I had no expectations this year for cross. Last year I was pulled from half the races I did and finished very near the back in the rare times the officials didn't spare mercy on me. But it was a fun style of racing and a great way to make the winter feel a whole lot shorter.
...And like the track, I quickly blew my low expectations out of the water...
At Jackson Park, the first Chi Cross Cup race of the season I passed half of the field in route to a 30th place finish. And from there my staging position skyrocketed making it easier to be in a position to actually compete for placings. The next few races of the series I could tell I had a lot more power than most and my technical skills were adequate enough for anything that wasn't really difficult, however I kept putting myself in poor places - whether that be dropping chains, crashing, etc that would shed me from the front group quickly. A bigger takeaway that I've come across is that you want to be up front, you can't make a mistake. You can make excuses all you want, but that's not going to get you a win. Risk mitigate and improve in the areas you can control.
After finishing just outside of the top 10 in a few of the bigger CCC races and knowing that I still hadn't come close to putting together a full race - I knew that if I could manage to hold the front group I could probably compete not just for a good finish, but maybe for the win.
The 7th race of my fall season was in Evanston at the Rhythm and Blues Cyclocross Revue. It was a short course with a lot of laps and few obstacles which suited me really well since I'm still figuring out this sport. I was staged in the second row behind a teammate in a good sized field. The race started and my teammate was having some issues with his ride, I figured it was going to be another bad start and another race of chasing, but pretty quickly I was able to jump around every gap that opened up and by the end of the first lap I had connected with the front group for the first time this season. It appeared there were four or five of us in that lead group with another two to five not terribly far behind. Early on I tried to attack out of the group (track days coming out of me) just to see how strong everyone was and everyone instantly hung onto my wheel. It was a clear indicator that this race was going to stick together until the end. The only hitch was that there were two riders from Rhythm racing in the group, which usually means you're going to have to fend off some attacks. With about four or five to go, there were one or two soft attacks from them, but I was able to cover them quickly and any attempt to go for the win would clearly be on the last lap.
The course was pretty windy that day and I think one of the Rhythm guys was going to try to lead his man out for the win. I had a few outs as I felt like as long as I had good positioning I was going to be able to out-sprint my peers, but also if I attacked, even if I didn't get a gap, I'd still exit the last technical section first and have a good head-start on a sprint. So I was ready and feeling decently good. I noticed in a few of the earlier laps that once we hit the backstretch the pacing seemed to slow up considerably (as it should - the leader was doing a lot of work). As the last lap came, I was fourth wheel entering that backstretch and as soon as I felt the speed begin to slow, I jumped as hard as I could. I figured the leader wasn't going to be able to cover as he was gassed, and the speed at which I moved around the other guys was going to require a pretty good effort as I think they were a bit caught off-guard by the move. By the third turn of this oval shaped course, I looked back and knew I had it as the gap appeared to be about 10 bike lengths. The only thing I had to focus on was keeping the pressure on in the straights and keeping the bike upright through the turns. And it happened.
I won a cross race.
Sort of a surreal moment moving through the finish line posting up. The wins I have on the track never really call for a post-up and I rarely won anything on the road in years past, so this was more or less a bit of a new experience. Thinking back ten months ago I couldn't finish a race, now I've won one against many of the same guys. My goals have changed: as long as I'm in a Category 3 race, I want to approach it to win it...and of course have fun, as I'm confident that's whats gotten me here. I will need a lot of work in the offseason to improve my technical skills, but I know what I need to improve on and will.
Katie's been having a great season too - placed 5th out of more than 20 girls at the Evanston race and consistently has been placing in the top half of her field. It's been a blast to watch and we're having fun with it.
Anyways - the state and regional championships will be here very soon; here's to a good & fun finish to the rest of the season!
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Track and other notes to the Summer 2013 season
So I decided to give track another shot after sort of giving up on bike racing a bit a few years back and it ended up being one of the best decisions I've made recently. Not just for the racing itself, but for the great community of people you naturally become involved with.
So, earlier in the year Kuikman had been really persistent about us hitting up the track and eventually convinced me that we should give it a go. It made it a lot easier given that I'd always just gone up to the track alone in prior years; it would be fun to have someone to drive up with, cheer on during their races, and help through the high's and low's of the season. So I said sure, why not, pulled the old Felt track bike out from under the bed, dusted it off (literally), and just hoped that all the pieces still fit together nicely. I went over to YoJimbo's garage and got a bigger chainring, ordered a new sprocket online, put it all together and hoped that I still had some legs from training a bit this past offseason. By the time I stopped track cycling 2 years ago, I wasn't having much success at the Cat 3 level - the racing seemed way faster than at the Cat 4 level and I just didn't adapt well in the few races I did. So going into this the expectations I had for myself weren't high and my only goals for this and the entire season was to have fun and be aggressive on the track.
The first night I'm there it all came back to me and more. Not only was I fast, I was winning and took home the Omnium for the night. The second night ended up being the highlight race of my season - a 100 lap Points race, one of the biggest races of the season and I ended up placing 5th in the 1/2/3 race, but far more importantly, with the help of fellow xXx'er Tom Briney we helped our team's coach Randy Warren take home 1st in the event in a really solid field. The racing over the course of the season was outstanding. Several of my Cat 3 xXx teammates were incredible throughout the year, absolutely deserving credit for several of my results including one of the most well executed last lap blocks by Eric Didrickson that literally gave me an Omnium win in the last race of the night. In total my final tally ended up being 7 individual and 3 Omnium wins for the year including near the end of the season an upgrade to Catagory 2.
It was a great season and as it came to a close last week, it was nice to be able to reflect upon a full season for the first time in awhile, this one feeling far more fulfilling than one's past. Great results obviously were nice, but just being able to approach the season with the goal of having fun instead of just pressuring yourself to win every race. It was nice as I still feel relatively fresh physically and definitely fresh mentally as I'm already looking forward to 2014. It was great getting to know a lot of the people in the community - from other teams and officials, to members of my own team and the organizers at the track...it's just a great place to be.
As for next year, I'd love to win one big race or help a teammate win a really big race, whether that's a State Championship or otherwise, that would be the ultimate race goal - but I think again, the real goal is just to continue to approach it to have fun and everything else will follow.
I also ended up carrying that form into a short Time Trial stint a few weeks ago, placing in the open category 2nd in the State Time Trial Championships and in the P/1/2's 1st in the TTT ABR Championships (which was an incredible event).
Racing for 2013 is far from over though as I'm going to go after Cyclocross which is huge in Chicago. I did a few races really early this year and they were a blast - looking forward to having fun doing those as I'm definitely not going have a quarter of the success that I did at Track, if because of nothing else that I'm staged a mile behind the leaders. Really looking forward to the challenge though.
Until next time...
So, earlier in the year Kuikman had been really persistent about us hitting up the track and eventually convinced me that we should give it a go. It made it a lot easier given that I'd always just gone up to the track alone in prior years; it would be fun to have someone to drive up with, cheer on during their races, and help through the high's and low's of the season. So I said sure, why not, pulled the old Felt track bike out from under the bed, dusted it off (literally), and just hoped that all the pieces still fit together nicely. I went over to YoJimbo's garage and got a bigger chainring, ordered a new sprocket online, put it all together and hoped that I still had some legs from training a bit this past offseason. By the time I stopped track cycling 2 years ago, I wasn't having much success at the Cat 3 level - the racing seemed way faster than at the Cat 4 level and I just didn't adapt well in the few races I did. So going into this the expectations I had for myself weren't high and my only goals for this and the entire season was to have fun and be aggressive on the track.
The first night I'm there it all came back to me and more. Not only was I fast, I was winning and took home the Omnium for the night. The second night ended up being the highlight race of my season - a 100 lap Points race, one of the biggest races of the season and I ended up placing 5th in the 1/2/3 race, but far more importantly, with the help of fellow xXx'er Tom Briney we helped our team's coach Randy Warren take home 1st in the event in a really solid field. The racing over the course of the season was outstanding. Several of my Cat 3 xXx teammates were incredible throughout the year, absolutely deserving credit for several of my results including one of the most well executed last lap blocks by Eric Didrickson that literally gave me an Omnium win in the last race of the night. In total my final tally ended up being 7 individual and 3 Omnium wins for the year including near the end of the season an upgrade to Catagory 2.
It was a great season and as it came to a close last week, it was nice to be able to reflect upon a full season for the first time in awhile, this one feeling far more fulfilling than one's past. Great results obviously were nice, but just being able to approach the season with the goal of having fun instead of just pressuring yourself to win every race. It was nice as I still feel relatively fresh physically and definitely fresh mentally as I'm already looking forward to 2014. It was great getting to know a lot of the people in the community - from other teams and officials, to members of my own team and the organizers at the track...it's just a great place to be.
As for next year, I'd love to win one big race or help a teammate win a really big race, whether that's a State Championship or otherwise, that would be the ultimate race goal - but I think again, the real goal is just to continue to approach it to have fun and everything else will follow.
I also ended up carrying that form into a short Time Trial stint a few weeks ago, placing in the open category 2nd in the State Time Trial Championships and in the P/1/2's 1st in the TTT ABR Championships (which was an incredible event).
Racing for 2013 is far from over though as I'm going to go after Cyclocross which is huge in Chicago. I did a few races really early this year and they were a blast - looking forward to having fun doing those as I'm definitely not going have a quarter of the success that I did at Track, if because of nothing else that I'm staged a mile behind the leaders. Really looking forward to the challenge though.
Until next time...
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Austin Rattler 100K
Austin Rattler
4/13/13
100K MTB Race
So, I decided to try something new and attempt a 100K MTB race seeing as it was going on when I was going to be down in Austin seeing Katie's parents. Going into the race I knew how it would go...my legs would be better than most, my technical skills would be far far worse than most - and that's how the race went. I made up a lot of ground on the first lap before the single track section, but flatted just before it watching what felt like hundreds of people pass me. Just constantly had to remind myself that this was for experience and fun. The second lap went far better, as Katie said I passed something like 100+ people during the lap. I felt far more technically sound and stayed upright for (almost) the whole lap. By the midpoint of lap four I was probably about 75% bonked as nutrition intake riding on a MTB is not surprisingly, very difficult. I finished up, it was fun and good to do, nothing more. I'm not even looking at the results as I'm sure they were embarrassingly poor, but again that's not what this was about. Looking forward to getting out on some trails around Chicago to try and figure out how to maneuver this thing in single track so I can think about racing around here.
4/13/13
100K MTB Race
So, I decided to try something new and attempt a 100K MTB race seeing as it was going on when I was going to be down in Austin seeing Katie's parents. Going into the race I knew how it would go...my legs would be better than most, my technical skills would be far far worse than most - and that's how the race went. I made up a lot of ground on the first lap before the single track section, but flatted just before it watching what felt like hundreds of people pass me. Just constantly had to remind myself that this was for experience and fun. The second lap went far better, as Katie said I passed something like 100+ people during the lap. I felt far more technically sound and stayed upright for (almost) the whole lap. By the midpoint of lap four I was probably about 75% bonked as nutrition intake riding on a MTB is not surprisingly, very difficult. I finished up, it was fun and good to do, nothing more. I'm not even looking at the results as I'm sure they were embarrassingly poor, but again that's not what this was about. Looking forward to getting out on some trails around Chicago to try and figure out how to maneuver this thing in single track so I can think about racing around here.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Barry-Roubaix
Barry-Roubaix
3/23/13
36 Mile Men 11-29
So the goal at this race was just to have fun, get racing again, build some endurance, test it out to see if you still have some race legs, and just generally see where you're at. The start of the race went well, I easily moved up to the first line of a few riders and could tell I was one of the 3-5 strongest guys in the field. The course had some rolling to uphill terrain, a lot of snow, a lot of ice sections where there really was only one way to negotiate the trail (just respect it and you won't crash)...but truly the only part that really threw you a bit were the deep divots throughout the hard-packed gravel sections as it was really impossible to predict a good line and the result was quite the waterbottle graveyard. Regardless, the race pretty much went like this for me: ride at the front, dropped chain, pace myself back, dropped chain, pace myself back, dropped chain, dropped chain, snapped chain, jump in a nice person's truck and drive back to Hastings. Not a big deal, I had fun, I knew I had it, it's just time to find a real cross bike for the fall and have some fun on it. The trip was a blast though. Katie did it, which was her first bike race in nearly 5 years...and ended up getting 2nd in her age group! Definitely far more rewarding to experience than any win or podium I've had. Plus, we hit up the Founders brew tent afterwards and then went to Bells Brewery in Kalamazoo. Pretty tough 24 hours to beat in my book.
Next up - Austin Rattler - 4/13/13
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