Back to the Beast

OK, let's finish up while I still vaguely remember the details. After the race on Saturday, I made dinner for the three of us. Anyone who knows me is now shaking their heads saying WTF? I'm not known as a cook, but I brought food, made everyone salads, cooked some sweet potatoes, toasted some rolls, and sent Billy outside to grill some burgers. I even brought biscottis and yogurt for dessert. And there was much rejoicing. Sunday our TT starts were not until late afternoon. And Armand had been eliminated from the stage race on the time cut, boo hiss. We spent the morning cleaning our road bikes up after Saturday. I showed the boys the easy way of using disposable household cleaner wipes and Billy was quite impressed.

I took my road bike out for a ride around Ludlow to make sure it would be ready for Monday. Everything was perfect, except the brakes were still all grabby even though the pads and rims were spotless. Whatever, good enough, so I took my TT bike in the car and parked at the Sunrise Mountain base lodge, which was the halfway point on the course. Nobody else was parked there, so I setup my trainer on a covered porch, and had a porto all to myself. I got in a decent warmup, interrupted a few times to make adjustments to my saddle. Before the Maine TT last week, I had raised my bars 2 cm, because I just could not pedal well the way they were. But now my position is a bit messed up and probably not all that aero, although I argued with Armand that I was just one of those people more comfortable with Armstrong-compact rather than Cancellara-flatback.

I was using my powertap wheel with a plastic cover. Armand loaned me a Cosmic front clincher. My TT bike is some no-name Taiwanese aluminum creation with flattened tubes, but no fancy faired rear wheel or anything like that. And it is pretty heavy, at least 10 kg total. I wouldn't be on the best equipment in the race, but I think it was far from the worst.

The ride to the start was downhill with a tailwind. The last few pros to go off were heading the opposite way on the course. I got to the start about five minutes ahead of time, and as you can see, looked like a total dork. Armand had convinced me that I had to push my helmet back, because I don't hold my head level when I ride. My chiropractor has been telling me that my neck is an inflexible piece of shit and I'm starting to believe her. I honestly never noticed until she pointed it out.

The race would be pure headwind. Bruce Diehl (Sunapee) started 30 seconds ahead of me. You can see him rolling off in the photo. He beat me last week in Maine, and that was the last I saw of him here too. Kurt Gustafsson (CRCA) was starting behind me. He is from NY and so I don't know him but I've seen his name in the results enough to know he can ride, so I wasn't sure if he was a threat to pass me. I started and felt pretty good. I was trying to hold back and keep a good cadence. My plan was to keep it under 300 watts for the first four minutes, then keep a lid on it until the rollers before the Skyship. But right away I felt pretty good even though I was seeing well over 300 most of the time. I wasn't going that fast though. The wind sucked. The course was marked with a 15k, 10k, and 5k to go signs, which was very nice. Not much to really say here. I rode as hard as I dared. The dry air got to me with all my mouth breathing, and I really wanted to drink. I knew I wasn't catching Bruce. I did catch another rider who must have started two ahead of me. Near the turn to River Road, I lost focus and thought we would be taking the little shortcut road, but it was not marked nor blocked, which messed me up but I just chugged up to the corner. That left me a little blown and it took me a second to get going again. At the line I emptied the tank but then found the line I was looking at was the 100m to go line so I gasped for the remaining distance. I had 27:38 on my watch, which turned out to be my official time. After turning around I saw Kurt right there, so I assumed he'd beat me but according to the results he was a few seconds behind me, so I guess 30 seconds passes quickly when you're seeing stars.

That is a slow-assed average speed of only about 37 kph though. My PT claims I averaged 318 watts, which would be a nice PR for me at this duration, but I'm having trouble believing it. The Cronoman got 295 and was only 2 seconds slower than me. In Maine we rode the same times and had the same wattages (we weigh the same and are the same height). I really don't know how I could have got that un-aero in one week. Not only that, but I came in friggin 28th! I know the field is stacked, but that was hard to take, and it makes me skeptical of this "record" wattage. On the other hand, I tend to do better in shorter TTs, so maybe I just suck.

The good news (and there is always good news here on solobreak, right?) was the road race on Monday was in the morning. And the weather was awesome. So I went back to my little camp at the Sunrise base lodge, cooled down, ate a banana, and did an hour or so of stretching and relaxing on the porch. Then the boys came by and reminded me that we hadn't driven the road course yet. And they didn't want to, so while they went home to make dinner, I set out on my own. Not without first stopping for a bag of chips, a gigantic brownie, and some chocolate milk. The course was pretty tame for much of it, heading up 100 and 107, but then it turned back toward Woodstock on a very scenic but hilly road that would be awesome for just a bike ride without all this racing crap. This led to Route 12 and then to a dirt road with a sculpture park on it, and eventually back to Route 4.

We had pot roast with potatoes and carrots for dinner. It took a while to be ready. I had to yell at the Cronoman for trying to eat all my breakfast food. He seemed to be starving; knowing him he figured that he did not earn the right to eat after only an 11 mile time trial. I was careful not to eat too much meat. I don't think the Cronoman ended up eating too much of anything before going home. He would pay for that the next day. The rest of us each had one beer. Monday morning I got to the race around 800 for an 850 start, but didn't warm up much. That had me a bit worried, as just three miles into the race we were going to climb Sherburne Pass, which is well over a mile of climbing, albeit probably only at 3-4% grade. We rolled out under perfect skies and weather. Two guys went at the gun but I did not see who they were. I saw Carl Reglar (Danbury Audi) go after them, and the three went up the road. Carl was second at Turtle Pond after a race-long break, so I knew this was serious. Until this year I'd never heard of the guy, but I talked with him after the race and he said though he hadn't raced in fifteen years, he was a former Canadian national team Cat 1. He has some class to come back at age 48 and start going in breaks after only a year or so back in the sport. I'd also find out later that the other two guys were KOM leader Bill Shattuck (Corner Cycle) and Randy Rusk (Arc-en-ciel).

Arc-en-Ciel would have some shit luck when one of their remaining guys broke his front derailleur cable while shifting into the big ring at the top of the pass, and another would flat out just a few miles later. Same guy had flatted Saturday too. They still had Todd Buckley and Dave Kellogg in the field, but with Corner and Arc having guys up the road, the pacemaking was left to OA/Cyclemania, who had the race leader and TT winner Fred Thomas, as well as several other strong guys. This kept the tempo reasonably high and even, and nothing else even attempted to get away. The "hot spot" sprint went uncontested, as there were already three guys away. The big mid race climb came right after that, and I moved to the front in anticipation of fireworks, but they never materialized either. The group moved up the steep climb at not much faster than conversational pace. We rolled down the gorgeous north road, past the KOM without any excitement. Then the course plunged down through the hamlet of Barnard onto route 12 and suddenly it was a race. Maybe OA got a split or something but we went up a shallow grade really fast and actually lost a few riders, including Billy. Just after that was a super long, fast descent, probably two full miles at 70+ kph.

Next up was the short dirt road section. We hit it and the Cronoman said "oh F*ck." I guess he had a bad patch and got popped. The descent was very civil. I went down in the back with Todd and when we got back out on route 4 things were slow so we chatted while I kept looking back for Eric. I did not see him so eventually I stopped looking but a kilometer or two later he came flying back on. Just in time too, as OA put Ron Bourgoin and Neil Fitch on the front for the next 25k to set the pace and take some of the 1:35 the break had back. The rest of us just formed a line and took a free ride all the way back to the mountain at 40kph. I ate a LOT of gel, preparing for what was to come. As Jonny already wrote, when those two guys sat up after a job well done, I think everyone in the field congratulated them for their work and sacrifice. It was quite an effort, and Ron gave up a top 10 on GC to save the race for his team mate.

We still did not have the break in sight. The East Mountain Road climb is 1100+ vertical feet in just 2.2 miles (same one I climbed in training two weeks ago, which took me 15 minutes at 318 watts). I moved up at the turn but as soon as we started climbing I got swarmed on both sides. Maybe I was too cautious, but it seemed to be taking me a bit of time to find my rhythm. Going through the hard right hand switchback where it starts to get really ugly, I counted 28 riders ahead of me, plus the three breakaways. From there the ascent does not relent until the KOM, but I recovered a bit. Sammy Morse (Corner Cycle) and Steve Roszko (Bikereg) came by me from behind and I started to pace off of them. Some riders ahead came back to us and and we formed a small grouppetto. I think Kellogg was in there too. We did the back and forth yo-yo of surge and suffer but eventually all crested the KOM close enough together to regroup for the rollers. This was a big mental boost and I think it helped us keep the tempo up through the condo village even though we were all obviously out of it as far as the major placings go.

Out onto the access road, I saw Armand with my camera, but he had it set video and this is what we got from that. Cut to the chase, I dragged my butt across the line in 25th, good for 21st overall on GC. Missed my goal of top 20. The Cronoman was out of gas at the base of the hill but he dragged himself across a few minutes later. Billy had got in a group and finished a minute or two after Eric. Reglar had stayed away to win, but Thomas was second and took the overall. Shattuck hung on for fourth and won the KOM prize. Randy got absorbed but still crossed the line just ahead of me and Sammy after a valiant race-long effort. I was impressed by the way the race was run and look forward to going back. It was kind of weird with no crit and I barely even saw the Pro race or any other race for that matter as we just showed up and headed out onto the course each day. I'm going to rebuild and refocus in June, maybe not race so much. I'll do an entry soon on how I messed up my training this year, and how I hope to learn from it. Thanks for reading.