Westlake Crit Race or the Tuesday Night World Championship Training Crit*

So, another week and another Crit. Had to run around like crazy; getting Gary's stuff and picking him up, getting out to the parking lot so we could get a warm up in. NP.
Ian, Jim (the new guy), Gary & I (Bob still hasn't gotten his Spin kit yet...which is cool) in the B's along with Tony from Lake Effect. Tom is riding in the A's. Yeah, Gary and I are going to need to move up to take a beating in the A's soon. Dave is recovering from walking pneumonia....but showed up to cheer us on and help with the race.

Oh, the Killer B's (Brent Evans & Brett Davis*) rode to the race, raced A's & then rode home....98 miles and 20.3 avg speed.....damn, I'm not worthy!

I think we had 25 or so "guys".....so off we go....the pace is at like 14mph so I go to the front to at least get the pace up a little bit and stay there for a couple of laps to warm up. We don't have a plan for today...Gary & I just want to see how we feel after riding 60+ miles on Monday. Jim does well by taking a couple of primes and then makes the mistake of jumping too soon after the A's go by us...he was riding really strong. We (SBR) end up taking all, 'cept one prime (congrats Ian!) Gary got a couple and I had one in a little sprint with Tony (he is going to be something if he keeps improving like he has been). We worked pretty hard and finished with a 4 & 5th place (Gary & I). It was a good workout.

The Stats:
1:34:43
35 miles
HR - 146 avg, 169 max
Speed - 22.2 avg, 34.9 max*
CAD - 96 avg, 138 max
Watts - 240 avg, 1038 max
starting temp - 76' ended at 73'F

Tonight is the Spin Group ride......

Thanks for reading,
Rick

Monday, Monday

What a great weekend. Monday rolls around and Gary and I take off at 1:10 PM and were looking to ride to Lakewood and back at an easy pace; Westlake crit is on Tuesday(s). We kept things pretty much under control until around 18 miles into it when we saw two people going the other way & one was wearing a Snakebite kit. So we take off back the other way at 25 mph to catch up to them and see who it is. Hey, it's Michelle and Christa! We chit chat and find out that they are going to Brecksville and back so we figure what the heck we'll tag along and ride with them to B-ville and back and then head back to B-ville again. On one of the trips down Ridge hill, a Harley rider comes up next to me and starts calling out my speed as I go down the hill and he seems to be having as much fun as I am descending! The weather is perfect; we discuss the merits of different power systems and computers among other things and have a nice ride. After Christa splits off, we head back to Michelle's house for a refill of water. Gary's wanting to keep going longer towards Lakewood; I'm thinking that we can add to the mileage once we get back to the b-ville area. Right before the Ridge road hill Jason rides up to us in his SBR kit; it's good to see him & we talk for a couple of minutes and get back at it. Good thing we didn't go waaaaaaay long, the 63.7 miles by the time we were back at my place were enough miles for me that day!

The stats:
4:35:29 (includes the break)
63.7 miles
HR - 129 avg, 170 max
Speed - 17.9 avg, 47.3 max
CAD - 92 avg, 133 max
Watts - 218 avg, 946 max
Climbing - 2300' F
Temp started at 85' and ended at 83'F

Just a brief note;
The Polar Power sensor can't be calibrated; the only way to test for accuracy is to have it directly compared to a Powertap or other system to see how close it is. If anyone wants to loan me their system, I'll check it out and report the difference. :-)
Again, I'm looking for consistency of the readings and if the actual wattage is off that's ok. The power option cost me around $200.00.....so I'm pretty happy with it so far.

A review of the Titus Modena is be out shortly.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

a friday nooner

well, that's what I wanted to do, it became a 1:30 pm ride by the time I finished up some quotes and a couple of conference calls. I jumped on the bike and headed out on my old stand by ride....my house to Valley View and back for a "quick" 20+. The weather looked great with just a few clouds and around 83'F. I met a Tri woman on a training ride....told her to check out the Snakebite Racing website for info and opened up the pace a bit. I'm feeling better but not great, but riding along with the iPod on and in the sun.......mmmmmm, yes. Oh, weight is at 156 now. :-)
I wanted to get in 25 or more so I kept going, noticing that the clouds were now rolling in, no worries, I'll get back in time. Well at the turn-a-round it started to sprinkle. Normally that would mean a bad ride....with the temps up, it was actually pretty nice so I rode the rest of the way back in the rain and didn't even mind that much. Now if it had been the typical 50'of earlier in the season......yuck.
Got home dirty but a smile on my face; ready for the long weekend with my son and relaxing. Hopefully a nice long ride for Monday afternoon is planned.

The stats:
1:29:10
26.6 miles
HR - 149 avg, 172 max
Speed - 17.9 avg, 45.1 max
CAD - 94 avg, 121 max
Watts - 255 avg, 913 max (This is a Polar system, and yes it is not as accurate as a $1000.00 powertap, but it is consistent) :-p
1220' of climbing
start temp 83', ending 75'F.

Just a side note...I agree with Brett; the doping needs to stop; you hate to think the only way these guys are winning is because of chemistry....

Thanks for reading and have a great Holiday weekend.
Rick

Getting back at it?

Well, after the Chip disaster, I was looking forward to getting back from the Chicago conference and getting back on the bike again. Getting back late Tuesday night left the Spin group ride Wednesday a possibility. Late as always, the only ride I was going to be able to do (and I almost missed this) was the C group ride. I bolted down to the park to beat the group there...dang it, still missed them & now I was going to have to go w/no warm up and go hard just to catch them. I did so and didn't feel too bad....cool!
I'm not anywhere close to 100%, but I had fun riding and doing the couple of climbs, sooooooooooo, we'll see how I feel after taking it easy this weekend.
The stats:
1:35:44.7
28.9 miles
HR - 147 avg, 171 max
speed - 18.1 avg, 36.3 max
CAD - 91 avg, 125 max
Watts - 255 avg, 909 max
Temp started at 89' max and cooled to 76'F

It was real nice to just ride and be in nice warm, dry weather!

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!
Rick

The Chip Race

Well, I haven't blogged since the RATL race where everything went SBR's way. Why? Cause I got sick as a dog on Sunday and have felt like crap since then. I wanted to try to help in any way with the race knowing for the that I wouldn't be able to finish the race and still go to a conference later that day. Ray, John, Gary, Peter, Jason, Peter, Jeff & I were there at the start and things seemed pretty good. I worked the first lap hard and went off the front on the downhill to stretch things out. Jason followed me, came around and then was seeing if I was going to come around him to attack the climb. Jeese, I knew I was already in trouble and just tried to set tempo up the climb. Ray came around and set tempo as everyone settled in. The second lap in the rollers found me drifting to the back and trying to recover and stay on. I didn't and got gapped; I made up most of the gap on the downhill and could have/should have buried myself to bridge on the climb when I figured that I didn't want to....getting worse off health wise didn't appeal to me nor did trying to go to 3 days of meetings already sick. So, for the first time, I DNF'd. No excuses, maybe I shouldn't have raced at all.
John has more details for the rest of the race....and a more positive spin on it.
The team lost some other guys that race also. The team worked as hard as they could; in the end Ray got 3rd, John 6th and Peter & Gary finished with the field. Good results, but I wasn't happy about DNF'ing and not helping enough.
Stats:
22:22.2
8.1 miles
HR - 163 avg, 174 max
speed - 21.6 avg, 43.9 max
CAD - 99 avg, 139 max
Watts - 298 avg, 954 max
starting temp, 58, ending 56'F

Hopefully I'll get over this soon and get back on it.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

RATL Race Summary for 5/12

Talk about an awesome CAT4 race! Ray, John, Jeff, Jason, Peter, Gary & I are getting ready. I wasn't going to race, but Jason's wife kindly offered to watch over my son if I wanted to race...oh, goody, I get to race. :-(
Before the race started; I was scoping around to see who was there so I could help John with the team strategy. I noticed that Darrin Kert from Stark was there, I went up to him and chatted for awhile about the race. He wanted to know...so, uh, how are your guys feeling? "Terrible, just terrible" I say laughing.
The race started pretty quick and at lap 3 I think, I saw Darren with another Stark guy making a move up the left side; I saw Gary up at the front and starting yelling at him to jump on Darren's wheel. Gary made the break (along with my buddy Noah from Summitt) that ended up staying away. During the race, John stayed on a GDIs (light blue kit on a colnago) wheels' who was real strong and kept trying to get away, Jeff, Peter and I rotated at the front blocking and Jason lived out in front setting tempo for much of the race it seemed. Ray (http://raysracingadventures.blogspot.com/) had an out of body experience by bridging up to the break (they had a 45 second gap I think). At the bell lap, the Colnago guy takes off hard again and I see that I'm closest guy to him, so I redline it to get on his wheel and and sit on him to keep him from opening up a gap and letting John get position to finish in the money & points. Gary ended up bringing home the victory in a dominating sprint, Ray came in 3rd, John E. finished in the money at 6th and I dragged across the line in 9th. Jason, Jeff and Peter gave all for the team effort....amazing!
Like Ray says, it's almost like you felt like a "pro" team the way we worked together.
The stats are:
50:15
19.6 miles
HR - 152 avg, 170 max
Speed - 23.4 avg, 32.7 max
CAD - 100 avg, 130 max
Watts - 343 avg, 1220(?) max

The one really bad thing that happened was a ugly wreck in the CAT 3 race. I hope the guys are OK.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

Westlake Crit Race B Group or NASCAR time

First race for me at Westlake - Chris does a great job at this and it a great way to get in a great workout, team tactic training and to see whose in shape vs riding into shape. The B group SBRs comprised of; Ian, Jason, Dave, Gary & I. Bob was covertly riding for SBR due to Spin not getting their kits in yet. Uh, what's up with dat? :-) Two Stark guys, some RGFs and assorted GDIs (Jim N) were in attendance.
17 laps of fun is what was promised. After about 3 laps, I had a brain fart and bolted up ahead of the group at the last turn and stuck it on 27 mph and got a decent gap on the group. Darrin Kert (Cervelo Soloist) from Stark comes up on me and I start thinking, hey this could be a nice break and make the field work. That dude is a horse; he sticks it on cruise control at 26 and wants to know if I'm serious about getting away. Sure, why not! Mind you, this is coming from a sprinter whose time trialing consists of.....oh, nothing. I was hurting some from the escape and the Stark guy was happy to just pull me til I recovered. Like a dumb a$$ I wanted to help out before I had recovered and he wisely pulled away after I pulled and couldn't maintain. Jason had waited to make a move and by the time he caught up to me I was going backwards quicker than forwards and I couldn't help him to bridge up, mistake #2. I ended up rejoin the group, getting recovered and then worked on getting Jason or Gary to break away into a chase group. That involved a couple of more big efforts, some blocking (or attempts of) but nothing sticked. The other Stark guy did an excellent job of blocking, slowing down any lame attempts of bring the break back.
What happened next was surreal; it's 2 laps to go and SBR finally gives up on chasing (or pretending to) and we fall back and get organized to do a 5 person lead out train for Dave. The bell laps sounds, we have formed in the back and the order is loosely figured out: Gary, me, Ian, Jason and then Dave. Coming out of the chicane, we have formed and Gary is starting to give it the gas on the left outside just inside the double yellow. We are moving up the side of the group and things are looking great and then the Stark guy suddenly decides he wants to occupy my space; he runs into me and in an instant our bodies/bikes collide. Call it luck, good training that Brent Evans gave me and my old team Windchill, I was able to get an elbow up and in front of the guy, hold both of us up and keep from going onto the other side of the road. Damn, that was close! And stupid.....nobody is perfect, but you have to look before moving into someone else's space. Nuf said. Needless to say that screwed up the momentum of our lead out, we tried to get it going again. Gary gave it the gas again, pulled off, I jumped and then realized that we were not all together. I sat up and waited for Jason to bring up Dave and try it again. Jason ended up muscling up to get second. A good effort from SBR, but we definitely need to do more work.

Stats:
1:26:15
32.9 miles
HR: 151 avg, 170 max
MPH: 23.5 avg, 32.2 max
watts: 258 avg, 955 max(?)
CAD: 97 avg, 128 max
temp:started at 80' ended at 73'

Thanks for Reading,
Rick

Goin' Where?

The horror, the horror.....
After spending the day before (following the RATL race) observing Gary's birthday and Cinco De Mayo, we were going to do the Emerald Necklace ride and I was going to get a chance to evaluate the long distance ride characteristics of my new Titus. Well, we showed up to the meeting spot and nobody else was there....np, we will leave some maps of the route and take off. I found out that my power meter & cadence wasn't working, bummer, but let's go head. It's like 9:15am and we start the climb out of the metro park on Riverview to R82 and bam! I look back and Gary is going nowhere fast. I'm thinking (hoping) that his chain just popped off, but a quick check with him and it had broken. Damn. Well the car is a short coast back so what the heck, we can fix it and then take off. Well, it looks like we now have another issue; my back tire on my car is flat. Double damn. Long story, short - we change the tire out for the deluxe donut, go to NTB to drop off the tire to get fixed cause no bike shops are open yet, go twice to BA for a chain link, find out they will not work....then decide to have Gary ride my Ritchey Ti cross bike and I'll do the Titus from my house. Finally, it's freak'n 12:30 by now. Jeese.
After 12-14 miles I noticed that Gary is having NO FUN AT ALL. I start thinking and then offer to switch bikes with him. Well, let's just say the Titus and him bonded, that I wasn't able to blow by him on the descents anymore and that he was a happy camper. We get into Chagrin Falls with smiles on our faces glad we could salvage the ride and that we should be able to get in more miles b/f turning around. We meet Lou (a nice guy riding around that says he likes to climb hills) in town and jump up the little steep climb out of town and then head for Riverview.....fantastic views....sweet ride.

Stats for the day (two separate charts)
3:48 time
56 miles
avg HR 131, max is messed up....
14.4-15.6 avg speed, 47.6 max
CAD avg 93 - max 124
3160' of climbing
no power due to failure of sending unit cable


Thanks for reading,
Rick

RATL Race Summary

So, another first for me. A completed RATL. Last year was clean out the knee time and before that, well, lets not go there. This is a prelim of the finished blog, more later.
Dr. John had come up with a plan for the SBR cat4 squad of: Jeff, Chris, Gary, John & I.
"The information on team strategy has has been edited, please stand by."
:-)
Jason couldn't make it due to some lame excuse about saving lives or something for his job, so he was a no-show.

Actually John has summed it up rather nicely, so I'll just add a couple of photos and send you to his site for a tasty write up as always.

Bottom line, team work from all - Jeff helping block (see picture), Gary pulling most of the last lap (among other times), I tried to lead out John and Chris when people started sitting up and for John "bring home the bacon" at 2nd place and Chris for a 4th! I sat up and cheered when John came around so Gary & I ended up finishing in the field. Sweet.

My stats for the race per the Polar 725X:
57:10 time
21.4 miles
22.5 avg - 33.7 max speed
100 avg - 137 max cadence
146 avg - 166 max HR
300 avg - 956 max (?) watts
741' of climbing

Thanks for reading,
Rick

Goin' Long Sunday

OK, it's time for an epic ride here in little old Cleveland. The Emerald Necklace, not to be confused with a "Pearl Necklace". :-)
Unlike Brett, I like to ride when it's not snowing...well, cyclocross doesn't count. Leave Brecksville at 9:00 Sunday morning.
The rest I have taken from Brett's site...yeah, I'm lazy.
When: Sunday May 6th. Ride starts promptly at 9:00am. Feel free to ride the entire route or join us for a portion of the ride. Call my cell (440-821-1878) on day of ride to meet up with the group along the way.

Start Place: Ride will start promptly at 9:00 am in Brecksville at Station Street Parking Lot located off Riverview just south of SR 82. We will be traveling the route counter clockwise.

Distance: 98 miles (+-)

Route: We will be traveling the route counter clockwise. The fourteen reservations of Cleveland Metroparks consist of over 20,000 acres of various landscapes and attractions for visitors to enjoy. The Park District is commonly referred to as the "Emerald Necklace" because the reservations encircle the city of Cleveland. (See attached map).

What to Bring:

1. Your bicycle (road bike, mtb, cyclocross, unicycle, your choice).
2. Fenders are a good idea if the roads are wet.
3. Spare tube and tools to fix any mechanicals.
4. A cell phone so someone can pick you up if you have a mechanical or if you bonk.
5. Money for food and water.

Support: None. This is an UN-SUPPORTED ride. There are no organized food stops and no sag wagon. Your only source for food and water is what you bring and what you can buy from gas stations, convenient stores, etc. You should plan to carry ALL necessary equipment/tools for bike mechanicals that may arise

Special Notes: This event will take place no matter the weather conditions, unless there is lightening. The pace will be brisk because we can’t take all day. If the weather is really bad and the pace is slow, you can always reroute or call your mama for a pick up.

lust, pure lust

Here is my baby on the table and then built out! Gary has really stepped up to the plate in helping me out while I'm gone on business and has taken my new baby (Titus Modena) to Spin to have the old Dura Ace 9spd parts swapped from the Specialized Allez Pro to the Titus.
The Specialized weighed 18.38 and the bare titus frame is 3.02 with the Reynolds fork at 1.14. I'm hoping for the same weight or less with the Titus as the Specialized.
I'll show the build out once I get back in town and should be racing on it this weekend. Wooooo Hooooooo!
The Titus came out as 18.8 which is a liitle more than I wanted, but it has been a real nice frame; just ask Gary. The frame brings a new meaning to "compact", wow, even more so than my Specialized. The steering is "different" on it but it's good at speed.
I still haven't ridden it for a long distance yet, but am looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading,
Rick