The Blue Lead Out Train

I have been racing during the week which is a good way to break up the long work week. Tuesday nights are Pacific Raceways, and I raced Seward Park last Thursday for the first time. A few weeks ago I got 3rd on the line at Pacific which equals my best result there. Check out the great photo Lindsay got.



The Seward park race was my first time there and the course is pretty small. I think it is .6 of a mile with a nice little hill right before the finish. Cycle U had a good showing with 4-5 guys. I hung out in the pack for the first couple laps as it is a pretty fast course with not alot of flat ground and I wanted to get a feel for the pavement and corners. You’re either going down or going up. On one of the laps I tested my legs up the hill and moved right to the front of the pack and led everyone over the line which I quickly slowed up and allowed someone else to set the pace. Last lap and I am right up in the front group, probably 10th wheel or so and I am on the inside next to the curb with no where to go. As everyone starts sprinting up the hill I have to manuever around 4 guys to get away from the curb. I was able to get up behind 3rd place and out sprint him up the hill to the line for 2nd. I finished just behind 1st place and knew if I had a better position I could have challenged him for the big W. Soon I thought I will get a win.

This brings us up to date to Tuesday night at Pacific Raceways. Leading up to last night we were getting alot of guys saying they would be there. We had 8 guys last night I believe and Rolly announced to the team that they all would be leading me out to the line to try and get the win. This obviously is a great feeling to have knowing that the team is willing to kill themselves so I can get a win. This brings a quote to mind from a movie I am sure everyone is familiar with. "With great power comes great responsibility". So not only was it cool they were going to do this but it put some pressure on me to not choke. Coach Craig was there and was going to be racing with us as well but thankfully he wasn't racing against us as he was just moving through the field providing advice to everyone about lines and what to do. On to the racing. We took off with a field size of about 30 and I stayed as much in the pack as I could. The more you are out of the wind the less energy you spend. It was a great sight to see all the Cycle U boys up there near the front controlling things and watching the other teams, to make sure a break away didn't happen. With 3 laps to go I began to get nervous, knowing that I had to pony up and come with the goods in a few laps for the final sprint. With 2 laps to go the 5 guys that the team chose to go to the front were there doing their job, hammering the field as best they could. The funny thing was the team was off by a lap as we came back around to get the last lap. The guys that hammered it, Travis, Chris, and John I believe were toast now. It would have been a perfect lead out but we still had a lap to go so we all just sat up and had a quick laugh as the field came by. Remember this is our first try at leading someone out at the end of a race. We stayed close to the front and then a break of 2 went and out of nowhere Shawn flew by us and bridged the gap to the 2 guys. That was pretty cool to see. Then another attack came and this time it was Coach Craig that took off to bridge. About this time Rolly moved to the front of the group and started issuing the pain. I stuck to his wheel the whole lap. No matter where he went I barged my way to make sure I was behind him and kept telling him, "I'm still here". Just as we came around the last turn we caught Coach Craig and the other rider. Rolly was just hammering it and I kept rubbing my front wheel on his back wheel on accident, which could have been a nightmare if I took us both out but I was staying as close to him as I could. Nobody got by us until we got to the start of the straight away when Rolly was starting to run out of gas. A guy moved to the left of me and started his sprint. I yelled to Rolly on the left and I was going, which allowed Rolly to sit up and move to the right, his job of getting me to the lead sprint complete. Now it was up to me to come through for the team with the win. I moved over and got behind the rider's wheel and thought to myself this is going to be painful as we still had the whole front straight to go with the finish line at the end. I had shifted all the way up to my biggest gear and was out of the saddle sprinting. I moved out of his draft to the left and just as I did my big gear shifted in. Apparently I wasn't in the biggest gear yet as my shifter was delayed in shifting all the way up. This gave me the extra kick I needed and I was able to out sprint the guy to finish! As I crossed the line I sat up and clapped my hands together a few times very happy and then fell back down to the bars to try and catch my breath. It was a long sprint but it was an awesome feeling to get my first win and really get the first team win as everyone on the team did something to get me there. I was really happy to pay them all back with getting us the WIN plus we did all this in front of Coach Craig... Big thanks to everyone on the team and next week we will choose someone else within the team to work for.

Cycle U will be racing this weekend in the Snohomish area so hopefully we can use our practice to getting us a win.



Until then More Power Scotty!

Skagit Valley Omnium 7/18-7/19

This was going to be the last Omnium (stage race) of the year which is sad. I really enjoy the 2 day races. Its a suffer fest but a great time, if that makes any sense at all. Coming into this race I was feeling really good and strong. I borrowed Travis's power and TT stuff earlier in the week and was able to put out some big power (watts) number's on Thursday during our team ride. This, I believe would come back to haunt me on Saturday.

Shawn arrived to pick me up around 9:30 Saturday morning to head up to Bellingham to start the road race portion of the weekend at 12:45. The road race was 6 laps of 8.7 miles for a total of 52 miles and each lap had 500 ft of climbing. Now this doesn't sound like alot and I even didn't blink an eye at that number. There was a good turn out for the road race with close to 70 racers in our 4/5 category. We began the race and straight away we began a climb. It didn't get much easier as Rolly and myself seemed to find ourselves at the back of the pack again. There was no shoulder and the road was very narrow so it was very hard to move up. We got the yo-yo affect big time in the back. Basically this happens when the front speeds up and slows down alot and doesn't maintain a steady speed, which gets really annoying and tiresome. I began moving up through the pack to try and get towards the front a bit more. Then we came around for lap 2 and began one of the climbs and several people started popping off the front. It was hard to manuever around them so it was bob and weavin on the climb. I lost contact with the front group but had Greg from the team there and we were able to chase back on. I got next to Mark from Starbucks team and mentioned that I almost got dropped and then it seemed we were right on the next hill and that was it. I was done. There were 3 of us that latched on and formed our own little chase group. Greg from the team was there and we all took turns at chasing and picked up several riders along the way. We did this for 2 laps but we weren't gaining any ground on the lead group just limiting our losses. Another lap passed by and I blew big time. I literally had nothing left in my legs. The pain I felt and the mental pain was nothing I have ever had to go through. It hurt just to turn my legs over and several times I almost came to a complete stop. I also couldn't drink enough water as I was out of water on lap 5. You could walk faster than I could go on my bike. It was pure pain. I soldiered on and finished 31st out of 39 finishers. I decided on the bike while I was suffering trying to figure out what had happened to me, that doing the ride Thursday night is what did me in. My training all year has had me resting on Thursday's. Lesson learned and now I know what it feels like to pop, explode, blow up, and suffer. The ride home in the car was brutal too as my legs ached the whole way home.

I woke up Sunday morning and left to go meet Rolly to head back up to Bellingham for the time trial and criterium. The time trial started early with me starting at 8:44.00 and Rolly starting at 8:44.30. The course was down and back with a hill we had to hit twice for a total of 8 miles. I did the race on my road bike and felt fairly refreshed before starting. The legs were a bit of a question mark but once on the bike they felt ok. The tingling and ache from yesterday were gone. I finished 15th out of 19 racers with a time of 20:39. They say that a TT bike will cut your time by almost 30%. Rolly passed me 2 miles into it on his plush Specialized Transition. He would finish 3rd with a time in the 18 minute range I think. Either way he got 3rd which was great. Now the goal was to go find some food and check out the criterium course.

The crit started at 1:00pm and would be 30 minutes. The course was nice with your basic 4 corners. There was a nice false flat (slight incline) that had a big corner you could take fairly fast.



The race began and this time Rolly and myself were at the very front. The pace was fairly fast the first lap as most crits are. A few minutes later I could hear the sound of air coming out of someone's tire. I rode past start finish and looked down and realized that it was coming from my front tire. Just as we came up on the fast corner, which was turn 1 the tire went completely flat. I was very close to hitting the deck as the front doesn't like to turn when its flat and I almost fell over. I nursed it around to a area I could get accross in the middle and get back to the pit where I could get a new front wheel. I got all set up and was pushed off to get back in the pack as they flew by. I was happy with the new wheel and tire but I had alot of movement out of the front end when I got on the brakes which made me nervous going into the corners. I decided I should just use the back brake instead and it seemed to be fine. With 2 laps to go I was hanging around the back of the pack planning my next move. I decided on the last lap after turn 2 I would just hammer it. I got next to Rolly and said "come on, follow me". As I went by though there was a guy on my left that was moving over a bit towards me that I almost clipped. I heard a noise of bikes hitting the ground or each other but didn't think anything of it. I hammered it all the way around turns 3 and 4 with nobody passing me. I got about 350 meters from the finish line when I pulled off to give Rolly the sprint to the line but there was no Rolly. It took a second for the 2 guys that sprinted for the win to get around me after I pulled off, which means I probably should have kept going but I really don't think I had anything left. Plus, that wasn't my goal when I started the sprint after turn 2. The goal was to lead Rolly out to the line. Rolly rolled by in the pack and come to find out the loud bang was him and the other guy coming together. Thankfully nobody went down. Rolly had some frame paint all over his front rim from the other guys bike who moved over on us and said that was the hardest he has been hit with out crashing. This weekend I probably learned more about my body and racing than I have so far this season.

Thanks to the Cycle U team that was there on Saturday at the road race, Chris, Shawn, Greg, and Rolly.

Till next time.

34th Annual Joe Matava Burien Criterium 7/04/09

Its been a month or so since I had a serious bike race. After the Ballard Crit in early June I had a sinus infection that took me out of racing for most of the rest of the month. I would say its been 2 weeks now where I have been able to really get back to riding and training. I really had set this race on my calendar back in Feb as a race I wanted to really do well in. Getting sick and being off the bike for almost 2 weeks really set me back a bit.

My week leading up to this race was pretty good. I raced at Pacific Raceways Tuesday night and felt real good. My legs felt like they had come back. We did a team ride yesterday with a couple of teammates and the legs felt okay but not great. The race was at 8:00 am so we would miss the hot weather which I was happy with. The course, I must say was fantastic. The pavement was new, smooth and by far the best pavement we have raced on when racing criterium's. There were roughly 50 riders lined up for the start. The start to the race was fast as most crits are and I was at the back of the group, which I need to stop doing. It takes alot of effort to work your way through a pack of 50 guys who all want to be as close to the front as possible. Our race was for 30 minutes of non stop pain! I was doing ok and was feeling comfortable with my pace. I didn't really have any advantage with the corners as I was hoping for. The course was your basic .6 mile lap with 4 corners. With about 8 minutes remaining they start counting us down via laps. My plan at this point was to start moving up to the front of the group. I was having good success moving past people on the outside of the track. We came around the start finish line and got the 3 laps to go sign when I saw a couple guys leaning on each other a few feet in front of me. This usually means there is about to be a crash and once again I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Next thing you know there are bodies hitting the deck and bikes flying. With the line I was using on the outside this placed me in a bad spot. I had the rear wheel locked up and sliding straight towards one of the guys that went down. I came to a stop before hitting the body that was in front of me and had to get off the bike to get around him. Once I got going again I had to put in a serious effort to catch back up to the group. It was painful but a lap later I was back on. This gave me 1 lap to rest and catch my breathe before the final lap. I tried to stick with my plan and get towards the front of the group for the last lap but I was pretty spent at this point. I managed a short sprint on the finish straight and passed a few guys before the line but atleast I finished in the group.

I was a bit disappointed that I again was in the wrong position when a big crash happened but alteast I wasn't in it and I was able to catch back up to the group. All in all it was a fun race and our average speed was just over 24 mph.

Thanks to Shawn, and Jon, for coming out and racing. Also thanks to Lindsay and Shawn's wife Amy for the support. The next race is 7/18-7/19 in Bellingham which will be another Omnium.

Enjoy the weather and Happy 4th!