If you don't try...

...you win nothing!

I don't know for sure when I heard that - probably during some CBS tour de france coverage, or maybe it was ESPN... but it was pretty memorable for me, those words of phil ligget (or was it paul sherwin?). This weekend of racing was a bit odd in that respect - In the earlier race of this year, I've pretty much just been taking what was given - you know, if it is pretty clear that things are going to stay together, well, don't bother trying anything - it's just futility!

Well, bike races aren't WON with that kind of mentality, are they!?

Saturday was an interesting day down at the Del Mar Crit here in SoCal - rode down to the race with my teammates, Kevin and Fran. Had a good chat with Fran who comes from Connecticut - we got to talkin' about some of the terrain around Wilton (which is where I worked for Brand S back in the day). Speaking of which, Wilton, back in 1998 or so, was the first experience I had with a power meter. My boss back then gave me an SRM to train with and/or play around with - I can remember religiously setting that thing up -> spinning the cranks backwards and everything to get the zero offset right... Course, I don't ever remember pushing any buttons on the controller after that (i.e, I don't know if I ever zero'd it out before a ride...) ah, crap, those files from back in the day all died at the same time that IBM thinkpad hard drive that I downloaded everything to kicked the can...

Anyway, I digress..

I felt like a bit of an oddball on the ride down to the Del Mar race, everyone had their new bikes all set up and dialed in. We are riding Cannondale system six frames, and are left on our own to get the rest dialed in to our liking. Well, I've got a bit of a power meter affliction, so I've been delaying building my new frame up until I'd gotten the whole power meter thing worked out. The cannondale uses an SI bottom bracket, so that meant I'd need a new SRM powermeter - Jason Yanota over at www.thebikeage.com hooked me up with a deal on the PM portion, and I figured that all I needed was an SI crankarm and lockring (www.wiredbike.com) to complete the assembly...

Well, as it turns out, the systemsix cdale shipped with their carbon crank and BB - not your standard SI hollowgram BB assembly... Not sure what my options are now - I'll be giving the folks at Cdale a call tomorrow to see what needs to happen to make this thing work!

Anyway, I might be racing that beast (the frame looks pretty cool, though, the aerodynamics freak in me is kinda wigged out about the shear size of that head tube!), without power. Oh, the shock and horror! :-)

So, the Del Mar race was pretty cool - it was a parking lot crit in the main area of the Del Mar fairgrounds - you started out near the main entrance to the horse race stadium and worked your way out to where the big ferris wheel is during the fair. Had a bunch of teammates in there, Dave, Kevin, Fran, Mike - it was neat to have familiar faces in there! It was pretty darn cold, and I seemed to have a bit of an issue with that, as a couple times when I tried to go hard, my left pinkie toe (then later, my whole left leg...) seized up in a weird cramp.

Hung out during the race and gave it a go a time or two - the course had a long finish stretch where I wound up officially taking 12th on the day - a few guys came around me at the line, my left leg was a screamin' - couldn't really put any pressure on the pedals with that side. Oh well, that's bike racin'!

Sat around and watched my teammate, Kevin, ride a real strong race in the subsequent 45+ race - he wound up taking fourth overall in the series - if only I was 10 years older, I might have been able to help him in those last few laps! Give me a few more years, buddy, I'll be old enough sooner or later! :-)

Here's the screenshot of the days 35+ race:



Today (Sunday) I took a solo trip up to Ontario and did the 3's race immediately followed by the 30+ race.

My observation about the few 3's races I've done lately, is that the crits don't really get hard consistently - by that, I mean it goes hard for a bit, but then everyone sits up and recovers. A good example of this is after I drilled it hard first big hump in the 3's race screenshot below:



and then when I eased up a bit, everyone sat up - so I gave it a go again for a wee bit. My thinking was, surely, someone would sense that it was a great time to counter and give it a go - instead, all I got was a curt "why'd you stop pedaling" from the Ranchos guy on my wheel. Sounds like someone had some reserves to give it a go...

Anyway, after that bit of futility, I wound up just sitting at the back and waiting for the 30+ race. Well, I did move up a bit with two laps to go and try to sprint, yeah, I'm all fast twitch baby! ;-)

Got housed pretty good in the finale - oh well...

30+ race started easy - tailgunned it for 10 minutes or so - well, almost tailgunned it - Thurlow Rogers was behind me tailgunnin' it even better than me! Things hotted up after 15 minutes or so and I snuck my way into a move or two...

With 3 to go or so, I followed a move by Frank Schroeder (THE MAN behind Schroeder Iron) and once he and I were covered by the Cynergy boyz, I kept on going - ya know, if you don't try, you win nothing!!!

I got small gap and before you know it, Thurlow (Synance), Bradley (Schroeder Iron), and a Cynergy guy came up to me - had to give it everything I had to stick with them as they flew past me. Sat on for a bit and then rolled through (mistake...) near the S/F line with two to go.

Wound up gettin' dropped by these guys with a lap and a half to go - totally tapped at that point! Sat up as the field went by and that was that. Hey, that's bike racin'!

Felt pretty good on the day - no leg issues or whatnot, and feel satisfied with trying to do something on the day.

Next week!

Peace,

-kraig