North River had a small showing for the ITT.  Allen, Larry, Steve, Joe Cipale, and myself all showed up for the event.  Weather was very nice in the high 60’s, sunny, and wind North at 9-12mph.  The outleg going south was very nice, the headwind after the turnaround wasn’t. 

Allen (58:35)was the medal bearer with a Silver in the 45-49 age group.  Likewise, Steve (59:42)was the silver winner in the 55-59 group.       

Larry (1:03:12)was trying out his new (to him) Cervelo P3C.  Not having much time to ride it, we were still changing his fit right before he started.  Though usually known as a bad idea, Larry said it did help some.   

Joe Cipale (1:08:42) rounded out the results.

I had hopes of breaking an hour but despite feeling good, the headwind really made me pay at the end.  1:02:49 isn’t terrible for a near-senior citizen but “it is what it is”. 

 Official results are here:

 http://list.obra.org/events/15764/results

North River Racing again had a team participating in the TTT. The team consisted of strong man Allen Kraft, Gary Watts, Ronny Brigham and myself, Jon Kraft. The forecast had called for dry weather, but that was not to be. Gary remained optimistic until the very end when a deluge of rain darn near collapsed our canopy that we were warming up under. To make matters worse, my cat had pissed on my skinsuit and I was not happy about the odor. Nobody complained. I think they were just keeping me from blowing my cork. As we sat there warming up the blue skies appeared and the roads started to dry up. Could the cycling Gods be on our side? No! Just 20 minutes before our start the skies opened up and let loose. The hardest downpour of the entire day. The call went out to skip the event as we huddled. We were there, we trained for this event, and we were not going to let the weather dictate our participation. Okay truth be told it stopped raining just minutes before our start otherwise we would all have been drinking coffee and eating lunch earlier than planned. After an hour’s warm up on the trainers we rolled out to the start line. By the time we reached the start our shoes were soaked and our core temperatures had dropped. Allen and I sat there shaking and shivering as they counted down to our start. We went with our practice line up which was Gary, Ronny, myself and Allen. I think I drew the short straw as Ronny doesn’t give much of a draft, then again neither does Allen so I will stop complaining. We took each corner as if it were ice. This didn’t help our time at all but we all stayed upright! On the first of 4 laps we reached the backside of the course and the roads were completely dry as we cruised at 27mph. Maybe we can do this we thought. Lap 2 was much the same but a bit slower as the wind started to increase. Lap 3, well that just sucked, as another front moved in and the temperature dropped and then the hail started. Yeah hail! Then rain and wind all the way to the finish. I couldn’t see anything but the road. We gave it the final heave-ho to the line and crossed the finish line at 34mph. We had hoped to average 26mph but again the weather was miserable and we averaged 25.4. Good enough for 3rd place. So again NRR brought home a medal in the TTT. It’s tradition!!! Special thanks to Gary’s wife, Carol who pinned us, shot photos and cheered us on.

Okay, apparently someone (Joe H.) reads these and wants to know what happened. So, here’s a brief run through on the last 3 races I’ve done…

King’s Valley - I raced the 4/5 race here and it was windy. There were 70 guys signed up, so I made sure I got to the start line early. I wanted to be at the front in case any good looking moves went off the front. It was a fun/hard race. Three guys from Team BikeTires Direct drove the pace pretty well from the start. I think a third of the pack was dropped on this first lap. On the second lap several guys tried fliers, but nothing looked good and nothing stuck for very long. We hit a long, flat crosswind section and the pace ramped up. I kept expecting the rubber band to break somewhere behind me, but it didn’t. We rounded a 90 degree turn and had a tail wind. I looked back and there was a single file line as far as I could see. It was a pretty hard pace at this point and I imagine we lost quite a few more guys from the pack. When we hit the hills near the beginning of the third lap, my legs were starting to feel crampy and fatigued. I knew I wouldn’t have anything left for the uphill finish (which I suck at anyway…see previous reports) so when a guy went off solo and got a pretty good gap, I figured I’d help bring him back. We were in the crosswind section and about 6 of us worked a rotating echelon to pull him back. It took a while, but we eventually got him. I was pretty much toast though. We hit the final 1k to the finish and there were maybe 30 guys left in the main pack. There was a small acceleration that I was able to hold onto, but about 500m out, the skinny guys dropped the hammer for real. I was left behind like a…. hmm… slow thing… and managed to gimp my way in for 22nd. I later discovered that a new Mari’s rider (Kyle) did this as his first race and he took 7th. What a brutal first race and a most excellent finish for it.

HR - 4/5 - So, I’ll only cover the 4/5 races as the 3/4 races were just training (and I didn’t place very well..)  These races are only 25 minutes long, so there isn’t a lot to talk about. They changed the course a bit from the first week and we now had a ‘T’ where we need to make a right hand turn onto a narrow road. If you go wide, you hit a big mud puddle, if you wider than that, you go down a big ditch to the barbed wire fence waiting below. So, note to self, don’t go wide…. We basically went in circles together until they threw a prime in with 3 laps to go. Only three of us went for it and I ended up third… damn… One of the guys was someone I knew and when we looked back we had a hundred yards on the rest of the race. We looked at eachother and said, “Let’s go!!”. So, off we went. Unfortunately, the third guy didn’t get the memo and he just sat on our wheels while we took turns pulling. Both Matthew and I “encouraged” him to help, but he just looked at us…. So, after a lap of this, we just sat up. My plan was to go hard coming out of the ‘T’ corner, but I wasn’t in a very good spot, so I just sat on. The guy who won the first race took off and I went after him. He was too far out for me to catch and eventually the guy who took second passed me. I managed to hold off another guy to take 3rd.

When I got to the last HR crit, I found out I was in third place for the 4/5 series. There was no way I could move up to first, but if I won I could take second. I also had to keep an eye out for the guy in 5th as he could move ahead of me if he finished more than 2 places ahead of me… This was a race of marking and being marked… All 4 of us just kept an eye on eachother. One interesting thing was that the race was 11 laps long and they had 7 primes.. I guess they had a lot of Gu to get rid of… That sure made for a surgey (is that a word?) race…. With 2 laps to go, a guy who wasn’t in contention, rolled off the front and no one went after him. I actually didn’t see him go an found out he won after the race was over. The race pretty much broke loose as soon as we rounded the last corner headed towards the finish. The guy in 5th overall caught me right at the line for fourth and he almost took third. In fact, we all thought he did until we came back around and Candi showed us the tape. The three of us were separated by less than half a wheel. I ended up 5th in the race and third in the series, walking away with a brown paper back filled with 10 Gu shots….

Let’s see, another race…. Before I start my report, let me dig into my bucket of excuses and pull something out… Hmm… not that one, I used it last time…. no, no, ahhhh, here’s one I haven’t used in a while… I went to a spinning class on Wednesday evening and did some sprint intervals. Not only that, but when I woke up Thursday, I noticed my thighs hurt as I walked down the stairs to make some breakfast… So, keep this in mind when reading the report below…

Okay, I showed up nice and early in Hood River and decided to sign up for both the 4/5 and 3/4 races. They’re back to back, but I figured the 3/4 would be good training. I circled around the track for a while to warm up and actually felt pretty good. About 30 of us lined up. It was a pretty good showing for the first one of these, but the weather was good, so I kind of expected it. This was a 25 minute race and from the start we were going pretty hard. I found myself up near the front for the first half of the race and my legs were beginning to hurt (please reference my excuse above). I was clearly taking too much wind, so I dropped back a ways and found a big ’sprinter’ guy to shelter behind. We shot around the course pretty uneventfully until we hit the second corner heading into the wind with 3 laps to go. I was still sheltering and trying to bring my heart rate down when I saw and heard plastic/aluminum hitting the ground about 200 feet past the corner. I just avoided the crash and about 5 of us hit the throttle as soon as we got by. The whole group was single file for the next 2 and a half laps. About half way around the last lap I was sitting third wheel going into the wind. The two guys ahead of me were starting to slow down so I figured it was time to go as I’m no sprinter.. When I hit the next turn I had a couple hundred feet on the pack with two guys chasing. Rounding the last turn I had about 100 yards on the pack but the chasers were catching me. That finishing straight is long and I was maxed out, I could feel my legs starting to get heavy and slow. Around 150 yards to the finish, the first guy started to come by me. I stood up to sprint, but there was nothing left… 50 yards later the second guy past me. I ended up 3rd… So, I finished the lap to cool down a bit and then lined up for the 3/4 race…

My strategy for this one was to simply hold on. We did 20 laps (about 45 minutes) and the first four were brutal. I was barely hanging on and considered pulling out every time we hit the start/finish line. I managed to talk myself into staying in since it’s good training… I started feeling better after the River City guys finally got someone off the front and then slowed everyone down to a more manageable 24mph. Nothing exciting in this race except that some guys need to learn not to cut up the inside when lining up for a 90 degree turn at 30. Several of us had to dodge cones exitting the turn because these idiots couldn’t keep from swinging wide after cutting up underneath. I’ll have to start just riding my line and if they hit the curb, so be it. Anyway, I ended up 10th in the field sprint and 14th overall.

I’ll probably do this race again next week if it’s not raining and then the 4/5’s at Kings Valley. Oh, semi-interesting stats from my heart rate monitor… total time 1 hour 22 minutes (this included about 15 minutes of standing around where I forgot to turn off the HRM), average heart rate = 152 (about 83% of max), max heart rate = 178 (about 97% of max). I may have my max heart rate calculated a bit low, but it sure hurt.  :)

The original plan, several months ago, was to repeat last years support of Dean.  Unfortunately, Kim booked their vacation over this weekend.  My buddy Dave Lofstead agreed to give it a shot but came down with strep throat.  Allen was acting as transportation commander and wasn’t real sure he wanted to go but I talked him into it:-) .  The course was moved yet again from Woodland,WA to Perrydale near Amity, OR.  There’s a 2.5 mile neutral rollout to the 12.5 mile course, finishing up on the 2.5 leg at the end.  The course profile is mostly flat, with a couple rollers and one small power climb.  You never leave the big ring for 54 miles. 

The weather definitely didn’t look good on the forecast and didn’t disappoint upon arrival.  At registration, there were 19 riders in my category and 11 in Masters 40+  123. 

We headed off at 1:30 with around 30 riders and, to our delight, it absolutely POURED for the first 30 minutes.  Between the wheel spray, the heavy rain and 15-20mph SE winds, visibility was terrible.  The rain did stop around lap 4 but the wind never did.

The group was plenty motivated on the first 12.5 mile lap.  4 riders went off the front almost immediately and had teammates (Pacific Blue Sky and Rose City)blocking despite us cruising along at 28mph.  I was about 10 riders back and totally boxed in, not going anywhere forward.  Watching them increase their gap was really frustrating.  The pace was still plenty high and near the end of lap 1, I got in a bad place after rotating through the front.  I was on the wrong side of the wind to draft and couldn’t get back into line.  HR was climbing and suddenly, I was off about 20-30 yards.  2 riders went by and I gave it full gas (such as it was) to get on the last wheel.  We turned along for about 1/2 a mile like that and then the main group let up.  That was close and a rookie mistake that I know better not to do.

After Lap 2, things calmed down considerably.  So much so that on Lap 3, we were doing 15-16mph at times.  It was so windy that attempts to jump off the front just couldn’t make it stick and there were few volunteers to pull.  By Lap 4, there were 2 attacks which I went with each time but by then, my legs were on the severe fade. 

The breakaway had faded to 3 riders but they did an excellent job of working together plus having teammates chasing down attacks or blocking.  I don’t know their lead but it was many minutes at the end.  We had the normal bunch sprint with 15 or so riders, I ended up 16th overall.  They opened up the finish straight to both lanes but had let a car through heading towards the sprinting pack and equally scared the older lady driving as well as the riders.  Thankfully, no issue there ultimately. 

In Cat 4, Ryan Elting made his NRR debut, finishing 25th in the bunch sprint.  Allen rode with the Masters 123 but having done LT intervals the day before plus the rather high speed of his group meant an early exit.   

Overall results are here:

http://list.obra.org/events/15773/results

Gary Watts

Allen Kraft, Joe Cipale, John O’Brien and myself carpooled to McMinnville for the 3rd TT of the series.  Thanks to Allen for supplying the transportation.  Weather was very cool in the early morning, near freezing but soon warmed up to an absolutely perfect day.  Temps in the mid 50’s, sunny and NO WIND. 

We drove the course beforehand with John O giving the play by play since he’d done the first 2 of the series.  I had been pouring over the profile I plotted on ridewithgps.com for most of the previous week.  It is always so different to actually be there than look at gps data.  http://ridewithgps.com/routes/27973#

The course is demanding but in different ways.  They slam you with a 1/2 mile climb 300′ from the start line.  It’s virtually never flat with a constant series of ups/down, turns, changes in pavement quality etc so you really can’t get into a steady effort like a flat TT.  You also get to reclimb that just before the finish.  The downhill finish was fun, hitting 44mph while in the aerobars. The second picture below was taken at that speed.  There’s around 700′ of climbing for a 12 mile course.

I didn’t have high hopes as my legs were a bit sore from earlier in the week and climbing isn’t my forte’ (understatement).  I had considered using my road bike as climbing on the TT bike is less than optimal for me usually.  That would have been a mistake because there are some fast sections that would have eaten more time than I might have saved on the climbs. 

I finished in 32:03, good enough for 9th in the 50+ category and the top 1/3 overall.  Congrats to John O for winning the series in the Masters 50+. 

Poor Allen had a sudden, severe neck pain and had to sit up on the return. 

Here’s a few pictures from a local photographer. 

Well, it almost went as planned….  We had a very surgey (is that a word..?) race. The Pacific Power guys had assigned a couple riders to mark the Sunset Cycles rider who was in first place in the series. Every time he would attack, at least one PP guy was on his wheel and then the whole pack would accelerate too. Then we would slow down after the break stopped trying to get away. I lost count how many times this happened. Between my cold and the constant surges I was starting to wear down on the last lap. Everything felt good except my legs. They had started to cramp a bit on the back side and I’d already finished a bottle of water and a bottle of Cytomax along with half a Clif bar. That should have been enough…  On the last time up the big hill I didn’t feel too bad so I figured I’d try the plan I had been thinking about. About 3/4 of the way up the next hill, I attacked. I didn’t get away, but I had everyone lined out along the flat spot before the long downhill going into the little finish stretch. A guy pulled ahead of me going down the hill so I at least got a little recovery. I pulled back up front as we made the right hander over the bridge and as soon as we hit the rise going toward the 200 meter mark I drilled it again. About half way up that hill my legs had had enough and both of my thighs just cramped up. It was like I threw a parachute out the back and 9 guys came flying past me. I managed to limp across the line in 10th. I’ve cramped in my last 2 races and I’m not sure if it’s due to my cold or losing 6 pounds in 2 weeks. I’m guessing it’s a combo. As it turns out, I managed to finish 5th in the series  4 points out of 3rd.

I also found out that I do not have enough points for an upgrade, so my next race will be King’s Valley as a 4. At least I have 3 weeks to get healthy and get more training in my legs.

Okay so Ivan & I were talking during the week and I was saying that the only way to get away from that field we ride in is attack constantly. If the pace slows, go to the front & attack.

 So, we pulled out of the parking lot and sure enough, I went right to the front as we went up the first short climb on the course, putting my HR right on up there near max. The other guys were having no part of it and by the time I got to the top, others where coming around me. Perfect, as I wouldn’t want to be on the front unless it’s going to play into my race plans anyway. However, as it turns out, several of the other racers had the same plans and ideas as I did and the race proceeded attack after attack after attack. Most of the time the attacks where on the climbs but Phenney and Ivan were attacking even on some of the flatter sections, of course, along with several of the other guys. 

One would think that after this kind of racing, the pace would slow a bit. But, it never did  and guys were constantly trying to break the peleton off and get away in an effort to steal the race. I’m quite sure we did destroy several of the guys, but the lions share, at least those that were anybody to contend at the finish, were having no part of it. 

First lap down, 27 minutes and change and I remarked to Bill, the series leader at this point, that was a 27 minute lap Bill. He goes dang, is that fast? I say yeah, we’re usually around 28ish, and we keeping going at this breakneck pace (for our small field anyway). By the time lap three came around, we slowed slightly but not much and at the beginning of lap four, we passed the field that started in front of us, the Master’s 4/5 field. I do not recall ever passing another field at this Banana Belt Series. The women cat 4, that I drove lead for in the morning, almost always get neutralized, as the men pro 1/2 or cat 3 men will usually come by (another story on that in a moment).  

Lap four was not much different than the other laps as we ascended the short climbs, attacks would flare. Toward the middle of the lap, a group of six guys got away with a smaller, yet determined group (me included), worked to bring them back. In a moment or two, a bunch more guys had caught us and they were all quite meaningful in wanting to bring back the breakaway of six riders, Phenney and Ivan included. 

With about 4Km to go, we caught the group of six. There’s a tough little climbs at this spot on the course and I was the last one, left in the lead group, up the climb and I thought I was going to be toast. I think there was maybe 20 of us left in the peleton at this point. However, I made sure I got back in and by the time we reached the 1Km sign, I was sort of recovered and began positioning myself for the finish. Other guys were doing the same, but like I said, this was one tough race and guys were just freaking tired. So, as a guy mounted an attack, a bit too early, a ways before the 200 meter sign, I came back around him and just started putting everything down I had. I didn’t have enough for the win but I though I had 9^th and then Ivan came around me just at the line. So, if my count was correct, Ivan got 10^th & I got 11^th. I’m happy with that this year. I’ll try some better finishes later in the year. Suffice it to say though that there are quite a few riders in the field this year with very good fitness. They’d have to be fit to stay in contention in racing contention like todays. Whooooaaaa! 

Oh yeah, I promised a Cat 4 women’s story. One lone rider from the women’s cat 4 field (a Veloforma girl) got away from the peleton on the 1^st lap (they do three laps). Another gal, an Ironclad girl, tried to bridge to her and failed. The gal, solo in her breakaway, was cruising up some of those climbs almost as fast as we (older but still strong) guy did. In fact, the field got neutralized at the Cat 3 men came rolling though. But this time, that Ironclad gal had finally bridged to her so now there were two off the front of the main field. So, as the cat three men proceeded, these two cat 4 women almost caught them several times. There were going up the hills as fast as they were and at one point, I got on the radio and told Jordon, dude, these two girls are going to catch your guys. We chuckled but really, there two girls were very, very fast. Great job girls! I’m guessing those two will be racing with the Cat 3 women very soon.

I’m going to begin this with my excuse. I woke up Friday with a cold. My eyes and nose were running, my sinuses were packed up and I had a headache…. I worked from home and tried to get better. Saturday, I layed around the house napping, drinking fluids and blowing my nose. Sunday rolls around, hey! let’s go to a bike race!!!  In all honesty, had I not finished so well last week I would have stayed home and watched cooking shows on the Food Network, but I felt like I had to go and defend my place in the series.  My hope was that it would be a slowish race and I could just hide in the pack until the end and sprint uphill for a top 10 finish.  It was not to be…

I met Allen at our usual spot and we drove up there while I drank some coffee and blew my nose. Got there, registered, set up our stuff and started warming up. I actually felt pretty good except my nose was runny and my chest was tight. I took some Dayquil hoping it would stem the tide of my nose and headed up to the line. It was a smaller group and in my experience, that usually makes for a faster race. It started out just the way I wanted it, but as soon as we got over to the backside, it ramped up. There were 5 or 6 Pacific Power guys there and they worked well as a team this week. They kept sending guys off the front and some big motors weren’t going to let them get off, so the speed stayed high. The guy who won last week went on a couple of breaks and one of them contained Nick (BikeTiresDirect) and a guy from Pacific Power. I was pretty nervous about that one, but some guys got up front and strung us all out and we eventually caught them. This was all starting to take its toll on my un-healthy body and the last time up the big hill off the dam (remember, we are going counter-clockwise this time) my legs started to cramp up a bit. I knew this wasn’t going to be good…. With about a quarter lap to go, we were all packed up and I was trapped against the yellow line and I was too far back. Damn… I didn’t have much choice but to wait until the 200 meter mark to get out and around. It was an uphill finish and the initial plan was to not commit too much energy until I had too. Unfortunately, I had to go as soon as we hit that line or I wasn’t going to be far enough up to get points. So, off I went and I made up quite a bit of ground until about 100 meters when guys started coming around. I managed to stem the tide and finished off 12th. I think I managed to keep my 3rd place series standing, but I’m not sure and if I did, it’s not my much….

Now I just need to get healthy for BB3.

Out at Haag Lake, today’s race was run counter-clockwise. The race is a bit harder this way as the climbs are a bit steeper than when run clockwise. The biggest climb on every lap is the climb coming off of the dam, short but steep, this climb, normally breaks up the peleton as people’s climbing legs get tested.

From the first lap on, I made sure I was at the front of the field so I could cover any attacks that came on the dam climb. My hope was that I could (worst case scenario) fade back as the climb progressed. However, I found that I didn’t fade and was able to stay near the front of the field, albeit pressing to near max heart rate on every lap.

As anticipate, this was a different race than last week’s and the peleton was not letting anyone escape their grasp. Each lap we tested the pack and each lap, the pack stayed there after the climb. The closest we came to breaking the pack off was on the 3^rd lap when four guys were up front, Phenney and Ivan two of them, and three guys following, me being in that group.

They had me on the rivet for sure on that lap (in a spot of bother as Phil Ligget would say) and the pressing to max HR on each lap was taking a toll on my legs.  One of us three was fading and the guy jumped to bridge to the four ahead of us. I went with the jumper and when we bridged, we still had a fair gap on the field. I expected Ivan and Phenney to keep the hammer down.