5 laps in, all by yourself, and hold it as long as you can. I got to play defense this week, matching a few moves here and there and generally slowing the chase pack when I could.

Well, not everyone wanted to let him go quite so easily. Kyle Barbary from Berkeley (who went to Harvey Mudd a few years ago) decided to single-handedly hammer at the front of the pack for the entire fourth lap and drop most the field on the climb. Only one other guy and myself were able to stay on his wheel. I chose not to take my turn into the wind, however, since I had Sam out in front, and there is no expectation for someone to chase his own teammate down. At this point, bystanders told us Sam had 5 MINUTES on the entire field. Pretty gigantic, and it seemed like it was gaining. Most everyone agrees: out of sight, out of mind.

But Kyle kept hammering, and just as I thought it was safe to help this break stay away since Sam had it wrapped up, I saw Sam sitting up, super tired from 3 laps all by himself. I was bummed because I knew it would be a big order for him to stay with us at the high pace after so much time solo. I was right, but there is a lot of respect given to someone willing to try it alone for so long.

The fifth lap the three of us hammered together, taking our turns into the wind, a few accelerations here and there, and slowly the legs feel more and more dead. They feel as if the muscle you used to be able to use is now just extra weight, unable to fire, no longer controlled by the nervous system. Somehow, just before the beginning of the sixth lap, Kyle looked back at me like Lance looked at Ullrich, and sensed this. With a few switches of the gears he stood up and pounded the pedals for a few minutes, got a quick gap which I held for a few moments, but then I was too far in the red and had to let him go. And then he went and kept going. In the process we had broken the third guy. So we were all by ourselves for the third lap (which is quite hard and demoralizing - just a sneek peek at Sam's day). I was able to hold on for second.

I've thought a lot about that moment when he attacked. At some point, your mind switches into a mode of defense instead of offense, of deciding that you need to be conservative just to finish instead of go everything. Knowing that point where you body can take more is so key, and that's where the experience that Kyle has becomes so crucial.

So today was awesome because I kicked a lot of ass, but also got my ass kicked in the process.

The UCLA Time Trial

We had perfect conditions for the Time Trial on Saturday. Driving out to Lancaster, CA only took about 1.5 hrs. Middle of the desert, blue sky, no winds, straight roads, and fast bikes made for a fun day. We got all suited up in our equipment, put in a solid warm up, and got to the start line barely in time. I started 1 minute ahead of Sam for about a 30 minute effort.
Holy cow, I forgot how much these things hurt. You quickly sprint to get up to speed, then you get into your tuck position and find a rhythm at which you're breathing hard (but not too hard) and your legs are burning (but not too much). Needless to say, to do this well take lots of strength and lots of practice.
So I was running scared the entire race hoping Sam wouldn't pass me and demolish me, since this thing is kinda his specialty. I went out too hard, tried my best not to slow down for second half, and put in a pretty good effort the last 5 minutes or so (with my left calf just on the verge of cramping). It's funny how you can feel your body say, "Hey, you! Ya you! Stop going so fast! I swear I'm gonna cramp on you! Don't make me do it..." And you're concentrating super hard on your flow and your rhythm for as much of the race as you can; only when you lose concentration do you realize how fast you're going: 26-30 mph! It feels pretty good to fly by the other racers at 10 mph, since I remember when I was one of those getting passed.
I finished ahead of Sam (barely) and felt like I had put in a solid effort. But when the times came out, it became clear Sam's time was smoking fast! 3rd place!! And a 9th for me! I'm quite happy with that. With Erika getting 7th or so in the A's and Caitlin getting 1st in the B's, we had a great team showing.

We're staying in Motel 6 tonight so that we can get some good rest and recovery for tomorrow's brutal road race (and to avoid sleeping on campus where there will be three kegs within 60 feet of my dorm room). All in good time...

2006 Racing Calender

Here is our tentative Race Schedule:

Feb 26 Ontario Crit
March 4-5 UC Santa Barbara
March 11-12 Cal Poly Pomona or 11-12 Murrieta Stage Race
March 17-19 San Dimas Stage Race (Big time)
March 25-26 UC Berkeley or 24-25 Redlands Stage Race
April 1-2 Claremont Colleges Race Weekend
April 8-9 UC Irvine or 7-9 Valencia Stage Race or 7-9 Sea Otter Classic (Monterey)
April 15-16 UC Santa Cruz or 15-16 Palmdale Stage Race
April 22-23 Stanford or 22-23 Westlake Village Stage Race
April 29-30 Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Western Collegiate Conference Championships
May 7 San Diego Road Race (USCF)
May 10-14 Collegiate Nationals (St. Loius)
May 31-June 4 Mount Hood Stage Race (OR)
July 12-16 Cascades Cycling Classic (OR)

Check out new Photo Link!

New Photo LInk is now up and running, check it out in the links section!

San Diego Race Weekend

February 5, 2006 Christof
Well, it may not sound like a Friday night of a college senior’s second semester, but I was doing laundry and hammering my statistics homework last night, packing at 11pm with the 2003 Tour DVDs on the TV, and hitting the sack at midnight. Somehow it was pretty satisfying though.
I packed the car at 7:30am, rolled down to Sam’s place, went to the bagel shop, met up with Will and took off by 8:45am. Will’s ride unexpectedly bailed on him, so getting him in the car and to the race put us a little behind schedule, but it’s great to have him along.
We got to the race 30 minutes before it started. Registration, dressing, last minute food, pumping tires, and all that bizniss put us right up to the start of the race. Sam and I cut it so close that the race had already rolled 50 meters down the road by the time we got to the starting line.
So… we decided to use the first 30 or so minutes as a warmup: where most people want to conserve energy by staying cocooned in the belly of the peloton, wary of sticking their head out into the wind, we were at the front rolling along at the front getting our legs warmed up for the efforts ahead.
Boulevard is a beautiful course. It’s practically in Mexico: east of San Diego in the desert, the course is a nice rolling descent curving around big slabs of light tan-colored rock, with a few climbs and into-the-wind straightaways before the real hill. It paralleled the highway (which was about 7% grade) and had only one false summit before the final steep 400 m kick to the finish. This route was one lap of three for our race, totalling 67 miles.
We talked a lot about strategy on the car ride down because we were pretty confident we had the firepower in our legs to execute something pretty well. About 5 minutes into the first real hill, I attacked just to see how everyone was feeling. This means I stood up, gave it about 30 seconds pretty hard effort, sat down and turned around, and happily saw everyone strung out hanging on to a wheel. I slowed down, everyone caught up (as hoped) and Sam counterattacked and a few less people were able to respond. He slowed, and Will counterattacked. This time, nobody was in the mood to chase except one guy. Sam and I sat at the front of the pack, very happy to see Will steadly increase his lead on the hill to about 90 seconds by the top. PERFECT. Exactly what we wanted: one of us in the early break.
I put in another attack at the top of the first climb and Sam covered the chase to make some of the other guys work and wear out their legs. At the top, I grabbed a water bottle from one of Will’s friends in the feed zone, ditched my two empties, then ate half of one of Mom’s energy bars. Whoa, those things are dense. Kinda like the granola. I laughed at the look on Sam’s face when he was eating it in the car ride. He said, “Holy crap, this is dense.” But you can just tell that it’s all good stuff, and perfect fuel.
So we’re all together on the second lap, but I get into a break of about 6 guys on one of the gradual ascents at the bottom of the lap, and start putting on the pressure. We get a good gap, and they’re all taking their pulls. I make sure to encourage them to take harder pulls. (I love doing that… less work for me. I learned to do that after people used to trick ME into taking hard pulls last year. ☺ )
By the bottom of the real hill, we probably had a minute. Sam’s in the peloton screwing over all the people who want to get into the break, covering all the moves – pretty much playing perfect defense. I start hammering a bit, but ease up when I realize I might get stuck doing the descent alone, something that would probably make an attack a waste of energy. But then I decide I might be in the right position to make it happen. I start hammering again and eventually catch a glimpse of Will and the other guy. Will hears from a friend with a cellphone that I’m coming, lets up a bit; I put my head down and caught them just at the top of the climb, just like we talked about in the car. PERFECT.
Will and I did a 2 man time trial on the descent and the flat, ditched the third guy, relaxed a tiny bit before the climb, then hammered it. We gained a minute on the chase group on the final climb alone and finished almost 4 minutes ahead. And when we’re waiting at the finish, we see Sam coming up in 4th place!!! Holy crap, 1st, 2nd, and 4th??? PERFECT.
I had a bit more left than Will for the uphill finish, so I came in maybe 2 seconds in front of him. But the biggest victory today was our teamwork, having a gameplan and executing it. We controlled the whole thing and made it the race we wanted it to be.
I got to see one of my idols after the race, Lucas Euser. He’s racing for the one of the premier teams in the US for bike racers under 23, TIAA CREF. He’s a super chill guy and will be racing in the Tour of California later this month, so watch out for him.
We got the sketch Motel 6 in El Cajon, took a shower, then ate huge burritos that were also way sketch but mysteriously quite good. With a couple 32 oz Coronas the evening was pretty relaxing.
Bike racing is fun.

Feb 5, 2006
Today’s race was art. I believe that there comes a point in all sports, at each level of competition, where the physical aspect of the pursuit becomes beautifully balanced out by its more refined mental component, and you reach kind of a new plane of athleticism that borders on… well, yes, art. Today that happened for Chris and Will and I. I had goosebumps during the race because I saw before me that the three of us had created something greater than our sum; a powerful, merciless system that was running like clockwork to put all of the other riders at our very fingertips. I felt like we were the puppetsmasters and our fellow competitors were being subjected to some pretty frustrating and humiliating pulls of the strings.
One of the interesting paradoxes of controlling a race (and I may have to limit my strategic ramblings to only one since it’s kind fo late) lies in the defensive role of a rider whos teammate is up the road on a break. Contrary to what one may postulate, a successful defense consists of a lot of accelerations and surges, not just blocking (though the latter is the principle tactic employed on downhills, where pulls are more sporadic and less organized). On the flats or any kind of uphill, when a rider attacks (presumably to get free of the bunch and make it up to the break-away riders), the true defender will actually be the most active in accelerating with him, but only doing so to sufficiently ‘hold’ his wheel. In doing so, the attack is nullified because nobody wants to pull his competitor along without a mutual investment of effort. Typically, in seeing the futility of the attack, the attacker will desist in his attempt. If, on the other hand, he deems it absolutely necessary to bridge up to the break, regardless of whether he gives the rest of the group a free ride or not, it is not without great sacrafice that he reaches the break. And so, in this way, the defending rider can rather ingeniously force those with an interest in catching his teammate, into a corner where the opponent loses either way.
That’s one of many things that worked just right today. It was really fun to be part of it.

Earlier Posts from Nelson's Stage Race

Here are some entires we jotted down the first two days of our most recent stage race conquest! :

January 27, 2006 Chris
Holy crap, it took me forever to pack last night. Gotta get the racing weekend drill down so that I can hammer out more homework before we leave.

The three of us got into the Beamer with four bikes on top and extra wheels crammed into the fourth seat. Sam made a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the drive out, and we had grabbed a few giant green apples and about a dozen bananas from the dining hall. Lesson 1 from this weekend: You can never bring too much food from the dining hall. No matter how stuffed your pockets are, bring more.

Over the mountains and across the desert, I 15 took us to Las Vegas and just beyond, to our FLAT, STRAIGHT TT. We got suited up, tried to eat and drink the last bits of fuel we could, warmed up, and hammered. Boy,you really forget just how hard “all-out” is. I feel like I did a good effort, with room for improvement, but nothing to be ashamed about.

One of the main problems of this event is how many excuses you can use to explain your low or fast time. First, it is general knowledge that little guys just aren’t able to put out the same kind of power as a 180 lb 6’5” guy, and therefore can’t do timetrials as fast. This is annoying coming from a sport like running where the playing field is level. The second often-used excuse is equipment. You can hear guys saying, “Well I had a disc wheel” or “Well I didn’t have a disc.” A disc wheel is a known advantage with rumored potential to drop your time anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes. Other equipment that increases the differential between people include other carbon wheels (deep rims or tri spokes), aero bars (which get you into that tucked position), TT bikes (bikes made and used specifically for time-trials), shoe covers and skin suits (to cut down on drag !?)… all of these things add up and the more of them you have the faster you go.

While it does kinda suck how much equipment you need to get the most out of your power output, holy crap do you go fast!!! We averaged around 28.5 mph for 25 minutes. You feel like you’re flying.

Afterwards, no matter what you used, you eventually think “Could I have gone faster?” This especially happens when you hear how fast everyone else went. Will started 30 seconds behind me, passed me 75% way through, I passed back at 85%, then he passed again as I blew up (after getting hopeful that one group of onlookers had been the finish) and ended up a total of 36 seconds faster than my time. It was great having him pass me, because it woke me up a bit and reminded me to pedal smoother and faster.

All three of us raced great, but we’re a bit down on the leaders of our category, so we’ll see how the next couple days pan out. Hopefully we can move up.

January 27, 2006 Sam
I came into the weekend off of a very dissapointing two weeks of training back in school following Christmas break. Training for five days in Albuquerque was fantastic but I think the other three weeks of weather-induced relative stagnation really hurt me. Chris and I started doing very hard workouts three times a week since we’re into what is called our base period, meaning this is the point in our season when we want to ride over our lactic threshold for long periods of time to elevate our over-all ability to produce power with less effort for long periods of time…basically the most important thing for time trialing and climbing- two things that this weekend surely will serve to test! But during those workouts I felt worse than I had in a long time, and the stats were there to prove it! Since Chirs has a power meter on his bike, I have been able to gauge just exactly how strong I am at different points, and despite the fact that I have put in a ton of good base miles, last week I just was horribly slow.

ANYWAY, I thought of today as my opportunity to ask Mr. Body, “Hey, Mr. Body, what the hell over?”- to see if I can consider the last two weeks of feeling wimpy over or if I still have more wimpiness ahead of me. Once we got there, I got quite a scare. Chris and Will (the guy from CAL Tech who came with us) had already registered online, so they went to go pick up their numbers and race timing chips. I waited till the line died down and then went to register about 2 hours before the time trial was going to start. I got a blank look from the lady at the race tent as she told me that on-site registration was not possible. My stomach dropped. I had prepared all yesterday and planned out all of my training and suffered the drive over, and I was going to be really mad at the world if after all of that I was going to spend my time here in Vegas watching “Bikini Bull-Riding” (flash!flash!) down at the Frontier, a sure-to-be classy spectacle that SOMEONE else I happen to know wanted to experience last night, while everyone else got to race for three glorious, epic days. Luckily the dorkis who failed to post such information (I mean about the race, not the Bikini business), finally aquiesced, permitting me and the other riders who made the same mistake to race. He kept us waiting on the edge of our seats for about an hour as he went to go ‘deliberate’ (can you say ‘power complex’? God, I thought cops were bad…) but came back with his god-like proclimation, “Alright guys, what I’m going to do is let you race, but you’ll have to go after everyone else goes for the tt, (cough cough) and pay an extra (ahem) 30 bucks.” “Oh thankyou, merciful one! I will happily contribute $30 to your beer fund.” Needless to say, I got my damn revenge when I discovered he was racing as well and I had gone faster than his worthless Pro/1/2 ass in the tt. Ummmm. Yummy.

I was excited about the time trial because one of my projects over the break had been to put together a swanky new time trial bike with aero bars and a tri-spoke wheel. Also I got a aero helmet and little aero booties- in short I was at least LOOKING pretty fast, and that’s being halfway to BEING fast the way I see it.
“Mark 15 seconds. Ok on Go. 3, 2, 1, GO!”

The race official let go of my sides and I felt the juicy goodness of my first stroke down the start ramp. ! 10 strokes and I sat down into position to shift to the big ring and then stood for another 10 strokes to accelerate. The adrenaline at this point keeps you from feeling anything, so it’s important to put out a good rhythm but not out-do yourself, because when the pain invades the legs, wow do you remember how much it hurts. Funny how that works. I think no matter how much I ride, I’ll always think back to the points where I’ve really gone hard and not fully be able to ever recall just how much it hurts. I always think it will be fun, but then when you reach that state, you kind of think to yourself, “Why am I doing this again?”

The 25 to 26 minutes it takes to do the 20km actually pass by very quickly and even more than the physical exertion you notice how hard the mental exertion must be for a good time trial. Concentrating on being smooth and applying continuous power to the pedals is quite difficult. Its so easy to let your mind wander, causing your power output to fall and, more imortantly, making you slwo down. The course was very slightly down-hill on the way out with a slight headwind and on the way back, the reverse. I worked on going at my near max on the way out and then my max max on the way back, since I figure going uphill is what I can do marginally better than the really fast big guys. I was pretty happy with my time. As I came across the line, with nasty spittle trails all over my face, the clock showed I had done the 20km course in under 26 minutes, meaning I averaged around 29 miles per hour! That’s pretty fast for 25 mintues. As Chris alluded to, had I really been in good form, or at least more equal to his level of fitness, I just have been more than 30 seconds faster just because I’m bigger, but 30 seconds was OK for me after two weeks of feeling badly. My time was good enough for about 8th place out of around 40 cat 3 guys, which I was happy with.

Then back to the hotel for hotel room vistas of the infamous “Las Vegas Strip” since we’re staying in the mighty Stratosphere Casino and Hotel. God this place is surreal. I was telling Chris I feel like this town was built for a Kubrick film. Goodnight.


January 28, 2006 Chris
Got up this morning at 7:57am just before the alarm. I took a quick shower and poop, weighed myself, and woke up Will from Caltech so that we could head downstairs to hit the morning buffet. Sam requested to sleep the extra 30 minutes or so.

The buffet was bomb. Omlettes made-to-order, fruit, hashbrowns like at home, toast, and donut holes: all you can eat for only $10. That’s a pretty nice deal here in Lost Wages – cough, cough – I mean Las Vegas. This place really ranks up there with ways to burn a lot of money, right below digging a hole in the sand, pouring lighter fluid in there, and tossing in a match.

So, it was a good start to the day despite getting to sleep around1am after dragging Sam all around the strip last night in search of god-knows-what. I, of course, figured we had to go out and see the sights just like an Oregonian might in sunny weather: we’re here and we SHOULD go walk around and see the ridiculousness that is Las Vegas.

I think from the outside, I would rank the Wynn, the Belagio, Caesar’s Palace, and the Venetian all up there in terms of straight grandeur. The taxi cab driver was telling us about “the good old days” when it all was mob-owned and mob-controlled, “before they were pushed out of the casinos.” “They ran it better,” he said, “They took your money at the tables, not every time you tried to breathe.”

It took a while to get going, but we got there with about an hour to get all set up and warmed up, only to find out our race had been delayed for an hour. A bit of a relief. Nate DeFelice came to check out the scene, which was way cool, and a bit inspiring.

The race started with some hesitation: nobody was exactly rip-roaring from the gun. Sometimes you’re suddenly in last place if you don’t clip in immediately and start near the front. The three of us stayed in the top 15 for the first 10 minutes, monitoring breaks and breaking away ourselves for a few, only to be brought back into the fold. You don’t really notice too many others, but a few stick out by a few qualities: maybe they are just huge, either 6’5” or a butt that must weight 200 lbs, or they have a menacing tattoo on their calf, or they’re small, or they look really nervous and have a hard time holding their line. These are the little things you notice. The big things you notice are accelerations, jumps, certain corners, gaps between you and the guy in front of you. These things you suddenly remember how to deal instinctively, even after such a long time away from racing.

The race was exciting pretty much the whole time, with one technical corner just before the finish of the 1mile loop always a bit of an issue. It was tight enough so you couldn’t pedal through it, and shaped in a way so guys would try to take it along the inside edge, but have to straighten out their line at some point so they wouldn’t crash. I watched the few races before us and noticed that getting to that corner first would be the key move. So Sam and I were top 5 into that corner on the last lap, after a pretty speedy last two laps, and I couldn’t hold the tight line around the corner and swung way wide (just bad handling skills), and that turned out to be the lucky move because the guy I would have been right next to hit the deck in the middle of the turn. Sam and I were able to sprint to 3rd and 4th I think. Awesome results for us considering we’re really aiming for tomorrow.

The leader of our race acted like it today; he defended several moves, and spent 80% of the day in the top 3 places. From his TT time yesterday, he’s clearly very strong. It’ll be fun if we can see exactly how strong tomorrow.

We rode for 30-45 minutes afterward, got in the car, back to the hotel, showered, and got advice about good hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurants near by. We looked for one, but resorted to one on the way, which had a carne asada burrito and Pacifico that turned out to be pretty good eats.

We just got done with a great 2-hour nap. After some homework and another meal, I’d like to hope we’ll be in top form for tomorrow. We really think we can hit the GC podium after a good day tomorrow.

January 29th 2006 Sam

Today was another good day of racing for all of us. We did a bang-up job of controlling the race for all 45 minutes. Each attack that went off the front one of the three of us would get on the wheel right away and just sit to nullify it. A handful of times Will, Chris, or I went off the front, most notably Will who spent about 3 1-miles laps off the front. We kept an eye on all the riders in the top ten from yesterdays time trial to make sure they couldn’t make it in any breaks, so in the end the pack finished all together. I think I snagged third and Chris got probably fifth. Will was also inside the top ten.

Tomorrow is going to be increadibly hard with three long, hard climbs. Its only a fifty miles race but we’ll climb 7000 feet in that shrot distance! That basically means it will look like an uphill time trial for everyone after the first climb. I think Chris has a real chance at cracking into the top three, possibly even winning the overall, just because some of the time trial guys who were fast are pretty big and will probably suffer quite a bit tomorrow. He’ll have to make up about 2 ½ minutes on the first place man to win the whole thing. I can’t wait!

We’re glad we got through todays stage safe and in good form for tomorrow. I’m nervious for how much this is going to hurt…Oh and P.S. I forgot a funny coincidence that happened today. While Chris and Will rode back from the crit in the car, I rode back on my bike (picture me walking through the Stratosphere Casino in my spandex by the way). Just before I got there, this latino guy honked at me and wanted me to pull over, he was all excited. At first I was bit leary and stayed on my bike rolling along as he approached me because I was sure if he was about to knife me for my precious baby or something. But, of course that didn’t happen and I didn’t have to administer any karate kicks, luckily. It turns out he’s from Cuba and he’s been living here for about a year, but the funny thing is that he was one of the coaches for the Cuban National Team, and he knew BOTH of the guys I lived with over in Alcoy! Small world….he may come see the race tomorrow morning if I can find his number.

Breaking Away

This Sunday was the last day of Nelson's Landing Stage Race, and Sam and I had circled it as a climber's paradise. In just 50 miles of road racing, there were 7000 ft of climbing. We had been doing a lot of long hill repeats, so we felt like this was the day to attack.

I woke up exactly one minute before the alarm clock went off, and our friend Will from Caltech was still missing from his bed. I called him on the cell and he was on his way back to the hotel in a cab after a night out on the town. With this kind of a day ahead, that's way hardcore. That's the way Caltech does it.

The conditions were perfect: sunny, barely any wind, cold but warming up throughout the day. There was a huge line for the portapotties, but free bagels while we waited in line. The time before the race is always a bit exciting. It's fun talking with some of your competitors before going to battle, maybe trading war stories from the day before. "Oh, crap... YOU were the guy that crashed?! How's the bike? Not too bad? Cool. Well, good luck today." I also talked to the guy who beat me at SDSR last year, and he had a few words of warning. "Hey Chris, you gonna show everybody who's King of the Mountain? There's a couple good climbers in your race, so don't write them off right away." I enjoy trying to feel out who's confident, getting rumors about which guy is gonna be a dark horse, who's got the guts to attack early, who's got the legs and lungs to win. It's the build-up: sometimes it puts a few butterflies in your stomach, and sometimes it may give you motivation to really dig deep during the race.

The start of the race was smooth: two guys from the same team went off the front for the first few minutes and a few of their larger teammates tried to block for them; it was quickly evident that these teammates would not be able to handle any gradient larger than 1%. These are the riders you don't want to sit behind for more than a few seconds in case someone makes a big move.

We made the leader, #123, do all the chasing. He was just keeping the break at a constant distance, but then Sam flew up the left side. The leader quickly accelerated, but still needed at least 20 seconds to catch Sam; once caught, I flew up the right side and #123 didn't do anything about it. To break free from the stuffiness of the peloton is pretty invigorating.

I bridged up to the break but didn't do any work at the front because I knew it would be worthless. We were all together on the first descent, and there were some SUPER SKETCHY riders who looked super nervous and ready to crash at any moment. So, I tried to give them as much space as they needed to stay upright.

The first time up the hill things heated up. You can hear and see the desperation in their breathing and peddling. After a few accelerations I was off the front, not really expecting it to last long. Again, he let me go and I kept a very manageable rhythm and gained a bunch of time. On the downhill, I expected to get caught, but avoiding this, I knew I had to hammer my way up the hill. I tried to concentrate on going as fast as possible, saying to myself, "Climb like an angel." It's hard to stay motivated when you're all alone on a climb, with your opponents out of sight. I would have liked what I would have seen: Sam sticking right on #123's wheel, sucking all the inspiration out of the guy, attacking him when he was tired. Great teamwork.

At the top of the hill, I hammered and started the 9 mile individual time trial to the finish. This part sucked, but when I finally saw the finish line, and I looked back and saw nobody in sight, I wiped off all the spit and ClifBar crumbs from my face and got ready to win. It was an awesome feeling, to raise my arms just like the guys do in the Tour. There was lots of adrenaline (and fist pumping) since this was my first road race victory ever . I waited eagerly to find out how much time I had gained, but it wasn't quite enough. I finished 2 minutes ahead of the rest of the field, but still needed 20 seconds to win the overall.

Next time.

Waiting 4 hours to sort out all the problems with the results was pretty anticlimactic, and driving back to the hotel and packing and driving home felt like an ordeal to say the least. But it was a great weekend, Sam and I hammering at the competition and coming home with some hardware: - a few champagne bottles as trophies.