Monday, July 23, 2012

Pescadero, Little City and Misfortune

Ryan Malm and Ryan Odell both upgraded to the 3's and immediately snagged a good result. For this reason it was expected that I should do the same.  Under such pressure I knew I had to train like I've never trained before.  I knew this would be the make or break endeavor in this season.  So I sat down in front of the interweb and began to organize my super scientific approach to peaking at Pescadero.  I checked out cyclings tips - salute like a pro.  Obviously, I'm not delusional, so though I enjoyed the images from sprint wins, my focus was on the solo victory:
The Solo Victory
1. Ensure one’s jersey is fastened to the top and shall be perfectly aligned so all title sponsors are clearly visible.
2 One shall take a quick look behind prior to victory to gloat at the peloton’s futile second place sprint.
3. One shall prepare far in advance (preferably in front of mirror) for thee victory salute that shall be unleashed.  One shall look 100% confident that this has been done thousand times before.
4. One shall cloak all signs of fatigue at any cost.  A war-cry of aggression is acceptable emotion to be displayed.
5. One shall hold the victory salute for minimum of 20 seconds and heed placing hands on bars until soigneur approaches with towel and waterbottle directly before post-race interview.

Since I've shared this training secret I'm sure you can deduce how I did and won't even waste typing time on writing out my actual result.

Seriously though, Pescadero was a beautiful course. Hard race. Tons of climbing. I got into an early break that lasted only 2 climbs. On lap 2 I got gapped but was able to wait for Malm, who had done a ton of work on the front for a teammate earlier and the two of us were able to get back on. Sadly, I got popped at the start of the last lap, but was able to finish well enough without completely bonking. The next big event was Little City Stage Race south of Reno.

This did not go as planned.  I got a flat during my TT and crashed out of the crit about 40 minutes in.  I was able to dust off the bike and myself and did half of the road race the next day with a borrowed and suitably silly looking helment.  Mike Gonzales and I were able to at least put in some work before getting popped, and though I generally like to finish races even if I'm off the back, I played it safe after the previous days' mishap.  Malm, Ben and Matt had solid finishes in a highly dwindled pack.  I was pretty shocked at how much of the field didn't finish.

Yesterday my misfortune continued in a small way.  My dinky little cateye computer fell off 2 miles into the Wheelworks Race Ride and I figured rather than pulling over and wasting a bunch of time, I'd just look for it when we returned.  After the first sprint and the climbs a friend had some mechanical issues and the group wasn't willing to wait so the race ride turned into the Davis Masters Hammer Fest.  Six of us rotated pulls all the way back to Davis (though at certain points Bigs just pulled us all along).  Was it fast?  No idea, for when I returned to look for my computer I found it.
booyah

Exit question: I have had two of these cateyes pop off during a ride now.  Any suggestions on a similarly cheap computer with a more reliable snap in feature?

1 comment:

  1. Your picture isn't coming up again.
    Try a planet bike computer, cheaper than cateye and work just fine.

    ReplyDelete