Death Ride Monday

Tim "watch me dance up the hill" F., Matt O, Michael "Coppi" L, Jason R., Martha B., Sadie "satan" D., Gary "bulldog" B & I meet after Martha, Gary & Sadie got to watch the B-ville parade...

well, it was 3 hills short of the full death ride.
4:23:58, 66.3 miles, over 17 mph avg speed and 4320 feet of climbing pretty much sums up what looked like to be a terrible day into a "perfect" one.

About half way though the ride: we lost Sadie, Jason, Martha (it was cool that they could ride that much with us) by then....Tim F's tire decides to flat and the SBR "NASCAR Pit Crew" takes over....Tim, stood around and gave directions, Gary & Matt take off the old and put on the new...then "fast hands" Michael takes over pumping up the tube. Man, where did he develop the muscles for that at?
:-D

Tim had to turn around next due to time constraints so it was down to four of us. We did (or got done by) Ira Rd, Oak Hill, then back on Riverview for the S hill climb. Michael "Coppi" L won the KOM with the rest of us trying to keep him honest or at least forcing him to sweat a little bit.

Big Fun...they will be another Death Ride, with ALL of the hills soon.

Caio,
Rick

Flatland Competition @ the Galleria Saturday

No sleep, up since 4am and worked my butt off, oh and missed the race at Mid-Ohio.

Sounds bad, huh?

nope.

pictures and more later....

Westlake B Group World Qualifing Championships

yeah, right.

it was good seeing Paul M, David K, Jimmy (crash & I've flatted again) N, Matt O , Michael L & JV. We all raced Bs with Gary B "manning up" to keep racing As along with Tom K & Dr John. (did i forget anyone?)

it was for 7-8 laps pretty fast for the Bs at over 25 avg with the spin guys....we all got up there to keep the pace going.

brad, mitch and pete from spin were working on staying together and leading pete out for primes. i don't think they were trying to start breaks or win the race by doing breaks....it was more of a training secession for them was how it looked to me which is what the B group is supposed to be doing....training at speed.

what am i doing in the Bs? getting my legs back or as i like to call it racing back into shape. well that and trying to help out some of our newer guys with team tactics and try to get a bunch of them winning primes or advancing in the "points race". i'm not a "know it all", i try to pass on what john has said/done in the past. most of the folks that have been racing Bs are folks that haven't been able to put in the hours/miles that the A group racers have been able to due to family/jobs etc and just like to have some fun with a good group of people.

speaking of tactics.....I'll never have any of my guys mark someone before the As come around us again. dumb, dumb move on my part; sorry about that JV and Michael...you guys are really doing great this year and what is good for a road race or normal crit doesn't work in a training race where the group gets lapped.

I can't think of any race ever that has attacks based upon getting lapped by a faster field. There is a huge difference between slowing down/maintaining your speed and going full out when the As are passing/have passed.

it doesn't really matter; i had a good time, a few laughs and got some fast miles in.

sure the after race time wasn't much fun (until Brett, Gary, Michael, Matt O & i hit the Lizard), but people get emotional after riding hard and quite frankly i'm not going to spend a bunch of time arguing something when someone is emotional about it. the rest of the Bs saw what they saw and that's it....it may not be right but that's what we saw....not just me. so if bridgette and chris decide something i have no problem with whatever they come up with. i'm just glad they put up with all of us and keep putting on this series.

let's just ride our bikes.

Westlake Worlds/The Office/EN

That sums up my week....Did the B group to get my mojo back; Chris R comes up to start the group and announces that the SnakeBite, er B group needs to line up. Nice. One of these days we will get all the guys coordinated, but each week the guys are getting better with team tactics. No breaks this nights, and I wanted Jason or JV (even Michael) to get any of the point primes or podium finish to help out in the points race. I came in 2nd OA 2 years ago and don't have anything to gain by trying to win the race for myself. So during the race, I'm watching and trying to keep things organized for my guys and if none of my guys are going for getting the point primes, I'm going to keep the other "leaders" from getting points by going for them myself.
So during the primes, I'd ask Jason & JV if they were going for them and if not, I'd try out the sprinting legs. Jimmy N asked me to follow him for a lead out so I thought, sure.....we got a good jump on the field and I made sure to reward my lead out guy by getting the prime. Overall I felt pretty good so I ended up with two primes I think. I think SBR got all of the point primes and in the end I led out Jason or at least stretched out the group and Jason came through for the win. Nice.

John gives the A group report....Mike gives his perspective on the B group.

So the next day I'm going to ride to the office and fart around and ended up leaving right when it starts raining hard...Anna spots me driving and gets my rain jacket to me and 20 or so minutes later I arrive in Peninsula. Oh, for everyone that is used to riding to Peninsula on Riverview Rd, it's closed below the Route 80 bridge so you'll have to get on the towpath the rest of the way in.

So yesterday, the weather was much better and needed an EN zone ride, Gary & I went out, followed my work out and then just kept riding to get some miles on while keeping it my EN zone. 39 miles and I'm home.

Enjoy the weekend all.....

Ciao,
Rick

RATL #4 and the after Race ride

Congrats to Paul M for winning the JR race and to Michael L for a 4th place finish in the CAT Vs yesterday!

RATL #4 CAT IV race shaped up with Gary B, Jason R, Matt O & I at the start. I had no idea how I was going to do and felt like team SBR was out gunned with the other teams having more horsepower that day. So I wanted our guys just to cover any moves and watch for breaks. Gary was able to get into one and as soon as I saw that all the teams were represented in it I jumped up to the front to block with Jason and a couple of guys from Stark. The break got away and had a huge gap, so I thought it was going to be a good day for SBR. After a couple of laps Matt says that Gary has popped off and is coming back.....crap. Matt & I got to the front and drive the pace hard doing a couple of rotations, Gary is back now and after a while Matt & I go to the back to recover. I look back and Jason is 10-20 meters back with Gary bringing him back up. Jason brings him back and then the rest of the race is spent with us trying to work the front as best as we can (Gary told me later that he had worked too much and stark & summit worked together to pop him off the back) to pull them back. They had by then well over a minute gap so that wasn't going to made up by us for sure. One of the other racers (not on purpose) pushed me off the road into the mud and it was cyclocross time, I controlled the off road excursion and got back on. I never felt after my crash during the first race that I was totally focused on racing; I didn't have the "killer attitude", I was trying to watch out for others and stay out of another crash. Not a good way to race.
Anyway, I sprinted from the back of the pack and took 16th, which was the best finish for me this series, this year. A far cry from last year I think. But not bad considering my fitness level and all the new faces we have in the group.

Masters race was next and Rudy laid down the law on a solo break away with John soloing for a 3rd place. Bill got to patrol the rest of the field and looked good coming off being sick.



Ernie stopped by from one of his marathon rides and wanted to know how things were shaping up with the Velodrome. Everyone was asking him if he was going to jump into the 1-3s race on his mountain bike.

The 1,2,3s were great to watch...nice job Tom K and David S., Ray and Tony rode really well as did Brett.


Almost 2GB of pictures have been posted to my FLICKR account. I enjoyed shooting the photos for anyone to download; if you would like to send a tax deductible donation to my favorite non-profit foundation, Fast Track Cycling that would be great.

Looking outside now I'm sooo glad Gary & I got in another ride yesterday after the race. 30 miles at a real good pace with steak/pasta & beer afterwards.

Caio,
Rick

The week

Rode the B Group at Westlake and JV does a great job with the race report. Ian, Michael, Gary, Jason, David K, Paul M, Matt T & I in the Bs. To quickly add....after the break went, SBR shut down any attempt at anyone else getting up to the break (Bob from Solon helped out with Juan up in the break). I sprinted for a cash prime and another one I think and then on the final lap, I stretched things out to make sure things didn't get bunched up in a sprint for 5th plus place.....I could see some dumb thing happening from that.
The As did great and I saw some SBR first timers along with "Tom the Killer K"; Dr. John, David S (uh, David...I didn't know you liked Crits) and Chris B. They looked and did pretty well....despite missing the break.
I don't really know where I'm at right now mentally or fitness wise. I ended up riding in the rainy but warm conditions by myself Weds night and then yesterday, I loaded up my messenger bag with what felt like 50 lbs of laptop, files, clothes, etc and rode to the Peninsula office that Fast Track Cycling is at and I am moving my office to soon. Thought I was going to die on the way there. Rode home and am getting a feel for what this commuting by bike thing is all about. RATL is this weekend.....we'll see what happens.
Gotta go if I'm going to ride to the office....

Caio,
Rick

Spin Ride & Getting Wings

Rode with the Spin A riders Wednesday night for like 35 minutes till I got shot off the back after the second hill...still got in over 40 miles that night so I felt pretty good about that. Looks like I'll need to change my training a bit to work up to riding Westlake As and Spin As/Eastsiders fast group rides back to back days. The legs are toast.

So last night instead of jumping in the car to get some groceries last night, I hopped on my bike and grabbed my messenger bag to get some (wings, yes wings). Hmmmm, tasty. Sure, it's not a long ride, but I'm trying to ride instead of drive whenever possible.

Boy would I love one of these to bang around on.....

Gotta keep things in perspective this time of year.

Rick