Hey, if I were a 3, I would line up and take a couple of laps to increase the field size for you.:D You clearly do not need any assistance beyond that.;)

Nice job again @TMonk! Killing it!

Raced VoS over the weekend - wasn't sure how I'd feel as I haven't done a ton of volume but have hit all of my planned intervals for the past month. Came in with two teammates, one sprinter and one TT/endurance guy

TT day proved to be fast conditions. It was a slight tailwind on the way out, which has a slight elevation gain, so I was targeting an even split of around 280-290w. Averaged right around 285w, which was 15w harder than last year but a 1:10 faster time of 30:30 at an average speed of 28.3 mph. This was good for 7th place in the 2s, which I was pretty happy with. Most of the other guys around my time looked to be pushing power nearer the 350s. My teammate came in 15s behind me for 9th, so we were within striking distance of GC lead (29:58).

The road race was very very slow and easy until it wasn't. The course is a triangle shape course of ~16 miles and we had 5.8 laps to complete, total of 96 miles I believe. There was a hard headwind this year up the climb and down the descent, which meant the rollers and highway sections both had a tail/cross wind. GC Leader had 3 teammates, but there were no other big teams in the top 10, and it seems like everyone was waiting until the last couple of laps to try anything. My teammate and I tried to draw them out a few times and successfully made them chase and burn a few matches on the tailwind sections. With 2 laps to go, my teammate makes it into a decent sized break (looked like 8-10 riders) coming through the rollers, but they got caught just after the top of the climb. The GC's team did a lot of work to chase, but the catch being made on a descent into a headwind made it a bad time to counter. I bided my time, and luckily the speed picked up again through the rollers and strung the field out. My teammate was near the front and doing his best to set me up perfectly. I managed to catch some draft and gained some momentum to sling past the front just as my teammate was sitting up. One younger rider came with me, and we started rotating. He pulled through a bit too hard so I told him to chill and smooth it out. We hit the corner at the bottom, and in my excitement I carried a little bit too much speed and nearly overcooked it, then had to wait for my break-mate to latch back on. On the straight, flat highway section, two others bridged up to us and it seemed like we had a good shot at making it. Unfortunately, once we hit the headwind climb section my legs started to give out. I tried my best to stay with my break mates, but they lost me in the first quarter of the climb, despite me skipping pulls and trying to stay in their draft. The group followed shortly after, but luckily I was able to find shelter there and made it to the top without losing any time. The break ended up getting caught, though one of the larger riders surprisingly got 2nd place on the stage.

The crit was hard from the gun and a break of 2 formed after 15 minutes of full throttle. They proved to be two really strong riders and stayed away with a 30 second gap, holding 28 mph for the remainder of the race. I just tried to stay safe for the most part, it ended up being a lot harder to sit in and move around the field than I anticipated. Our sprinter got to the front a lap too early, so no result on the day.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result considering it's my first try in the cat 2 field. Got some dinner money and some extra experience. Nice to know I was able to go on the offensive in the road race, but it looks like I need to work on the power again if I want to do well moving forward.

Nice racing @wktmeow. Sounds hard!

Good job out ther @wktmeow VOS is one the most competitive races out there.

@wktmeow Excellent result for first Cat 2 race or any race. I sounded like you were a player. SDBC is killing it so far this season.

Was there any doping controls? As FF pointed out, VOS is a very competitive race and draws a lot of out of state talent.

Thanks guys!
Not that I saw. Yes, lots of talent. There was a guy from Florida that did the TT on his road bike and did a 31 and change, Strava says he was doing 460w?! Could be power meter calibration, but he won the crit and got 2nd in the road race and probably has 50 lbs on me so definitely some talent there.

woah, big boy! What was his overall GC?

13th. Guess he's a marked man in FL, but no one knew of him here

Nice work man! It's a tough race (and fields), but it sounds like you were up to the challenge.

Did an RR and a crit last weekend/holiday.

The Cantua Creek RR was 2.5 hours away, decided to go since I hadn't before. Ugh hitting the road @ 4:30 AM is... ugh. Small field of like 20 since it's a small race in the middle of nowhere CA (near Coalinga). Made the early move of about 10 guys, we rotated really well (so well it was boring) for half the race, then guys started attacking 2nd time up the hill. I couldn't hang and got dropped, came in in a chase group for DFL lol.

Then the Cherry Pie crit was on Monday - a holiday for many but not for me. Did some meetings & work stuff in the morning, then snuck out for the race in the afternoon. God dammit they made that course even worse than it used to be! It's mostly in a parking lot, and they added a quick left/right/right leading to a 180 - but in a parking lot so not really enough space to do it at speed.. I mean **** they might as well throw some cones out and have us go around those!

A bunch of guys got dropped (and lapped, which was annoying) - I re-learned how to corner and finished in the group for 10th. Teammate got 2nd from the break so that was cool.

That course sounds strangely familiar to me.

Yeah super happy for Bobby to get that result - he said he's been doing that race for 11 years and never got a pie, now he has!

Nice racing @TMonk

UCLA RR - DNF

Lined up at 7 am, it was 21 degrees right before the gun and that's easily the coldest I've ridden. It was a very easy pace going up the first hill and 5 minutes in I got an asthma attack, eventually getting detached. At the crest I decided to turn around; with roughly 20 minutes into the race and the condition worsening there was a fair chance of an ambulance ride (I've taken the ambulance 3x for asthma, once during a ride) and it was better for everyone not putting myself in that position. My hands were tingling and I felt lightheaded. The next phase was seeing stars, and then you pass out. Devil's Punchbowl isn't a course you can leisurely ride (1500ft each 12m loop). I was calm when I made the decision, but nearly in tears getting in the car. I've still been training my ass off and for your body just to quit like that feels awful.

I haven't had an bad asthma attack during a ride in over a year, my only guess is my lungs had a bad reaction to the cold. I'm not even sure it was just an asthma attack because it felt much worse.

Bummer FF, glad it wasn't any worse.

**** man, that sucks - but glad you survived!

I'm sure you're seeing a doc about this, but I would ask a doctor if they think the cold could make the condition worse.

@furriousferret That sounded awful. I had asthma as a kid and used to get asthma from cold air - running. Skiing does not seem to bother me but I have not really challenged myself in cold air. However, the tingling and lightheaded feeling are interesting. Have you had those symptoms before?

Snelling RR p1/2 - one of the biggest NorCal road races of the season, where pretty much everyone shows up.

WE WON! (and I got 4th)

We had almost our whole team (6 out of 9) in the field of ~80, with a few other strong teams well-represented. Our sprinter who got 2nd here last year wasn't there, but we had a powerhouse/breakaway guy, me the sometimes-sprinter (and definitely not a breakaway guy in an 84 mile RR), and everyone else is good at breakaways but not winning from them.

P1/2's did 7 laps for 84 miles total, through rolling terrain with some really nasty pothole/bumpy sections. One section has a short bridge that is a ****ing minefield, and only gets worse every year. It was windy, but not overly so.

First lap everyone was fresh and trying to get away, but nothing stuck of course. I covered a few moves early in the race, got in one break but sat on and it fizzled. I was kind of low on food to start with (two clif bars, bottle of "heed", bottle of "perpetuem"). On the 3rd lap my bottle of perpetuem ejected, so I was down to one bottle.. no neutral feed so that kind of sucked. I wanted to steal a bottle but everyone was too smart for that I guess..

Anyway our Powerhouse guy had tried a few mid-race moves but nothing was sticking - the big local team Mike's Bikes was going for a field sprint for their sprinter, so was trying to shut everything down. I told Powerhouse to wait until 2 or 3 to go when everyone was more tired, then try again. With 3 to go there was a group of ~5 up the road with one of our guys in it, and our Powerhouse bridged up with another powerhouse/breakwawy guy from Mike's - perfect.

On the last lap 4 of the break riders came back, but the three strongest dudes (Powerhouse, Mike's powerhouse, and another break powerhouse) were still up the road. With ~4 miles to go the two other guys came back - our Powerhouse guy had attacked them and rode away, and was now solo. A ballsy move, but if anyone could do it, this guy could.

And he did!

The field sprint for 2nd was sketch af, as it always is on this course. There's a long straight section of BUMPY road leading up to the final corner, then maybe 400m of slight uphill (and more potholes/bumps) to the line. I survived the scrum to the final corner somehow, came out of the corner in maybe 12th place, and somehow when I stood to sprint everyone else went backwards. I almost caught a guy who had jumped early, but didn't - and one came around us both for 2nd, so I got 4th.

4th for me was my best result at this race ever (possibly my best p1/2 RR result, in fact), but really all that mattered was that WE WON! Our team did everything right, and it worked. Can't ask for anything more.

Nice job @mattm! That course was my first road race ever as a cat 5, haven't raced it since. Looked like there were some heavy hitters out too!

Congratulations @mattm! That's awesome. Hearing that story makes me want to join an actual team (sorry to Amber the story, Amber is a cousin in law that makes every conversation about her, hence 'Amber the story')

The tingling and the lightheaded are usually symptoms when I overuse my medications; in the past I've taken 10-30 puffs of an inhaler with no effect. This time I didn't take any puffs so I'm going to see my doctor about it and just make sure everything is okay. My first 2 years of racing I just dealt with asthma (which often meant I was last) but now the medications keep it in check. Cold air definitely makes it worse but I haven't had any issues since going to the meds I use now.

@mattm Props on the 4th place and the team win.

good stuff @mattm

@mattm congratulations on the win, and 4th for yourself! 4th at Snelling is fantastic. I'd almost take a placing at Snelling than a placing at Copperopolis. It's almost always windy, cold, and rough there -- and somehow everyone comes out for that race.

Thx all!

My vid from the race:

(I did something a little different this time, since I put my GoPro in "time lapse" mode on accident..)