2022 race stories thread
 

Looks like I'm first "to the punch" here. Must be the SoCal weather.

1/9/21 Fiesta Island time trial series (FITT), 20k men's P/1/2/3, 2nd place out of 2 starters in this category. I rode 27:54 and that was good for the second fastest time of the day, following Alex Gustin at 24:14... yeah.... He's on another level. My time was good for 26.7 MPH, with full aero kit, however I have yet to do optimization. I know my helmet choice needs to be improved for my position.

My goals for the day were merely to get in the groove of ITT and set a benchmark for TT's later in the season. I'm happy with my ride and produced 280w for the duration, which is 10-12 more than what I targeted in the first half based on training efforts. Looks like I had some race motivation. My (Zwift/naked) body weight was a hair under 145 lbs this morning.

I am new to ITT and this is a different ride than the TTT's that I've done, which are a bit more technical in the ride execution and kind of scary, given the higher speed we are trying to hold. I really liked the individual headspace on this one and how much more all of the positioning, smoothness and general aero stuff matters. I think I could have taken 15s off my ride today with the same equipment and power and better execution.. For example, I got out of aero four times on the first lap since my helmet kept sliding forward over my eyes and sticking up in the back, and my power would surge significantly when passing other riders or near the start/finish. So newbie kinda stuff.

Come April, I should have stronger legs and some optimization done. Also, as with the rest of us, the conditions will be better, warmer air (sub 50F at the start today) and less dried/caked on mud and dirt sapping speed on various parts of the island. I'm looking forward to the next one and I think that I should be able to put up a greatly improved time.

Good times! Looking forward to Valley of the Sun, more FITT's and possibly some Piru TT's as well. I'm liking this stuff.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...31614ef063.jpg
my apologies for the low quality photo. im obviously on the left

It is not cheating to accelerate into the draft of a rider you are about to pass... plus humiliating them is half the fun!

Same TT as TMonk - Merckx category. Venge, evade helmet, latex tubes, gp5k 25mm, velotoze shoe covers and eliel road suit. I did not break 25 mph, 24.6 at ~260w, unofficially just under 30 mins for 20k but the official timing seems to have been offset or otherwise incorrect, as I started my Garmin just as I took off and Strava corroborated. Power was higher than I anticipated but pace was slower. I had some trouble staying low and aero, and only managed to do IAB for a few segments. A good power test as the season begins! A local pro got 1st and some masters guy I've never seen before did like 320w for 2nd.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...952c86a89.jpeg

Woohoo, race season is here!

Lined up for me first race of the year, rolled out with the group for the neutral rollout, and then almost immediately had a pileup in front of me within maybe a half mile of the start. It's amazing how long it takes to hit the ground after you go over the bars.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better.

VoS mini update, cat 2. Behind on fitness due to my injury and just getting into TT, so I wasn't expecting excellence, just getting some race chops back in the bank and having some fun.

TT - Pretty meh... about 13w below target. The way out is more windy and slightly uphill (1%) so significantly slower.... A positive split is the way to go. Still, I went out somewhat conservatively, and wasn't really able to push up the watts on the way back, lost a few actually. My time for the 14 mi was 31:58, or 26.6 MPH, similar to what I did at Fiesta Island in January. This result was good for 20th/44. The winners came in right around 29:50. A buddy of mine staying in the same team house got second, which was exciting. He is an excellent time trialist.

RR - 21st/44, finished with what was left of the field. Break of 6 up the road on the penultimate climb, driven by local phenom. Antonio Rossi, who now leads GC. Lots of attrition, people getting dropped every lap except the first (of 5) climbs, which we took sort of easy. The remaining climbs were legitimately hard. With my fitness being behind and lackluster performance in the TT, I was not feeling very confident, but after climb two (which blew up the field) I was passing gassed riders and able to stick in and realized that I would be mid-pack at worst. Big news on the day was the first AND second (Max) on GC got dropped.... Leader got dropped hard on climb 2 and lost like 30 minutes. Max got dropped a lap later and chased furiously to latch back on before the final climb; fortunately for him we really slacked off on the last lap.

Crit - TBD, coming up in about 5 hours. It's short AF at 45 minutes and there are no team representation; the largest squads are three riders deep. So I plan to attack. We'll see what happens, it would be fun to roll something off the front for a while, even if it doesn't stick

And theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnn?

Oh yeah, the crit! I finished at the back of the field, pretty spent. Not a ton to say TBH.

Despite having a lack of depth (in numbers) in teams, it was consistently pretty fast. Also hot (80 F) and dry as well. I had a taste of blood after my first attack that didn't really go away, which was unpleasant. During one (of only a few) lulls at the front, I launched, and 3/4 of a lap later was joined by the race leader (Antonio) and this other strong dude, which was sweet, but the field (understandably) wasn't having any of that and we were reeled in within a km of us becoming three. I was excited about it.

By the time I was recovered and back in position, we were in the lap cards. Tough when it's such a short race (45 min) - not a lot of time to re-group and go again. But I did with four to go - some other guy attacked and I grabbed his wheel immediately. Looking over my shoulder, it was strung out with no gap, so as soon as he started to back off, I launched between him and the curb and got clear. That lasted about 1.75 laps, no one joined me so it wasn't worth any more than that with my early season legs. Still, it was a good experience and interesting to think about how I could have stretched that out with smoother execution and maybe prompted some to bridge.

After that it was 2 to go, so I just latched on to the back and rolled in. All in all, a good weekend and great to get some racing in the belt for the season to come!

I’m just sad you didn’t beat VC @TMonk lol

The Women’s pro winner hangs out in another community im in and we got to hear about shenanigans involving one woman drafting a group of men and getting relegated (and the team pulled out of the event entirely)

oh yikes RE: the women's field.

Ya I was fairly close to VC in GC after the RR, but let myself get gapped in the crit which I sort of regret, just for ego reasons haha. I latched on at two to go after my second and final attack, and it was hard having to go around gapped/gassed riders just to get the pack time haha.

Finally looked up the stage race results, 19th / 44 overall starters in the cat 2, 41 finishers. I let myself loose 30s in the crit on the last lap, but that would have put me only in 17th, so I guess I'm not sweating that I sat up any more haha.

Again, not super stoked on my TT, but I feel good about not getting dropped and being able to move up in the RR. Overall - It was a good group of people that I stayed with, and I enjoyed my time racing and hanging out in the "Valley of the Sun" Az! I look forward to continual improvements in my TT and doing better next time!

Been a busy season so far! A quick summary:

• won some early season training crits
• Tried to win our first NorCal crit, Cal Aggie, but failed and came in 3rd (that's the one Jeff crashed in, which happened behind me)
• traveled down south for the Roger Millikan crit last month - damn they don't **** around with local crits in SoCal! Faster and more aggressive than up in NorCal, but I eeked out a top 10 in a big field, it was fun
• did Valley of the Sun Pro/1 field - the RR was mostly about not crashing, and was SUPER hard up the climb the first and last laps, but easy otherwise. Got 26th, at the back of the main group, but had nothing else in the legs. Crit was SKETCH AF, flatted out 30 mins in and feel like I got lucky tbh
• we flew back from VoS on Monday morning then drove to Napa the same day for Cherry Pie crit! Had nothing in the legs to do much besides finish
• Snelling had a partially new course ("the bridge" is under repair, finally) - but they somehow found some even worse roads lol. Finished
• Won the Merced crit the next day from a break that I started! Great to open the account so early in the season.
• Last weekend was the Coppertown circuit race - I was on leadout duty but my teammate didn't go early enough (and my readout wasn't fast enough) so he only got 3rd

Overall it's been awesome to have a great team that works together so well and races often. It's not always about me winning, I'm also trying to teach some of the younger guys a few tricks and help them get some wins as well.

Next up is Land Park crit & Bariani RR, should be fun! Got 3rd at Bariani last year, let's see if I can do better..

Here's a video from the Merced crit I won from my teammate who bridged up to the break - you can see me in full flight! What you can't see is me touching my pedal to the pavement in the last corner lol.

This weekend went better than 2 weekends ago. No crashing is a positive change. Just pack fodder finishes. I've been out of it for many years, so I need to learn to maintain better positioning so I'm not killing myself nearly as badly.
A teammate won one of the races though, so that's cool.

Flew out to Tuscon for that stage race. I now have a broken collarbone. :/ Last race, with less than 1km to go in top ten single file, guy in front of me gets taken out by, his words "Junior looking over the shoulder and swerving right 5 ft". I go over him, some one lands on me, and then there is pain.

daaamn sorry to hear that. hoping for a speedy recovery UmneyDurak.

Also great update mattm. Glad to see success in your racing and your mentoring.

Nice Matt.

Also, it's cool to see my old teammate in your pic. Glad he's doing well. He's come a long way since the first time we met - in a pile up.

Thanks

+1 **** luck! Heal quickly.

Heal quickly UmneyDurak.

thanks, appreciate it. Had surgery on Thursday. Now have nifty titanium hardware. haha

Ugh. First race of the season yesterday was a 3/4 RR. There was a huge crash maybe 6 minutes in and the race was cancelled when they had to bring an ambulance in (course is a circuit). I had a brand new rear wheel blown up.

UmneyDurak heal well. That had to be difficult, flying etc. Jeepers.

Did a B race. Started with a neutral lap. I figured I'd be good for the neutral lap. Although most people probably thought I was joking, I was serious.

At the end of the first real lap I realized I wasn't going to make it much further. Eased up, went off the back.

Because it was a nice day and the fast backstretch started after two fun, fast, slightly downhill turns, I did about half a dozen hard jumps out of Turn 2, while off the back. Eased as I got lapped for the bazillionth time so I would get lapped in their sprint so I could officially finish without doing another lap. First time I actually tried to finish a race while off the back.

To quote another much better track racer, "this was the first time I lined up for a race lasting longer than 40s".

For me it was the first time (I think) that I rode outside since Nationals last year, Sept 16th. Felt natural on the bike (I was a bit concerned so I rode around a bit before, and it was fine, as it was last year, etc). Felt good to be outside, to feel the bike rolling on pavement rather than on the roller on the trainer.

Still recovering from a Covid negative cold that I had the prior weekend, so I'm sure that didn't help. I'm still super fatigued today, as I have been since I've had the cold.

After the RR last week where I blew up a new (to me) rear wheel in a big crash that ultimately black flagged the whole race, I got another start yesterday in a crit. This one was on a purpose built crit track, which is just really awesome; cambered turns, no oil from cars, etc.

Field was about 30 and I finished up 5th. It was all pretty cagey and I think everyone was getting used to the pace and the circuit. I tried to bridge to a move that was eventually brought back, and probably should have tried to attack more.

I beat my buddy to 5th with a bike throw on the line, so that was cool. The top 5 were all separated by a couple bikes, so that was gratifying as well.

practice crit today, did the B race (3/4) because doing the 4/5 last week, while fun, was way too short since they're doing a 10min neutral then only 20mins of racing. Not much of note today, only that a few guys got off the front early and I made an attempt at bridging but ended up having that shut down quickly and I mainly just hung out and didn't do anything of any consequence. There was a team there with 4 or 5 guys so they pretty much controlled everything and swept the podium. As for me, I avg 253w and had NP of 280 (0.95 IF) for the 43mins of racing, so happy with that in that it reflects some good bike fitness for me. Half of the race I had an IF of 1.0 and felt good so I'll take that, hopefully I can keep it up for the 2 4/5 40+ races I'm targeting this season.

Bummer! Heal up man.

I got taken out at Cat’s Hill last weekend but no bad injuries besides some road rash and soreness.. mostly annoying it happened like 3 laps in!!