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.
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.
posted by Unknown at 1:18 AM
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