Tour of the Hilltowns, race report

So I didn't make it to Mt. Snow this weekend, which is okay, because I think I am still a bit ski-resorted out from Pat's Peak. I figured something called "Tour of the Hilltowns" might be an adequate replacement, especially since I don't think I'll be doing any more road races this season.

BBB/ERC descending expert Nick Maggiore and I ventured out that direction with the help of Jason W. from Threshold. All of us were hanging out in the Cat-4 field.

The race started out with Nick going off the front in the descent. The main group did not do much work to chase, but it did string people out, which was ideal. Nick said, "I hate descending with the group." I would definitely agree. I was still on the brakes a little more than I would have liked.

It was definitely a good idea to stay near the front. When we hit the bad pavement, I heard rather unpleasant things behind me. While drafting someone, I knocked my wheel pretty good myself, which makes me glad that my race wheel of choice is the world class Aksium Race. Only the best. At one point during a flat section someone had a ridiculous blowout, which received cheers and jeers from a car that had stopped on the side of the road. Nascar fans, I suppose.

I was looking intently at my computer for mile 21-22 for the beginning of the climb, though there was no mistaking it when we found it. After a bit of suffering, someone in a passing car shouted "3 more miles to go!" My thoughts at that point were a mix of "Wow, really?" and "Yeah, fuck you dude." I stayed at the front of the group for the climb, hoping someone else would make a move, but nothing really happened and I didn't have the legs to do anything myself. At this point half the field got dropped, I think.

After cresting the climb the group stayed together, and made a half hearted attempt at pace lining for a while. It mostly worked and didn't at the same time. No real attacks went out until the beginning of the final stretch, but they didn't stick. People were hiding in the wind, the false flat didn't even seem so bad there were so many people in the group.

This was a bit disappointing to me, since I was hoping to employ the same "strategy" I used at Battenkill, which was to stay near the front, go with the break, and hope no one else could follow.

Towards the end the younger UVM rider in the group made a few half hearted attacks up the hill, which I responded to kind of pitifully, until the 1km mark, where I managed to stay on his wheel.

This is the point where I probably should have not sprinted for the 200m mark, some would classify that as a "bad tactical decision." Probably should have checked to see where exactly the race ended before starting it. I"ll chalk that one up to the mountain biker "suffer more than you need to" style of riding I usually employ. I still got a pack finish, which I am totally satisfied with since I've been told this is one of the harder races on the New England calendar. But I've definitely shelved any aspiration of trying to score some additional upgrade points for this year.

Mt. Snow this Sunday..

So yeah, I'm temporarily using the team blog as craigslist. Sorry.

Anyone who is racing Cat 1 at Mt. Snow this Sunday and going up that morning have an extra space in their car and leaving from the Boston area? I can meet you in most places and pay my way for gas.

Hit me up -- greg ---AT---- backbaybicycles.com.

Thanks.

the horror at harding hill road

i have wanted to do the horror at harding hill for 3 years now, admittedly more because i have been an hp lovecraft fan longer than i have been competitive on a bike. i didnt know how i would feel after the 24 hours of buttcheek devastation i recieved at pat peak - i actually lost feeling in my foot for a few days - so i didnt pregister or even commit to the race until the day before. but i felt ok, secured a ride from my friend tammy (my vehicle was spoken for) and headed to scenic sunapee new hampshire.

with a name like "the horror at harding hill" i was expecting the worst. i was praying (to the elder and unnamable gods, of course) that this wouldnt be another ski mountain climbfest like pats, killington or mt. snow. i wasnt sure how my already sore posterior would take more miles on the nose of the saddle. as it turned out, the course was pretty good - a real mountain bike race, with roots, rocks, ups, downs, mud and... more mud. with the spring and summer we have had, no amount of trail maintainence could hope to dry out the low sections.

we lined up in a huge field, and they released us in waves. i was a little skeptical of the picketts charge style start - it didnt work out so well at gettysburg, and it turned out sunapee was to be no different. as we went from the football field width of the line to the two abreast width of the trail, the casualties began to mount. someone cut across my front wheel, causing me to knock into another rider on my left, causing him to fall back and take out one or two more folks behind. lots of elbows, but no bad attitude - to every racers credit, regardless of jostling there wasnt much cursing or ass play (yes, ass play).

the hole shot was a joke - i funneled into the woods in like 40th place, and had my work cut out for me if i was to get up to the front. i rode through the bushes for a bit, taking a place here and there on the more open parts and finally shedding the pack about halfway through the first lap. i came up to the lone leader - im not sure of his mane, but ill remember how he shamed me in the mud for the rest of the season. another rider had caught on to us, and on the first serious mudbog, we we slogging it through and the initial leader absolutely dropped us. we were stuck looking at each other hopelessly as he tore through the section like a motocross racer. shit. usually i can out-tech people at a race to make up for my less than stellar climbing ability, but this season is proving very humbling to my once-better-than-average technical handling.

to make matters a bit worse, the kid who caught us was a much better climber than i was. i would catch on to the tech guy just as a climb started, only to get my heavy ass left behind as the other dude accelerated past on the hill. i had to get away - put a gap in - or else i had no chance in this race. i waited for the long-ish climb to shed the new hampshire mud bog champion and rode tempo to the top to catch the climber just after the summit when he was recovering. i was able to dig deep and gun it through a technical section of singletrack to put some time into him, and then had to ride a pretty steep tempo to stay clear.

i eventually won by about 30 seconds, and god damn what a fight. the kid who was so strong in the mud got pipped on the line for third, and the climber (god im terrible with names) put in a big accelleration near the end to close down a big part of the gap. kudos to all the racers, and the people who put the race on - it was a good course and a very competitive field.

hopefully usa cycling will grant my 3rd (!) attempt at an upgrade. i dont want to be THAT GUY.

24 hours of pats peak, solo.

after a moderately successful spring campaign, i put most of my racing on hold to train for my second big goal of the season (the first being battenkill). the 24 hours of pats peak was a race we won as a team last year, and i wanted to try my hand at it solo. also, that race seemed more low key and less competitive than great glen - when i registered, there were something like 3 other racers in the 24 hour solo category. there was also the notable absence of returning winner and 32 lap completing machine greg jancaitis. not going to lie - that somewhat informed my decision to try pats instead of the glen. the thought of having to put in 30-odd laps just to podium kind of made me want to die (there are 900 or so feet of elevation gain per lap, and if you are reading this blog you most likely know that i am not the most gazelle-like of climbers). so i committed: i read alot of training blogs, studied up on nutrition and made up a seemingly flawless plan - lap by lap - of how my race was going to go. i will now detail how that plan completely unraveled in six hour segments.

before the race - training:
as far as getting in the training rides i wanted, i was kneecapped by the god of rain and crappy weather - i was able to squeeze in a good set of intervals a few times a week, but riding with a wet ass for 4+ hours before work wasnt really happening. so i got the intensity, but not really the endurance training i wanted. in fact, i did almost all my training on the road - particularly on sundays, when i would do 40 or so miles then race at wells and go to work - about 70 miles with a good bit at race tempo was nice. as a side note, if you are going to heckle me about dropping out of the a/b race with 10 or 15 to go (after you have been crapped out the back and are waiting for them to come around again), please bear in mind that i have already done 40 miles with a few hill repeats AND have to be at work by noon. so suck it dry.

we got to pats about three hours before race time. the rest of the team had mostly arrived and begun setting up the campsite that with any luck i would not see again until the race was over. i double checked my box of food, made sure my lights and extra batteries (thanks greg!) were ready, tied on my number and went to the line.

the first six hours...
...were the hardest. we lined up for our running start, most of us bunched up along team lines. we had a 4 person team, lori and greg (whitney) doing the six hour race and me. i was standing next to the littleton bike folks, and met the guy who won last year (greg jancaitis). at the start, i went out fast, catching joushua and eventually greg (whitney). i tried to put in as much time at the front of the group while i felt fresh as i could; in the first few laps i built up an advantage over most of the field that i didnt lose over the course of the race (with, of course, one notable exception). on one of the early laps, i came upon lori, who had crashed pretty hard. she didnt look too good - her knee was pretty banged up and she was in obvious pain. i stayed with her for a minute, then went on to the house to let them know she was down. i was happy to see her roll through the start tent a few minutes later - battered but smiling, she had to abandon the race. unfortunately i had to keep going; i was starting to cramp up. i never cramp - i have almost no experience with muscle cramps, so i didnt really know what to do. grit teeth, keep moving. i drank some of the efs stuff, and ate a bannana... still crampy. on lap 3 or 4 i started lapping some folks, including a gentleman i will call The Thighmaster. The Thighmaster had stopped dead on after a bridge around a blind turn, and caused me to hit the brakes and lose it on a set of wet roots. i went down hard on my knee, and the back of my leg immediately tightened up. after just a few laps of racing, that wasnt exactly what i wanted. i hobbled through the rest of the course, and jancaitis came through to pass me. i sat for a few minutes, stuffed some rice into my face, and went back out.

hours 6-12...
were much easier for some reason. maybe mentally i had settled, or had just beaten my body into accepting its lot over the next few hours. jancaitis had established a 2 lap lead (that he held on to until the end) and we talked a bit in the start tent. he was a nice guy, and is getting married next month (congratulations!) to his fiancee that was his primary caretaker during the race. she ended up talking to caitlin (without whom i would have not made it through the race at all) and they kept each other company through the wee hours. i was a little bummed out by what a good decender greg is - i can usually pull back any time i lose on the climb on the slippery and fast descent, but he kept his distance. the guy isnt only strong, hes a good rider. its nice to ride with people like that - it keeps you honest and makes you want to get better. anyway, the night laps started out ok, then the storm rolled in.

hours 12-18...
were pretty miserable. it alternated between pouring rain and misting, patchy fog. the downhill section, tricky at best, became a squealy, brake pad destroying mess. by this time, i had a bit of a system going: i would do two laps fairly hard - stay on the bike, spin up the climbs, bomb the descent; and one lap more relaxed (we will call them "limp laps") - walk the end of the two big climbs, be conservative on the downhills etc. i went out for a fast lap at about 1:30 am (i could be totally wrong about the time...) and was putting in a really good pace when nature suddenly called. loudly. and not onesies, either. i stopped, dragged my bike into the woods, turned off my light so i wouldnt spotlight my junk for anyone riding by, and assumed the position. for some reason, i just wansnt positioned just right, so i went to turn the light back on to find a usable patch of ground. the light never came back on. check wire, check button, shake helmet. no light. im standing on top of a mountain in the rain with my pants around my ankles in complete darkness. oh, except for the occasional flashes of lightning. good work. now, it could be the fact that i had been riding pretty hard for 14 hours at this point, but i entirely lost the trail. i just wandered through the woods, stumbling and getting poked in the eyes with sticks. somehow i made it to a point a bit ahead of where i went off on my little adventure, and began riding the course in darkness. thankfully, i was pretty close to the end, so i didnt suffer more than minor heart failures when my wheel slipped a bit. i rolled in to the start tent about 10 minutes before they called a delay due to the storm. i laid on my back with my feet in the air for 45 minutes, then went out after they let people back on the course.

hours18-24...
...not so bad, considering. dawn came, and with it the realization that i had a somewhat firm lock on 2nd place. i didnt quite have the gas left to chase greg, so i settled in to just maintaining my lead. i pretty much stopped riding at 10am, as i was 5 laps up and pretty happy with where i was. i talked to george (the guy in third) and we went out on the worlds slowest lap together at 11:00, showing up in the start tent after noon and just happy to be done.

all in all, not a bad first race. for all the preparation i did, and all the food i prepared, i pretty much ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the rice stuff. caitlin got me some eggs and home fries for breakfast and i had about a bottle worth of recovery/ electrolyte drink per lap. i lost all feeling in my big toe on the left foot and have a seat-shaped bruise on my bum. hats off to the team as well - they kept our streak alive by winning a tightly contested battle with the very strong (and also very nice) team adrenalin guys. everyone was very supportive and helpful; caitlin was at the tent every single lap with food and words of encouragement (or stern motivation, depending on how haggard i looked) and steve drove us home after volunteering most of the night at the start tent.

Domnarski Farm MTB 7/05/09

"This is a hard course. It's like that because I want it to be that way."

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that is what Matt Domnarski said to us before we went off. Totally bad-ass. I figured a race with ten mile laps would be pretty brutal, but that confirmed my suspicions. This turned out to be probably the hardest race, technically, I've ever done.

I've heard the course has been un-rideable in years past, but it was just a bit wet. I still was pretty psyched that I kept my mud knobbies on, as the first section was a bit loose and off camber. The race started off with a small sprint to a rocky kicker, and I ended up slipping out and dismounting and remounting with the rest of the field. I took the first significant climb pretty well, and picked off a few people on my way up. Tim Daigneault was off the front and prompty dissapeared off my radar. Eric Carlson, David Maynard (I think), and a rider from Dartmouth, and Yeti guy (were they the same person?) were up ahead.

I was able to pick up quite a bit of time on the descents, and most of them were super fun. One in particular had a nice line through the center with a drop off the big rock thing. I got a bunch of lame XC air on some of the DH features, and nice big ring riding on the jeep roads. I passed Dartmouth guy on the first lap after the middle section, which I named "Fern Gully." There were some mud sections that were easy to get caught up in, and I had an affinity for their speed robbing properties. Most of the double track sections had nice side passages around large and deep water holes. Yeti guy and / or Dartmouth guy may have been behind me by the second lap, and I had caught up with Eric and David. In the start climb I stayed on Eric's wheel, at some point David fell behind in the middle and Eric had gone ahead a bit.

I managed to get back to Eric by the powerline climb. Near the top was a super technical looking Lynn woods/Vietnam style climb, the kind of shit that takes a few tries. On the first lap I ran up, but I noticed a line to the left that was in the grass and rideable, albeit a bit steep. I stayed on my bike the whole way up, and was able to put a decent sized gap on Eric. Juan Runster, who had worked with me at Battenkill way back in April, passed me up at the top of the $10 climb, and got ahead of me a bit in the descent. He was in the age group up, so I let him go after saying what's up. I cruised down the final descending section a second time, and finished in 2nd place with a time of 2:03:29 (Cat 1 19-29).

Jocelyn Gaudi came through as well, and placed third in her first ever XC race (Cat 2 Women 19-34). Very good work, indeed.

I really had a lot of fun and found that I actually raced a little better with a bit less pressure. I had done a 4-hour ride at Harold Parker the day prior, and was a little bit tired. Because of that, I wasn't too concerned about the hole-shot or my position for the first lap. I guess I can consider this a "tune-up" for Pat's Peak, where I'll be doing the 6-hour solo and XC race on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Also, props to the race organizer for the generous cash prizes in most fields. That was pretty awesome.

Keep an eye out for more news, BBB/ERC should have quite a contingent in Henniker this weekend with racers in the 6-hour solo, 24-hour solo, and 24-hour four man endurance categories.

Race Report : Putney West Hill MTB 6/28/09

At the end of one of the dimmest months on record, a group of intrepid BBB/ERC riders made the arduous trek from Allstontowne to Putney, VT for the 17th ever West Hill Shop MTB Race.

The course had not drained out as some might have speculated. I was glad that I brought my knobbies. The 800 feet of climbing per lap (which, I would assume meant 800 feet of descending as well) had an impact on that choice, too.

As it turned out, I was able to make significant times on the descents. I was climbing fairly well the entire time, but the slick trails forced me to sit on stuff that I could have powered through. My technical skills this year have been pretty shameful, but I found myself catching people on the descents who had passed me in the climbs.

It started out with a pretty good start, I think I was fourth or fifth when the group hit the first descent. A few riders began to break away from the front, with one or two crashing out and losing their positions. After the first lap I'd pretty much lost contact with anyone else in my category, and just had to hold on.

From pre-riding the course, I found a few slippery single-track climbs that were ridable, techinically, but I ended up running them to save time.

However, during one of those sections I had a horrible run in with the cramps. If you were there, you may have heard the screams. This definitely limited my efforts a bit, though I was able to get through it and finish a respectable 5th in Cat 1 19-29.

Erik Pettersson finished 9th in the Cat 2 30-39 class, in what turned out to be his first ever XC race. From what I understand, he had a pretty spectacular crash in one of the faster sections, catapulting himself off a ridge between two trees. Pretty awesome.

Lori Kohls had a respectable 1st place finish in the Cat 2 19-34 women. Way to go!