Kings Valley...a dismal failure

 So...Kings Valley has come and gone again this year. I had high hopes heading into the race as I knew my power was there and my weight has been dropping. The conditions were perfect this year with temps in the 60's and a nice south wind, which would make the back side of the course perfect for breaking away.

The race started as expected...a few hard efforts, a couple people trying to establish an early break and basically the general feeling out that takes place during a race. The Masters 3/4/5 field was "HUGE" with 80 riders starting the race.

Up the first climb we were not going that fast...but it opened up a great opportunity to start a break. As we crested the hill I accelerated to catch a guy that had gaped the field by a short distance. When I reached him two others had jumped with me and we had a solid group of 4.

I knew one of the members of the break as he was a former teammate and a strong rider. One of the other riders appeared to be very strong as well...but the 4th member didn't seem very strong as he couldn't pull through on a downhill section.

By the bottom of the hill (spanning about 3 miles) we had opened up a gap of 40-50 seconds and were opening it up.

Then came a sharp right hand turn when everything went downhill for me. Before entering the corner the lead guy wasn't holding his line, which caused me to brake hard...then we made it through the corner...so I thought. Just after hitting the backside of the apex I was on the ground...HARD. The only thing I can recall is  the weakest guy blew through the corner, didn't hold his line and took my front wheel out...but I can't totally verify if this is true because of how quickly it happened.

Looking back at my Garmin data I hit the ground at 29.8 mph...the crash destroyed my custom Tsunami frame and most of the components on my bike as seen by the photos below:

 As you can see by the right seat stay, it's bowed inwards...when it should be straight like the left side.

The right side chainstay got dented and has a small gash now. I'm really not sure how this happened unless my bike was hit from the back side because I basically just laid the bike down from my recollection.

Both shifters were broken in the crash. The front shifter paddle broke off, the rear shifter was bent and the paddle damaged in the crash. The bars were also damaged as you don't see the bar tape worn off and all the gashes on the side of the handlebar.


Other parts that were broken in the crash: The saddle was destroyed as the sides were worn off as it skidded down the road. Both tubular tires are trashed with the rear tire rubbing on the chainstay and the front now punctured...so there is another $200.00 or so to get new tires glued onto the wheels...however the wheels appear to have made it through the crash extremely well. With that said...I'll highly recommend Corsa Concepts for wheels if you are looking as they are fairly light and "Extremely" well built (hand built in house).

Here is a picture of my helmet...another casualty of the crash. There are several cracks in the helmet now and it shows the importance of wearing your helmet.

I also lost my brand new team kit as both the jersey and shorts were shredded.


With all the damage to my bike and it being totaled...on the way home wife told me to just buy a new bike. So with that in mind, after cleaning my wounds up...I headed out after the race and did a little bike shopping. I really wanted a Scott Foil 40 but couldn't find one around in my size and the extra money for it just didn't seem worth it for a bike that could end up like my Tsunami.

Knowing the geometry of many, many bikes...I decided to go and pick up a new Cannondal CAAD10 (4). I had them put a new top cap on the headset that dropped the bars by 1.5cm (stock is 25mm, replacement is 10mm). I then added a -17 degree Thompson stem I already had and a Thompson 0 degree seat post. I also replaced the saddle with a Specialized Romin, which so far I really like and the bars with some Pro Vibe 7 round bend bars I already had to give me a lower position in the drops.

I'm still a little taller than I want to be, but overall the bike fits really well. It came in a little lighter than I expected an $1800 bike to be. With two cages, my Powertap training wheels and Garmin computer it weighs in at 17.13 pounds. With my race wheels on it will come in right at 16 pounds...not bad for a Rival equipped, aluminum framed bike.

Overall...a crappy day on the bike, but I should heal up quickly and am already planning a 3+ hour ride on the new Cannondale tomorrow...to better associate myself with the new bike...Bonding time and all. I'll probably get in some good climbing and enjoy some extra gearing as I now have a compact crank instead of standard, which I needed for the steeper sections (over 8% grades). I will likely eventually replace the stock crank with a SRAM Red or Force compact with 50x36 gearing instead of 50x34 since I think it will fit me perfectly.

Anyway...a dismal race, some injuries, a totaled bike and a new bike. Quite the Saturday for me...hope your's was better.

PIR ITT #1

This past Sunday was the first of two ITT's at Portland International Raceway. The Time Trial is 6 laps and around 11.5 miles in length. This is the 2nd year they have hosted an ITT at PIR and last year's was great, so I expected a similar experience again this year.

With the length of the track and riders going off at 1 minute intervals the largest number of riders on the track at any given time would be around 30, which on a nearly two mile track means lots of room to move around and constant carrots to chase on the track.

The weather was great with temperatures in the low 60 degree range, but there was a good headwind down the front straight, which is the longest and straightest part of the race. The back stretch had a tailwind but was the most protected from the wind, so it didn't quite make up time wise that was lost on the front straight.

Looking at my times, I went out fast on the first lap then fell off for the second lap. After that I leveled off until the 5th lap that was a little slower, the picked it up for the final lap.

I was hoping to beat my time from last year, but the wind conditions made that hard and from the times it seems like overall...everybody was slower than last year. Comparing the times I was 4 seconds slower this year than last, but when looking at my overall placement I was higher placed than last year.

I ended up with a time of 25:18 with an average speed of 27.1 mph and 2nd in the Masters 40+ division...Overall I had the 5th fastest time on the day (though two of those times were by the same rider racing in different categories) and was the 4th fastest rider on the track.

I'm pretty happy with the result as this is around 7 weeks earlier in the season than when this race took place last year and my weight is finally starting to get down to where it needs to be. I hit a dehydrated 194 pounds last week, but morning weights are closer to 197-198 pounds...so I still need to drop another 8-10 pounds to be where I want.

I'm planning on racing Kings Valley this weekend, which looks to be another nice weather weekend...should be interesting to see how that goes this year.

Banana Belt III

This was an unplanned race, however Team Oregon was having their training camp this weekend, which I really wanted to attend...but my wife had to be out of town (Seattle) for work and I had some important meetings on Friday that I had to attend...so I skipped out on the camp. 

With that in mind there was no group ride this weekend with the team out of town and I wanted a good hard ride this weekend so I decided to go race. Hagg lake is located about 20 minutes from where I live. I've done this race in the past and clockwise have done well, counterclockwise not so well. This year due to road conditions (i.e. lots of asphalt erosion) all races were in the counterclockwise direction.

I wasn't planning on racing any of these races knowing the direction...but, it was a good opportunity to race, get in a good workout and see where I'm at with the field knowing I still need to drop about 10-12 pounds (I'm down to 200 now).

The other aspect this year was they added a lap to the masters field (5 laps now) and lowered the age from 40+ to 35+ which brought more people to the race. As it turns out it was the largest field of the day with 42 people racing.

Most of the course I am fine on because the hills are not too steep and I can draft up most of them to stay with the field...but there are two hills on the course I struggle with in this direction. One is called "The Wall" which is about 150 feet of vertical climbing over a .25 mile distance and averages around 9%...the other is the finishing hill which isn't as long, but is about as steep. 

To stay with the pack I was doing the "Pack Slide" through the entire race on those climbs...working my way to the front before the climb then drifting back. I almost lost touch with the field on the 3rd lap but was able to TT my way back on when the climb leveled off a bunch. The 4th and 5th laps I didn't have any problem hanging on to the back as I think people were getting tired.

With about 3 miles to go the field started getting "Sketchy" and people started bumping more and rubbing tires...which told me people were tired. 

Knowing I wasn't going to be able to contend on the finishing hill which would have been for 5th or 6th place as a group of 4 - 5 got off the front on the 3rd lap...I drifted back and let the pack go since I had accomplished what I wanted...Not get dropped! I ended up 37th out of 42 but was with the pack at the end of the race. Out of the 42 that entered with at least half the field being CAT 1/2 racers, Pro MTB'ers or former Pro Road Cyclists...so I felt good overall especially knowing I have weight to lose.

The other part of the race was I got to play with my new toy...I purchased a Garmin 500 computer! I've wanted one for a while not and decided...I'm just going to purchase the thing and enjoy it :) It's chalked full of features and uploading my data onto STRAVA and seeing how I compare to others in the "Competition" areas is fun.

Overall a good day of racing and what I needed this weekend...next race up is the PIR ITT.

Jack Frost ITT

So...the first race of the season came around, the Jack Frost ITT. I've done this race 5 years in a row now and really enjoy it as an early season fitness test.

This year was the first year I've ridden it when the weather was less than ideal. Temps were in the mid/upper 30's and at one time we had some sleet coming down while I was on the course.

Overall...this race was a mess for me.

It started out before I even got to warm up. I had my bike set up on my trainer, tested it out to make sure tension was right and waited for my time to get warming up. The time came around and I jumped on my trainer and some God awful sounds started emanating from the trainer...blown bearing!

Knowing Russel Cree @ UEF Fitness had some extra trainers for use and he's one of my teams sponsors, I took off for his tent. He had several trainers for use and I was able to get a good warm up.

Off to the start after my warm up things were going OK. Once under way, I caught my 30 second man about a mile into the race...however, I noticed my computer started cutting out every now and then. Seemed to go out for 5-8 seconds at a time and I don't know how many times it cut out during the race.

With the computer problems going on I just tried to pay attention to my HR and push hard to the turn around.

At the turn around I came in a little hot so I grabbed my brakes, but the rear wheel started to lock up and my reactions kicked in and I let off the rear brake and grabbed a bit more front brake...however on my TT bike I have my brakes set up backwards...so I actually grabbed more rear brake and less front brake resulting in me laying down my bike at the turn around going about 15 mph.

Getting up, I had scraped up my hand, my arm and my leg. I gave a "QUICK" glance at my bike and everything looked OK so I started to run around the turn around cone...but that wasn't working so I re-adjusted my pedals and jumped back on my bike.

Under way again...About 10 seconds later I noticed my saddle had turned significantly to the left. So I had to try and grab it between my legs and quickly twist my body to straighten it out. After about three tries I was able to get it into a sufficient position and was able to finish the race strong.

Overall I had a time of 28:29 for a 20K ITT...which all things considered wasn't bad. I was on pace to beat my course record of 27:52 had I not crashed and probably would have run close to 27:45 with good luck. But such is life.

All told on the day: One broken trainer, one set of bib knickers ruined, one broken buckle on my shoe, one ruined shoe cover, a fair amount of road rash. So it was a pretty expensive day on the bike. But on the bright side...I found out the trainer was bad when I had access to others and have time to replace it, my bib knickers were ready to be retired and I was able to replace the buckle with one from an older shoe I had retired. So for the most part I've repaired most of the damage.

At least one race is down and out of the way.

As for the rest of the season...I've still got work to do in getting the weight off. My power is good for this time of the year but I've got 15'ish pounds to lose and I've stalled out for the last 3 weeks or so...so I've got to do a better job of watching my diet over the next 6 weeks to get the weight off.

Next race will likely be Kings Valley, but I might race a Banana Belt race if conditions are good and maybe Piece of Cake if conditions are good.

For now though...time to heal up, drop some weight and add more power to my FTP.

New race season is just around the corner

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog, but the racing season is near, so it’s time to get it started again.

For 2011 I had a total of 627 hours of total training time (outside riding and trainer time combined). I don’t know my actual outside mileage totals but if you take the total ride time it would equate to a little over 12,500 miles for the year.

With the new season nearing, I had a decision to make when it came to my team. I had been considering changing teams for the past year or so, but hadn’t done so because of our Team Time Trial team and a few other reasons … But overall, I just felt my philosophy when it came to racing was different than some others on the team. It also seemed that there was a movement toward Cyclocross being a priority for the team and road racing less so. Since I don’t race Cross…I felt like I was growing farther and farther apart from them.

So with all that said, I decided it was finally time to move from Portland Velo after 4 great years and lots of friendships … and will be racing for Team Oregon this season.  I have several reason for moving to Team Oregon, the biggest of which is logistics since they start their group rides about 6 miles from my home and I can ride to/from the rides for a few extra miles. Other than that, they are a road oriented team (who also participate in cross, MTB and track) with an elite CAT 1/2 squad, of which I don’t plan on moving beyond a CAT 3, but will enjoy training with some of them.

My training is fairly on track right now compared to seasons past with my top end/sprinting power better than normal. I actually set a new 5 second power number (1418 watts) in December during a sprint that I didn’t put everything into and didn’t even realize it was a new PR until nearly a month later. That was also the first time I had held over 900 watts for 30 seconds in a while…So, the light/high rep lifting I’ve been doing during the fall/winter seems to have helped my sprinting.

As far as my weight goes, I’m about where I normally am this time of the year … maybe a few pounds below normal. I started the year at 215 pounds (normally 225-230 pounds) on January 1^st of the year and have lost 7 pounds during January. This is a little slower weight loss than normal, but has me on track to be 190 pounds by the end of March/beginning of April when I start to hit the road races. I’ve really focused the last two weeks on weight loss which is where most of the 7 pounds happened and plan to keep this up for the next two months, which might get me to 190 mid-March, which would be great.

As for my race season…I’m looking at most of the same races as I did last year by competing in:

·         Jack Frost TT (late February)

·         Piece of Cake (early April – Maybe)

·         Kings Valley (mid April)

·         PIR TT (two races this season)

·         Eugene Roubaix (late April)

·         State Championship road race (Mid May)

·         ITT Championships (Late June)

·         TTT Championships (early June – if my new team has one)

·         Eugene Celebration stage race (depending on whether I have time and what type of shape I’m in)

Overall…I’m looking forward to another season, though with a new team. I look forward to seeing many of my old teammates at the races and hope they take it easy on me J

August Numbers...

Overall the month of August saw less riding that July...though a fair amount of that was due to my crash in the middle of the month that threw everything off.

Speaking of the crash...I'm finally, for the most part, healed up from the crash. I still have some visible areas where the road rash was on my knee and I'm finally bandage free from all areas of my body with my finger having it's final bandage yesterday (more than a month after the crash). My left index finger still doesn't bend all the way but I'm getting more and more mobility in it. I also had a banged up knee that hurt for a while but is feeling better now.

Numbers From August:

My numbers for the month of July look like this:

• Total hours on the bike: 58:03:24
• Total miles ridden: 1079.01 miles
• Total TSS: 3505
• Kilo joules of energy expended: 46726 kj

Even with the lower hours on the bike I still had over 1000 miles ridden and one stage race...so it was still a good month.

I've been continuing my riding since I'm not currently working, but have decided to stop with the really hard rides as my legs are just tired. Last week a bunch of teammates and I did the Timber route and overall I felt OK, but I had no top end left and I could feel that my legs were borderline dead.

With that said, I'm going into LSD work and just enjoying riding for as long as I can since the rainy season is coming around and hopefully a job will come my way soon. So I'm trying to get in a lot of lower intensity miles right now but am limiting my ride durations to 3 hours or so max to give my legs a break. When I climb, I'm trying to keep it at more of a tempo pace than near my threshold...though during group rides I'll probably push it a little, but I'm not going to hammer like I usually do and will let others ride up the road if my legs are not feeling it at all.

Overall for the race season this year, I'd call it a success...even though they canceled the Team Time Trial and the only real shot at a State Championship I had this year. My results on the year include:

Three road races races: 

• 3rd place - Kings Valley
• 5th Place - Silverton (State RR championships)
• 5th place - Eugene Roubaix

Three Time Trials:

• 1st place (PIR)
• 3rd place (State ITT championships)
• 5th place (Jack Frost)

One Stage Race (post crash):

• 27th in the prologue
• 31st in the road race
• 15th in the ITT
• 25th in the crit
• 28th overall

Now to take two months easy then start hitting intervals again starting in the beginning of December. I'm starting these earlier this year because I came into this season without as much top end as I would have liked and felt behind most of the season. I also plan on hitting them harder this year with more intervals in the 5 and 10 minute range instead of focusing on my 20 minute threshold power.

Eugene Celebration - Thoughts...

This was a race I had wanted to race for a while now and really enjoyed the format with only one road race in the mix. The start locations were all in different places, so we got to see a lot of the area around Eugene, OR. One of the nice things is the field sizes are not too large for this stage race, which generally makes the racing a little safer and easier to move around.

The courses are a nice mix of climbing, flat TT'ing and the road race is great for a climbing classics type of rider.

My only disappointment was crashing hard, two weeks before the race. I feel it really threw off my fitness not being able to taper properly and seemingly playing catch up for the week heading into the race. My legs felt good through the race, but never felt great and it felt like I had lost my top end speed over that two week period.

I do know that even without the crash I wouldn't have been in the top 5...but might have been able to stay in the road race to the final hill and finished in the top 15 instead of the bottom 20.

This is a race I'm looking at racing again next year as I really enjoyed it. Also considering it takes place 2.5 months after my last "A" race of the season it gives me enough time to work back toward a peak and drop some weight for the hill climbs. So...hopefully I'll get a chance to redeem myself next year with a better, more prepared race.

In the end, it was a great way to finish the season. I wasn't expecting to compete in this race, but it was fun. I had a good weekend of racing and spending time with great company in my teammates.

Congratulations to Jeff on an AWESOME GC win this weekend...it was well deserved. Heal quickly and enjoy bike shopping :)