kdublog: Two Bike Lengths Too Far

Putting the final touches on things prior to headin' up to the Cascade Classic in Bend on Thursday. I had some reservations about traveling to Bend - usually, it's an all day ordeal gettin' up there to see family. Multiple connections (CLD-LAX-SFO-PDX-RDM), and anytime you have to set down in San Francisco, it's a crap shoot on whether or not you'll actually make it out of there, it seems. A couple of years ago during the holidays, we actually had to rent a car and drive from SFO to Bend, since United wasn't going to be able to get us on a plane for two days!

Well, now, there is a direct flight out of LAX into Redmond/Bend - so that makes life a little bit easier. Course, now I have to negotiate LA traffic and the long haul from long term parking to the terminal. Oh, well, at least once I am on the plane I'll more than likely make it to the destination!

Anyway, this weekend I was up at La Mirada doing the bike racing thing. Finally got the chance to shake hands with Il Marco of :

http://marcofanelli.blogspot.com/

didn't have much time to chat as I was staging for the 35+ race, but it's always nice to put a name with a face! Dood can ride a bike and I totally dig his writing. He's got some real gems in his blog.

I did the 3's race last year and it kinda hurt. I was 74 kg's at the time, so that might have had something to do with it! :-)

This year, I'm a wee bit lighter, and a wee-bit more fit - but this bike racing stuff still kinda hurts, eh? Yeah, so the 35+ race gets going, lots of teams with lots of doodz, and then there are the lone-wolves like me.

Second or third lap, a big group of guys (what looks like good representation from all the teams - Cynergy, NOW, CCM, etc..) goes up the road - maybe 8 guys? They've got maybe a 10-15 second gap, so I go across to them on the hill just after turn 1. I popped across straight away and immediately went to the front of the group to force the pace. No one else seems to motivated to drive this thing. Mark Scott trades a few pulls with me and one other guy on the little downhill section after turn two. No one else even sniffs the front...

So, I sat up and waited for the catch. That didn't take too long.

This move was countered, and from what I vaguely remember, this move turns out to be the winning one. arggh...

I sat around and watched the break consolidate with 5-6 guys and hold pretty steady at 25 seconds or so. Damn, I could probably make it across if it was at 15 seconds. The gap didn't budge much and the pace seemed to really slow down in the main bunch on the hill - so, crap, I decided to completely sell-out and try to make it across.

Guess what? I drilled it for a little more than a minute at ~8 W/kg:

and found out the hard way that the gap was...

...two bike lengths too far.

All I could hear in my head when I was bearing down on the break were the words of my brother, Kirk, from 15 years ago after some other race where I didn't seal the deal on a bridge attempt:

"when you get that close, you just gotta close it".

easier said than done! Seriously, I was less than two bike lengths from latching onto that winning move, but I detonated just as those guys started doing a bit of attacking on one another...

I coasted a bit and re-joined the field where I basically sat in, recovered, and watched for awhile. The finale turned out to be a bit of prolonged drag race, as it was strung out in the final rolly finishing stretch - I picked off a few guys on the way to the line - maybe 6th or so in the field sprint, and 11th or so overall.

It felt like I was actually able to race my bike out there - which doesn't always happen with me and my low horsepower motor! :-)

Did my last "fill" ride today, Sunday. Drilled it up Palomar mountain from the store to the store for you so cal folk - well, actually, I only really drilled it from the stor to the 4000' mark, then cruised up to the top. Here's a video I took just short of the T intersection at the top looking towards the south - pretty hazy and not too clear...