UC Berkeley Road Race

Another weekend, another collegiate road race, this time hosted by UC Berkeley. This race spanned the towns of Crockett & Martinez, the latter being my hometown. I raced in the collegiate Men's C (4/5) category, along with 4 other UCSC teammates: Bob (Babendeep), Emerson, Auric, and Brent. With Bob & Emerson being renowned climbers, and a course consisting of 3 laps (http://app.strava.com/segments/1235961) containing a climb up the vaunted Mc Ewen Rd, I knew my work would be cut out for me. Mc Ewen Rd (http://app.strava.com/segments/610457) is a 1.2 mile climb at 8%, and while not enough of a climb to kill a man, it was obvious the attack was going to come on the first climb, so we had to be ready.

Teammate Reggie with a rather curious solution to
a problem with his seat post. Not sure how it helped,
but he's a craftier man than I. If anything, it's
incentive for him to climb out of the saddle!

Between the five of us, our game plan was simple. Make sure Bob & Emerson (and whoever else could keep up) hit the climb at the front of the pack. If they got off the front, even better, since only a small portion of the course (through Crockett) was relatively flat. Going into the Mc Ewen climb, the five of us did a great job controlling the pack at the front. Sure enough, we got Bob, Emerson, & Auric ahead on the climb. Not being the climbers these guys are, I fell towards the back while the front 15 riders got away. I worked with Miles and Brian from UC Davis and SF State, respectively, to try to catch them. We kept them in sight for another 3/4 of a lap almost catching them at one point, but lost sight of them at the start of the next Mc Ewen climb.

At this point, another UC Davis rider caught us, and we caught a Stanford rider who fell off the back of the leaders. It became obvious that the two UCD guys weren't interested in working together with the rest of us, since now they had each other. They got away briefly on the last lap, but I managed to keep them in sight, with the SFSU and Stanford guy behind me. Unfortunately, I passed Bob who had flatted out before the final Mc Ewen climb. Bummer, I figured he could get a podium spot with a strong effort, but I knew we at least had Emerson & Auric still in it.

During the last Mc Ewen climb, I was hurting, but I knew still had something to give. I sensed weakness amongst the other riders, and desperately wanted to hurt them. The five of us (2 UCD, SFSU, and Stanford) had regrouped at the bottom of the climb, at which point I attacked hard. I sensed no reaction from them, so I hammered hard up that damn hill. I refused to look back, so as not to show weakness. Victory be damned, I was racing for pride. I knew I had to pry as much time as possible on the climb, because there were 2 more miles to the line and not being the greatest time-trialist, I knew there was a chance I could get caught, which would be embarrassing. When I reached the top, I calculated I had at least a minute on them, so I put my head down and went into the pain cave.

Providing incentive to teammates off the back in Sunday's crit to
get back in the race! One of our guys grabbed the pictured dollar,
but was pulled the next lap. At least he got something for his efforts!

The final stretch was a mile long segment on a slight incline with crappy pavement, and a headwind to boot. About a quarter mile from behind, I saw the Stanford guy closing in, but realized he wasn't going to catch me. I rolled past the finish line feeling somewhat content that I had pulled off my first successful attack in my short-lived racing career. In the end, our team did okay, though we missed the podium: Emerson finished 6th, Auric 10th, myself 16th, Brent 21st, and Bob with a heart-breaking DNF after such a promising start. Next week is CSU Fresno with a 34 mile/2500' loop around Kearney Lake. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted!

Stanford Collegiate Races

New teammate Eddie here with my first blog post about this past weekend's collegiate races, hosted this week by Stanford. While I competed this weekend with the UCSC collegiate team (where I'm a graduate student), I figured I'd share with my experience with the team while I anxiously await my Team Bike Trip kit! The weekend consisted of three races: a team trial and road race Saturday in Panoche Road (same stretch as the Panoche Valley RR course on 5/5/13), and a crit on Sunday in Morgan Hill next to the Specialized headquarters. Fellow new Bike Trip teammate Matt Wittmann and I raced the Men's collegiate C category, which translates to a Men's road 4/5 field.

The 4-person team time trial was a 12-mile out and back course first thing in the morning before the road race. Originally, Matt and I had only planned to do the RR, but found another UCSC graduate student, Auric Kantz, who was eager to give it a shot with us. Our sentiment going into the TTT was to have fun and use it as a learning experience, but once the whistle blew Matt jumped out of the gate fast and the ride was on. We gave it a solid effort, though keeping in mind we wanted to save some pony for the main event later in the morning. We finished in 32:06, with UC Davis claiming first with a time of 29:37. While we placed 6/6, '28 behind 5th CSU Fresno, we had a good time doing so and it was a great learning experience. And hell, at this point in our racing careers, we'll take a top-10 finish any way we can get it!

The road race was a 36 mile out-and-back course that consisted of about 2,000 ft of climbing, and reminded me a lot of 84/San Gregorio/Alpine. The wind was blowing a decent clip to the East, meaning that we'd have a headwind coming back down the hill. There was plenty of UCSC representation in the field of 45: along with Matt and I, we had Bike Trip's own Andrew Smith, as well as Auric and Brent Adams. The race started out very slow over the first 10 or so miles which consisted of gentle rollers, with plenty of collegial (no pun intended) conversation within the peloton. Once the first main climb came, it was game time. Almost simultaneously, everyone hit the pedals hard and it was the moment of truth to see who could hang on with the heavy hitters. I was positioned about a third of the way back for this mile-long climb and when I saw a group of about 15 pulling away, I put my head down and spun as fast as I could. The pain was delicious as my heart red-lined the entire 4-5 minutes it took to get up the hill. I kept telling myself "Hey! This is just like Wednesday repeats... get your ass up this hill!" and sure enough, it was over just in time to stop my heart from exploding. After the dust settled, a group of 12 or so had gotten away off the front, but Matt and I joined up with another 10 or so riders to form a second group. Feeling pretty salty and very alive at that point, a Stanford rider named Mike and I took turns pulling the group to the turn-around point at the top.

The lead pack had about a minute on us at the turnaround, so we had our work cut out for us. It quickly became apparent however that our group was more interested in competing against each other than working to close the gap through the wind, so Matt and I decided to relax. If they wanted to do most of the work back to the finish, we'd be kind enough to let them. The rest of the descent was fairly uneventful, though a USC guy successfully attacked off the front of our group and held it against the wind for the last 3-4 miles, much to my surprise. Kudos to him, but since it wasn't a winning break and he was only one of about 10 of us, there wasn't a big onus to reel him in. Heading into the final stretch, through ever-so-excellent planning, I found myself in the precarious position of leading the pack out for the sprint. While I wasn't too happy about my execution, I figured I could at least lead out Matt for the sprint. As expected, the pack came zooming past me, and I tried to jump on them as hard as I could. Matt got beat well before the line and eased his pace. Still going hard, I came zooming up behind him, and it became clear that I would/could pass him before the line. I thought momentarily about slowing down to let him finish ahead (which would've been the sportsman-like thing to do), however, Matt being a good friend, my primary training partner, and a hellacious competitor, I followed the only choice I really had, and passed him with 10 feet to go to finish 22/45. And while petty, a chance to hold (small) bragging rights over Matt is an opportunity one simply must take when given the opportunity, since they are far and few between. ;)

Cal Poly Crit on 2/9/13, but hey! I couldn't be the
only blog post without a fancy picture!

The 30 minute crit the following day was fast and fun, though only Brent and myself competed in our field for UCSC. The laps were 1/2 mile, CCW, with 5 corners (the last segment was banana shaped). Physically, I felt A-ok, but I had a hard time staying near the front of the peloton given the number of riders on the course. I had a nice starting spot on the line, but had trouble clipping in, started near the back, and spent the entire race trying to find lanes to move up. Towards the end, I had finally gotten myself to a decent position, but lost it on a bad approach to the corner going into the last lap and couldn't catch the back of the group sprinting out the last lap. I went hard around the course to the finish line hoping for the best, but the damage was done, and finished 23/36. Not as well as I had hoped, but you live and learn, and thankfully there's always another crit around the corner for redemption.

This weekend's collegiate races will be hosted by UC Berkeley. The RR takes place in the quaint town of Crockett, bordering my hometown of Martinez, which I hope will provide an extra boost to place well. With that said, this means I must defend my home turf, even if it means keeling over climbing up the brutal Mc Ewen Road trying!