So There It Is.
It was probably my best-ever result in the Masters 45+ Division category for the Arctic Bike Club Road Division's Spring Stage Race.
It was probably one of my weakest performances in the Masters 45+ Division category for the Arctic Bike Club Road Division's Spring Stage Race.
Huh?
I have to admit it, I wasn't in race shape. I'm far too heavy, and I don't put out the watts like I used to. Put it this way, my peak sprint power for this series was 400W lower than it was in the Tour of Fairbanks a couple years back- and that was riding injured. I couldn't sustain much power, although Training Peaks did send me a nice email saying they bumped up my FTP a few points. Still, it's pitiful. In a sport where performance is often measured in watts per kilogram or in pure wattage, I'm far from where I want to be.
Tactically, I can still douche it up with the best of them. However, I kept trying to jump or bridge like I could when I was something other than round. I blew up a lot, getting passed in sprints or struggling to maintain position out in the wind. I have to get my head around where I am now, rather than where I used to be.
So, as I mentioned, I did the time trial. I did better than I expected, and I got crushed by a surprising Bill Fleming. In the short and mild hill climb, I got crushed by Bill again, and by a whole lot of other people to boot. Losing that sort of time in a time-based race would have taken me out of contention altogether, but somehow I only slipped down to third. That was a surprise, so I decided to defend my third place in the last two stages with all of the weakness and whining I could muster.
The last two stages were on the same day in Butte, up in the Matanuska Valley just downwind of the glacier. It seems like it's always windy in the Valley, from the mountains or the glacier or the inlet. Something is always sucking, and something is always blowing. I loaded up the race Madone and the Moots Compact in the RV, chucked a stack of wheels up in the loft, threw in a random assortment of kit and food, and made the drive up. I got there early, and nobody was in the normal parking lot. They told me the staging area was actually at an elementary school several miles away (which did not make any sense to me), but I dutifully drove over there to find the parking lot blocked off for a motorcycle safety course. After some deliberation, I fired up the RV, and backed into Will Coleman's rented minivan. A couple small scrapes to the paint and no body damage, but you can bet they're going to go for the maximum. Add a $500 deductible to the cost of this race.
When we got back to the normal staging area, it was packed with cars and people getting ready. Neat. Instead of 90 minutes to get ready, I was down to about 40. No big deal, since I wasn't planning on burning any of my limited energy on an elaborate warmup. I threw a set of spare wheels out that I hoped I wouldn't need, pumped up the tires on the Madone, and pedaled up and down the street a couple times. Ready to go.
For the Bodenburg road race, we were combined with the Intermediate Men, and I was happy to have some young backs to hide behind. The wind was really kicking across the fields, gusting in an unpredictable manner. This is the one race you'll see echelons form in, and it's as close as you'll get to racing in Belgium or The Netherlands in Southcentral Alaska. In fact, we had a Dutch rider in the form of Yrjö Roovers racing in the Intermediate Men's division. I like racing and riding with Yrjö, so it's good to have him back in the fold.
We kicked off the 7 lap, 47 mile race with a first lap prime. Everybody knew it, so the pace for that first lap was somewhat sedate... until the last couple turns. Then Tom Peichel, dragging Bill Fleming, jumped a long way from the line. I was on Bill's wheel, but after about a hundred meters or so I blew up. I eased up and got passed by a whole lot of people, but I wasn't dropped. I could have held Bill, but Tom has a few gears I don't possess, and the power to turn them over for a very long time. Tom loves opening sprints from three time zones away and burning off everyone well before the line. God I hate him sometimes. Extremely nice and likeable guy, though. Fucker.
As I passed the line, someone yelled out, "I thought you were a sprinter, Hancock", to which I replied, "I was."
One lap down, us old guys drifted to the back and let the young kids do the work in the wind. You could tell a lot of them weren't used to pack riding in the wind, because they would try to draft directly behind the person in front of them in a crosswind. Other times they would gutter the whole line by riding as far right as possible instead of allowing echelons to form. Yrjö said it was just good tactics to burn out the competition, but I think it was more like ignorance.
Yeah, deep-section carbon wheels weren't the best choice. Even my somewhat conservative 50mm were getting kicked around a bit, and the Madone's wide tubes weren't helping much either. I wasn't getting the worst of it, as I saw a few guys get blown off the pavement onto the shoulder briefly when a gust caught them right. I ducked for cover where I could, and just hoped I could last until the finish. A few guys didn't, and were left to fight the wind alone. Because I'm a master of sports nutrition, I deduced that drinking during the almost two and a half hour race would only slow me down, so I took a grand total of two sips out of my two water bottles. Brilliant. I paid for it.
On the last lap, Tom and Bill pulled out and opened a gap with a couple other guys that grew quickly. I missed the train. I tried to bridge alone in the wind, and made it halfway across and stalled. The best I could do is pick up strays that were dropped from the front. I caught Yrjö right a little before the final kick, he yelled at me to get on his wheel, and I got a brief respite before I put my nose to the stem and pushed for all I could. The cramp in my right leg was screaming, but I managed to hold off the rest of the pack for a third-place finish in the Masters category. I don't know how that happened.
Despite the blind spots and resulting deductible hit, I love having the RV. I quickly threw the gear inside, grabbed a drink out of the fridge, and drove over to the dragstrip where the crit was happening. The wind was even more relentless there, but I was well protected and comfortable in the loft, where I actually managed to get a decent nap between the stages.
Let's be honest- I was not thrilled about what was advertised as the course. Running up one lane of a dragstrip and then down the other sounded boring as piss. Then there was the fact that the wind was blowing directly from the side the while time. Oh, and the Open Men didn't want to wait for their scheduled time, so they combined the categories- Intermediate Men, Open Men, and Masters Men all starting together. However, I have to give the organizers some credit here. They deviated from the planned course and added a side path to the mix and a turny section to make it interesting. A quick recon of the course showed more potential than I had expected, and there weren't nearly as many stray car parts littering the course as I had expected. I figured I might as well give it a shot.
The Bodenburg race showed me that aero wasn't the way to go here. I pulled the saddle bag, light, and mini pump off of the Moots and pressed it into service. I lined up with the rest of the Masters and Intermediate Men, and none of us were thrilled about racing with the Open Men... except for Tom. When the Open Men got their first prime, they took off. Tom went with them, and none of the rest of us followed. It was pretty much assumed all of our primes would be for 2nd place, and Tom would be winning the race. Oh well...
When I heard the first prime called, I wasn't sure if it was for Masters Men alone or the Intermediates as well. One the return stretch I just started pulling away alone, because I foolishly assumed I could hold it. I couldn't and Bill got me at the line. I was trying to out tractor pull the guy who destroyed me in the TT. Brilliant. The next prime, I was more patient, and jumped to get a gap I could hold. Much better.
When the finish came, my hyper-dehydrated muscles started cramping again. A rider went off the front in a move similar to what I had done in the first prime. Of course I did the stupid thing and tried to bridge in the wind instead of waiting for the pack to swarm him, and blew up in the process. I grabbed Tom Schultz' wheel as he passed, but I had nothing. When I saw Bill coming around, I eased up and let him around. It wasn't going to make a difference in the overall and I wasn't going to risk tearing up a muscle for a little pride. The season hasn't even started yet.
When the last stage was over, I had no idea where I stood in the race results. They hadn't posted anything since the hill climb the night before, and I had no idea how anyone was stacked up... with the exception of Bill. Bill won, and he deserved to win. I figured maybe third or fourth, which was more than I deserved. I learned that Tom had taken all the Masters primes but had taken himself out of the Masters race, which was a pretty cool thing to do for such a horrible sandbagger. I didn't know how I ranked, and I didn't really care. I got what I came for, which was to be pushed. I wanted to be kicked in the ass and forced to dig deep. I wanted to find that old spark again, to feel the surge of adrenaline and experience the "sprinter's renaissance" on the bell lap after barely hanging on for hours. I wanted to be back in the wheels, and I was. I got what I paid for.
That night I found out I ended up in second place. In all honesty, the competition wasn't as strong as it has been in the past. I know this, so the result doesn't really feel all that great. But, it's something. I pinned on a number and lined up. Some guys didn't. You can only race the guys that show up, and sometimes it works in your favor. It doesn't change the fact that I'm fat and out of shape, but I raced. Despite all of the uncertainty and lack of motivation, I raced.
Not a bad three days.
It was probably one of my weakest performances in the Masters 45+ Division category for the Arctic Bike Club Road Division's Spring Stage Race.
Huh?
I have to admit it, I wasn't in race shape. I'm far too heavy, and I don't put out the watts like I used to. Put it this way, my peak sprint power for this series was 400W lower than it was in the Tour of Fairbanks a couple years back- and that was riding injured. I couldn't sustain much power, although Training Peaks did send me a nice email saying they bumped up my FTP a few points. Still, it's pitiful. In a sport where performance is often measured in watts per kilogram or in pure wattage, I'm far from where I want to be.
Tactically, I can still douche it up with the best of them. However, I kept trying to jump or bridge like I could when I was something other than round. I blew up a lot, getting passed in sprints or struggling to maintain position out in the wind. I have to get my head around where I am now, rather than where I used to be.
So, as I mentioned, I did the time trial. I did better than I expected, and I got crushed by a surprising Bill Fleming. In the short and mild hill climb, I got crushed by Bill again, and by a whole lot of other people to boot. Losing that sort of time in a time-based race would have taken me out of contention altogether, but somehow I only slipped down to third. That was a surprise, so I decided to defend my third place in the last two stages with all of the weakness and whining I could muster.
The last two stages were on the same day in Butte, up in the Matanuska Valley just downwind of the glacier. It seems like it's always windy in the Valley, from the mountains or the glacier or the inlet. Something is always sucking, and something is always blowing. I loaded up the race Madone and the Moots Compact in the RV, chucked a stack of wheels up in the loft, threw in a random assortment of kit and food, and made the drive up. I got there early, and nobody was in the normal parking lot. They told me the staging area was actually at an elementary school several miles away (which did not make any sense to me), but I dutifully drove over there to find the parking lot blocked off for a motorcycle safety course. After some deliberation, I fired up the RV, and backed into Will Coleman's rented minivan. A couple small scrapes to the paint and no body damage, but you can bet they're going to go for the maximum. Add a $500 deductible to the cost of this race.
When we got back to the normal staging area, it was packed with cars and people getting ready. Neat. Instead of 90 minutes to get ready, I was down to about 40. No big deal, since I wasn't planning on burning any of my limited energy on an elaborate warmup. I threw a set of spare wheels out that I hoped I wouldn't need, pumped up the tires on the Madone, and pedaled up and down the street a couple times. Ready to go.
For the Bodenburg road race, we were combined with the Intermediate Men, and I was happy to have some young backs to hide behind. The wind was really kicking across the fields, gusting in an unpredictable manner. This is the one race you'll see echelons form in, and it's as close as you'll get to racing in Belgium or The Netherlands in Southcentral Alaska. In fact, we had a Dutch rider in the form of Yrjö Roovers racing in the Intermediate Men's division. I like racing and riding with Yrjö, so it's good to have him back in the fold.
We kicked off the 7 lap, 47 mile race with a first lap prime. Everybody knew it, so the pace for that first lap was somewhat sedate... until the last couple turns. Then Tom Peichel, dragging Bill Fleming, jumped a long way from the line. I was on Bill's wheel, but after about a hundred meters or so I blew up. I eased up and got passed by a whole lot of people, but I wasn't dropped. I could have held Bill, but Tom has a few gears I don't possess, and the power to turn them over for a very long time. Tom loves opening sprints from three time zones away and burning off everyone well before the line. God I hate him sometimes. Extremely nice and likeable guy, though. Fucker.
As I passed the line, someone yelled out, "I thought you were a sprinter, Hancock", to which I replied, "I was."
One lap down, us old guys drifted to the back and let the young kids do the work in the wind. You could tell a lot of them weren't used to pack riding in the wind, because they would try to draft directly behind the person in front of them in a crosswind. Other times they would gutter the whole line by riding as far right as possible instead of allowing echelons to form. Yrjö said it was just good tactics to burn out the competition, but I think it was more like ignorance.
Yeah, deep-section carbon wheels weren't the best choice. Even my somewhat conservative 50mm were getting kicked around a bit, and the Madone's wide tubes weren't helping much either. I wasn't getting the worst of it, as I saw a few guys get blown off the pavement onto the shoulder briefly when a gust caught them right. I ducked for cover where I could, and just hoped I could last until the finish. A few guys didn't, and were left to fight the wind alone. Because I'm a master of sports nutrition, I deduced that drinking during the almost two and a half hour race would only slow me down, so I took a grand total of two sips out of my two water bottles. Brilliant. I paid for it.
On the last lap, Tom and Bill pulled out and opened a gap with a couple other guys that grew quickly. I missed the train. I tried to bridge alone in the wind, and made it halfway across and stalled. The best I could do is pick up strays that were dropped from the front. I caught Yrjö right a little before the final kick, he yelled at me to get on his wheel, and I got a brief respite before I put my nose to the stem and pushed for all I could. The cramp in my right leg was screaming, but I managed to hold off the rest of the pack for a third-place finish in the Masters category. I don't know how that happened.
Despite the blind spots and resulting deductible hit, I love having the RV. I quickly threw the gear inside, grabbed a drink out of the fridge, and drove over to the dragstrip where the crit was happening. The wind was even more relentless there, but I was well protected and comfortable in the loft, where I actually managed to get a decent nap between the stages.
Let's be honest- I was not thrilled about what was advertised as the course. Running up one lane of a dragstrip and then down the other sounded boring as piss. Then there was the fact that the wind was blowing directly from the side the while time. Oh, and the Open Men didn't want to wait for their scheduled time, so they combined the categories- Intermediate Men, Open Men, and Masters Men all starting together. However, I have to give the organizers some credit here. They deviated from the planned course and added a side path to the mix and a turny section to make it interesting. A quick recon of the course showed more potential than I had expected, and there weren't nearly as many stray car parts littering the course as I had expected. I figured I might as well give it a shot.
The Bodenburg race showed me that aero wasn't the way to go here. I pulled the saddle bag, light, and mini pump off of the Moots and pressed it into service. I lined up with the rest of the Masters and Intermediate Men, and none of us were thrilled about racing with the Open Men... except for Tom. When the Open Men got their first prime, they took off. Tom went with them, and none of the rest of us followed. It was pretty much assumed all of our primes would be for 2nd place, and Tom would be winning the race. Oh well...
When I heard the first prime called, I wasn't sure if it was for Masters Men alone or the Intermediates as well. One the return stretch I just started pulling away alone, because I foolishly assumed I could hold it. I couldn't and Bill got me at the line. I was trying to out tractor pull the guy who destroyed me in the TT. Brilliant. The next prime, I was more patient, and jumped to get a gap I could hold. Much better.
When the finish came, my hyper-dehydrated muscles started cramping again. A rider went off the front in a move similar to what I had done in the first prime. Of course I did the stupid thing and tried to bridge in the wind instead of waiting for the pack to swarm him, and blew up in the process. I grabbed Tom Schultz' wheel as he passed, but I had nothing. When I saw Bill coming around, I eased up and let him around. It wasn't going to make a difference in the overall and I wasn't going to risk tearing up a muscle for a little pride. The season hasn't even started yet.
When the last stage was over, I had no idea where I stood in the race results. They hadn't posted anything since the hill climb the night before, and I had no idea how anyone was stacked up... with the exception of Bill. Bill won, and he deserved to win. I figured maybe third or fourth, which was more than I deserved. I learned that Tom had taken all the Masters primes but had taken himself out of the Masters race, which was a pretty cool thing to do for such a horrible sandbagger. I didn't know how I ranked, and I didn't really care. I got what I came for, which was to be pushed. I wanted to be kicked in the ass and forced to dig deep. I wanted to find that old spark again, to feel the surge of adrenaline and experience the "sprinter's renaissance" on the bell lap after barely hanging on for hours. I wanted to be back in the wheels, and I was. I got what I paid for.
That night I found out I ended up in second place. In all honesty, the competition wasn't as strong as it has been in the past. I know this, so the result doesn't really feel all that great. But, it's something. I pinned on a number and lined up. Some guys didn't. You can only race the guys that show up, and sometimes it works in your favor. It doesn't change the fact that I'm fat and out of shape, but I raced. Despite all of the uncertainty and lack of motivation, I raced.
Not a bad three days.
Comments
Post a Comment