Races 4: Binghamton Circuit Race X2

It was raining steadily when I went in to work this morning and still raining when I left work and headed for Binghamton just before 10. The rain kept me company all the way to Binghamton, and I hold said rain responsible for the small open women's field. Only four women preregistered when I checked in. I did not foresee more signing up and I had noticed the fine print saying a woman of category n could race with a men's category n-1, so, given that one weakness I have been trying to work on is pack riding, I figured I had better sign up for the Men's 3/4 race as well. My race was scheduled to start at 12:30, and the men's 3/4 at 2:00. Each field racing 15 laps. It was slightly windy and I figured it would take the four of us women around 75 minutes to cover the 24 miles - so I was giving myself a 15 minute break between races. Plenty of time to put the second number on, grab a quick drink, and send out a text or two.

The course is a 1.6 mile loop around an industrial park. As advertised there were no corners and no tight curves - a good thing given the rain. The start went up a 2-3% grade for a short bit then down the back side, and was fairly flat around the back side of the loop. Around 50 meters from the start/finish the road pitched up steeply until just before the line.

As I suspected would happen, a grand total of 4 women lined up - one having raced the 3/4 race two hours earlier. I don't know the name of the repeat rider, the other two were Amy, and Margaret, who raced Check Your Legs. We started a minute behind the combined mens 1/2/3 and masters mens field. We went out at a reasonable pace and rode pretty steady for most of the race. We fell into a pattern where on many laps i led up the climbs, starting on the backside a bit before the steep section and Margaret led on the descent and much of the flat. Amy led a bit too at various spots. The other rider was just trying to hang on and she did until the second prime lap. There were a total of 3 primes (laps 5, 8, and 11 I think). I practiced patience on the bike on the prime laps and at the finish, making sure I was not on the front and letting Amy and Margaret make the first move, before countering. I took all three primes. Margaret made two attacks - one just at the bottom of the hill around mid race, and on the other on the last lap. On the last lap with around 1/2 mile to go Margaret launched a monster attack, that it took a fair bit of effort for me to reel back in, but reel it in i did. The attack did drop Amy though. The effort left Margaret pretty empty for the steep climb and I was able to pass her for the win.

Quick trip to the car for number #2, and something to drink. I hadn't brought anything for quick energy food since I had not been planning on racing twice, so just sports drink and a quick number change before lining up again. At least I was warmed up for this second race. I spent most of this race floating around the back half of the pack, getting VERY soggy, and having a bit of difficulty seeing anything with the wheel spray despite the glasses. Around mid lap I did help shut down one move off the front of the pack, though at that point I believe there was already a small break up the road. I managed to hang on despite the much faster pace for almost the whole race. Half way around the last lap there was a surge I just couldn't match and I found myself 4 or so bike lengths off. I was able to make up some of the distance and pass a few guys on the final time up the steep section and finished just a few seconds off the pack. Results for both races are up and it looks like I was 4th to last in the second race.

Jim Danvers came out to shoot us riding in the rain and has posted his shots on the Jim Danvers Photography site. He got there just before the Mens and women's 1/2/3 races and shot a lot of pictures of us. Unfortunately the rain picked up after that race and he had to pack up the camera. he has some fun shots.

Race 3: Check Your Legs

It was 40 and snowing when I packed the car at 7 this morning to head to New Lisbon for the race. Most of the drive was through a mix of rain and snow, but happily the rain stopped just before I got to the race venue. I got there early enough to pre drive the 12.5 mile loop that the women were scheduled to do twice. The first four miles were very gently rolling on very good though very wet pavement. Four miles in we had our first corner to into the second third of the loop. A fox ran across the road in front of me here - a very pretty animal. This four mile stretch started with a steel decked bridge crossing and contained two ½ mile long climbs separated by a few shorter climbs separated by dips. Then the second turn, a little more climbing and a few miles of downhill on fairly rough pavement before looping around again on a slight uphill to the start.

It looked like 11 women, and maybe 40 men. We were sent out in two groups all groups to do 2 laps, the men starting two minutes ahead of the women. My goals were 1) not doing any work, 2) not riding alone, and 3) attacking the second time up the second ½ mile climb. There was one team that fielded 6 women, so I did not feel bad about the decision to do no work. Unfortunately I failed to meet all three goals. Whoops.

Although it was not actively raining at the start we all got soaked by the water on the road in very short order. This chilled me down a bit and I found my resolve to do no work for most of the race rather frustrating because the women who set the initial pace, chose a very sedate 11mph pace that did nothing to actually warm the muscles at all. Happily one of the other women, Margaret, was even more impatient than I was and she picked up the pace to a more reasonable muscle warming speed after 3.5 miles. I had been sitting 3^rd wheel until that point and easily popped over to Margaret’s wheel. Margaret and one of her teammates led into the first climb. I decided to test the legs of the other ladies (and warm myself up a bit) and pushed the pace a little bit, but stayed below threshold. I started this little push – it was not an attack, just holding a steady pace through the steeper parts of the climb, about half way up. At the top I glanced back and saw I was off the front followed several bike lengths back by Margaret and her team mate at mile 6. Margaret made up most of the distance to me in the dip immediately after the climb. She came up almost alongside me just at the bottom, and I had hopes of the two of us working together to stay away. However, she fell off on the climb up the other side of the dip and dropped further back on the second ½ mile climb.

At this point I decided to try to get far enough ahead to make the “out of sight, out of range” mental game work for me. I pushed over the top of the second ½ mile climb and each of the other smaller climbs. I settled in for a long time trial riding at threshold as much as I could and every time I looked back I saw just empty road. I caught one of the guys as I started in on the second loop. I was a little concerned that with the wind that had sprung up any gap I had would shrink on the rolling section if the ladies had regrouped behind me, so I kept the pressure on myself. I passed a few other men and then mercifully was on the climbs again. I pushed over them this time around rather than just climb them just below threshold. I passed several more men on the climbs and pushed through to the finish, for a total of 19 miles alone off the front.

Margaret told me that when she came to the turn 200 meters from the start/finish the first time around, a corner marshal told her she was 35 second behind me. At the finish she was between 1 and 2 minutes back. Third place was four minutes behind 2^nd. It rained on and off throughout the race, and both poor Madone and i were quite filthy when we finished. It was a well run event. A huge thank you to the organizers and volunteers who stood outside in less than pleasant weather but still cheered me on with smiles when I came past. Full results are posted on the Central NY Cycling webpage.

Next up Binghamton Circuit Race.

Race 2: Tour of the Battenkill

Wow. That is the overarching sentiment of race day. The expected, and to be honest, somewhat hoped for chaos never materialized. Everything, from my perspective at least, seemed like it went like clockwork, or a conveyor belt.

Race weekend for me started Friday shortly after noon when I snuck out of work and hit the road for Cambridge, NY. I pulled into town shortly after 4, checked in for the race, took a peak at the demo bike to be sure I knew where to put the timing chip, checked into the lovely Cambridge hotel. Then it was back in the car to check out the course. After a couple of false starts I realized that most turns were less than 2 miles apart and that There were a ton of turns. This is a VERY corner-marshal intensive course with 35 turns. Once I figured that out, I stopped overshooting the turns. there are 8 dirt sections on this 62 mile course for a total of almost 16 miles of dirt. Most of the dirt looked decent. Lots of potholes on section 1, a wet section that looked slippery on section 3, but nothing else of note. I got back to the hotel and grabbed my bike and rode backwards so I could feel those last few km. Then it was a 2 hour wait for supper. After supper I labeled my spare wheels as directed, put the timing chip on my fork, and the numbers on my jersey.

Saturday morning: Race day! Cloudy and judging from the amount of clothing the folks setting up the finish line were wearing, cold. The forecast was for a hi of 53 with winds at 13-22 mph and gusting higher. I warmed up on the trainer from 9:30 to 10 and then headed outside to bring my wheels to the start and warm up on the road a bit. 10:40 it was back to the start to await the 10:55 start with the other 55 riders in my field. It was freezing under the clouds in that wind in my knickers, t-shirt, and long sleeved jersey, but I figured I would warm up soon enough. Amazingly (to me) my field, 10^th out of 26 to start, went out right on time.

We had a 1 km neutral controlled speed start, and unlike other races I have been in, there was no change in pace when racing began. I spent the first few miles sitting on the back waiting for the first climb so I could move up in the pack. Sitting on the back is not good with lots of turns. Our first surge came on the turn onto the first gravel section. Things strung out a little – not terrible given the number of potholes in that section. There were several disgruntled “hold your line!” as people attempted to swerve around the holes, but we all made it. Then it was onto rt 61 and our first downhill and somewhere near the front a woman went down – I am guessing she touched a wheel. All I saw though was a mass slowing and people swerving all over the road and into the dirt. To avoid the people in front of me and the downed rider, I grabbed too much brake in an effort to slow before heading for the shoulder, I went into a two wheel skid, came out of it ok and hustled back onto the pack.

The whole field relaxed after that and we settled into riding. The first big climb came at mile 7 and I was able to move up through the pack. I hung on in the first descent, though found myself on the back of the pack again. Moved up again on the next steep section, but that was followed by a long downhill with a dirt section in the middle (the one with the big puddle and wet spot), and a few off camber turns. I botched the turns and found myself a little off the pack with 5 others. We worked together well on the flats, but as soon as we started to climb again they dropped back and the pack moved further away. I was a bit bummed because losing the pack at mile 15 of 62 is not a good thing.

Eventually one other woman and I broke away from the others on the third substantial climb and she and I worked together to attempt to catch back on. It was a lot of hard work with substantial parts into the wind. We worked together well, sharing the work fairly evenly, and even when it looked hopeless, we kept the caravan in sight. We started passing individuals from the races that started in front of us. We could tell they weren’t us because the different fields had different colored numbers and numbers in different series. My field was green and in the 100- 200 range. We were passing blue numbers (Juniors 15-18 who started 5 minutes ahead of us), pink numbers (Masters 50 + field who started 15 minutes ahead of us), and a very few white numbers (Cat 5 under 35 black who started 25 minutes ahead of us), but no women. All of a sudden we were in the caravan, passing a group of men just behind the women, and then with a final push we were on the pack again, just shy of Greenwich, at mile 37 after 17 miles of chasing and the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th substantial climbs. It was instant relief. The woman I had worked with and I immediately started eating and drinking.

Unfortunately for me, eating and drinking there came a bit too late, and after a turn up a super steep pitch I was a bike length off and then another turn into the wind and onto dirt I was completely off the pack- at mile 41. A few other women hung on a bit longer before drifting off and my focus became to try to get to them to work with others. No one was visible behind me for me to wait for. I continued eating and drinking and creeping past riders who had started in fields ahead of mine. At mile 48 a group of women in my field caught up with me and I suddenly had 10 other people to work with again. This group stuck together up and over Meeting House road and Owl Kill Road, the two remaining substantial climbs. I did almost no work in this group at all. I was feeling the lack of miles in my legs and the 17 miles of hard work and was running on empty. At the five km to go marker we started a double pace line that cycled through and as bad luck combined with bad planning on my part would have it, with 1 km to go, I was on the front and could not get off the front, so at 500 meters when the sprint started, I was in the worst place to be and had nothing left on top of that. So I was last of my little group.

My effort was good for 44/56 starters and 51 finishers. Happily for me, my hotel was just past the finish line, so I went to the timing chip return spot and then immediately went to my room where I had a liter bottle of already mixed recovery drink and some food waiting. I slurped that down, changed out of the bike clothes and went in search of the spare wheel return spot. I walked the 1-2 miles back to the start and was thinking I should have taken the bike, but it felt pretty good to walk. Once the wheels were retrieved I went to a sunny spot 50 meters from the finish to watch the other fields coming in. Almost all the fields I saw finish came through in groups of 2 -5 for the leaders and 1’s and 2’s for the stragglers.

While watching the finish I chatted with various riders and towns folk and they said that this year was a really good dirt road year. This year with the exception of sections 1 and 3, the dirt road was smooth and fast and in many cases a nicer riding surface than some of the paved sections. In past years the dirt has been loose enough that standing on the climbs was not possible and at least one year it was so wet that the dirt sections were soft energy sucking mud.

Kudos to the race director, the communities of Cambridge, Salem, Battenville, Shushan, Greenwhich, and Buskirk, and the hundreds of volunteers for putting on an awesome race. Even bigger kudos that the results were up on Sunday! 2000+ riders and results (my field on pages 3 and 4) up a day later! wow!

Race 1: Connecticut Hill Training Race

Yesterday’s practice race went well. It was the perfect way to start the season. You have never seen a more low key road race. There were maybe 40 of us and we started as one group with the option of one or two laps on a 22 mile course. When we finished we were to sign ourselves in in the order we finished. No numbers, just an opportunity to train with other people on a challenging course. Each lap had 5.5 miles of “gravel” going both up and down. The climbs were very typical for east coast climbing… gradual mixed in with super steep sections that for the most part were fairly short, but in some cases were long. The day was warm (topped out at 86 in the hills yesterday) and sunny and the wind was steady at 10 mph gusting up to 20. We started at around 10:30 when it was just in the 70’s (thank goodness).

The course started through a covered bridge then climbed a little for a 0.5 mile neutral zone before continuing to climb into the wind. Almost immediately a small group of 4 went off the front and no one else in the field was particularly interested in chasing. I sat in the pack with the other 5 women who were there. When we started climbing in earnest I did well with using wheels in front of me to move up through the pack, only working to bridge when the wheel I was on faltered. Eventually I was in the second group on the road - 8 of us with one of the other women there. That group of 8 split up and came together again in a number of permutations through the first gravel climb (steep steep steep) and the steep loose descent with a tight S curve that ended in 180 back onto a paved road over broken up pavement. Initially I did not even notice we had transitioned onto the gravel because it was packed dirt. I certainly did notice it on the few wet spots where all the power and energy got sucked out of the bike and into the mud. It felt brutal on the 8% grade.

The down hill got loose. We were warned of this section before the start and I went through it very conservatively being dropped by my group. I was caught by two others and we bridged up to four ahead of us. We strung out on the second big dirt climb, and when that transitioned into a downhill again I just couldn't hang on. When I came through the loop/finish section, the only person I was around was stopping and there was no one visible behind me. I was not keen on 22 miles alone in the wind since most of those behind me were not planning on a second loop, so I called it a day with one lap. I was the second woman to finish and I think I was top 10 overall for the 1-lap folks

The morning ended with a nice BBQ in the promoters back yard. Then it was drive home, grab the camera equipment and off to find birds to shoot. I am trying to get the hang of my new lens. I had fun up at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and then at my parent's house. In all I spent at least 9 hours outside. Wow!

Tour of the Battenkill racer handbook is out and they finally listed the start times for the different fields (page 9). There are 26 fields!!!! I also got word that there was a cancellation at the race headquarters hotel and I had put myself on the waiting list, so I get to stay in town! That makes me very happy.