Bier en modder

After a week of milling it over, I’ve got one more race left in me for 2008.  I was seriously on the fence about throwing in the towel for USGP – tired, banged up, cut up, and a very uncomfortable feeling that I wasn’t having fun.  I don’t want to say that I was dreading racing at USGP but for the first few days after Hillsboro, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to it.  To me, that’s a pretty good warning sign right there.

However, by Thursday I began to feel a little snap in my legs just on the ride to and from work and I gave some objective thought towards the rest of the year.  I’ve wanted to race through USGP since the spring when I set plans and goals in motion.  So I’ll compromise with myself here and do one of them.  I’m certain I have one good race left in me.

So back to the plan…this week, whether I was racing or not, was an off week and I’ve tried to rest as efficiently as I can.  Next week is a busy week anyway.  I’ll try to sneak a few hard rides in there just to stay sharp.  Then the following week will be mostly easy with a few bursts here and there.  That should just about do it.  The USGP races are mercifully shorter (45 min).

Odds are that the race will fill up, or at least come close to it.  If the rule about start order holds, there’s the top 8 or so from the USGP (if they’re all there), then the top 8 locals (most likely), and then the rest of us based on registration order.  Last I checked, I was 50th.  Who knows where that’ll put me -  6-8 rows from the front?  If I can start around 50th (give or take) and move up in the 20 to 30s, I’ll be very happy with that.  I’m sure there will be some ringers coming in from out of town; Bay area, the barrier-skipping Seattleites, and I’m sure some from Colorado on west.  On the other hand, with the elimination of the B/35+ group, some will be moving up.

What does that mean?…who the hell knows, and at this point, who cares.  I have enough issues of my own to deal with during a race (e.g. staying upright), without worrying about placement or what other rider to keep in check.  There’s enough people from the Crusade series registered for me to get a strong sense of where I am in the overall picture.  If I keep in sight a few familiar faces (or asses for that matter) I’ll do just fine.

Basically, I just want to have a solid race, start to finish.  Something to get me thinking about next year already.  I felt I haven’t had one this year with the exception of Barton, and my finish there was great (14th).  I’m still trying to go over in my head what was different about that race than the others but I haven’t been able to put my finger on it yet.  Each of the other races, some part of the big picture didn’t seem 100%; be it mechanical, skills, fitness, or just having my head in the right spot.  I need to turn this around.

Over the next weeks, I hope to summarize the season and other related thoughts that have been milling around since early October.  It has been an eye-opening experience moving up through the levels over the past 4 years to reach the A’s.  Without question, no upgrade between levels has been harder than this one.

“You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit…”

A reasonably appropriate saying from Ingrid & Owen’s old day care…You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit…Most people that have been racing long enough probably have some idea of what constitutes a ‘good’ or ‘ideal’ course for them.  Without getting into specifics (hills, mud, whatever), I think most of us prefer a course that challenges skills and fitness without being frustrating.

I firmly believe that the race organizers/course designers do their best to squeeze the most they can out of a particular venue.  Some are fairly constrained; Alpenrose & Rainier come to mind.  But others, like Barton and Estacata seemed to always change just enough for the better.  Similar to riders taking a lap or two to find the best lines during a race, I think it takes organizers a year or two to get feedback on making a course fit the venue.

That said, the immediate general consensus on Hillsboro seems more negative than positive.  Comments seem to range from being a little boring to having to navigate the E Coli arena.  A small percentage of responses have been of the “shut up and ride it” type, which I disagree with a little.  Surprising at it seems, it’s ok to not like a course.  It s even more appropriate to voice it (without sounding like a whiny b____) so the organizers can act on it…or not.

During warm-up, I thought that I’d get a strong chance to finish well.  The long, soft straight-aways, even the bumpy ones, felt like stuff I could power through.  I think I tend to race like a time-trialer.  The less interruption to rhythm I get during a race, the better…or so it seems.

The start got off well with a fairly quick pace around to the back section.  I’ve got people I want to finish near just ahead and I’m not struggling to hang on at all.  So far so good.

Then the turns.  Oh, the turns.  If I never see another 180° turn on mud-covered pavement or gravel again, it’ll be too soon.  Let’s be clear: I’m tall.  My bike frame is technically a 66 cm.  I’m also on the heavier side (for cyclists) at 200#.  So my center of gravity is substantially higher than most others out there.  To be blunt, tight turns on loose material turn my bowels to water.  As I worked my way though this section of the course, gaps start opening up.

On the 2nd lap, heading into the last horse stall barn, the tires give out and I’m down hard in a flash.  The front chainring opens up a 3 inch gash my right front leg.  Oh good, the liquid shit arena is just ahead.  Just what the doctor ordered.

And then there was the arena.  Pretty well frayed from crashing, I couldn’t get it together enough to ride it well.  I ended up running it the rest of the race.

The rest of the race for me played out like this; hammer the flats to catch up with or stay with a group, lose them through the turns at the stables, run through the arena, wash, lather, rinse, repeat.

Preliminary results have me near DFL but I’m certain the scorers missed me on some of the laps.  I heard from people in the pits that my number was completely covered in mud, making it unreadable.  I’m guessing it got missed.  Plus, the results look a little funny anyway.  I think some lap counts got mixed up.  I’m sure it’ll get fixed.

I need to take a day or to to take a personal inventory on what I have left for the year.  Right now, I feel totally cashed and have felt worse and worse each race since Barton.  I’m incredibly happy with this first year in the A’s but I’m also contemplating pulling the plug on the rest of the year.  More on that later.

From what I can see on the City’s rain gages, SoPo got the bulk of the rain thie week.  For example, the Harney gage down in Sellwood got a solid 1.32 inches yesterday but the Skyline School gage only got 0.61 – less than half.  In contrast, the Hillsboro gage only has 1.19 inches over the past 72 hours, at least according to NOAA 0.69 for yesterday).  Not quite the drenching I was hoping for.

Here is a map of the rainfall depths for the past 72-hours (as of yesterday morning).  As you can see, the heaviest rains were to the east.  I didn’t have time to track down more gages outside the city’s network.  I should try to set that up some time in the future.

What’s this mean?  Who really knows.  The forecast for the rest of the week looks dry and possibly even a little sunny.  3 days is a decent amount of time to dry out but I doubt it’ll get any drier than a few inches down.  Most soil in the area has a fair amount of clay which means it’ll stay wet until, say, next July.  By the first couple races, my guess is that the course will be pretty chewed up.

Personally, I’m hoping for the mud from Hillsboro of last year as opposed to the stuff we had last weekend at PIR.  I was able to motor through that looser, soupier stuff easier (relatively, of course).  The stiffer mud that has a higher potential to kick your front tire around gives me trouble.

On paper, this could have been a better race for me; flat, long mud bog sections, and a nice long stretch on tarmac/gravel road.  The energy that the crowd and drum corps brought was incredibly motivating.  Ever since my days of ultimate, I really love playing in front of a crowd and I usually rise to the occasion.

Whether I did well or not, the course was impressive.  Straight start that led out to the back where about 100m of what can only be described as mashed potatoes mud waited.  Over the vault – over a couple barriers – through the Yakima bubble arch and up the hill & 4 barriers through the windmill.  Down and around an off-camber section off the hill to a short flat and then another unrideable off camber turn down and up to turn back in.  Go off-camber (again) around the windmill hill and to the asphalt straightaway by the finish.

What is strangely missing in that description is any semblance of a break.  The course was non-stop, start to finish.  We’re always driving hard throughout the race but for me at least, there’s always a section or two that ’seem’ easier.  Maybe those sections just play to my strengths.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that on the first lap I felt like I got mentally knocked back on my heels during that mud bog and never really recovered.  I felt like I spent the rest of the race just trying to hang on.

For the race, I got points last week so I was able to line up in about the 3rd to 4th row.  Off the start, I think I settled in around 20th or so leading up to the mud.  There was a little down and up leading into the mud.  How many laps did we do?  6?  Well, it took me 5 laps to finally figure out what gear to be in and how to approach that section.  Whomever was heckling me by that section did a very impressive job.  Really.  I mean that with all sincerity and respect.  It’s tough to heckle properly.  It’s sarcastic but funny.  It’s critical without being insulting.  It’s degrading while hinting at encouragement.  Miss one of those and you risk sounding like an ass.  So like I said, they did really well back there.

Back to the race…Over the next lap or 2 I’d moved up a little bit, maybe to 15th.  Doug Evans and Martin Baker were in sight, maybe 10-20 seconds ahead.  About 6 or 8 sports were between us.  I wanted desperately to catch up but just couldn’t get my legs under me to bridge the gap.  I thought I’d be able to make up ground on the asphalt or the mud but each lap they slipped away. After the race, Martin said he was thinking he’d be losing ground through the mud but he was passing people regularly.  I told him I thought I’d be gaining spots through there but I didn’t.  It was like bizarro mud.

By about the midpoint in the race, I was approaching damage control mode.  I don’t have it in me today to pick up any more spots…I just didn’t want to lose any more.  BTW, to everyone along the course that was cheering me on, thanks.  It really helps.  I’m sorry that I can’t look up from the course to acknowledge it but I definitely hear it.

About lap 4, Trebon passed me in an orange blur, churning out 6:30 laps.  About a lap later a few more A’s passed me and then  Sean Babcock and Solomon Woras.  Solomon pulled a dick move, cutting me off on the gravel road after the windmill hill.  There was 2 good tracks on the gravel road and it looked like he was sucking Babcock’s wheel hard.  In trying to stay on and out of the loose gravel area, he cut over to the track I was on and we rubbed tires.  There was no other traffic and nothing else in the way.  He could have very easily taken the other path.  It wasn’t a dangerous move but just a dick move.  That’s all I’ll add about that.

The race was mercifully cut a little short to get the SS race off in time, which only helped me.  Now, a day later, I honestly feel like I crashed.  Deep muscle bruises.  A couple cuts here and there.  I just feel worked over and a little punch-drunk.

Got a week to rest until the finals at Hillsboro.  Rainy forecast for the week.  I need to get my legs back under me to finish up strong.  I also need to clean up from yesterday.  I hate cleaning up.

If I’ve learned nothing else over the past 5 years, it’s that the course at Barton Park demands your full attention and respect. You really need to actively race the course or odds are you’ll end up just another statistic; mechanical, injury or ‘other’. Gravelly corners to wash out on.  Hidden cobbles to pinch flat.  Bottomless chocolate milk puddles.  Thin layers of mud over slick river-run rocks.

Regardless, all the best laid plans won’t guarantee that you or your bike will still get out in one piece.

In a surprising turn of events, I was able to get free early enough to get there with enough time to do a pre-ride.  Took it slow and tried to commit the course to memory.  I’m glad I did.  I’d heard that Barton already claimed one serious injury earlier in the day which caused a course change and a 30 minute delay.  Ouch.

After warming up, I wasn’t in a huge hurry to get to the line.  I still haven’t finished in the points so I go by the number draw.  My number, 1, was DFL in the start order so staying warm was a lot easier.  Hey, nowhere to go but up.

Got a decent start.  A little gap opened up right away and I took it, moving up probably 20 spots right away.  Everyone kept it cool as we wound down and away from the gravel road.  Same for the tricky right turn after the concrete pad.  I can see the whole pack strung out single file, estimating that I’m about 30 back or so.  Well, there’s no hurry so I just stuck on the wheel in front of me and saved energy when I could.

The first run through the little singletrack section was a clusterf___.  Bikes and people everywhere.  I was able to stay clipped in and found a hole to shoot up another 5 spots.  So far, so good.  I found myself in a pack of maybe 6 or 8 that was moving along at a pretty good clip.  I finally had a teammate, Doug Evans, about 30m ahead.  Doug always finishes good so I was very happy with where I was.

Winding around the campground, I wanted nothing to do with going through the singletrack again behind anyone who might slip up.  I made a break on the pavement to get out in front.  Got through the singletrack clean and kept on moving hard.

Finally caught up with Doug, letting him know I was on his wheel.  Mike Alligood was with us and the group I was with slowly dropped off over the next few laps.  It was basically us three for the rest of the race.  At one point I heard that Jeff Standish was just ahead of us, sitting in around 10th.  10th?  Really?  That really gave me a boost (plus Doug cracking the whip behind me to stay up in the points).  I tried egging Mike on to catch Jeff but I don’t think he took the bait.

Finally got lapped on the last lap.  We all finished out strong; Doug, myself, and Mike (maybe half a foot behind).  Final result?  14th.  Sweet.  Hey…I’ve got 5 points!

Couple things to take away from this:

Doug and I didn’t realize our relative strengths until a little too late.  He was strong through the technical stuff and I was able to pull though on the gravel road and pavement.  Maybe we could have moved up some more, maybe not.  I’m hoping this wasn’t a fluke and that I’ll be able stay up in the top 20.

We (bicycleattorney) now have 5 people in the top 30 for points.  That’s pretty neat.  Unfortunately, McCaffrey and Cramer both had mechanicals.  If they’d placed like they usually do, we could have had 5 in the top 20 yesterday.  That would have been a strong showing.

Wore the glasses yesterday.  They worked but based on the pictures…lets just say it’s good I’m married and not single.

That’s about it.  Next up: PIR.