UPgraded to Category 3

Today Kirk Albers approved my upgrade from Cat. 4 to Cat.3!! I didnt win any Cat.4 events and it would have been fun and good for the soul to walk away from Cat.4 with some wins (especially since Cat.3 wins will be very hard to do), but I raced hard and solo and with Snake Bite Racing's help I initiated breakaways and stayed at the front in all races. I felt like I was ready in that respect. Time will tell if I upgraded to soon, but what does that mean? If I am pack finishing in Cat.3 races and making splits, but not making the podium at first then I think it was a good decision. I did only start racing 9 weeks to the day so we shall see!!

Snake Bite's Cat.3 numbers are growing now too. I believe we have Tom Keller, Dave Steiner, John Ehrlinger and myself all Cat.3's.

Wish me luck!!

Time Trial Preparation Begins

I have had my Cervelo P2SL for a week now and even commuted to work on it to get some miles in the "position". My commutes 16+ miles each way so its quality miles. Once again Mike at Bike Authority worked with me on the spec of the kit and I got a killer bike.

Riding it for the first time today "at speed" was a real treat. I am happy that I am acclimating to the position very quickly. Each ride I feel more comfortable, even form my commute to work to the ride home there was improvement. In fact the harder and faster I ride, the better it feels. As Mike said before I left the store I will love it when I am going fast and hate it when going slow. He was right!! One area I am having trouble with is keeping my head up and not looking down and sadly I dont think I will adapt that fully in time for the State TT on June 24th so I will just have to do my best. I am already expecting a whopper of a headache after the event, but some sacrifices cannot be avoided.

So continue with the stretching and core work and keep building up the motor!!

www.cervelo.com
www.bikeauthority.com

Audrey gets her wings!!

Not a whole lot of training went on this past Memorial day weekend, just a lot of lazying around, beer drinking and BBQ!! Stacie and I barely drove too so felt good about it being a green weekend. It was time for a short rest from the bike as I had hit it hard and really felt it the last week. TSB (Training Stress Balance Score) was at an alltime high for the week. But what did happen this weekend was my 5 year old daughter said she was ready to ride without traning wheels!! This is a joyous day for all children and parents alike and I had been looking forward to this day for years (maybe decades if you count all the years before Audrey was born). We headed over to the school parking lot and she nailed it pretty much straight away to the whoops and hollers of myself and neighbors across the street watching. The look of satisfaction on her face was worth more than you can know (unless you have a child of course).Now the gang of Jordan and Casey (her next door neighbors) who were previousely crazy nutballs on scooters are now a biking girl gang!! Of course shes already riding one handed, riding out of the saddle and riding with her feet in the air!! I had to stop her when she got the crazy idea to ride with her eyes closed!! I said she was a crazy nutball right?

Spring Road Racing Done

Well, my re-entry to racing is done with phase one. I competed in 6 road races and one time trial. I am still upset about Chippewa Creek today, but as I think about my first 11 months back riding my bike, I can hoist up my somewhat glum feelings today with some pretty bright spots. Call this my Spring in review. In my first race back at Mid-Ohio I signed up for the Cat.3/4 race instead of the cat.4/5. Maybe not a wise decision at first, but I settled right into the fast speeds and felt I was hanging right in there all the way. I even read a break with key teams and soloed to bridge it up. On the last lap I keyed off of John Lowery, kept position at the front the whole lap and came in 10th in what remained of the field in the bunch sprint (John won btw). The following week I was sick, but had good legs on a club ride, but come Saturday my legs were heavy, but again I rode tenaciousely and even when dropped I clawed back onto the main field, only to be dropped again. I kept pushing and won our 8 man groups uphill sprint for 14th overall and beating some good Cat.3's in the process. Next up was RATL and I went into that race looking for experience and attacked and went in break after break. Even after all that I lead out the sprint and came in 4th after fading up the hill. The next day I signed up for the faster, longer A race at Covered Bridge. It was a slow race by CB standards, but it felt fast to me and with top racers in the area competing, accelerations were strong and quite often. I stayed at the front and although I missed the break (and doubt I could have hung with those guys if I did) I again stationed myself at the front of the field for a big bunch sprint. The rest of the races have been documented. So in 6 road races I put myself in a position to win 4 of them. Wow, I am feeling better already.

Bring on phase 2 and maybe a Cat-up!!

Do it right, come up short!!

Today was another good day and not just because I was racing my bike, but that Snake Bite worked as a team (we made some mistakes in hindsight, but...) and we got another podium finish in the Category 4 field at the Chippewa Creek Road Race that was hosted by PDQ Cleveland Bicycle Club. The course is a beaut starting atop the finish hill, turning right into some deep rollers and curves then coming out onto a road with a nearly straight and fast 45mph descent. The last part is by far the hardest and thats a false flat that gets steeper till it hits 12% grade and then levels off after a few corners, but continues to climb back to start finish. 400' of vertical climbing per lap and 7 laps. Not a long race, but the intensity of the course really can zap ya!! Especially if your solo and more on that later.

Team Snake Bite showed up with Jason, Gary (fresh from his win last week), Rick, Peter R, Pete S, John, Jeff, Bob and myself. Although our plan was simple, it was going to hurt!! We wanted to control the race from the front down the descent and up the climb every lap hoping to shed riders. The painful job was volunteered by Pete Scacheri and myself earlier in the week. My one concern was that no one or team would pull after we did and thats exactly what happened. On lap one Jason and Rick and Peter R hammered us down the hill with John, Pete and I in tow. Then Starks Darrin Kert would start the pull on the climb and after the start finish I would take over and pull to the corner. This went on lap after lap till I found myself with a nice gap with 3 to go. I said to myself, 3 laps, 12 miles, I might be able to do this and of course when I looked back I saw orange and blue smothering the front for me. Sadly Peter R dropped his chain early so he was race done.

With Snake Bites help I opened a big gap quickly, but sadly the will was there, but not the legs. My thighs were just tight and I couldnt pound over the rollers and keep my speed up. The next time up the climb I was back with the group and took a new strategy for the last two laps. Sit in!!

Although we got the group down to 10 early with our threshold riding, by the time we were through the rollers, we were back to 20. Where we may have made a mistake as Pete S and I discussed afterwards was that Pete was strong on our Tuesday preride on the rollers and we should have sent him on attacks all race long in the back keeping the speed of the group up and making it hard for stragglers to get back on. Pete rode strong again and is really learning the race craft (hes only done 5 mass start races with several top 5's!!). He listens to advise then absorbs it and uses it!!

So the last lap comes up and I am staying at the front, but Gary tells me to catch a break out of the wind (how cool is that) and he kept tempo up front. Finally the attacks started to come and I jumped from wheel to wheel staying about 4 to 5 back. Summit really got organized and talking and put a train on the front and we went flying down the descent. A little hairy, but fun!! Again I jumped from wheel to wheel, whomever was keeping the momentum. I heard John behind me urging me on the bottom of the climb and by the steepest portion I am on the front. A bit early, but I cannot slow down. I try to step up the pace a bit, but two riders (UPMC) the Lt blue jersey form RATL last week and another rider come by me on the right and I go with them. I think weve gapped, but I havent looked back yet as I am gauging my effort. I think they have gone too hard too early, so I wait for it to flatten out. I start to bring them back a tiny bit, but that only lasts a 100'. As it turns out they both had fresh legs and never let up from the 200 feet to go sign, but no one else had the legs left to contest the sprint other than the three of us. The two others sprint out 1-2 and I roll in a few seconds later with very tired legs, but a nice gap. Back in the field John takes the final paying spot for 6th while Gary and Pete roll in in the pack after good team races for both.

So in retrospect I guess all Team Snake Bites work did pay off because we went to the line for a field sprint, but there very few legs with anything in them to sprint (sadly including mine). Team Snake Bite raced like a Team again, we took care of each other , we planned and executed. I will say now that its over its a bit bittersweet as I really, really wanted to win this one!! We can play woulda shoulda all day and create situiations that would have led to a win for me, but in the end, we raced as a team, we did what a big team should do!! But third is not so bad considering all the work I did today.

Thanks Team,
Ray

Pieces of the Puzzle

The puzzle which I speak of is bringing all the pieces together to be able to Time Trial at my best on June 24th, 2007. The various pieces consist of sustainable power also reffered to as Functional Threshold Power (FTP), Flexibility (core strength), Fit (again I bring up fit), Efficiency and Equipment. Its very safe to say that any one of those without the others wont get you all the way to your goals. Well, this is my blog so it wont get me to my goals.

First off and by far the most important is FTP. It is this number (reffered to in watts) that tells you the maximum wattage you can sustain for an hour, but not much more. A great deal of scientific research is dedicated to this and is readily available in books and on the internet. In its simplest form, the higher the better. Watts equates to speed and the more watts you can put out for an hour, the faster you can go. Even what may sound like a miniscule increase in speed over say 25 miles (40k) can make the difference between 1st and 10th or much lower. For example if you average 26mph for 25 miles you would end up with a time of 57:41 (a very respectable time too), but if you can increase your average speed by only 0.5mph, you would finish in 56:36. Thats a difference of 1 minute and 5 seconds!! I cannot stress enough how big of a difference that is at the end of the day. I am hopeful of increasing my ftp bit by bit all summer and with a smart winter program again next year, come out even faster in 2008.

Next up is flexibility and core strength. Without a strong core, your more likely to have your back muscles fatigue early losing you power. Also among many other things, core strength gives you more stability on the bike and the ability to stay in an aerodynamic tuck for longer. Stability is ultra important on a Time Trial bike because the extreme forward positon and arm position can make the bike twitchy and swerving loses you momentum. Flexibility is obvious, more flexible, more aerodynamic comfortably. I would rate both a 6 on a scale of 1-10 right now and definately both a big fat 0 last July.

Efficiency is just as it sounds. Relaxed upper body on the bike and a smooth pedal stroke burns less energy leaving you more to put into the pedals all race long. Fighting your downstroke pedal by countering its action with your upstroke pedal is very hard to feel, but we do it till we train ourselves not to. There are of course obvious exceptions like power house time trialers like Jens Voigt and Fabian Cancellara, but for us mere mortals smoothness pays off big. Hard to quantify for sure, but important none the less. How are those pieces fitting in? Well, I dont know. I think efficiency on the bike takes your whole cycling career to improve. Safe to say I am working on it and it is improving!!

Fit-oh how fit is so important and as always I put my trust in Mike Vannuci at Bike Authority. He has an eye for what makes power and what doesnt. Fit or maybe Position is a better term for time trialing is a work in progress. While being ultra aerodynamic (small frontal area, flat back and stomach (parallel to ground), arms close together will lower your aerodynamic drag, it will almost without fail come at the expense of wattage output. Simply put, the most aerodynamic position in the world may be worth 5mph over your road bike position, but if you cannot put out the same power, you may go slower. If not over a short distanace, for certain over a long distnace like 25 miles. Theres a balance to be had and the only way to find out is to put the position on the bike and test, test and test. Why is this, well its too much to say here and i am in no way qualified to give scientific data, but sometimes its due to not being able to breath in an extreme tuck, not flexible enough and improper hip angle (a key to powerful pedaling). At some point you find a Position that gains you speed due to reduced drag, but still allows you to put out power as close to your ftp as possible. In the end its about miles per hour.

Having the proper bike frame and wheels , helmet, skinsuit all add up to precious seconds and minutes saved. I have read many times that number one is your helmet, then wheels and the frame. Which pays off bigger, wheels or frame comes down to if you can or cannot achieve an aerodynamic and powerful position on the road bike. I would say that I can put out the exact same power (watts) on my Cannondale Sixthirteen road bike in road race form or on the clip-on aero bars. What I am also sure of is I can go faster down the road with less aerodynamic drag. I can achieve this by punching a much smaller hole in the air. Right now I my upperbody is quite high and me being smaller with smaller wattage, its harder for me to go through the air quickly, especially into a headwind. But remember the importance of position. I am going to make the leap to the Time Trial specific frame whihc gives me these immediate benefits: Lower frontal area, aerodynamic frame, seatpost, handlebars. but most important is by using the steeper seat angle and forward position on the bike I can punch a smaller hole AND maintain proper hip angle. Other benefits are that my legs wont hit my stomach while pedaling, I can shift gears without leaving the aerodynamic tuck due to shifters located at the ends of the aero bars and a TT bikes geometry puts weight back over the rear wheel even though your body is much further forward increasing stability. The next decision for me is what testing procedure do I use that is repeatable so I can balance drag and power!! For sure i wont nail it down in a few weeks, but it will be a start!! Now compare my position in the picture above with one of the best in the business, Pro rider David Zabriskie. Somewhere between these I hope to find my fastest position and my puzzle will be even closer to being complete.

Felt Like a Pro Today

I hope every aspiring bicycle racer dreams of the day his team gets one of his racers into the winning break, the team blocks, other teams in the break work in the bunch and your rider wins the race.

Today was my first official race with Team Snake Bite at the last RATL race of the spring. John, Pete Scacheri and I drove together and we talked strategy the whole drive. ONce to the venue we hooked up with the rest of the team and spelled out the plans, leaving almost no stone unturned. We even discussed and pointed out to each other tidbits about other riders and who was likely to be strong today, who would throw attack after attack and which teams we thought would work and which would work against. As it turned out all the teams worked so well, I truly felt like I was NOT in a Cat.4 race, but a proffesional race.

So lets cut through all the usual stuff and get to the race report. A decent size field lined up and we were off. Not even out of the parking lot a Summit rider took a flyer. First suicide attack. No one chased of course. OnN Lap 3 we were to start our attacks, but other riders were throwing out weak attempts at jumps only to be drawn back in. On lap 4 a marked Stark Velo (SV) rider and a teammate took a flyer with some of our riders right on the front. Rick Adams yelled at Gary to go with this attack and Gary obliged. I thought about going, but when Gary went I stayed put. Also in the break was Noah from Summit. Now the race plan was in motion. Immediately there gap opened up with myself and another SV rider sitting on the front. They hovered within sight for a long time and the gap was probably 25 to 30 seconds. To be honest after reading all the race reports I was just waiting for a team to chase down there own man but they did not and even put guys on the front like us to just keep things kind of mellow. This went on for awhile then a rider in a lt. blue jersey started animating things. He wouldnt go hard enough to get a gap and we (mostly John) would just stick to his wheel like glue untill he phizzed out. This went on and similar attacks were thrown and either SV, or Snake Bite were quick to snuff it out. Jason was doing a lot of blocking as was John. It was awesome to see the race developing like this, but also many of us werent getting anything like a workout in. Eventually the break got far enough ahead they were out of sight. An Orrville rider took a flyer, but only managed to put maybe 5 or 10 seconds on us and we waited for him to come back. I went to have a talk with John and asked when we should start throwing down more attacks? I thought that 6 to go was too soon as it could cause the bunch to catch Gary and that we should wait. John did his best Bjarne Riis and wanted to think about it. But no sooner did we start to think about it than a SV rider went hard causing him to be reprimanded by his teammates. I thnk his move was to bridge, but he didnt get the gap and I think Pete got right on him.

Now comes the "will you shut-up" part of the race. Were finishing lap 10 when a rider behind us starts yelling "This would be a good time for a Summit or Snake Bite or blah, blah, blah team to start counter attacking". What a dork. I hope he doesnt think what happened next had anything to do with his great advice. But John and I are still next to each other and hes quietly, but very emotionally yelling at me to GO, Go now!! What John didnt know was the side I was on was blocked, but as soon as I saw daylight I drilled it as hard as I ever had I was full on it for the next 10minutes. I went so hard I reset the highest wattages I have ever done from 0.2 seconds all the way to 10 minutes!! All previous bests fell today. Amazingly what i thought was a flyer to set up John for a later attack or best case a solo for 5th became a shot at the win when all of a sudden, what do I see but the breakaway and I am gaining. It takes me the whole lap and then some to catch, but when I do I roll right up to the front and use my momentum for a pull before I give my heart and legs a good rest. Once on I encourage the guys to keep the pressure on even though its clear that Snake Bite is blocking and blocking well as the pelton is quite a ways back. We finally hit the bell lap and Noah takes a flyer and we are content to keep him within 20 feet. Once back w/ us we start to slow and play cat and mouse. I am confident we wont get caught so I position myself 4th behind the two SV and Gary. I meant to talk to Gary to ask if he wants me to lead him out, but never do. As we get the bridge in sight I make a mistake and am on the left of the 2nd SV rider while Gary is on the right side of the road and Noah is behind. Gary goes and he goes hard. We set off for him, but this time (i usually jump first) I stay right behind the 2nd SV guy hoping for a draft. After the steep I drill it, but the 2nd SV has been gapped or intentionally gapped himself to his teammate and as I go by the one, I start to catch the other, but its of no use as I wont catch 2nd. I shouldnt have half wheeled the SV rider and stayed right with Gary as i knew about his finish speed. But the best part was Gary's explosive attack got him the win for Snake Bite and himself as I rolled in a happy third place. Behind us John easily took the field sprint and another SBR rider took 8th. The first RATL when I got 4th we went 29mph up the hill across the line. This time I went across at 31mph which aint to shabby for an uphill sprint.

Not a shabby day and you remember my first paragraph about a dream race, well this one was it for me. We got our man in the break, we helped control the race from the front of the peleton and the whole team helped. I bridged the no mans land to the break solo with my team blocking and I recovered enough to podium!!!

Truly-it was like being in a race you see on TV and I will remember this one for a long time. Congrats again to Gary Burkholder and thanks to the whole team-what a classy race we all pulled off.