First TT of the Season

For quite a few years, since 2004 in fact, Cathy and I have been regulars at the Charlie Baker Time Trial, a local Wednesday night training time-trail race that is held in Concord, MA and is promoted and run by our club, NEBC. In fact, it was the CBTT that got us into NEBC in the first place. Actually, come to think of it, that is also what got us into road racing which got us firmly hooked into cyclocross racing and eventually got us back into MTB racing. Cyclical, isn't it?

This year we have a spiffy sponsor for the TT series, Armand from Speed Merchant Aero but unfortunately, the Wednesday weather in conjunction with road work that is being done on parts of the course has resulted in an unusually large number of cancellations of the event and as it has worked out, neither Cathy nor I had been able to participate at all this season. Early last week it looked like the road work was finally at a point where the event could proceed with caution. Alas, tornadoes and severe weather forced yet another misfire.

Yesterday however, the stars aligned and things all looked good. The weather was sunny and hot as sin, something that we in the northeast have seen almost zero of to date this season. I tried to take it easy on Tuesday and not overdo it on my solo road ride, in order to save some legs for the TT as well as to minimize the damage I did this week overall, after a super hard effort at the Rumpus Sunday.

As usual, my plan was flawed and in typical form I found myself hammering out to Harvard and then meeting up with the Tuesday hill ride. I'd been going hard but trying not to tax my legs or dig too deep. I figured maybe I'd hang back and do a few hills at a social pace. So, as we hit Oak Hill for the first interval of the night and Johnny Mo is pushing steady tempo doing over 20 mph constantly I'm not seeing a problem. It felt really comfortable in fact. As we approached the final kick-up I could no longer resist the urge to go to the front and set pace. I laid in a steady hard seated power. I'd guess it was about 600 watts average for about a minute, which for me is pretty hard. The legs loaded up and I could feel the damage being done. This was a bad idea; reason said I needed to stop the madness, now. So I called it quits after one hill with 30 miles in and started the uneventful, rolling ride home. The legs never felt the same after that effort though, I must admit.

Back to the TT, the actual subject matter here, we got dressed and donned our new Garneau golfball-esque TT helmets and rode over to registration in Concord. This is a good warm-up ride though once we got there we proceeded to sit/stand around and chat with folks for a half hour before the rider's meeting. The re-warmup consisted of the ride from the parking lot to the start, which is about a mile. Spinning on a trainer for 1/2 hours would have been much better but I just hate to drive and burn dinosaurs to get to a local bicycle race. It just seems wrong.

My TT bike in current configuration with new bars, tires and a 60mm front vs the 100mm I had

The start was harried as I arrived a bit late, just as I was on deck. Off the line I put in a hard effort and didn't really look at the computer, which has a 4 line display. I typically pay attention only to the average MPH. This lets me know how I'm going as I know where I need to be at given checkpoints for a given time at the finish. I'm usually good for a 1/2 - 1 mph loss between the first and second half of the ride. This is mostly due to course variation with the 2nd half significantly more rolling and also containing the only real climb. I hit the mid section with a good average speed, just under 28mph, which would be a PR. I felt really good and had gotten through cleanly. The ride that started ahead of me Tom, who sets very similar times, was just up ahead and a forced slowdown for traffic put me in for the catch and release.

Unfortunately, this was not one of the hardest sections of the course, a false flat on RT225. I couldn't hold him off and he passed me back. Not wanting to cheat myself, I settled back out of his draft and paced. While this felt nice I actually tailed off in terms of effort. The old trap of settling for a perceived level of suffering when you really should be suffering just a little extra. Another exchange occurred shortly after on River Road as I went up and over the town line roller but Tom took it back again just before the horse farm. Once again I dropped back out of the slip and paced as he was moving well and I know, can go downhill really well.

On the Punkatassett Hill climb I managed to motor by and made it up and over, though it hurt a very, very large amount. A slight brake check on the downhill for a turning car but clean otherwise. I expected to see Tom pass me again but hit the turn at Liberty Road first and kept drilling it over the line. Time on the line was 21:38 for the 9.75 mile course, which is well off my PR but a good start and within a few seconds of the best time that I turned in all of last year. I can live with that. I'd also avoided a number of minor aero advantages like a skinsuit as I needed pockets to carry tools and a phone, I had a cage and water bottle, no aero shoe covers and I didn't put valve-stem hole covers on the rear disc wheel. Minor, I know, but something.

Cathy had a fantastic ride and set one of her top times ever as well at 23:58. This despite the fact that she was slowed by traffic and also fully stopped to check on a racer who had crashed. What a good president she is. Had she gotten those seconds back it would have been really close for her.

Ah yes, another season has officially begun. I'd completely forgotten just how much pain and suffering there can be in a 20 something minute effort. It now feels like summer.

Big Ring Rumpus

The Big Ring Rumpus is a dirt circuit race thinly veiled as a mountain bike race. It is in it's second year of existence and is part of the EFTA sanctioned MTB race series. Cathy and I both did the race last year and had a good time despite some crazy weather and Cathy wanted to do it this year so we figured that we'd give it another go this season.

The alternatives were to road race on Saturday in Maine, which I was all for but Cathy wanted no part of citing the fact that the women don't actually race save the last 50 meters. The men's 35+ masters field had a very small draw at the race as well so I wasn't all in. The 1/2/3 race was almost all young and really strong guys and I wasn't sure I really wanted to go that route either. There was a alternative MTB race on Sunday, Domnarski Farm which is part of the USA Cycling sanctioned Root 66 series and is promoted by a really good guy, Matt, whose family also owns the place. As much as I wanted to support him and the series, the extra hour drive for a course that was, from past experience, a little on the wet and muddy side wasn't super appealing either.

So, the Rumpus it was. The course is not terribly interesting as it is basically a 4 mile mix of old railroad bed and access road double-track with a small section of cyclocross style taped course at the lap/finish. In that diverse mix of terrain there were a couple of small rises, a number of sections that had a few rocks and maybe a half dozen semi interesting high speed corners. What the course lacked in detail it made up for in speed. It's always funny how going crazy fast can make something that is pretty mundane, really interesting and challenging. Taking some of those corners at or near 20mph was indeed, interesting.

We lucked out in terms of weather and got sunny blue skies with temperatures in the mid to upper 70's. Given the lack of sun and warm weather that we have had thus far this season, it seemed down right hot out. Still much better than the crazy showers that we got last year. Pre-registration for the event in the Men's Elite field, which I stupidly chose to enter once again, was thin and of those registered, a total of 5 of us, I self ranked myself cleanly at the bottom end. Good to be optimistic with oneself up front. At the start line it became evident that there were at least a few others that decided to join in on the fun. That's always a good thing.

I'd tried to take some downtime and get some legitimate recovery for my weary self so was actually feeling pretty good. In truth, my pessimism was actually thinly veiled, not trying to be overly confident, optimism. I knew the guys that I was racing and had raced against them all in the past. This crew included JB, Dylan, Brian W. and Andrew Freye as well as a few unknowns. The main guys all crush me in cyclocross and I've had mixed results in MTB but I was in hopes that this may play out more like a road race and I could suck wheel and hang, maybe. Time would tell.

From the go the pace was high, and continued to bump for the first lap or so with everyone except me taking digs. We then stabilized a bit and folks started to get antsy. Then the attacks started. Freye was putting in some digs and generally not playing well with others; basically racing it like an MTB race. However, given the nature of this race, I could tell others were taking exception to this. All the time I was trying to conserve and let the infighting go on and hopefully soften the competition. Late in the 3rd lap we'd just finished some digs and I took a stab at breaking things up by launching really hard. Unfortunately, they let me go and nobody wanted any part of the action. This felt awkwardly familiar, very similar to so many road races. As soon as I realized that I was solo I made the decision to sit up and recover as much as possible for the coming freight train and likely counter attack.


Luckily the catch was near the taped cyclocross style finish area so it wasn't that bad. I did get gapped a bit through the feed as did Freye and I had to bust it to get back on. Through the start area on the long slightly uphill railroad bed section Freye had been gapped a bit but despite a hard pace by the lead, he managed to get back on. Everyone took turns pulling and I could tell that an earnest attack was in the wind. Sure enough it came at the worst of times, when I was on the back and a split opened between Freye, myself and the rest of the group, being driven really, really hard by Dylan. This kept up for a really, really long time and despite trying our hardest, we couldn't get back. We dangled for a lap falling further and further back until they were gone. Within another lap, after he and I working well together, I was solo as he'd had enough. In the process I did manage to gain a large train of 50+ racers who sat on my wheel after I caught and passed through them. Not entirely comfortable with impacting the outcome of their race I went hard, for as long as I could, which turned out to be the remainder of the race. This shelled all but Bob B. from my draft, netting him his category win. I just couldn't get rid of him but didn't feel comfortable working with him either so just TT'd it in for the rest of the race.

In the end I finished up in 4th place, a little more than 2 minutes back of the leaders who I believe stayed together working as a group until near the end. I'm disappointed in myself for launching a stupid attack and then for letting myself get popped off the back. That said, I felt pretty darn good all day and went steady and hard the entire time. I didn't give up and I didn't slouch. Had the lead splintered more I think I may have had a chance but those guys all know how to race a race like this one so it was not to be. The numbers went something like this, just about 32 miles in 1:37:19 with an average speed of 19.5mph. That would have been the 4th fastest time of the day if pro-rated to match the other races slightly fewer laps. Not as good as last year in terms of a result but almost 6 minutes faster on the same course, albeit with slightly better conditions. Not bad and I can live with it.

Cathy had a great race as well and won her category, again this year. She has been doing truly super in the dirt. Once I get all of the 411 worked out on the 29er platform I foresee a new bike in her future. She is tall enough that a 29er may make sense for her as well, as long as we can get by the weight penalty issue, particularly in the wheels.

The new bike dialed in at a respectable 26.2# as it sits.

Speaking of 29ers, my new bike, the 2011 Specialized Epic Expert Carbon 29er, in it's final configuration performed flawlessly. The good folks at the Cycle Loft got her back up and running after a premature bottom bracket failure during the previous race. Configuration changes to the bike included a new (to me) set of 2011 Easton Haven 29er alloy wheels, some super lightweight and inexpensive rotors and a matching set of 1.95" Specialized Renegade minimal tread tires. Some suspension tweaks and the bike just worked great. The bike was absolutely railing the corners and pedaled great on the flats both seated and standing. They really god the Brain Fade system worked out nicely. I'm looking very forward to lots more quality time on it in the near future.

Natural Instinct

I've often heard about natural instinct, particularly in wild animals, but it isn't all that often that I've had the opportunity to witness it first hand. On Friday, Cathy and I were riding MTB in Estabrook Woods on Two Rod Road, a miserably rocky and bumpy old colonial era cart path. I happened upon a small fawn (baby whitetail deer) who was on the trail headed in my direction ahead of me. He took a couple of steps and then literally, collapsed flat, legs splayed awkwardly and bizarre angles. The front legs dropped first and then the hind quarter sort of sank down to the ground, right there on the trail just in front of me.

Naturally, I feared the worst. With a baby this young, mama should be near but visibility was good in all directions as we were in a fern covered, coniferous/deciduous mixed forest with little undergrowth, save the ferns. We stopped near by not wanting to torment the poor little guy, whose eyes were open but who was making nary a movement. Every so often is nose would twitch just a bit, which proved he was still alive. Minds racing, we thought possibly his mother was dead and he was alone or possibly coyotes had been chasing him. Calm, soothing talk and pleading did no good so we decided to ride off well out of sight and then loop back and check on him. I was reluctant to take many pictures as it somehow seemed really morbid and wrong to be snapping pictures of an animal that was possibly in distress. It's amazing how a cute little helpless animal is cause for heart wrenching concern.

This doesn't look very comfortable.

When we looped back through, he was gone. In retrospect, I'm sure he was just practicing natural instinct, when faced by danger he gets low and remains still. Had he been 10' to the side of the trail, in the ferns, we never would have seen him. In fact, I'll bet that is where mom was. Anyhow, we were very relieved to see he was off on his way.

New Again

Last night my buddy PK and I ventured to the Greater Boston NEMBA MTB ride at my home trails over in the PR (aka the Landlocked Forest). I knew that the rides were going on but when I'd contacted another buddy, ThomP about riding last night, he'd told me his plan to attend and lead the A ride. He invited me to join and maybe take over as the tour guide, since I'm pretty familiar with the trails. It had been literally years since I'd done an organized NEMBA ride. In fact, the last ones I did were ones that I organized and lead in that very same area, many, many years ago. The previous century to be exact.

Why you may ask, have I avoided NEMBA rides like the plague for over a decade? It's not just the NEMBA rides, it's large scale organized group rides in general. Rides where the participants are unknown quantities tend to put me off. I'm not trying to be elitist or anything, it's just that with unknowns comes risk. Risk that folks will overestimate their ability. Risk that folks will be ill prepared. Increased risk that there will be mechanical incidents or god forbid, injury. Worst of all, risk that people will show up late. All of these cut into my ride time which is why, over the years, I've taken to cultivating and riding with only a very select group. You may at this point be saying to yourself, "wow, you're a dick", to which I'll reply "yes, but not necessarily for this particular reason". Time is limited and I'd much prefer to spend it riding vs. sitting around getting eaten by the bugs.

In years of both Cathy and I leading rides, particularly open rides including the old NEMBA rides, we found that each of the above points get wildly exploited. I got to the point where I was overly aggressive with the disclaimers on my rides, which if you have followed at all, I take pride in having elevated to an art form. Still, I would consistently get folks showing up who had drastically overestimated their ability which meant the rest of the group would suffer. Of course, Cathy would see the same though at one point she amassed a large group of many of the best female MTBers in the area that would regularly ride together. Other than that though, it was mayhem. This ultimately led to us withdrawing and become hermits, which other than a few forays back into the fold of society for some negative reinforcement, is primarily where we have been ever since.

We took time to stop and admire the flowers, not.

Anyhow, last night PK and I got an early start and a good hours ride in the PR before showing up to the 6PM ride at 6:10PM and still standing around for 10 minutes waiting to get started. Of course, we had the fast group end up being the last of roughly ten thousand to start, immediately putting us into lapped traffic. This was OK, except we lost ThomP who was monkeying around with his camera apparently, and didn't even notice. The first but not the last casualty of the take no prisoners/left for dead, I mean Smurfy rainbows, group hugs and hand holding ride. We had a good group that included some old friends and some new guys who I've raced with but had never actually met. Great stuff and one of the seldom cases where change is actually a good thing.

I basically looped around and did the same old trails that I always do; all of the trails, in mostly both directions. However, it was fun to be showing them to new people. There were also guys that were dogging me hard which was great as it kept me motivated. I tried to show everyone all of the secret or extra credit big boy lines, which also forced me to do the big boy lines. This is something I often avoid, either because I'm by myself or because I'm a big fat wuss. Regardless, I was full of new group courage and had a good time running with it. The fact that I was on the very sweet Yeti 575 fun-hog that Brian hooked me up hard on last year, didn't hurt either. That bike really rocks the trails in the PR if you have the suds to get onto the throttle. Brian was also there last night rolling on his slightly under-geared SS 29er MTB.

Other than a couple of minor logistical issues, such as the start, I had a great time and got a good old fashioned ass-whupping by the end. It's a tall order to lay down nearly 25 miles in the PR given the nature of the trails but when I rolled home on my second nearly flat rear tire of the night, that was what I had amassed. Today my legs are tired but not totally blown out. I'm hoping that some rest over the past week has something to do with that. My lower back and upper body is defiantly tired and sore though from wrestling the bike around on the tight twisties for over 2.5 hours. All in all, I'm thinking this is just the type of thing that I need to help keep things fresh if I can possibly work it into the "training plan". It will also be good to get a fresh crowd to put the smack on me and maybe help me suck less. It really is funny how cycling and life for that matter really is cyclical and that something old like leading NEMBA group rides, could become new again.

Strange Days

Storm rolling in with some very interesting colors.

Today was a very, very strange day indeed. Not just because it was the first day back to work after a very long weekend. Today started off just fine, in fact I rode my motorcycle in to work. I work in what could be referred to as a big ass factory, tucked well away from outside contact like windows and I also get to work early, well before most. Apparently at about 9AM there had been rain, winds and hail, at least in many local areas. It wasn't until later in the day though that the true course of the weather began top unfold and we got to experience the first real taste of tornadoes, at least the first that I've been exposed to.

Blue sky turned to pink and faded to an ominous yellowish green.

The initial warnings came mid day and seemed bizarre and remote. Later in the afternoon the weather radar lit up with some very interesting, typically reserved colors. The storms were forming in the western part of the state and they were coming east. I decided to leave a little early to beat the weather and already there was a brisk wind and very active cloud cover forming. When I got home I switched on the local weather and all of the local channels were going nuts. It was coming.

Shot with a flash from ground looking up at the sky.

Cathy and I watched for some time as the initial storm developed into a tornado that struck Springfield. At the same time it looked as though there was another, twin storm forming just north of the first. One that may track a little further north-east. The two storms eventually converged and laid a path of waste eastward for the next couple hours. Later, another storm developed over Springfield and then a third. Around that time a storm cell came into focus in southern NH on the MA border. That one looked like it might just be headed for us. Reluctantly, I broached the topic of readiness with Cathy and we pulled some stuff together and made a plan. Admitting the potential for danger or even disaster was the most surreal aspect of the whole night.

The light was extremely eerie and wrong.

Luckily, where we are in the state was spared. It looked questionable at a couple of different points but we simply got some spectacular lightening, rain and hail. All in all a pretty uneventful evening, at least as far as things worked themselves out. Regardless, not really something we were expecting or necessarily prepared for, though based on the statistics found in a quick search, it appears that tornadoes really aren't that rare an occurrence in the area. For that matter, they really aren't that rare anywhere in New England, even up north thought the intensity tends to remain on the low side for the most part. Fortunately we got lucky. This weather really is crazy. Strange days indeed, though maybe not quite as strange as we might imagine.

The sky oddly matched the color of our mudroom in ME, cantaloupe.