2 posts tagged “cyclocross”

Hell of a ride to start the year...

With the intent of getting 3 hours of 'work' in, Chandler and I started out with a 12-14 person group and tried to explain our intentions. Mike C. showed up ready to endure too - on his shiny new CX bike - as I mentioned the plan that morning, and he was interested. We were on CX bikes as we planned a good bit of dirt! Plan was to head out of town via Old Santa Fe Trail and Old Las Vegas HWY, head south to Galisteo, the turn right headed west towards rte. 14, head south on 14 to Los Cerrillos and turn right, continuing west on a long stretch of dirt road. This would bring us up to the top of La Bajada for the march back toward Santa Fe - almost all up hill, and into a forecast headwind. Ideally, the route would take us through La Cienega and out onto a county road that leads to Airport Rd. / 599 By-Pass. Option to hit the Forest Service Rd. 24 out at Caja del Rio. either way, we'd be back in town on familiar territory by Las Campanas.

To survive we had to stick to a plan and a pace. It was FRIGID at the start, but joyfully lacking any wind. The whole group headed out, and was together until somewhere along Old Las Vegas HWY. Though Mike was clearly ready and willing to turn the screws, being the ever-friendly diplomat he stuck wit the bigger group as Chandler and I slowly opened up a gap despite riding quite conservatively. As we got into Galisteo and headed up that stretch of dirt road - about 5 miles of it - things started feeling good and warm (one would hope! Bibs, wind-front tights, AND knickers on top of it all!). The fast sections of washboard hurt though, and quickly started taking a toll on my palms and wrists. Chandler was clearly feeling better - and given that he can ride circles around me, must have really toned it down to not drop me. Once we cleared the dirt, we settled into a nice tempo down to Los Cerrillos.

Then the real work began!

The stretch of dirt road out of Cerrillos is called Waldo Canyon Road - and loosely parallels the BNSF right of way. The big climb was short - but brutally steep for a CX bike - and went up through the aptly named 'Devils Throne'. Once over the throne, we were way out in rolling, stunningly beautiful NM landscape. A bit later we crossed the area being re-graded to bring the Rail Runner up to Santa Fe - sort of a surreal, huge scale earth-moving effort in the middle of nowhere. After clawing our way up to the top / end of this stretch, the wind was a real presence, more so after we turned north headed back to town.

The frontage rd. portion here - perhaps 3-4 miles, was a good time to spin, eat, drink, and focus. As we turned towards La Cienega, dropping down into the lovely little 'valley' - it was clear we were running on lower fuel and energy levels. The wicked grunt up the dirt road 58A - which bypasses most of 'town' - took all I had to keep the cranks turning. At the top, I knew it was time to  ride smart to survive the rest. This essentially meant letting Chandler do most of the work! Thankfully he was willing and able. I kept telling him to go ahead as needed, and not to wait - but he was gracious in slowing his pace to one I could match.

As we started up the last stretch - on the 599 / By-Pass frontage road, all I could do was sit on and stare at his rear hub, trying to focus all energy on not dropping off. We skipped the Caja portion - as we were both cooked. In the last stretch I was able to take a pull - sad as it was, until we hit Camino La Tierra - which marled the end for us. He went left, I went right - and we both suffered the last few miles to our respective houses!

Bath, food, done.

I had a little over 4 hours ride time / ±70 miles clocked - and was glad to be out of the wind at last. I had forgotten how much life a sustained, cold, headwind can suck out of ones body. Add the mental battle it takes to not get demoralized by it, plus the shear increase in effort it demands - and presto! The toll is taken.

Not a bad start to 2008 though! I'll take it.

NMCX State Championships - Killer B's Race
I'm tired and sore indeed

With a shiny new Redline Team Edition frame and fork to bolt all my trusty old road bike parts to, I was ready for a test ride - or the state championships! Same difference, right? Late Thursday night I built her up - bleary eyed, weary, fried, and exhausted. Kid duties, work, architectural licensing exams - life in general these days - has me working mighty hard just to keep up. Bike ride, maintenance, and general goofing off time are at an all time low, so I built the bike up fast, but solid. I do have a little experience there.

In bed by midnight then.

Friday - woke up and felt like I had been up way past my bedtime, as early as 7PM at times. Rode the bike to work - it felt good; just needed a little rear derailleur adjustment, and headset snugging. Always have to be nervous about over-torqueing the stem and expand-o anchor in/on carbon steer tubes!

Saturday - no time to ride/tinker.

Sunday - race day! Not much sleep. Start caffeinating.

Rich, and his wife / personal photographer / cheering section Tanya, picked me up and off we headed for another edition of 'Cross Mania in New Mexico. On the way to the races, headed down I-25, I wondered just what  was so appealing about this pernicious form of on-bike torture. I came up with a few basics; though in Albuquerque - the events have been close to home - a real bonus given current time constraints; they are cheap - also a real bonus given the new financial constraints; and they are over quickly - but offer ferocious training/racing experience - even if one has to get off their bikes as part of the race. What else? Fantastic group of people putting the race on, officiating, and of course, to line up with.

What's been hard to get use to is the quick, subtle way the starts seem to happen. I was headed back to the car to tweak gear and nutrition, when I heard "B's to the LINE, NOW!" and abruptly changed course and headed over. I had too light a jersey on, too heavy a hat on, and too much water in my bottle - and sure could use more coffee! Eh. So it goes. Dump bike, remove jacket, head to the start. There was a quickly growing crowd - both of racers and spectators! How cool, and rare in my experience racing these past few years. It seems that the race organizers could not get permission to start us out on the adjacent road - thereby triggering the need for the LeMans type start.

So before you could say "run and jump", off we went, to run, jump, and ride! The course was fast, but hurt like a mofo - but the new 32c tires and 'real' cross bike ate the grass up right-quick.

No idea where the heck I was initially. Managed to get my bike, run with it, jump those hurdle-things, and dive ahead. Once on bike, I was already tired! Ow. Need to work on running, and efficiently negotiating those hurdle-things... seems like I must have been 12-15 people back from the front, and man! Where was Rich? He's mastered the on-bike starts, but somehow I edged him out on the running and jumping mayhem. Luck! The leaders were already quite far ahead. Well, I know that in 'Cross it's pretty much always 'now or never', so went into attack mode as best as I could, at a pace I hoped to sustain. Pedal, turn, pedal, brake. Repeat. At one point, clawing past #6 and #7 - both on the aforementioned Nob Hill Velo Team, I was chucked an elbow! I went wide and left a lot of space on the inside. This young dude, riding DEFENSE for his team mates 'up the course' actually through an elbow my way! This was in addition to responding to my 'attack' by drifting WAYYY off his line. I laughed, tucked back in, whipped around after the next corner and dropped these two. Of course, his tactic worked - as I had started digging in for the pass / effort previously, but had to 'check it', then gather another head of steam and repeat. I saw my quarry ahead, a skinny dude in maroon and silver I've watched masterfully race these past few weeks. He was in 5th, I believe - so I worked out the pace necessary to get up to his wheel. It took a lap, but I caught up. I'm pretty sure he feighned distress here and there, and after a while - when it felt like EVERYONE was about to pass us - I once again took the bait and punched it, coming around him just before a long paved stretch where I kept the wattage up and opened a gap I hoped to sustain.

A few laps later, I passed one more guy and continued to try desperately to reel in the leaders. They appeared to be working well together and when they saw I was sneaking up on 'em, seemed to magically pull the stops out and up the pace - keeping me from ever getting closer. At this point, I was lapping some racers, and that made it a little more confusing - but as Rich noted - it didn't matter if they were in my class or on my lap - or not, they were THERE and needed to be passed, if I could dammitall. I spent a lot of energy getting by a lot of these folks, and then noticed my maroon-and-silver chaser had me back in his sights, with 2 laps to go. Next thing I new - BAM! He went by, fast. Gone. Buh-by. See yah hate to be yah. Erg. After a 1/2 a lap of recovery and thinking, I started to feel OK and the gap ceased to open, and I was holding a surmountable deficit to him. I dug deep, checked the reserves tank, and felt all systems were a GO to reel him back in, as I thought we had 1 lap to go - when they said we were done! Doh. This dude - Chris aka Mr. UMass - is smart. Why I passed him earlier on shows my rookie-chump-weakness. I should have strategized a little differently and stayed 'near' him, then approaching the finish tried to out-sprint him (yeah....). Ah well - all that stuff about 'hindsight' being 20/20 and all.

It ended up being a Nob Hill Velo trifecta on the podium, two seasoned CAT4 guys - who've been doing double duty racing both the A's and the B's - came in 1st and 2nd, towing their young phenom to a solid 3rd place. Then it was UMass Chris in 4th, and myself hanging on for 5th place. I think NHV represented 5 or 6 of the top-10, amazingly - and had more racers to spare! Wicked.

Time to hunker down for winter base/sustained effort training, and man! Must stop eating so much yummy food and drinking so much booze. Bike felt great, the free post-race burritos (or pre-race for the crazy youngins racing the juniors race!) hit the spot, and we stuck around to watch the A Race. THOSE guys make it look way too easy... I'll try and post some of the videos from my camera - as it is pretty cool.