Saturday, April 05, 2008

One step forward

Friday after work, could not help myself, mounted up the scalpel and rode to the zoo, ran into superfly at the trail head, rode with him to dry creek, where dropped off to home. Saw Rico up there too.

Lyna and Aaron were doing some major re-org at the house, he was willing, she was wanting to do it, so i said see ya. Bachelor Knapp and Scott came over for pizza and some Battlestar Galactica action. Up late diddling around the house. Hoping for rain, cause then i could either have fun in the mud or have a good excuse.

Woke up to clear skies and dry ground, oh well. Decide not to bring spare wheels (foreshadow) Out to the race, a 30 minute warm up, barely make the start line and we are off. Pretty tame till we headed west the first time, well except for B-Horn and Mitch, who took off from the gun. I was keeping my nose out of the wind, except for the last part of the dirt on lap one, where i thought i had a good line.

I got gapped a bit on the first turn left, cause i think I was the only one who did not go over the yellow line to make the turn, so really, rules are rules and i won. Not really.

All types of little accelerations put me at the limit. 100 watts to 1000 watts to sustained 300+ watts. off the dirt at the end of lap 2 my strategy of "accelerating 2 seconds after the group did then catching back on when they let up", caught up to me, got gapped with reverend lewis, soon there after on the south bound at @27mph I notice, literally, in passing, that my front tire is flat. Well that did it, wheel car comes around and asks if i need a wheel, I say No, cause i follow rules, like the yellow line one.

Around 30 minutes of wattage info.

So good thing was, that besides being a bit behind in my attack reaction, I was able to stick with the group on a dead flat, windy course (both of which are the polar opposite of my strengths) till my inability to react caught up to me. If i would not of flatted I likely would of picked off a few of the group and finished decent enough. So, besides doing crits, which I won't, how do i learn to react? Really, I will likely do 2 or 3 more road races this year, and they will have hills, so it really doesn't matter too much.

Good job Utrider, for staying with the pack.

Dr X. I can't see me buyin that tubeless set up, for 1 race, heck, i have run airlock tubes in my road bike before, cause they were all i had. I did have a stupid light tube in there though, not so smart.
Oh yeah, then Lyna and I went to Ikea to buy a dresser and eat some swedish meatballs, mmm good.

3 comments:

UtRider said...

Reed and Kevin (Caveman) were rolling their cross bikes in our group today and finished 1-2. Maybe that's the ticket for next year. Or, you could just line up with the Cat 4's and race the Scalpel. Throw on some Maxxis 310's and you'll be in business!

KanyonKris said...

Too bad about the flat. Bravo for giving it a good effort.

I'm a novice, and while it seemed like a simple course, there was more to it. The yo-yo on the turns acts to string out the pack and the "stay in the lanes" rule makes it worse. So now I know, but not sure what I could do different other than fight harder for a spot up front, but if the lane is full, now what?

I'd like to try the East Canyon race to see how I do with a longer distance with climbs.

drrna said...

Success in windy road races is just like ripping the DH, no substitute for experience. I was outclassed power-wise, but managed to be in the right spot when it counted.

You guys should keep at it, the strategy is part of the attraction.

Regarding road tubeless, I think it's going to be like MTB tubeless, the answer. Lower pressure + sealant = better traction and no flats. I wouldn't have spent the money if I thought it was just for one race.