Cat 1 – It’s official

I made my request to USACycling to be upgraded from Cat 2 to Category 1 (formerly known as “Expert”). Based on two race results, my application was accepted.

Now the hard part is going to be changing my category for all those races that I’m already registered for. Oh yeah, and spending my first season racing against the best amateur XC racers in the country. That might be a bit hard too.

If only it was this easy to move up to Cat 3/4 in road racing.

Building the endurance

Jos and I went out and biked the course of her upcoming half marathon in Santa Ynez. A good 20 miles at recovery pace.

Of course, with the Counting Coup fast approaching, I need to prepared myself for long 5+ hours and grueling mountain climbs in the wilderness. So I biked home via Refugio and West Camino Cielo (2 gnarly dirt roads with 4000+ ft of climbing that were perfect for my adventure cyclocross bike).

4.5 hours later, I arrived home. Now, after a recovery drink and a chicken ranch burrito, I have entered the deep stages of a severe food coma. Rebuild and replenish my poor little muscles, rebuild…

MTB season warmup in Fontana

Up bright and early this morning to drive down to the Inland Empire for some racing in Southridge/Fontana.

Fun course on the edge of the suburban sprawl.

And some nice scenery:

And the fans were out in full force helping us stay… ummm .. motivated.

There was one significant climb (about half paved), lots of other punchy little ones, some tight-n-twisty singletrack sections and a good dose of open fire road to crank out the legs. There were a few tricky spots, not too technical but some ruts and concrete drain crossings were a little hair-raising as I had never ridden the course and had no clue what was around each corner. I’ll be prepared for the US Cup event here in late march.

I’ve been making some big strides in my fitness and feeling pretty strong recently. So the thought has crossed my mind, “perhaps I should be racing Expert instead of Sport”. Of course I’ve only done 1 sport race (last Nov.) and I got 2nd but I feel like I could potentially win/podium a good number of US Cup races this year in Cat 2. That would be fun. But I also feel like I may want to up the level of competition and spend a season suffering in Expert (er Cat 1) which is eventually where I want to be.

SO.. since southridge is not a Norba event, I jumped right into the Expert 27-34 mens race to test the waters. I felt great. Having to race against really high caliber riders was fun and challenging in a way that sport would not be.. I actually got passed and blown away on the downhills on two separate occasions. And I like the longer-distance events where you have to measure out your effort a bit more.

Not sure how I placed as I didn’t stick around for the results to be posted. I know I did pretty well amongst the experts, possibly beat one of the pro riders and might have podiumed in my age group. We’ll have to wait and see…

Now the question is, do I upgrade my Norba license and re-register for all the spring races in Cat 1 knowing that I’ll get my clock cleaned on a regular basis (remember that last years semi-pros might have moved to Cat 1)? Or stay in Cat 2 and go for the gold?

Fresno in February – road race reports

This weekend brought a road trip and two great races up in the Fresno area. Bob W, John C. and I took off friday night with the forecast promising miserable rainy conditions. Dan R. was there representing Team Chicken Ranch in the masters races.

Cantua Creek Road Race, 2/14

With the idyllic backdrop of the industrial cattle lots, we started off in the chilly (but completely clear) morning. The race was 2 x 26 mile laps, out-and-back. Bob and I took the front and soft-pedaled our way through the first 13 miles at a slow pace that could barely qualify as a warmup. On the return part of lap 1, John, Bob and I made a few attempts to pick up the pace but is was basically just burning our matches (turns out we had plenty to spare though). Up the final hill on lap one, we strung it out a bit, maybe spit a few riders off the back but regrouped by the bottom. Lap 2 felt slower than the first .. no one wanted to work and the chickens spent the majority of the time at the front, especially Bob who the pack had marked as their ideal wind screen for the entire race. It came down to the last climb and I attacked at the bottom with John and Bob close behind. We had dropped everyone except for a lone rider from Bakersfield, a man who came to be known as the legendary Fredy Prado. My pull was done and John surged ahead, Bob followed, but Fredy timed it better than all of us and beat our Bob by half a wheel. No win but the chickens went 2, 3, 4 and proved to be the strongest team in the 5s.

That night we drove up to Pine Flat, pre-drove the last 12 miles of the course and went out for a nice dinner with the Velo Girls team and Kim and Steve Weixel.

Nice Valentines Day shirts guys!

Pine Flat, 2/15

The forecast just a few days before was something like “100% chance of brutal winter storm” but, apart from the cold and gloomy sky, the weather was cooperative. The course was awesome and the scenery was gorgeous! The first 20 rolling miles were surprisingly eventful with a couple of solo breaks. We caught most of them easily but one guy stayed away for the majority of the race. I went off the front for a pit stop, announcing I was not making a break, just emptying my bladder. Our friend Fredy, didn’t catch that part and comes around from the back of the pack to mark my wheel. He looked thoroughly confused when I pulled off. It revealed his strategy – let anyone else break except team chicken ranch.

After the descent and into the flats, the chickens started a moderate tempo paceline to bring our solo rider back. The rest of the pack took a total of 0 seconds pulling. So we had to shake something up and Bob was the man to do it … a nice steady acceleration and he was away. And who else but Fredy jumped on his wheel. Everyone else sat back and watched it happen. The rest of the pack was completely unorganized and no one was willing to do any chasing. John and I just smiled and cruised along and for a while it looked like the break might stay away until the finish. The pace picked up as the climb neared and we we slowly dropped riders until it was John and I and two others chasing the lead group of 3. We finally spotted them on the second half of the climb and regrouped. The mountain goats crested the top about 45 second before Bob and I but we quickly rejoined on the descent. From there it was a good flat/rolling section leading up to the final climb. Bob and I just kept the pace high and tried to give John the best leadout at 1k that we could. From there (I’ll have to defer to John on the details) Fredy and John battled it out up the steep finish hill and Fredy ended up with his second win of the weekend. John got second, and Bob and I got 6th/7th.

So this Fredy was a hell of a rider. Despite his tenuous grasp on the English language, he was a really friendly guy and I can’t wait to race him again. But something didn’t seem right. The guy was really strong. He was tactically brilliant. The guy was able to piss off the side of his bike AND keep pedaling while descending with a pack. That’s a whole lot of skills for a cat 5. Then John found this last night … … look at #22 … our friend is/was a pro rider in Mexico? Or maybe its just a case of mistaken identity? The legend of Fredy Prado continues…

I’ll let Dan tell the tales of his solo victory in the masters race at Pine Flat. Congrats! All in all, a great weekend for the chicken ranch in norcal … 5 podium spots including one victory and our name is now simultaneously loved, feared and respected in the Fresno area cat 4/5 circuit! Most importantly we got to hang out with a bunch of cool folks and had a great time.

The inaugural backcountry cyclocross ride

I’ve been thinking about it for a while but I finally made the leap and bought a cyclocross bike a couple weeks ago. I had to get cables, bar tape, a front derailleur top-pull pulley, and a new cassette for it so the inaugural ride was delayed a bit.

I got a killer ebay deal on a used Bianchi Cross Concept 2004.

Just like my Mamasita, its got a scandium frame with carbon stays. I like the combo of stiffness and compliance. Its outfitted with full Dura Ace and so far I’ve been super happy with it.

I got a cross bike for two reasons. First, I want to race cross later this year, ’nuff said. Secondly, I wanted a bike for epic long rides that was equally at home on pavement as it was on dirt roads and light trails.

Today’s ride was the test of reason #2. It passed with flying colors.

I rode out to Montecito (1 hour on pavement), climbed Romero (45 min on technical fireroad), traversed camino cielo (30 min pavement), descended Angostura and rode out at red rocks (1 hour on fireroad) and rode out Paradise road, up Stagecoach and down San Marcos (1.25 hours on pavement). 63 miles, 7000+ vertical ft of climbing in 4.5 hours with a good mixture of dirt and pavement.

Routes like this would simply not be possible on a road bike and would be tedious on a mountain bike. The cross bike just opens up SO many options around here: Refugio, West Camino Cielo, Murrietta, Romero, all these dirt roads that link up great sections of road riding are now available.

The best part is looking like a roadie with the skinsuit and drop bars, hammering past some roadies on a climb covered in mud. Or likewise flying past a mountain biker wondering how the hell a road bike just made it up the trail.

I think I’m gonna really enjoy this …..

Pics of the Poor College Kids Sprint

Via John Goodman … lots of great finish line shots. The only one of the Cat 5 shots that actually shows my face is below (mostly because I was sucking Derek’s wheel hoping for him to break .. he didn’t).

Cycling videos

Just a quick post, in case you haven’t seen ‘em there are two great sites showing some video footage of various cycling events:

• http://ccx.nathanspear.com/ for some euro cyclocross coverage.
• http://channelmtb.com/ for some nicely-edited coverage of mountain bike races (so far its mostly local So-Cal events but Alan Villa has big plans).

More urban assault riding

Instead of going big in the backcountry, I’ve lately taken to focusing on my own back yard.. stringing together various little trail systems in the goleta/santa barbara/montecito/summerland area into longer rides.

Today’s ride was perfect, a nice easy tempo, a good “recovery” ride at 4.5 hours and 50 miles. I hit up so many good local trails: More Mesa, Hope Ranch, Douglas Family Preserve, Elings Park, Jesusita, Hot Springs, Edison Catway, Girard/McMenemy, Old Pueblo, Fearing trail, Ortega Hill and many random little trail systems along the way.

The weather was perfect, the trails were hard packed and there was a lot of exploring to do.. this is what mountain biking is all about!

Poor College Kids 09

Another “warm-up” race here in sunny southern california. This time it was a road race, the Poor College Kids race organized by UCSB cycling.

It was out in Los Olivos so no marathon road trip this day.. just a nice 45 minute drive out to wine country. Joselyne joined me to get in some hilly distance runs on the surrounding country roads while we raced (and for moral support, etc.)

We had a good pack of 7 or 8 chicken ranchers at the starting line of the Category 5A race. Some of the other riders registered later and got pushed into the B race to split up the field unfortunately.

The course was out-and-back on Foxen canyon road. At the start things were super mellow. We cranked it up a notch on the first climb and the descent strung out the pack a bit but no real action. After the turn-around (which half the pack botched by going LEFT around the cones!) things got a little heavier with a few token attacks but mostly they were just wasted efforts. I spent a lot of time out front wondering when things were going to start cooking… without wanting to start the fire myself of course.

The climb back was the breaking point. John C. and about 5 other mountain goats took off while I was giving it 100% to keep them within my sight. At the top they put on 50 yards and I had to bridge the gap by myself (pulling a few others with me). So by the gradual downhill/flat section to the finish, we had about a dozen of us together at the front without anyone leading the charge. We stayed in the front of the chasing pack but it came down to a group sprint in the last 1/4 mile. I took second place by somehow finding an open line on the left. I almost bridged the gap to the lead sprinter but Derek (of team platinum) was definitely the power rider in the group on this day.

So my thoughts on my first road race in oh 13 years…

It was frustrating to me how the strongest rider does not always win. And how it was very difficult to ride at the intensity I wanted to. I just don’t really enjoy riding in a group. Especially when the pack was thick, I was really on edge.

The race was, for the most part, easy pace compared to a mountain bike race. I prefer the steady tempo of a time trial over the punchy, opportunistic tempo changes that you don’t really have control over.

But was it fun?? .. hell yeah. Will I sign up for a road race again even if there is some good mountain bike riding/racing the same day??.. not a chance.

After the race, Bob, John and I even rode back up 154 to stagecoach road back into santa barbara to get a little extra workout. I had a blast! It was a good early-season workout, I learned a thing or two and had fun.. what more can you ask for (other than 1st place!).

EDIT: The results are now posted online.