Ragbrai 2011 in the books

Simply Simone!

There are many pros and cons to the annual Ragbrai event. A few of the cons include the embarassing cyclist tan one will get after hours on the bike, being cut off in the left lane by Clysedales, and how can one forget the dreaded recumbents blazing down the hill with that arrogant smug look on their face as they pass you (the look is returned by me as I speed past them up the hill ;). But all in all, the pros outway the cons. The delicious and reasonably priced Farmers Bros. burritos are one of them. Also on my list of favorites is the ice cold watermelon sold by the locals. Their is debate to whether it is truely ice cold or not but it definitely is delicious. And although I'm not old enough to experience the multiple beer gardens, I'm sure that is one of the highlights of Ragbrai for the old goats. Even without my winggirl, Maddie, Ragbrai was a great experience as always. Ragbrai 2012, here I come!

RAG-FRY REPORT

Sharp-looking Veloers line up to do the 1st day of RAGBRAI. Left to right: Anne, Pete, re-Pete, Simone, Zach n Danny
Hoooey, boy! It was egg-frying hot out on the asphalt for the annual great bike ride across Iowa. Here's my version.

We met early in the inferno at Glenwood. Took group photo, without Dave and Michelle Cleasby, and launched the group towards the 1st rendezvous at Farmer Boys burritos. Quickly realized I forgot my lid. Sprinted back to Glenwood, but alas, my courier had scooted. So, I rode sans helmet, to much heckling from the other riders. "look at that moron. hope he's not riding all week."

Caught up with Simone at Silver City. Hit Farmer Boys and found more veloers. Lost Pete and Anne somewhere. Saw Todd. Saw Brother Joe. Had the absolute tastiest burrito on the planet. Saw the Saint Cecilia's contingent. We hit all the rest of the usual spots; smoothies, pastafari, watermelon, ice cream. Blazed into Atlantic at 4 pm. Rammed home some DCs, the ultimate motivator, at the Atlantic YMCA, gorged at the Pizza Ranch buffet and then hauled buns back for the cool confines of the Big O. Never hooked up with Veloer's Troy or Dave Randleman. Saw some Midwest posse riding against the grain. I cruised all day, not a hard effort at all. Enjoyed the hills. Relished them. And it was hilly!

Favorite bikes? Saw a sweet Euskatel Orbea, a nice vintage Merckx and, of course, Anne's De Rosa. Rode my stylin' Simonetti, got a few kind comments. Glad we bailed out on spending the night, as it didn't cool off at all. I love RAGBRAI, but give me Ride the Rockies anytime. Any other input?

Children of the Corn

Randy and Pete populate the podium

Corn recap:

I wanted to do the Cornhusker State Games this year fo' sure, cuz I wanted to be eligible to go do the 2013 State Games of America. Didn't know where that would be held until afterwards. Turns out it will be Hershey, PA. Being a chocolate fiend, that will be sweet.

So, I had to scamper back from high-altitude camping at 12000 ft in the Rockies in order to plop my fanny on the TT bike for the 1st time all year. I did the death march from 12000 ft down to the Jeep at 9100 ft. Being loaded down like a yak, it really zaps your quads and tests your fortitude as you descend. Then climb in the Jeep and drive for the whole day. Friday night I was fretting about just being competitive, let alone worrying about winning. Bountiful butterflies circling my brain on Friday night, to be replaced by ravenous vultures waiting to pick over my charred remains on Saturday after the race. Typical demons. Wish I was a vampire or lichen, instead of a mere mortal.

As it turns out, once they launched me out the starting gates, the fretting goes away, replaced by bellowing lungs. I ride naked. No gizmos, like HRMs or power meters or speedometers. The only measuring stick is SUFFERING. Can I suffer more? Or am I at REDLINE? A good TT'er is redlining the whole way. (not insinuating I'm good, I just read that somewhere)

Starting catching rabbits after the 1st mile or so. Passed my 30 second bunny near Bennington Road, then more hares while blasting down Deerfield. Hammered down to Maple, then starting worrying about going up the big-ass hill. Stayed aero the whole way up, but other riders heard the roar as I overtook them on the hill. No, not my aero Easton EC90 TT wheels, the sound of my lungs being sucked in and out of my mouth. Blessed by the east turn onto Rainwood, knowing the only suffering left to do is the long straight away to the finish.

Played on my strong suit again; the ability to suffer. I pumped the 54 yr old pegs to 1st in the Masters and 3rd overall. Spence and that vampire Brady smoked me like a rack of ribs, but hey, as you know, there is ALWAYS someone faster.

Next up....Boulder Ironman 70.3 on August 7. I will journey deep into the PAIN CAVE and confront more demons. I will endeavor to persevere.

Tranquility STXC/Babcook Road Race Recap

Preface: I didn't have time to do a write up for the Pyscowpath races two weekends ago as I left for a week long trip right after, but I did want to say that the Velo Veloce/Greenstreet crew were able to bring home a near podium sweep in the short track XC race (see photo).

After a week of work and travel in Canada I returned to Omaha for the Babcook Memorial Road Race, the final race of the Omaha race weekend. This was my second road race (ever) and my first race in Cat. 4, and I wanted to represent well for the club and hometown crowd. I managed to get in one ride while in Canada and a few runs so I figured that while not in peak form my fitness would be more or less o.k. Some of the guys on the team had talked briefly about employing some team tactics, but as it turned out our numbers were split as Dave and Pete opted for the masters race while Todd and I battled it out in the Cat. 4 field. Ben Swan and Doug Reid also rocked out in the Cat. 5 race while a trio of ladies (Jackie Wieres, Simone Duryea, and Maddie Eliston) represented Velo Veloce in the cat. 4 women's and junior races.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from the field as there were a lot of guys lined up who I had ridden with on the “Wednesday Night Worlds” ride who are pretty strong riders. One thing was for sure though, I wasn’t just going to be able to ride away from everybody, especially on a course that really had only one hill on it that was tough enough to create any separation. I hoped that we would be able to drive the pace hard enough on the climb to whittle down the field by mid-race or so.

We got off to a casual start, but given the sweltering heat I’m not surprised that nobody was eager to get after it early on. The pace continued to dawdle through the early laps, at times becoming painfully slow. I had to resist the urge to charge to the front and I kept reminding myself to try to conserve as much energy as possible while staying out of trouble. The slow pace kept the field together for probably at least 4 of the 7 circuits, and I felt incredibly claustrophobic at times. The climb was particularly challenging as the lane was quite narrow and I was occasionally forced to brake (!) on the climb as riders in front of me were climbing at a slower pace.

There were a couple of people who got off the front occasionally, but I don’t think any of them were real serious efforts to get away. I’m not surprised that nobody wanted to cook out there by themselves on this day. Eventually with about 3 laps to go I was able to get up front, and spent some time pulling the group along. Not surprisingly we didn’t have any organized rotation going in the group so I stayed in the middle of the group and never really saw the front until mid to late race.

Since the hill wasn’t really creating a lot of separation I figured there were two options. Option A was to attack on the penultimate climb with 1 lap to go and hope to get enough of a gap to stay away for the whole lap, and option B was to just wait it out and hope that I could pull it out in an uphill field sprint. While I felt I could probably do o.k. in the sprint I figured I was leaving the door open a little too wide and that my best bet was to attack.

(photo credit to Dan Farnham)

On lap 6 (of 7) I made sure that I stayed close to the front so that I would have an open lane of attack going into the climb. As we approached the base I slowly ramped up the pace and then hit the jets as soon as the pitch kicked up. As far as I could tell I got immediate separation, and I continued to hammer my way towards the top. As I neared the summit, Patrick Sumrell, a tall lean jr. rider who regularly hangs with the top group at WNW pulled up along side me and said something to the effect of “we’ve got it”. Sweet, a gap AND someone to work with!

I latched onto Patrick’s wheel to recover for a bit and then we traded pulls throughout the lap. I rode as hard as I could without blowing up, hoping to stay away to the finish. I was counting on a lack of a concerted team effort and cooperation in the group chasing us to keep them from shutting our move down before the finish. For the most part this worked as we were still free when we hit the 1k to go mark. Just prior to that I had been sitting on Patrick’s wheel resting, and thinking we had the race for 1^st and 2^nd in hand. I came around to ride parallel with him as we started the climb. We both accelerated as we started up but Patrick dropped back slightly and I figured that would be a good time to go for the win. As I got out of the saddle to jump, both of my quads started to cramp…attack fail. I had to sit back down and try to recover somehow as I watched Patrick ride away to victory. It was then that I looked over my shoulder to see Rob Swanson bearing down on me at a rapid pace. Crap. I tried to accelerate again but my legs weren’t having any of it. Both Rob and Ryan Johnston passed me well before the line and I had to hobble it in for 4^th (although scored as 3^rd in cat. 4 since Patrick is a jr).

All in all it was a valuable racing experience as I was forced to think about the race, make decisions on the fly, and pick a strategy that I thought would give me the best shot at winning. I don’t feel too bad as I know the guys I lost to are strong riders, and I’m not sure it would have turned out any differently had I chosen to wait for a field sprint at the finish. I definitely feel like I can win a race like that, it just didn’t come out in my favor this time. My only mistake really I think was not sitting on Patrick’s wheel a bit longer as we approached the finish. I figured we’d just have a head’s up drag race to the finish from 1k out, but I know that’s not how things operate in the cycling world for the most part. Maybe with a little more rest I would have had the juice to more effectively vie for the win (or at least hang on to 2^nd). I guess that’s a question that will have to be answered next time out, perhaps at the Lincoln weekend this fall. Thanks to all who provided support, especially the Greenstreet crew for the bottle hand ups (and post-race shade!) and to the race organizers for a great race. Also great to see all of the fellow teammates out there racing!

OCW/CSG Time Trial

We had great team participation at the Omaha Cycling Weekend/Cornhusker State Games Time Trial Saturday, with at least 8 riders competing (sorry if I miscounted!), out of 90+ riders. We had 4 medalists for CSG: Pete won the 50+ Masters, I was 2nd in the same group, Christyn Stumps was 3rd in the 50+ cat 4 women, and Shells Lau was 3rd in 40+ cat 4 women. It was a bit ridiculous for Pete and I to compete in the same category, since either one of us wold have easily won the cat 4 men, earning another gold medal for the team. A gold and silver is not too bad either...

Pete had the 3rd fastest time of the day over all of the classes, while I had an excellent day and had the 8th fastest time. The course was a bit of a change from other TTs, with 7 corners in the first 5 miles, a fast descent (I hit 40 mph on it), and a small hill with 2.5 miles to go. Pete's performance was no surprise, since he's one of the best time trialists in Nebraska, but I can attribute the course to my good day. With all of the changes in speed, and the false flats and climb in the second half of the race, it suited my style of riding.