Sandy Springs – USA Crits Speedweek Finale

Quick summary – chasing after avoiding early crash, riding in a cold hurricane, slideout crash with five second slide, another near-crash, 20th place!

The details – I drove over from Birmingham past all the craziness that is talladega – partly cloudy and I’m thinking that it’s not going to rain. By the time I make it over to Sandy Springs, it is sunny and HOT. I thought about moving my car to find some shade, but by the time I picked up my number and changed clothes the clouds were starting to get much thicker. Still, there were periods of warm sunshine as I was riding over by the Chattahoochee River. When it started to get closer to race time, I headed back towards the course and suddenly encountered very wet streets with steam coming off them b/c it was still sunny where I was. Apparently while I was out warming up it started to downpour on the women’s race — whereas I didn’t get a single drop of rain or even know that it was raining just a couple miles to my east!

The sun was out, though, with no rain clouds anywhere close (although there were some ominous looking clouds visible south of town). The firefighter’s race scheduled between the women’s race and the men’s race was cancelled b/c of the wet course so there was about 20 minutes of time to ride on the course. With a bunch of riding laps easy on the course, it was drying out pretty quickly. Still, the course was by no means dry on those first laps. We did a reasonable 23 mph on the first lap even with a $200 prime on the line – but apparently that was enough to give the guys at the front confidence to ramp up the speed for the second lap. Unfortunately for those of us at the back, that means even faster speeds around the corners to keep from having a gap open up. So that second lap was absolutely insane. The course was drying out pretty fast, though, but not quite fast enough as there was a nasty crash at the front of the race about three or four laps into the race. I was far enough behind it to maneuver around, but ended up in a second group with people not chasing very hard.

This only lasted for a few seconds though b/c a rider behind me attacked seeing that this group was not going to make it back up to the field. Sergio Hernandez (Predator) and I both followed making for a three man chase group. The rider who attacked never slowed down and did all of the work. Fortunately for us, the course was almost dry by this point so the three of us could fly through the corners whereas the field was a bit more tentative. So after almost 10 laps we finally made it back up to the lead group that had maybe 30 riders still left in it. Sometime during our chase, Frank Travieso (Mountain Khakis) and Karl Menzies (United Healthcare) escaped. Since these were the two strongest teams in the race, they were happy to let them go meaning that the overall pace of the field dropped with only Empire Foundation (NYC) chasing. The next five to ten laps were sporadic with various surges, but the pace always seemed to ease up. I came off the back once or twice through the start finish with the moto-official even passing me, but just steady chasing through the corners meant that I was able to catch back up to the field.

Then the rain started again – fairly gradual at first – so that we had about two or three laps of rain with a course still dry enough to go pretty fast. Then it was a crazy downpour / hurricane. Very hard rain with some high wind gusts dramatically slowed down the field – but because I was at the back, I had to risk the corners at a bit higher of a speed to keep from getting gapped. The last turn was the trickiest. About every other lap, I would be gapped off b/c I would still be taking the turn slowly while the front of the group was already attacking up the hill. This meant that a gap would open up, and it would take me about half a lap to close it back down. The irony was that once I was off the back, I could actually go faster through the rest of the course then when I was with the group because it was easier to pick a line.

Eventually, during one of the laps where I was chasing and hadn’t quite caught back up yet, I tried to take the final turn a little bit faster to carry some momentum up the hill. Without warning, though, both wheels slid out from under me and I ended up sliding on the ground for a good five seconds through the turn. It took me a while to get my chain back on the bike b/c I didn’t realize I had bent my rear derailleur and the chain was off the pulley wheels. Once I figured that out I was able to get the chain back on the bike and pedal back to the pit where I thought I was going to have to use one of the SRAM neutral bikes. One of the mechanics was putting zero pedals onto the neutral bike while the other mechanic worked to straighten out my derailleur. Amazingly, he got it working so I was able to hop back on my own bike and into the race with 9 laps to go.

I got put in on a particularly fast lap b/c everyone was strung out single file through the pit area. I quickly drifted to the back tentative through the corners not wanting to crash again. A lap or two later the rider in front of me went down on the same corner that I had fallen. I was able to get around but there was no way I was going to be able to go fast enough to catch back up to the pack. I settled into a pace that I was hoping would keep me far enough ahead of the leading duo of Frank and Karl, but with three laps to go the head official pulled me. The field was so small by this point that I ended up in 20th place, anyway!

Sandy Springs USA Crits Speedweek Finale
May 5th, 2013
20th place

Lap	Time	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH	Comment
1	1:34	274	808	140	77	23	Wet
2	1:21	265	836	160	84	25.8	Insane
3	1:23	273	883	164	78	25.2	
4	1:22	241	932	169	77	25.5	
5	1:23	256	871	171	75	25.1	Chasing after crash
6	1:19	292	864	177	74	26.3	Chasing
7	1:19	252	909	177	77	26.4	Course starting to dry out
8	1:19	226	876	174	77	26.1	Chasing
9	1:19	294	846	177	77	26.7	Chasing
10	1:19	232	865	177	79	26.3	Chasing
11	1:19	266	890	175	77	26.5	Chasing
12	1:17	272	893	176	79	26.8	Chasing
13	1:18	239	892	176	77	26.8	Chasing
14	1:20	224	981	173	76	26.2	
15	1:26	212	872	169	78	24.3	
16	1:21	230	1009	169	78	26	
17	1:18	244	893	173	80	26.5	
18	1:23	188	873	171	77	25.3	
19	1:18	248	913	171	78	26.8	
20	1:21	227	875	170	77	25.7	
21	1:22	210	946	171	76	25.2	
22	1:24	212	972	168	83	24.8	
23	1:23	207	896	168	75	25.1	
24	1:21	228	824	171	77	25.7	
25	1:27	202	913	168	75	23.9	Heavy Rain 
26	1:30	231	906	167	76	23.2	Heavy Rain 
27	1:31	217	894	166	71	22.9	Heavy Rain 
28	1:30	214	866	167	77	23.1	Heavy Rain
29	1:27	198	680	170	78	24.1	Rain 
30	1:31	233	803	168	80	23.2	Rain 
31	1:27	214	845	169	74	23.9	Rain 
32	1:27	206	832	167	75	24.1	Rain 
33	1:24	221	876	168	73	24.4	Rain 
34	1:27	204	667	167	77	23.9	Rain 
35	1:27	219	744	166	75	23.7	Rain 
36	1:24	198	818	164	75	24.5	
37	1:26	202	889	164	75	24.2	
38	3:22	73	491	155	60	23.7	Crash
39	3:43	73	816	128	66	6.2	Crash
40	1:32	185	784	154	70	5.3	Bad speed
41	1:31	209	587	160	74	5.8	Bad speed
42	1:37	199	644	157	75	5.8	Bad speed
43	1:34	187	642	156	75	19.2	
44	1:42	149	603	155	72	20.4	

Sandy Springs power map – you can say that 1/3rd of the course is hard and the rest is coasting/braking (click to enlarge)

Annotated plot with crash data (click to enlarge)

Heartrate zone summary

Talladega race day from I-20 on my way to race sandy springs usacrits ncc

Sunny chattahoochee river while the women were finishing their race in a downpour!

Cycling will have made it when they start flying ad planes on the course. On the drive past talladega today.

Yes, that’s the speedplay grease port screw turned sideways inside the pedal.

Strangest thing in my crash today – all four safety pins on my # came undone and look at how this one got bent.

Athens Twilight 2013

Quick summary
Awesome weekend hanging out with friends in Athens. Perhaps the highlight of my weekend was being there to see Mark Fisher win the amateur finals race in a crazy solo move. I was also very happy with how I was able to stay near the front in the pro race and even attack to take a $100 prime late in the race. With two laps to go, a couple guys crashed in front of me of me going into turn 1. As soon as I hit the brakes to try to stop, the guy behind me plowed into me at pretty much full speed — popping me up into the air and then landing ironically on him, his bike and unfortunately for my right knee, his pedal (or my own headset). Initially, I thought I had shattered my knee b/c the pain/shock was so great that I was almost paralyzed to even try to move to unstraddle my bike. Somehow after untangling everything I still had one foot on the left side of my bike and the other foot on the right side of my bike. So I’m standing there trying to figure out whether I can still get back on my bike when the field starts to come down the stretch again. I knew at this point there was no way to even ride in easy so I scrambled off the course just before the remnants of the field came barrelling into turn 1 again with one lap to go. Disappointing finish to an otherwise great weekend! On Sunday, I partially redeemed the weekend by discovering a new Cat 2 climb for Alabama (Campington Ridge) on what was supposed to be a 120 mile ride home via Mount Cheaha. Instead, I got to climb Cheaha in a thunderstorm full of lightning and then descend it in a thunderstorm downpour. By the time I made it to Talledega, finishing the ride wasn’t even on the menu any more — but a hot coffee and supersonic breakfast burrito while waiting for Kristine to come pick me up definitely was!

The videos
Well, as it turns out my camera bounced off my handlebars in Turn 2 fairly early in the race … I think it may have been the second or third lap. Some kind soul found it for me and turned it into Ashley Travieso. So assuming that the camera card wasn’t broken by the impact, then I should have videos to post of the scrum, call-ups, and first one or two laps. I’m picking up the camera from Ashley at the Sandy Springs race on Sunday so I’ll probably have those videos posted by Sunday night or Monday morning!

The data

Athens Twilight Pro/1 2013
59th place, crash 2 to go
Lap	Time	Mi.	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH
1	1:27	0.6	299	888	154	83	25.7
2	1:19	0.6	293	791	167	82	26.2
3	1:17	0.6	256	815	169	79	27.5
4	1:19	0.6	264	824	168	80	27
5	1:15	0.6	246	877	167	81	27.6
6	1:14	0.6	259	851	170	84	27.7
7	1:12	0.6	239	736	173	84	28.6
8	1:13	0.6	258	862	174	80	28
9	1:20	0.6	245	807	174	83	25.3
10	1:17	0.6	272	849	173	81	26.8
11	1:17	0.6	246	880	176	79	27.3
12	1:20	0.6	254	862	174	77	26
13	1:14	0.6	246	847	176	81	27.8
14	1:16	0.6	274	868	177	81	27.6
15	1:12	0.6	269	896	178	83	29.2
16	1:19	0.6	207	856	175	79	26.8
17	1:21	0.6	250	855	170	84	26.1
18	1:14	0.6	262	833	172	84	27.6
19	1:21	0.6	224	827	175	78	26.3
20	1:19	0.6	248	820	172	83	26.9
21	1:16	0.6	243	838	173	79	27.6
22	1:16	0.6	269	851	175	82	27.7
23	1:12	0.6	232	929	178	78	29.1
24	1:20	0.6	257	826	172	80	26.5
25	1:18	0.6	251	859	178	76	26.6
26	1:16	0.6	244	771	176	80	27.9
27	1:15	0.6	244	824	173	79	28.3
28	1:14	0.6	270	788	173	82	28.5
29	1:11	0.6	249	781	177	80	29.8
30	1:13	0.6	239	892	175	78	29
31	1:17	0.6	241	832	176	74	27.4
32	1:20	0.6	231	723	172	81	26.4
33	1:15	0.6	241	868	173	83	27.9
34	1:12	0.6	241	835	176	79	28.5
35	1:12	0.6	239	789	174	81	28.9
36	1:18	0.6	242	865	170	74	27
37	1:17	0.6	243	829	174	79	27.2
38	1:14	0.6	240	829	174	81	28.2
39	1:15	0.6	232	781	172	83	27.7
40	1:21	0.6	286	796	178	81	25.9
41	1:13	0.6	266	854	180	80	28.7
42	1:14	0.6	244	868	175	78	28.2
43	1:16	0.6	243	879	172	80	27.8
44	1:16	0.6	242	821	170	80	27.5
45	1:17	0.6	236	801	170	82	27.3
46	1:15	0.6	250	797	170	80	27.7
47	1:15	0.6	221	769	171	79	28.4
48	1:15	0.6	257	770	170	81	28
49	1:16	0.6	244	795	172	84	28.1
50	1:14	0.6	246	767	171	86	29
51	1:13	0.6	249	807	170	81	29.3
52	1:16	0.6	224	731	169	82	28.3
53	1:15	0.6	261	793	167	80	28.4
54	1:15	0.6	252	788	174	78	28.4
55	1:16	0.6	248	745	172	81	27.5
56	1:25	0.6	216	783	166	78	24.9
57	1:18	0.6	234	763	164	79	27.1
58	1:15	0.6	226	783	163	80	27.8
59	1:18	0.6	243	837	159	79	27.1
60	1:17	0.6	253	776	167	77	27.3
61	1:12	0.6	255	808	170	83	29.4
62	1:21	0.6	255	745	172	79	26.1
63	1:19	0.6	234	711	169	79	26.5
64	1:16	0.6	286	716	168	80	28
65	1:18	0.6	221	727	170	80	26.9
66	1:25	0.6	216	617	161	81	24.8
67	1:11	0.6	418	741	172	82	29
68	1:24	0.6	262	548	183	84	25
69	1:16	0.6	242	750	175	83	27.7
70	1:19	0.6	261	732	168	82	27.1
71	1:18	0.6	269	772	173	79	27.1
72,73	2:34	1.2	241	734	171	80	27.4
74-76	4:00	1.8	265	819	175	80	26.7
77	1:20	0.6	277	794	179	81	26.7

Towards the end of the lap data with rain moving in, apparently my GPS couldn’t keep up with the turns anymore and my auto-lap feature wasn’t kicking in correctly. Looking at the data, it may be that my crash was actually with 3 laps to go (2.75 laps).

Athens Twilight 2013 Pro/1 – Heartrate zone summary
Athens Twilight 2013 Pro/1 – Annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)
Athens Twilight 2013 Pro/1 critical power curve

The detailed report
Athens Twilight is a race like no other in the country. From the atmosphere of thousands and thousands of people lining the entire course several rows deep, to the pre-race scrum fighting for position before the race even starts, to the super fast course, to the uncertainty of how the race itself could play out in any number of dramatically different scenarios. After racing it for seven years in a row now, I think I’ve figured out what makes the course so amazingly fast — the fact that turn 1 is so slow. What this does is it causes everyone from the back of the pack to have to accelerate really hard up the hill to keep from having gaps open up. Yet the course is so wide coming across the top of the hill that there are plenty of people with lots of momentum to slingshot past the guys at the front causing the guys at the front to respond and pick up their speed behind the new guys who are trying to attack or go off the front. And that new faster speed is easily carried through the wide turn #3. Heading into turn #4 you are coasting, so you have a chance to recover and then hit it really hard again through the start/finish. This process repeats itself enough times and pretty soon you are averaging over 30mph per lap.

I had a really great start in this year’s race on the second row, and I held good position towards the front third of the group until a crash coming out of Turn #1 at the very front of the field caused a pile-up. I could see guys pulling up behind it and getting ready to head back to the pit, but I also could see a way around the mess so I opted to just keep riding since there were no gaps I could see. Going up the hill out of turn #2, I was in a bit of a panic b/c I could see a front group of about 25 riders had separated itself from maybe the next 50 or so of us — and I was near the very back of this group. Fortunately, some heavy hitters were not in that front 25 so our group was able to catch back up before the end of that lap.

In the chaos of the crash and remerging of the groups, a few riders slipped away and formed a dangerous looking break. Predator missed the move, though, and after 15-20 laps of steady chasing they brought it back. A few laps later, a three man move including eventual winner Kevin Mullervy (Champion/NoTubes), Carlos Alzate (UHC), and Frank Travieso (Mountain Khakis) escaped and quickly got a good gap on the field. Predator went to the front again to chase, but they couldn’t get any help from anyone else. During these laps, I was slowly working my way back up towards the front. Then with maybe 16 or 17 laps to go, I was in good position and the pace of the field let up at the front so I thought about attacking up the hill with no real race objective other than to be off the front for Kristine. I realized it would be better to wait for a prime, though, and on the very next lap they rang the bell for a $100 field prime. The pace slowed again just a bit across the top and I took that opportunity to launch an attack to go for the prime.

I imagined the whole time I was attacking that I was just pulling the field with me or at least one or two other riders who would come around to take the prime, so I sprinted hard all the way to the line not realizing that I had escaped cleanly and had maybe a 5 second gap by the line. I was cooked from the effort, though, so I sat up, recovered, and waited for the field. I slotted back in at the front of the field and spent the next 12 laps attacking up the outside on the hill to keep from getting passed by the field and then slotting back in behind UHC through the start/finish. This was taking its toll on me but I was maintaining good position until 3 laps to go heading into Turn 3 when the pace eased up a bit on the downhill and I wasn’t close enough to the barriers so a whole slew of people came around me on the outside. I tapped the brakes feeling squeezed by the people on the inside and lost even more positions. I think I probably went from top 15 back down to top 30 by the start/finish line. Shortly after the start/finish line heading into turn #1, there was a big pile-up on the ground in front of me, and as I hit my brakes to try to stop before running into it, the guy behind me plowed into me from behind propelling me up into the air a bit and then ironically landing on top of him as he came sliding by me on the ground.

Side note – I’ve now crashed five times at Athens Twilight after racing it for 7 years. Out of those five times, my body has only hit the ground twice – once in 2007 when I landed on my butt in the straight section between Turn #3 and Turn #4 when somebody went too far outside hit the curb and bounced back into the group taking down a number of riders (including me) and then once in 2011 when I landed hard on my wrist in a very similar wreck to this year’s except going through Turn #1 instead of heading into it. The other three wrecks (two more in 2007, I had three wrecks that year, and one in either 2008 or 2009) have all involved me landing on top of other people already on the ground!

My first thought was get back up and try to tack back onto the riders who were still streaming by those of us caught up in the wreck. But my bike was so tangled up in two other rider’s bikes that it took a few seconds to even get the bikes untangled. By this point, the field was gone. Also, it was about that time I realized must have cracked my knee really hard on something (pedal, headset) as it was bleeding and hurting quite a bit. In fact, the location of the pain paralyzed me for a few seconds as I was afraid to move or bend my leg thinking that I had done some serious damage to my knee and would end up crumpling back to the ground if I tried to move. As I looked back to the start/finish I could see the lead moto and knew that the field was coming soon so this forced me to try to move and I found that I could move my knee without any additional pain. I climbed through the fence as spectators grabbed my bike and pulled it into the beer tent. Turning down numerous offers for beers, ambulances, and other forms of assistance, I was able to take my bike and ride it through the crowd to the start/finish line where Chad was interviewing the winner, Kevin.

Even having to pull out with three to go, I still ended up 59th as many of the nearly 100 starters had already abandoned the race earlier. So I’m happy to not have to put a DNF in my results! Kristine related to me later that the race for first was an intriguing one with Kevin attacking the break with six to go and Frank and Carlos hesistating to chase. This gave Kevin enough room to solo it in from six to go. Carlos ended up outsprinting Frank for 2nd with Frank rounding out the podium in 3rd. All-in-all I think it was a good race for me being in good position so late in the race and then just a bit of bad luck with two to go. C’est la vie – can’t wait until next year!!!!!

Alabama’s newest Cat 2 climb – Bain’s Gap to Campington Ridge
On the way home I had Kristine drop me off on the old Fort Mclellan property so I could ride a new Cat 2 climb and then bike almost 120 miles home via Mount Cheaha. Along the way I saw a really cool wild turkey run across the road, and a long black snake, and then I got absolutely soaked in a thunderstorm on the top of Mt Cheaha – quite scary with all the lightning – and a huge downpour on the descent down into Talladega. By the time I made it to Talladega, I was ready to be done riding so I called Kristine to come pick me up. I got some cool pics that I’ve posted in the gallery below.

Cut for the Moorman Mountain gravel climb (dark line on side of mountain)

Campington Ridge – behind the bomb range

The view of my tracks up the last bit of the Campington Ridge gravel climb

Cockpit minus a camera, but plus a new bike light purchased at Walmart to finish the ride in the dark

Mt Cheaha with a thunderstorm about to be on top of it (right about the time I finished climbing up to it)

Mt Cheaha tower – Alabama’s highest point at 2,407 feet above sea level

Sonic (and Kristine) to the rescue … one giant burnt coffee and a supersonic breakfast burrito to stop the uncontrollable shivering while I waited for Kristine to make the drive from Birmingham to Talledega

A rainbow on the drive home after Kristine came and picked me up in Talladega

2013 Sunny King Criterium and Foothills Road Race

Me and Kristine before the start of the 2013 Sunny King criterium

SATURDAY’s Sunny King Pro/1 Criterium
A five man break gets away about one/third of the way through the race. A four or five man chase with Frank Travieso (Mountain Khakis) and eventual winner Carlos Alzate (UHC) gets away a few laps later after my own very short-lived bridge attempt. I watched them go from near the very front having just been reeled back in by the field thinking that looks like a good move, but no way I can do anything about it right now. Our pace in the pack plummits as UHC now has Karl Menzies in the original break and Carlos in a strong bridge move. Brendan Cornett related to me at the post-race dinner how amazing (and painful) it was as Frank and Carlos traded pace ramping up the speed insanely after giving each other a short rest. Two or three guys end up getting dropped from the break, which doesn’t surprise me given that it takes practically no time at all for the break to lap the field. Once the break laps the field, UHC goes to the front and controls the pace for the rest of the race to make sure that nobody from the original break has a chance to try to escape again. Perfect leadout train for Carlos leads to another UHC win. Sergio Hernandez (Predator Cycling) takes second followed by final leadout man from UHC (Karl Menzies) in 3rd.

Meanwhile, back in my part of the race, fighting elbow to elbow with everyone behind the UHC leadout train, I end up in decent position maybe mid pack 25 riders from the front when two guys run into each other in turn 3 – right in front of me – with maybe five laps to go. They don’t go down, but I end up having to chase around them to close the gap. Tired from this, I lost a lot of places and end up towards the back of the pack with three laps to go. By two laps to go, people in front of me are starting to sit up and a gap opens up about five riders in front of me after turn 1 across the top going into turn 2. Nobody (including me) closes it down quickly enough, so the field slingshots itself down the hill a lot faster than those of us who are now suddenly off the back. I’d say at this point there’s about 30-35 guys left in the main field with another 15-20 of us gapped off. There is still almost two whole laps left, so I end up chasing hard with a small group. One of the things about the sunny king course is that in order to control the field, you have to keep the pace super fast since it is a really wide course in spots. This means that when the leadout guys are done – they are done, I mean really done, put a fork in them done – so it’s pretty easy to catch and pass all the leadout guys after they sit up. My small group ended up catching and passing about 15 guys from the front pack who had sat up on the final lap and I ended up 4th in that group to take 21st for the race.

About 75 starters and only 40 or so finishers. Here’s a video of the last three laps and another one of the call-ups and the first 20 minutes of the race:

Here’s a short video of me attacking and trying to bridge … and if you look very carefully you can see towards the middle of the video where the successful chase group including Frank and Carlos has separated itself from the field. I’m heading backwards by this point.

Team Lupus driving the 2013 Foothills Road Race pro/1/2 field

SUNDAY’s Foothills Road Race
A key part of this race is summed up by the picture above I took during the race. Why did I take a picture during the race? Well, long story but I accidentally brought my phone with me when I forgot to drop it back off by the car after my warm-up before the race. I realized this about an hour into the race. A little while later as Team Lupus was chasing I had just moved up and noticed that three teams were lined up at the front (Team Lupus driving it, a couple guys from Predator Cycling behind them – but not visible in this pic, and then the Mountain Khakis team). Much later, 1K from the finish when I was dropped from the break with bad cramps, I missed another golden opportunity – to call Kristine and chat with her towards the end of a race – since the field was several minutes behind.

Oh well, now back to the race – Lupus was chasing because they only had one guy (who was not a climber) in the original break. They knew their best chance to win the race was with one of their strong climbers (Mike Stone) who I think had missed the original move. Lupus has a number of strong riders, proved by the fact that they were able to bring back what I thought for sure was the day’s winning break. It took a long time, though. In fact, it wasn’t until the bottom of the third big climb of the day (Cottaquilla west to east) that the catch was made. I was in good position towards the front having been following Frank Travieso around in the field thinking that he was going to launch for Mountain Khakis but several other people attacked first and had a small move. When that move was brought back, the pace eased up a bit, and I found myself on the wheel of a different Mountain Khakis rider who attacked. I was right there and saw him shift to attack, so I just went with him up and over the top. This attack ended up splitting the field so that there was about 25 of us left by the bottom of the awesome switchback descent (end of the first video below). It was at the bottom of this descent back in the field, though, that David Carpenter (Village Volkswagon) was t-boned by a dog that darted out into the road. He was air-lifted back to Birmingham, but I’m happy to report today that he has been released from the hospital already once his ct-scan came back negative.

Meanwhile in our race, I noticed that there wasn’t very many of us left so I tried to rally the troops to keep the split open. Instead, there was a number of attacks in quick succession that led to a break of 9 separating itself from the field – me, David Guttenplan, two globalbike/706 project riders (shawn gravois and another rider), two mountain khakis riders, Sergio Hernandez (Predator Cycling), one Astellas rider, and one other rider I didn’t know with an Australian accent – making for a total of 9 of us in the break. We worked really well together for a long time and yet our first time split from Bill was only 40 seconds. I was nervous that the break wasn’t going to make it, but our next time split was a minute. Then it went out to two minutes. But then when we turned left to head back into the steep rollers, the gap had come down to 1’30″. A few minutes later it was down to 1’25″. Then it was back up to 1’30″ and held steady there all the way until we started attacking the crap out of each other (see endgame video). At one point towards the beginning of the video before the first set of attacks, I try to convey this with “come on guys, sell out!” meaning fully commit to the move instead of holding something back for later.

I was on Sergio’s wheel when he launched the first attack. I went with it b/c I saw him get ready to attack. I didn’t pull through b/c I was thinking we still needed the break to work together to make sure we stayed away from the field. Instead of a counter attack, we went back into a rotation for a couple minutes before there was a series of attacks leading all the way into the bottom of the final climb. During one of these attacks, I started to cramp and I thought “that’s it” I’m not working any more. If we get caught, we get caught but I cannot put any more effort into the break. I didn’t need to, though, because the attacks kept going constantly. I would get dropped by each attack, then catch back on during the ensuing cat and mouse. Sergio’s final attack towards the top saw him go clear with one other rider. The rest of us crossed the top together (I couldn’t believe I had survived the climb after cramping at the bottom). After a nearly 50mph descent we were closing in slowly on the leading duo when somebody hesitated (wasn’t me b/c I was just sitting on the back by this point) and Shawn Gravois rolled off the front. He finished the bridge up to the leading two and eventually finished third while the rest of us slowed down and started attacking each other again. I would get dropped with each attack and then roll back onto the group. Eventually, David Guttenplan rolled off our group and nobody was able to cover. He didn’t quite make the bridge but finished fourth just behind the podium sprint. I don’t know what happened in that sprint they were so far ahead by the time I crossed the line about a minute or so later having come off the remnants of the break just before they started their sprint for the line.

What a crazy race with the break getting reeled back in by Team Lupus over a distance of maybe 20 miles and then the second break forming straight into the nasty headwind. And then the finale with so many attacks and a blowing up of the break … I guess if you think about it — the break finished in four groups – the top 3 sprinting it out, David Guttenplan just behind for fourth, the next four guys sprinting for fifth, and then me by myself for 9th.

This video below has the last part of the chase led by Team Lupus heading into the two back-to-back climbs (White’s Gap and Cottaquilla west to east). It also has the switchback descent. David Carpenter was taken out by a dog somewhere in the runout after all the switchbacks. You can see from my video how high the speed was through there! This is all late in the video … the descent starts at 15:00 (15 minutes) into the video and finishes at 18 minutes.

This next video shows the formation of our breaks – including the series of attacks that led up to the formation of our nine-man break.

This final video shows the last 30 minutes of the race – including a 52 mph descent and then a bunch of attacks and then me getting dropped with about a mile or so to go.

Lots and lots and lots of data

Here’s the data from all the races — starting with the Sunny King criterium.

Sunny King Pro/1 NCC Criterium
21st place
Note that there are only 59 laps, because the
field got lapped. The break did 60 laps.
Lap	Time	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH
1	1:40	320	938	148	86	25.4
2	1:28	315	888	167	84	28.3
3	1:28	282	822	169	83	29.0
4	1:30	289	864	166	83	27.7
5	1:28	288	813	169	82	28.2
6	1:30	270	1021	171	85	27.7
7	1:25	284	886	170	86	28.7
8	1:26	285	978	172	82	28.7
9	1:26	301	913	175	81	28.6
10	1:28	302	846	178	88	28.0
11	1:27	292	859	176	85	28.3
12	1:26	301	948	176	86	28.9
13	1:28	281	768	173	83	28.2
14	1:27	294	923	175	81	28.4
15	1:30	262	842	177	79	27.8
16	1:40	225	829	166	83	24.9
17	1:33	252	876	168	78	26.9
18	1:26	285	771	174	81	29.0
19	1:29	318	653	177	87	28.0
20	1:27	260	870	175	84	27.9
21	1:32	250	783	171	82	26.9
22	1:33	263	812	164	78	27.0
23	1:30	300	972	170	81	28.0
24	1:28	303	947	174	82	28.5
25	1:28	270	947	170	78	28.3
26	1:32	342	787	177	82	27.1
27	1:38	195	768	174	80	25.4
28	1:40	234	692	159	80	25.1
29	1:37	286	914	160	78	25.7
30	1:38	261	833	170	82	25.9
31	1:35	226	800	164	80	26.3
32	1:33	268	855	163	82	26.6
33	1:31	269	897	168	82	27.4
34	1:33	246	806	168	81	26.6
35	1:32	265	856	167	83	27.1
36	1:39	184	674	156	78	25.0
37	1:34	271	929	159	83	26.3
38	1:31	288	734	167	82	27.6
39	1:30	256	966	168	79	27.3
40	1:38	244	785	158	83	25.2
41	1:30	253	899	163	84	27.8
42	1:28	264	893	167	85	28.1
43	1:28	266	851	169	81	28.2
44	1:31	274	927	168	81	27.4
45	1:29	260	850	168	83	27.8
46	1:29	290	793	170	79	28.0
47	1:28	274	869	173	79	28.5
48	1:29	289	812	173	80	28.2
49	1:30	269	870	173	80	27.4
50	1:29	269	934	170	80	27.8
51	1:31	259	834	171	77	27.3
52	1:27	306	790	170	80	28.5
53	1:26	272	797	173	78	28.6
54	1:27	307	939	174	81	28.4
55	1:25	299	856	178	80	29.0
56	1:25	311	782	178	79	29.1
57	1:25	298	790	179	77	28.9
58	1:26	303	803	180	76	28.9
59	1:26	343	741	181	77	28.6

Sunny King power map (note the surge coming out of turn 4 almost all the way up the hill until having to coast or brake into turn 1)

Sunny king critical power curve – note the spikes and the comment in the photo

Sunny King heartrate plot annotated (click to enlarge)

Sunny King heartrate summary – lower than previous years – probably b/c of the cool temps

2013 foothills road race heartrate data annotated (click to enlarge)

2013 foothills road race heartrate summary

Climbing Postscript
On the grand scheme of riding and racing, the road race was kinda short (less than three hours) so I wanted to get some extra climbing in, and when I told Mark Fisher about my plan to go climb the Bain’s Gap cat 2 climbs, he was all-in. So after enjoing the nice post-ride pasta meal, we drove off down the Cheaha Challenge route about 15 miles, parked and did a crazy adventure ride through a bomb range (now open to the public as part of a national wildlife refuge) up steep 20+% gravel roads. Ironically, the closest climbs by comparison in terms of steepness and looseness are in the bayou of Louisiana/Mississippin on the rouge roubaix course — although those climbs are shorter. The gallery of pics below is from that ride with Mark:

Sad and awesome at the same time. 100 year old gravesite for a 3 year old boy who has “gone to be an angel”.

Waterfall low on the climb from the east side

Radio tower at the top of both Moorman Mountain cat 2 climbs (one from the west and the other from the east)

Mark Fisher descending the last bit of double track after our first ascent up Moorman Mountain

The road for the climb up Moorman Mountain from the west goes right through an abandoned bomb range

Mississippi Gran Prix 2013

Quick summary
Friday night crit – 6th in a race that ended in a field sprint
Saturday morning road race – 7th in a race that ended in a field sprint
Saturday afternoon time trial – 32nd in a time trial that ended with a sprint
Sunday morning circuit race – 6th in a race that ended in a field sprint
Stage race overall – 18th place (one spot out of the money)

I’m happy to have made top 10 in all of the races – excellent practice/preparation for all the positioning that is going to happen in the upcoming Sunny King and Athens Twilight pro crits. It looks like WordPress is starting to overlay ads on top of each of the videos … click the “youtube” icon on each video to watch a version of the video without an ad.

Friday night crit

New, fast course this year with a new combination of roads in the downtown part of Brookhaven. I brought my family this year, so after we finished the drive from Birmingham I left them at the hotel and biked over to registration so that they didn’t have to get to the race start quite so early. I was riding through downtown admiring everything before the race got crazy when a pickup truck passed me and clipped me with his rear view mirror. Other than a sore back (I was very lucky that his mirror collapsed immediately and it was tall enough to clear my handlebars), I was OK. What a crazy start to the weekend.

After a quick stop by registration, I continued my long warm-up by heading over south of town through the old antebellum homes underneath huge oak? trees. It was a nice relaxing way to warm-up for what was a pretty intense race. ThinkFinance was the primary instigator constantly sending riders off the front. I tried to get in a few of the moves and attacked once or twice myself (Kristine got this great picture of me attacking to bridge up to one of the ThinkFinance riders) but with many highly motivated racers competing in a timed stage race, everything was getting brought back together. Along the way I managed to lose a very close finish for a $50 prime sprint at the halfway point of the race.

Kristine got this great picture of me attacking to bridge up to a ThinkFinance rider who was off the front. We lasted less than half a lap off the front.

With about 6 laps to go I was still pretty close to the front of the race, and I managed to find myself on the wheel of Michael McBrien (Bikes Plus Racing) a super strong sprinter from Pensacola – who himself was glued to the wheel of Mat Davis (Team La’Sport) another strong sprinter. I’m thinking “this is perfect!” – but then on the second to last lap I got pinched between two riders heading into turn 1, hit the brakes briefly, and lost several positions by the end of turn 1. I tried to work my way around again, but I had lost the good wheels and ended up starting the sprint from about 8th spot and finishing in 6th.

Colton Jarisch (ThinkFinance) took the sprint, followed by Michael McBrien (Bikes Plus), and then Mat Davis (Team LaS’port). The three of them were pretty much a photo finish for the first three spots. A few meters behind was Bryant Funston (Marx and Bensdorf), Woody Boudreaux (Herring Gas), and then me (Friends of the Great Smokies).

Saturday morning road race

This year’s race started out a bit slower than last year with me not attacking from the start line. It took less than a mile though before riders started launching off the front … Scott Kuppersmith (Absolute Racing) and Marx and Bensdorf had some initial solo attacks, but then it was a ThinkFinance rider and a Marx and Bensdorf rider (Brett Shanaman?) who finally broke the elastic sticking a two man move that got quite a bit of time on the field (maybe a minute or more?). Herring Gas and Team La’sport settled into a steady mode of chasing with a few attacks interspersed, but it took about 25 miles of the 27.5 mile lap before the two-man break was reeled back in.

Towards the start of the second lap, I got into one promising looking move, but then I ended up struggling a bit with some of the counter attacks and the cross-winds — hoping that none of those attacks would stick b/c there was no way I was going to be able to bridge across. Fortunately, everything was coming back together. By about midway through the third lap, it was pretty clear that nothing was going to get away. Again, I found myself in great position heading into the final sprint again on Michael and Mat’s wheel. But about 3K before the sprint started in earnest there was a surge and in the reshuffle I slid a few spots back. I started the sprint this time from maybe 10th wheel, but as it was a long sprint I was able to pass a few of the guys who were fading to end up in 7th.

Colton took the field sprint for his second win in a row. Michael was moving up fast but then as the sprint shifted over, Michael ended up off the left side of the road on the gravel (you can see that on my video). Blair Krogh (4D Fitness) flew up the right-hand side to take 2nd with Mat in 3rd. I was on Bryant’s wheel as we were passing everybody, but he made it around Andrew Hammond (Herring Gas) and Woody (Herring) to take fourth whereas I didn’t quite make it around either of them … if only the line had been 5 meters farther down the road … so I ended up 7th.

Saturday afternoon time trial adventure
As much as I love racing, and as much as I dread time trials – this was probably still one of the highlight from the weekend. And it has been for the past three years — from three years ago when Justin Bynum, Pat Allison, and I all did ghetto skinsuits (wear the bibb shorts over the jersey) to last year’s Strava climbing challenge where I did maybe 100-150 repeats on a tiny 30 foot hill to eek every ounce of elevation gain out of my 2.5 hour warm-up ride to this year’s adventure of riding to the start and back from the hotel on some cool backroads watching a beautiful sunset while my wife and kids went roller skating at the Brookhaven skating rink. The time trial always seems to pull through in the fun factor even if my legs cannot seem to pull through to not absolutely kill my standing in the overall. This year, I even had help from the awesome guys at 4D fitness (Blair Krogh, William Jones, Daniel Wisner, Dustin Drewes) with Dustin loaning me his disc wheel to replace my Reynolds with a broken spoke (I forgot to mention that in my write-up about the road race — I broke a spoke in my rear wheel in the road race, either just riding around or during the sprint).

Even with the disc wheel, tt bars, and a full-fledged skinsuit from FGS cycling, I couldn’t crack the top 30. The annotated heartrate data below pretty much tells the story:

Saturday time trial – annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)
Saturday time trial – heartrate zone summary.

Colton crushed the time trial to take his third win in a row, but behind him the times were pretty close leading to a somewhat tight GC battle for 2nd-10th spots.

Sunday morning circuit race
The one potential benefit of a lousy time trial is the chance for more freedom in the circuit race. Unfortunately, there were a lot of riders close in the overall so ThinkFinance needed to watch pretty much everyone. When Kenny Bellau (Herring Gas) geared up to attack into the headwind on the backside of the course on the first lap, I was already right behind him so I went with him to test the waters. We never got more than a few seconds before being reeled back in. This played out a few more times before it became clear by the end of the first lap that ThinkFinance was going to ride the front of the race at a fast pace to discourage attacks and then if anybody got away, just continue to average about 26-27mph until the break was reeled back in. This was a very effective strategy. When I went to position myself for the bonus sprint at the end of the third lap, I realized that there was no way to get around the ThinkFinance train. With all of the fighting for position happening behind the train, I realized that joining the ThinkFinance train and helping to work would be more effective than all the jostling/fighting for position behind. On the fourth lap, I worked my way up the left side waited for an opening and then surged the remaining few spots to pull alongside the ThinkFinance team leader, Colton Jarisch, who was riding behind the rest of his team plus Stephen Mire from Team LaS’port who was employing the same strategy to help keep his teammate Mat Davis second in the overall. I asked Colton if I could help work in his train – he said “sure” and let me in front of him. One of the smoothest trains I’ve been in, we rotated well for the remainder of the fourth lap and then all the way through the rough road on the fifth lap. Then, the pace wasn’t quite fast enough and several riders drilled it up the sides causing quite the reshuffling. I ended up a few spots behind the train, but it did make for some great video of the lead-up to the final sprint as I watched Mat and Colton positioning themselves a few riders ahead of me. I ended up on Mat’s wheel for a while trying to move back up. Then I made a big mistake of trying to come around Mat when it seemed like he was too far back. Mat went on to finish 2nd behind Colton (who completed a clean sweep of all the races), whereas I ended up 6th so I would have been better off just staying on Mat’s wheel. Andrew Hammond (Herring Gas) had a strong sprint to take 3rd – good view of the sprint in the video below.

Analise rescued this turtle from the race course on Sunday.

These are the only two alligators I saw.

Kristine took the kids roller skating while I was doing my time trial.

This was the wrap-up to my TT adventure – sliver moon over sunset sky

My ride over to the course involved two roads (Doolittle and Fern) I found on the map that I was hoping would be unpaved – unfortunately, they were both paved but it still made for quite an adventure!

Sunset at the TT finish with 8 miles left to get back to the hotel

The inside of a disc wheel looks like honeycomb

This was my setup for the time trial – disc wheel, reynolds 66 front wheel, clip-on tt bars

Kristine got this great picture of me attacking to bridge up to a ThinkFinance rider who was off the front. We lasted less than half a lap off the front.

Speaking of trees, these beautiful trees were all over town. I’d call them oak trees, but there wasn’t any pollen so I’m not sure what kind of trees they are.

The Foster-Smith cabin right next to the railroad tracks. Three trains crossed (two before the race and one during the race)

After a four and a half hour drive from Birmingham, the kids immediately found a tree to climb.

Here’s all the data from my races, including the lap power data from Friday’s crit.

Friday night criterium
6th place, 1/2/3
Lap 	Time	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH
1	1:37	316	790	157	90	26.4	
2	1:33	259	941	166	82	27.2	
3	1:28	324	971	171	87	28.6	
4	1:27	322	808	177	90	28.8	
5	1:31	257	854	175	83	27.9	
6	1:31	328	745	169	86	28	
7	1:30	272	972	177	85	28.4	
8	1:28	266	643	172	84	28.9	
9	1:34	308	983	169	82	27.4	
10	1:30	280	978	177	85	28.2	
11	1:30	355	920	180	85	28.5	
12	1:37	251	981	173	80	26.1	
13	1:30	271	773	175	84	28.3	
14	1:29	282	901	171	83	28.6	
15	1:34	246	755	170	83	27.3	
16	1:28	271	590	171	85	29	
17	1:28	271	689	174	85	29.2	
18	1:25	393	1061	170	85	29.9	($50 prime sprint)
19	1:34	270	719	179	86	27.3	
20	1:33	267	742	170	85	27.5	
21	1:33	242	797	167	83	27.1	
22	1:31	262	838	166	81	28.2	
23	1:27	318	907	171	87	29.4	
24	1:33	275	652	178	82	27.4	
25	1:33	242	837	169	82	27.5	
26	1:30	349	669	176	88	28.4	
27	1:31	302	713	180	86	27.7	
28	1:31	256	615	177	85	27.6	
29	1:32	247	628	169	87	27.7	
30	1:32	270	834	164	86	27.4	
31	1:32	280	822	168	84	28.1	
32	1:34	262	769	174	81	26.7	
33	1:33	282	754	174	86	27.7	
34	1:32	285	815	171	85	27.6	
35	1:33	249	680	173	86	27.6	
36	1:30	279	702	175	85	28.4	
37	1:32	288	821	172	87	27.5	
38	1:29	288	959	180	83	28.4	
39	1:23	382	915	186	83	30.7	

Friday night criterium – heartrate zone summary
Friday night criterium – heartrate plot (click to enlarge)
Saturday morning road race – heartrate zone summary
Saturday morning road race – annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)
Saturday time trial – heartrate zone summary.
Saturday time trial – annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)

Sunday morning circuit race – annotated heartrate plot (click to enlarge)

Union City 2013

Note: I started this blog about Union City last week (March 16-17), but I’ve been crazy busy all week and haven’t been able to post it until now.

Day 1 – Shannon Mall Circuit Race
I’m still trying to parse what just happened in today’s circuit race, but however the outcome we had a great showing in our first Friends of the Great Smokies team race. Jeff McGrane got things started by rolling off the front solo on the first lap. He got a huge gap forcing others to chase. A lap later he was back in the field, but my teammate Kurt Page covered the next move. This move came back too, and Jeff got into another break – this one stuck. A few laps later, John Hart covered a move from Igor to make his way into the break, too. A few laps after that, I saw Shawn Gravois (Uniteed Healthcare) gearing up to attack so I hopped on his wheel and we quickly got a gap.

I got confused though, thinking that we only had one rider up the road with several Hincapie and Lupus riders. So I worked with Shawn and the two of us started closing the gap. Andy ? from Lupus was along for the free ride with several teammates up the road. Had I known we had two riders up ahead, I probably wouldn’t have worked quite as hard. Although, honestly, Shawn was doing a bulk of the work and I was struggling just to give him a break. Eventually we picked up another of Andy’s teammates who was coming back from the lead break. After a few more laps, they started help us chasing. Then as we got really close, I realized that I actually had two teammates in the break (Jeff and John) so I stopped working — although again, I was already pretty cooked from just holding Shawn’s wheel.

Half a lap later, we caught the lead group … except Joey Rosskopf and Ty Magner had already taken off from that group. There wasn’t much respite in the lead group b/c attacks started pretty quickly. I worked hard just to hold on. What I didn’t know is that we were actually starting our last lap. So when people started attacking coming up the last hill, I was thinking there was no way to hold that pace for however many more laps we had. I drifted backwards just as Joey and the field that he had lapped caught us (I didn’t even know they were closing in on us!!!) and ended up finishing towards the back of the group. My first thought was “thank God it’s over” instead of “oh crap, that was the finish”. Quite a confusing race, but I got the whole thing on video so I may watch it later to try to figure out what all happened in a less oxygen-deprived state (my average heartrate for the hour race was 181bpm, and my average power was 284 with a normative power probably in the 300s)

Union City is located near Atlanta’s airport

Lots of bradford pears “snow trees” lining one of the neighborhood roads

When I last raced Union City, this mall was not abandoned. Now it’s the perfect venue for a crit.

My friend Jeff Fuller from Birmingham raced the Cat 5 race right as I was leaving to go warm up

James Spann through out the opening pitch

All the teams lined up around the infield

I was able to go with Josiah to his opening ceremonies for the spring baseball season and snapped a few pics

Josiah Toone #10 of the Tama Bay Rays – that’s my boy!

Josiah with his team before the parade began

The rays in the parade

Day 2 – Union City Road Race
This race turned out really great as a team training race, despite some misfortune. My teammate Jeff again rode aggressively initiating an attack early and then covering another move. When that move came back, a counter attack went that got some daylight (maybe 20-30 seconds)? Lupus was represented well, but there were some teams missing. I happened to be on Ty Magner’s wheel right as he attacked to bridge across. I could barely hold his wheel and only ended up pulling through one time right as we were joined by another rider. The three of us worked together for another 15 seconds before a few more riders bridged across including Ty’s Hincapie Devo teammate Joey Rosskopf. At this point, we had great team representation in the chase and a good, growing gap. But unfortunately with everyone at their limit trying to reach the break, we missed a turn (no corner marshall, small sign off to the left). It took more than a mile before anyone from the race could track us down and tell us we were off course.

So instead of joining the lead group, I found myself in a chase group about 3 minutes behind the main field. We didn’t give up hope, though, and got into a good hard rotation to settle in for a long chase. 22 miles of chasing (and caravan drafting) later, I found myself back in the main field as it was bearing down on a split that was chasing the main break. Jeff was in the split so I got a chance to recover. Ty was driving the chase from the main field, and after we caught the split I initiated an attack that didn’t really get anywhere. There were a bunch more attacks on the last lap that led to temporary group splits, but with the field always coming back together. My teammate Kurt Page put in a move late in the last lap that got some daylight, but the rider he bridged up to didn’t want to work so they came back to the field. Shortly after that, my teammate John Hart attacked hard and got away solo. At that point he switched into time trial mode and held it all the way to the finish to take 10th (with a nine-man break already minutes up the road). With John off the front, me, Jeff, and Kurt rode the front of the field covering moves. Ty managed to slip away with about 2 miles to go with such an effective attack that there was no “covering” it. The field strung out setting up for the field sprint. About half a mile later (1.5 miles to go), Michael Stone attacked in an effort to bridge to Ty. I stayed 2nd wheel as a Lupus rider drove the field for the field sprint. He lasted until about 1000 meters to go. When he sat up before a series of turns, I decided it was now or never and attacked hard. I quickly caught and passed Mike and drove it to the finish to try to take 12th. Unfortunately, Andy from Lupus had my wheel and he was able to come around for 12th with me holding on for 13th.

All-in-all it was a great race as a team with what could have been John making a winning move had a break not already been up the road … a break that I would have been in if our chase attempt hadn’t been led off course. Once we had merged with the break, either the break would have failed or it would have worked. If it had failed, then the scenario that played out in the field could have been the end game for the win. If it had worked, then it would have been up to me to try for the win. Either way, I feel like, we gelled well as a team in our first team race with everybody working hard and racing smart. Looking forward to the rest of the season!

Heartrate/power data for both days

Union City Road Race - Pro/1/2 - 13th
Dist:       74.40 mi (2:53:43)
Cals Burn: 2416.2 kcal
Braking:     -6.2 kJ (-0.2%)
          Min   Avg    Max
DFPM Pow    0  242.5  1037  W
Speed     0.1   25.7  45.3  mi/h
Elev       33    205   343  ft
Slope   -10.6  -0.01  10.5  %
Caden       0   81.5   113  rpm
HR        107  155.6   186  bpm
NP:287W IF:0.97 TSS:273 VI:0.95
168 lbs; 3/17/2013 8:53 AM EDT
58 degF; 991 mbar

Criterium – heartrate summary – check out the zone 5 time!

Criterium – heartrate and power plot annotated (click to enlarge)

Road race – heartrate zone summary

Road race – heartrate and power plot annotated (click to enlarge)

Team photo (left to right) – Kurt Page, John Hart, Jeff McGrane, Brian Toone