Tag Archive for Bicycle Racing

Tucson Bicycle Classic

I think of the hobbies that people have, in addition to having simple physical and mental health benefits, are also great ways to travel and see new places in ways that are unique.  A side benefit to a trip I made to Infineon Raceway  in Sonoma a few years ago was that I was privileged to go for a short airplane ride with friend and fellow competitor Dan Mairani.  I saw a whole bunch of the Napa and Sonoma Valley’s – I’ll never forget it.    

Cycling has been a great pleasure in that way also.  Whether participating in a large group ride to the Oregon Coast, or one of the Saturday rides that happen each week from Hood River, I’ve seen a lot of really cool stuff that I otherwise might never have seen.  It happened again to me this past week.     

I flew to Orange County Wednesday night so that I could drive to Tucson with my brother-in-law, Joe Kolling, for the Tucson Bicycle Classic stage race.  Joe had just acquired a 24 foot motor coach with which to simplify the logistics of his racing this year.  Also, he had pretty much, single handedly, ridden me back into shape from my hip fracture and it was time to pick a first race.  Tucson made sense for me because it would be a fun road trip and because it would be a nice sized Masters field without much climbing and no criterium.     

Just past the town of Boulevard (east of San Diego on I-8), where I have had a scenic, but otherwise unpleasant road race in the past, I noticed a lot of boulders sitting on top of other boulders by the side of the road…  like, 10 ton kind of boulders.  How did all that get up there?  – the same space aliens that built the pyramids did that, I’ll bet.  It’s one of those simple things that is just cool.  They were reminiscent of old western movies and Road Runner cartoons I watched as a kid, where the dudes with the black hats and Wile E. Coyote (why wasn’t his name Stu P. Coyote?) would try to roll  big rocks on their nemesis – “let’s head’m off at the pass!!!”.  Now I see how that could have worked…    

Arizona is cool, too.  Cacti are kind of messed up looking and prickly, specifically in a way that I wouldn’t want to crash a bike into one, but seeing them scattered on mountain sides just like pine trees in the Cascades was awesome.  And the opportunity to see this place from my bicycle, I began to realize for sure, was fantastic.    

Anybody who reads this blog regularly also understands that my ability to be self critical also extends to friends, family and other random experiences – like racing a bicycle in Arizona.  During the nine hour drive “home” from Tucson to Newport Beach, Joe and I discussed how the Tucson Bicycle Classic rated, as a bike race.    

Likes:    

  • The Time Trial Course
  • The place we camped the first couple of nights
  • The weather
  • The chance to ride bikes through the Arizona desert

Dislikes:    

  • A couple of busy body officials
  • The “Race Bible”
  • The lack of real officiating (perhaps because of busy bodiness)
  • Ivan (a big jerk riding with us in the Master’s 45 field) 

Saguaro Cactus and Sunrise from Camp

I don’t have a lot of experience with USCF (United States Cycling Federation) racing.  But, I have driven several stages in the “Comm 1” car at USCF Pro Races (this is where the head official rides and does things like, officiate).  So, I’m not a complete idiot when it comes to this kind of stuff and I’ve even seen how it’s supposed to be done – imagine this, I have a bit to say about how it went down at Tucson.     

First, about Ivan (his real name was Marco, it turns out) – I’m just riding along, rolling downhill during a pretty mellow (and mostly well behaved) road race, and this big dude who looks like a Ukrainian Car Salesman on a road bike blinged out like a Tijuana pimp’s 1973 Cadillac El Dorado, goes blasting down the oncoming lane like a school bus full of nuns looking for the runaway truck lane.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat….      

As he was once again backing his way through the field like grandma trying to get out of the bingo hall parking lot after six gin and tonics, I mentioned to him that he was riding like a 15 year old Cat 5.  He promptly launched into an apparently rehearsed diatribe about “Marshall’s” and how it’s his business, not mine.  Well excuse the f**k outta me you freaking clown show – if you are going to attack your fat ass off the back on every little gain in elevation and then come blasting back down the outside only to barge your defensive lineman sized self back into the front of the field, it kind of IS my business…  The problem was simply that we didn’t have an official following the race – they were busy making sure that nobody put anybody else’s name on the sacred sign in sheets (the ones the nuns were hurrying to go protect).  And, it also seemed that this sort of thing must be normal around there because nobody else was giving Ivan any grief about it.    

The series of official race communiqués (which I was able to read after the race – the “Bible” didn’t say anything about where these communiqués would be available, by the way) did address centerline issues, but the “big threat” to disqualify riders never materialized.  The yahoo, Ivan, attacked from the back, and over the centerline, with about 2k to go on the last lap of the Circuit Race (and after the aforementioned communiqué).  I confirmed that an official had witnessed it and also saw them having some conversation afterward, but there was no relegation – Ivan did blow up on the small rise to the finish though, so I guess it all worked out…    

Anyway, back to the race organization…  Driving to the start of the Road Race (we had the late start, so there were riders on course as we arrived) it was apparent that there were a lot of opportunities for cars to cause problems – that sort of stuff is bad sign regarding course control in general, and always makes me uneasy.  The big intersections were well controlled, however.    

The miraculous thing about the Road Race course turned out to be that we were able to find it, at all.  The directions in the packet (which we had also printed from the event website) and included the “Race Bible” didn’t even include the name of the town the race was in.  The directions all started “From Tucson”.  So, even with a satellite  navigation system, we had little more useful info than Lewis and Clark did when they first headed west – hey Meriwether I think we’re lost, yeah but look at all the cool cactus.  Is that Tucson? – let’s start there.    

Our home near Saguaro National Park

The race itself was fun.  The Time Trial course was spectacular and just outside Saguaro National Park.  This is also where we parked our “home” for the first two days we were there.  The Road Race course was nice enough and close enough to Mexico that the mileage signs on the Interstate read in kilometers instead of miles (that’s not how they do it in Bellingham, by the way)…  The Circuit Race was very near town and on mostly pretty good roads – it was a convenient launch point for our long ride home.    

My goal for this race was simply to finish with all of my skin.  The best case scenario would be for me to finish in the peloton in both the Road and Circuit Races.  I finished the Time Trial 63 seconds behind the leader (on a conventional road bike) and couldn’t have ridden it much harder than I did – the power numbers were really good.  I was able to ride the Road Race in the pack without much drama, and the 6:38am Circuit Race was quite comfortable.  I didn’t contest the sprints and finished a very safe 28th in GC.  Mission accomplished.  Final Results.    

Joe was 23 seconds down after the TT in 13th and missed the break that finally got away in the Road Race.  We rode around together in the Circuit Race – just like a Saturday group ride.  He finished the weekend in 12th.      

Overall it was a lot of fun.  I saw a lot of cool stuff and confirmed how lucky we are in the Northwest to have so many well organized Stage Races.  Preparation for Cherry Blossom began today, and I’ll never forget my first trip to Arizona.

Hood River Double Cross

Cyclocross has been a big deal to some of the guys I ride with in Hood River for a long time.  I’ve never completely figured it out, because sometimes it looks like it’s just a way for hopelessly insufferable, wannabe bikey hipsters from Portland to endear themselves to the cycling community…  Thankfully, that’s mostly untrue – many of the guys (and girls) are bad fast and it has always looked like everybody has loads of fun.  So, for years it seems, I would plan to acquire a bike – nothing fancy, just something that would work better than a mountain bike or converted road beater. 

Double Cross Photos

In "cross" time is spent carrying the bike and tripping over obstacles

In "cross" time is spent carrying the bike and tripping over obstacles

Last year, I finally pulled the trigger – which means that I had a bike by the time the season was about half over.  This is a “cross” tradition born either from the reality that bike shops don’t want to stock a bunch of “weird” bike stuff that will be useless by the time Christmas rolls around (and until September of the next year), or a massive conspiracy to prove “you’re not cool enough”.  Your bike will be here next week, er September, I mean mid October… 

Anyway, the bike showed up and I figured that since the guys I ride on the road with are racing in the Masters B category (the equivalent of Cat 3 on the road), that I should do the same.  WRONG.  First, if you start at the back (there is another conspiracy to guarantee this), you will likely stay there.  The courses can be quite technical which is problematic for a guy that doesn’t spend much time on a mountain bike anymore – that means passing is hard.  I struggled to get into the middle third of the pack.  I sucked. 

It seems there were always 100 guys in the races.  And, the line-up is done by lottery based on the last digit of your race number – my number was never in the top half of the guys that started at the back half of the race.  I have come to believe that this is because I was new and cyclocross has another special math based conspiracy to determine these things.  I was definitely going to need a new plan for this year. 

Each cross event has about 90 different races split up by different combinations of age, experience and sex (there are no fewer than three of those, as near as I can tell).  There is always somebody (something) to race with and I would like to do well, but I really don’t want to be a sandbagger (those that race a category easier so they can win the beer prizes which are based on more “randomly” generated combinations of numbers).  

This year, even though I’m 49, I can race as a 50 year old (another tricky numbers thing – but it says so on my racing license).  They have a geezer class in cross that starts at 50.  Surely, there would be fewer age 50 plus riders, so starting at the back wouldn’t be as far back, and since its age based – no sandbagging… The only problem is that, like road racing, there exists the possibility of x-pros in the field (or guys that are just plain fast).  But hey, if I can be the “new kid”, I’m going to check it out – and how many fast guys that age could there be, anyway..? 

"Team Dirks" debrief

"Team Dirks" debrief

Double Cross in Hood River is when the Mountain View team starts it’s cross season.  Pretty much everybody gets involved, including the kids which is super fun.  This would be my first time doing these races, which is hard to believe given how long I’ve been riding bicycles.  Day one would be at the High School and day two would be at the Hood River County Fairgrounds in Odell. 

“Masters 50” races along with “Masters B” (age 35+, where I raced last year), so comparisons between the two would be easy and I would still kind of get to race with my buddies.  We started one minute behind the B’s (about 35 of them, 25 of us) and it was clear while waiting for the start that a few of the old guys were going to make it through a lot of the B field.  The High School course is kind of wide and / or grassy in a lot of places, so passing wouldn’t be a huge issue and the start was easier than I expected. 

I settled into a top 10 position early and just rode my heart rate for the first couple of laps.  Now, I have issues running in the red zone – I don’t like it.  It’s probably that I’m lazy – I just don’t have a very high “suffering index”.  In cross, however, red zone is what it’s all about – go till you blow.  I ended up in a race with two other guys (two of us chasing the other with a gap that varied between about 1 and 10 seconds). 

I had backed off a bit with 3 laps to go with the idea that I could deliver a big, demoralizing and crushing blow to the others at the beginning of the last lap.  My heart rate was low in zone 5 and if the other guys were redlined (like I expected they were), I would win the mini “race within a race”.  As we crossed start / finish at the beginning of the last lap, the scorer shouted out “you’re done” – WTF?  I had made a stupid rookie mistake and didn’t see that the lap board had gone from 2 to zero as we approached the line – the guy that had been following me for two laps did see it and put a wheel on me at the finish.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t make that kind of mistake – well, except this time…  F*** me.  I was ninth. 

racing round the rabbit barn

racing round the rabbit barn

I figured the Fairgrounds course wouldn’t suit me because it was less technical.  As it turns out, even though my bike handling skills are in the toilet lately, I am blessed with good line selection capabilities so that even when my bike doesn’t go exactly where I wanted it to it is still close to being “on line”.   Being on line makes it possible to start pedaling earlier when exiting corners (the same principal that applies to cars) – this is important on a “non-technical” course like Sunday’s because it had lots of “easy” turns. 

As we were staging for the race there was a line of guys in the front row and I parked my bike behind them.  Minutes passed and occasionally somebody would push through to the front – a couple of guys simply went around and backed into the front of the line-up.  I thought these guys are being awfully aggressive for a bunch of old f***ers – some of them are going to beat me, but not all of them.  There is something about the protocol that I don’t get.

Then as we rolled up to stage I found myself in the back row – I’m really not very good at this.  Several of the guys were suggesting that we take it easy until we get to the grass – we’re all here “to have fun” I think is how it goes…  I had already made one rookie mistake this weekend so screw that.  Besides, I think it would be more “fun” to be nearer the pointy end.  The way I see it these guys had started racing when they forced their way to the front – once we “switch on”, it’s on…

I was able to make it around most of the line barging hipsters by the end of the long start straight and a few more as we went through the first barriers.  When things settled down I was in the top 10 which I was comfortable with.  My decent late corner acceleration was making it possible for me to stay close to the fast guys at the start of the race.  I was worried that my legs would be tired from Saturday’s 45 minute effort in the red zone, but I felt better than expected.  I don’t think cross’ effect on the body is as much like road racing’s non-stop prolonged efforts as I expected it would be.  But still, I need to do a lot of work before I can stay with those top 4 or 5 guys.

Eric Moody (E2) blasting up the inside

Eric Moody (E2) blasting up the inside

Like Saturday, I had a really fun race with a few other guys on Sunday.  There were always three of us within a few seconds.  Mid-way through the race I felt the rear tire briefly roll off the rim (I’m still riding clinchers which do that at the lower pressures used in cross).  I was convinced I wouldn’t make it to the end of the race as it felt like the tire was going flat.  I checked it a couple of times and it seemed that it hadn’t lost all of its air so I was able to ride carefully to a sixth place finish.  At the finish line it was totally flat – better lucky than good.

Cross is fun and it has been good for my fitness – its forcing me to run in the red zone for prolonged periods which is exactly the kind of training I’ve been missing (that laziness thing again).  I’ve also successfully kept the bike from hitting the ground after loosing traction several times which is good for my bike handling confidence.  Afterward everybody gets beer and French fries.  How cool is that? 

This cross thing is growing on me.

p.s. Cross races are also fun to watch on fall weekends – that’s how I originally got suckered in.  In Portland, Cross Crusade is the big deal.