The week leading up to these races was packed with work. I didn't ride my bike all week. In fact, I hadn't even touched it for at least a week. On thursday, State College got hit with a freak winter storm, in October no less. We accumulated about 4-5 inches of snow over a two or three day period. Many parts of town lost power, including my workplace RBR. Yes, this is a recumbent bike shop, and I implore you to investigate the technology and innovation coming out of the recumbent industry before you start trying to bash them. I will rant more about cycling culture's recumbent bashing later... on to other matters. Although the power was out, it was imperative that I go to work as I had to build 2 wheels before I left town. As the only mechanic at the shop, I often have to fit in important work at very inopportune times. One of the wheels was going on a trike that was outfitted for a quadruple amputee. We had to have the spokes cut custom by the fellows over at Freeze Thaw Cycles (my sponsor!). If I remember correctly, one set of spokes was about 127 mm, the other set was 155 mm, and were used to build a Rohloff hub on a 16 in wheel, and a Nexus on a 20 in.
The wheel builds should have been fairly straight forward, but with size combinations so rare nothing really goes correctly. Oh yea, and we didn't have power... which means we didn't have lights... or heat. The building is old, so it was very close to the outside temperature. I threw a pair of fingerless gloves on so I could retain some heat on my hands while still maintaining dexterity to build wheels. To take care of the lighting issue, I taped a commuter light to my stand and had it pointed at my little corner of the shop (which is not near any windows...). For three hours I built wheels, and I had to re-lace one wheel three times. The flanges were so high, and the rim so small, that running the elbows on the inside of the flange as compared to the outside actually made a huge difference when tensioning the wheel. After a little trial and error, I got it figured out, tensioned and trued the wheels, and ran back home to pack for racing.
My packing was fairly straightforward. I opened up a drawer, found what looked to be cycling clothing, and threw it in a bag. I didn't get any time to really think things through, so I just crammed it in. My bike had already been packed in the car, and of course I had no time to prep that for racing either. So it goes.
Saturday morning, it was raining pretty good. No surprise, as it rained all week in Delaware. We got to the race start and it was pretty obvious how the day was going to be. The parking lot had already started to develop into a sloppy mess of mud. The first race went off, and after the first lap we saw every inch of green turn to brown, and it just got worse from there.
So, after all the "good lines" had disappeared into four inches of mud, we lined up for the Men B race. Very quickly, we found out that there would be a LOT of running. Tires slid out through every corner. The main goal of the race quickly became just staying upright. The bikes accumulated incredible amounts of mud even on the first lap. This made the running sections worse, as instead of shouldering a 20 pound bike, you now had a 30 pound bike (at least). My back took a pretty bad beating from all that shouldering. The run-ups were really steep, and the main one I pretty much limped up after the first lap due to the heavy bike and pitch of the climb. However, the section immediately after the run up was a rewarding series of long switchback turns on a descent down a steep hill. Tons of people were wiping out, but it was a blast to fly down and it took tons of skill to take it at speed. I was able to stay upright throughout the race, but because I sucked at running I wasn't able to capitalize on my technical skills (not that I've been in contention to win a race this season anyway...). Although not a great race for me, it was damn fun. After our race, we watched the elite races and then headed to our weekend home.
Sunday we woke up for Wissahickon. Most of our stuff was dry, but shoes remained damp from the race the day before. My back was in pain from all the running, so I was unsure whether or not I would line up for the race. It was, of course, raining again, though the course would not get nearly as bad as Granogue. Wissahickon was a race on a horse estate, and had some cool features such as a spiral and a long section through a horse pit (all wet sand). I decided to check in and pick up my race number, just incase I decided to actually ride. My back was in pretty bad shape, however I slowly tricked myself to the start line. Incrementally I justified the next step. Well I should at least get a chamois on. Well, I might as well take a pre-ride lap to see what the course is like. Well, I might as well warm up. I'm warmed up, and my back doesn't hurt yet, the least I can do is go to the start line. Before I knew it, the gun fired and my race was on.
I had an okay starting position, about four rows back. However, the start of our race had a nasty crash that happened immediately to my left just 20 meters off the line. The crash opened up a good section of open road between me and the lead pack, and I sprinted like hell to get there. After the first section of the course, I was sitting in the top 20. I actually got a good hole shot for once! From that point on, I just wanted to lose as few positions as possible. Surprisingly, my back responded really well during the race. It gave hints of hurting in the last km, but was in good shape for most of the race. At one point I did wipe out in the middle of the spiral, but I was riding fairly clean other than that. I finished the race in 38th out of just shy of 100 starters. It was, arguably, my best race so far this year. Now I just have to work on that whole power and acceleration deal to reach my goal of a top 20 finish this season.
Sorry for the less than spectacular review. This is the result of waiting too long to write about things.
I am looking forward to this week, as I will be acquiring a few awesome items. First, my winnings from CX Magazine's race report contest (here's the link for the second round of competition) should be arriving, and I may try out the new Kenda tires at the MAC races this weekend. Second, my rims/tubulars are coming in! That means I will have a brand spankin' new wheelset to race on. White industry hubs on velocity escape rims (hoorah for tubulars). Probably won't have them ready for Beacon Cross and HPCX, but they will be in good condition for the rest of the season.
That's all for me. I'll stay on top of this whole blog thing this coming week... hopefully.
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