Nocatee Stage Race 8/22-8/23/09

This was my first race as a category 3. I was a bit nervous about the race and didn't sleep all that well on Friday night. It was a fairly early departure from Gainesville to make it over to Ponte Vedra for our race at 9:35. It was still overcast which was nice as it kept the temperature down for the race.

My teammate Eric and I talked about attempting to break away part way through the race and hopefully put some time on Ken Vida who is an excellent time trialer. We tried a couple of times but were chased down by the peleton quickly. Eric is a marked man with his long list of podium finishes this year. With two laps to go Eric closed down the gap to a small break away and attacked. Vida followed but did not pull through to continue the attack. I was moving up to hopefully break up any attempt to chase them down if the did get away and when Vida sat up I blew past them and quickly put a descent gap on the field. I was mostly expecting this to turn out to be a spring board for Eric to counter attack when the peleton caught me. There was still 12 or 13 miles left in the race and I did not expect to stay away to the finish. As I came through the finish area for the bell lap and still had a good gap I started to think I could do it. I just kept my head down and put everything I had left into the effort. When I turned off the highway onto the road with a nice tailwind I knew I had it. I had about 30 seconds on the field which gave me time to enjoy the finish. I could hardly believe I won my first cat 3 road race. A huge thank to Eric for his efforts breaking up the chase. I could not have done it without him. He also managed to take second place in the field sprint for a 3rd place finish.

The time trial was scheduled to start at 5PM so I settled in and watched the racing for the afternoon. The clouds started to build and by 2:30 we could see the thunderstorm headed our way. It hit with lightning and heavy rain just before the start of the cat 4 race. They postponed this race which my teammate David was racing in until the storm passed which was almost 4:00. It was still raining, but the lightning was over. At about 4:30 they decided to postpone the time trial to the next morning starting at 7:30. I headed back to Gainesville knowing it was going to be a really early wake up call the next morning.

Up by 4:30 and on the road by 5:30 it was back to Ponte Vedra for the time trial and criterium. My start time was 8:32, but I car pooled with my friend Ryan who had an earlier start time. My legs were feeling a bit tired after the effort the day before, but I posted a descent time of 11:20 for the 6 mile course. I did loose almost a minute to Ken Vida finishing in 7th place. Eric finished 20 seconds down on Vida in 2nd place. We had our work cut out for us if we were going to beat him in the overall.

Our crit started at 2:05 in the afternoon. After the clouds burned off it was hot. The course was fairly technical with 8 corners. It was dead flat, but all the corners made a breakaway a likely scenario. We didn't think Vida would let us get away in a break without him, so our plan was to lure him into a break with both of us and then take turns attacking him in the last 4 or 5 laps of the race. This did not work for us. He attacked from the gun and quickly put 20 seconds on the field. There were a lot of people chasing, so the pace was really high for the first 15 minutes. Eric was surfing the front 5 places, but I was hurting and could not find the groove for the first little bit. I got my legs under me and started to move up. I got to the front and took a hard pull to bring down the gap to Vida. There were a couple other teams working hard to do the same, but we only got it down to around 15 seconds. Eric made the effort and bridged up to Vida solo. Shortly after a couple other small group went across the gap and the breakaway swelled to 6 or 7. It stayed away and Vida won with Eric taking 2nd right on his wheel. Unfortunately due to this break I lost my podium place in the overall finishing the weekend in 5th.

Other team results from the weekend:

Amy took 4th in the Cat 4 women's road race, 2nd in the time trial and 2nd in the criterium. This put her in 1st place for the overall Cat 4 women. David had consistent finishes in all 3 races even braving the rain and lightning for the Cat 4 road race. Marco came over for the Cat 5 crit on Sunday and took home 7th place. Ryan who I rode with on Sunday, but is not on our team, took 1st in the Masters 35+ time trial winning by less than a 1/4 of a second.

One of the other Gainesville racers got my win on video. I will post it as soon as I get a copy from him.

PAL Omnium 8/1-8/2/09

I forgot my camera so unfortunately I didn't get any pictures this weekend. I carpooled down to the race with Eric and Amy, so there may not have been room for it anyway. My Subaru was overflowing with wheels, helmets, and bags of race gear and food. Amy did not race so she could get one more weekend of recovery on a sore knee. Eric was alone in the combined category 1/2/3 field. I was joined for the road race on Sunday by Ben and Keith Ladd. Keith Ladd also raced the time trial.

I was looking forward to this being an omnium weekend. The winner of the weekend would be determined by points awarded for placing rather than time. I have been placing consistently in the the top 5 or 6 so this could be my weekend to get a small trophy for the overall.

The criterium course was again on a development that has not had any houses built yet. This meant great road surfaces, but no shade. It was really hot with the sun beating down on the pavement, sand and weeds. The course had 4 major corners and a small hill with some slight bends. It was prime for a break away group. This is exactly what happened. The attacks came right from the start and I saw a group of strong riders develop off the front. I jumped across the gap and the four of us rode together for 3/4 of the forty minute race. I was hurting in the heat and was gaped off by two of the riders. They went it alone to take the first two places on the podium. My other break away companion and I were swallowed up by the pack with about 6 laps to go. This gave me a chance to sit in a recover a bit for the sprint. I positioned myself in a good place a few back from the front and waited for the last corner onto the finishing stretch. I made my move early hoping to get the jump on the group, but they were watching for this and I was caught by two others at the line for a 5th place finish. Eric finished in 3rd of the category 3s.

The time trial course was 6 miles on some nice Florida rolling hills. Nothing really big, but hilly especially for Florida. The hills were spread out enough to not allow you to carry much speed from the descents to the next climb. I managed to catch my 30 second man just after the turn around and another racer about a mile later. I came in with a time of 18:32 which got me on the podium in 3rd place. This also put me in 2nd place overall for the weekend. Eric place 4th in the category 3s and Keith Ladd posted the 6th best time for the category 4s.

The road race also had some nice hills in it and it was definitely going to be important to stay attentive at the front of the race to make sure a break didn't go without one of out team in it. Ben did a great job the first couple of laps keeping everything under control at the front. My legs were hurting after the efforts yesterday and I did not feel good until the last couple of laps of the 4 mile course. A solo rider went off the front early and stayed away until two laps to go. There were a couple of hard attacks on the last lap and I covered one of them about a mile from the finish. Keith Ladd came up next to me and offered a lead out for the sprint. I took his wheel and he put the petal down. Unfortunately he ran out of gas at the bottom of the last hill a bit too far out to sprint and I was sitting at the front of the race with the main contenders on my wheel. I did my best to shed them, but did not and they swarmed me at the finish. I came across in 6th place within less than a second of the winner. The worst part was I lost my overall podium position tied in 3rd place. I was ruled 4th because my competitor finished ahead of me on the last stage. Keith Ladd finished just off the lead group in 14th and Ben came in next a couple minutes behind in 15th. Eric had a great race bringing across to a breakaway group of mostly category 1/2 riders so he easily took 1st for the category 3 race and had a great 5th place overall finish in a strong field.

This was a great weekend of racing on some of the best courses so far this year. My new bike was flawless. It handled racing just as I expected it to. Thank again to Spooky Bikes and Bikes and More.

My New Bike

I have been wanting a new bike for awhile now and finally took the plunge. There is a lot of talk about carbon this and carbon that as far as high end bikes go. I have known too many people who have cracked, smashed, or otherwise destroyed their carbon frames when they have crashed in races or training. I had decided to get something either Aluminum or Titanium. Luck for me my bike team is sponsored by a great little frame builder up in Massachusetts, Spooky Bikes. http://www.spookybikes.com/

I had it built up with Dura-Ace 7900 drive train, Feather brake calipers, 3T handle bars and stem, and the Edge 2.0 fork. I used the Fizik Aliante saddle I had and with my race wheels the weight came in at 15 lbs 13 oz. I am not a big weight weenie, but I very pleased with the build.

I have been riding it for just over a week and I am very happy with its performance. The most noticeable difference is its stiffness. I get out of the saddle to sprint or accelerate up a climb it seems to just jump from underneath me and all I have to do is hang on. It is probably a little more harsh over long distances, but I did a 90 mile ride this weekend and did not feel too beat up. It is definitely a race bike, so I was not expecting it to be the most comfortable ride out there. The next test will be racing this weekend with a crit, time trial and road race on tap.

Thank you Spooky Bikes for sponsoring our team, and thank you Bikes and More for building up the bike.

St. Augustine July 17-18 2009

I have been slacking on my blog duties, so I am trying to catch up this week. Theresa and I took off for the weekend on July 17 and 18 to visit the city of St. Augustine. We dropped off Sadie in the morning at a really great little puppy hotel just out of town and headed to the beach.

Our plan was to dip out toes in the Atlantic in the afternoon, but as is typical down here this time of year we were thwarted by a thunder storm. We checked into the hotel and watched the Tour de France stage. The rain had passed by dinner and we headed out to explore. I took this picture as we were headed back to the hotel. It is actually looking East and the thunder heads were picking up the reflection of the sunset to the West. Notice the rainbow cutting across the clouds.

Sunday we spent the day walking down St George St in the downtown area.

We stopped by the Spanish Quarter Museum in the morning before the crowds and spent a bit of time talking to the interpreters. We got our name written by the calligrapher and he kept giving us a hard time about it being a British name.

We also visited the oldest wooden school house. It is amazing to me that these old wooden building are still standing, and great to see how they have been preserved.

After lunch we decided to head down to the Lightner Museum. It is housed in an old hotel from the turn of the century. I didn't catch when it was actually built. They allowed as much photography as desired so I took advantage of the opportunity to capture some beautiful examples of furniture and stained glass.

After the museum we saw another thunder storm headed our way so we decided to head back to pick up Sadie. It was a fun weekend and we definitely want to go back to explore more of the area. There is an old Spanish fort, a light house, and lots more art galleries to see. We also need to get a chance to dip our toes in the ocean.

For the rest of the pictures I took, mostly of St George Street and the Museum, check out my album on Picasa. http://picasaweb.google.com/ksr321/StAugustineJuly2009#

Lake County Stage Race 6/20-6/21/09

This is the last weekend in the first half of the season. It was ridiculously hot. My cycling computer logged 97 deg both days, but with the humidity I think the heat index was well over 100. It was a typical stage race format with a criterium and time trial on Saturday and a circuit race on Sunday.

After placing well last weekend I was hoping to get on the podium this weekend. I did not have the team support of last week, but Ben did upgrade to Cat 4 and joined in the fun. Eric and Amy also raced the full schedule this weekend. Marco came down and represented at the Cat 5 crit on Saturday and Andrea came down to help Eric in the epic 80 mile road race on Sunday. I wish I was able to upgrade to Cat 3 just to participate in this road race. It was an 80 mile loop with a race caravan and everything. This is the first time they have tried this in Florida in a long time. I am hoping they are able to do this again next year when I have hopefully upgraded.

As I said it was really hot on Saturday and the crit course was in a new development with no houses, trees or anything taller than grass to provide shade. Our race was scheduled for 1:45 and even drinking water all morning and popping some salt pills did nothing to ward off the dehydration. Other than the heat the race was awesome. The roads were perfect and there was a nice little hill at the finish to really make things burn. Towards the end of the race I moved up to position myself for the sprint. We came around the corner and I uncorked a vicious sprint up the hill to the line. I put a good gap on the field and came across pumping my fist in victory. As I let up and rolled down the other side of the hill the field came by me and I heard a guy say "You still have a lap to go." Oops! In my dehydrated delirium I lost track of the laps. I managed to roll across the line just on the tail end of the pack. I felt really stupid, but I guess it can happen to anyone. It took the better part of an hour for me to cool down and get enough water back in so I didn't feel like passing out. I don't think I have ever felt that bad after a race.

The time trial was to go over Sugarloaf Mountain. This is the highest point in the Florida peninsula at 312ft. I don't know where they get off calling it a mountain, but it was steep and made for a hard time trial. The climb up the South side was not too bad with a few rollers and stair step ascents. There were a couple of 90 deg corners that would make the descent back down fairly technical. After topping out it is a straight shot down the other side with speeds topping 50 mph. The turn around was almost right at the bottom of the hill so I was not able to build up much momentum for the climb back up. This is the steep part at probably 15% grade. It tops out with a false flat that seems to go on forever then it is back down the other side as hard as you can go. The finish was just up a short hill and I made it about 10 ft past the line before deciding I was done. I finished 5th with time of 21:29 over the 7 miles. The winner put almost a minute on me.

Sundays circuit race was scheduled for 10:15, but they were running late with the start. Most of the delays were because of the start of the Pro 1/2/3 road race getting going. I was really unmotivated to warm up. It was already well into the 90s. I spun around easy for about 45 minutes and lined up to start. My plan was to sit in and follow the wheel of yesterdays winner for the sprint. The pace was fairly easy probably due to the heat. In lap 3 there was a big crash that took out about 10 guys. I just missed it as I was moving up the left side of the field. With just over 2 laps to go there was absolutely no motivation in the field. We were rolling along at a mere 19mph. I was feeling good so I attacked and put a good gap on the field. This was going to be my move, so I gave it everything I had. I was happy to get some help with 1-1/2 laps to go as another rider bridged up to me. He took a couple of strong pulls, but I could tell he did not have as much gas in the tank as I did. It was nice to have him there to give me a chance to catch my breath before the final push. with half a lap to go he was done and could not pull through. He managed to stay on my wheel to the last corner where I found another gear and gaped him. I came across the line in 1st with a 5 second gap on the field. A huge thank you to Ben who seeing me attack went to the front and broke up the chase.

I was really happy to get my first top finish and redeem myself after my mistake on Saturday. I am a couple points shy of the upgrade, but hopefully they will consider my high TT finishes and move me up to Cat 3 for the fall races.

Ocala Stage Race 6/13-6/14/09

I have been looking forward to this race for a while. The course is fairly close to Gainesville and we often go down to the road race course and time trial course on our weekend rides. I have been riding pretty strong and the team was willing to help me in an effort to get a podium spot. There were seven of us ready to go for the Cat 4/5 races. I think we had one of the largest groups out there which was awesome for one of the smaller teams in Florida.

The first race of the weekend was the Marion County Road Race. This was the course we have ridden a number of times. Our plan was to push the pace and cover any breaks that tried to go away early. My team mates would challenge for the King of the Mountains time bonus and Intermediate Sprint time bonus. The final part of the plan was to get me in a break on the last lap to try and get some time on the field.

It all went fairly well. Ben challenged the sprint, and came up just short of a bonus in 4th. He was also very active at the front of the race chasing breaks. Justin went for the KOM bonus, but again was just short in 4th. All the breaks were getting chased down quickly by the field. I think the heat had something to do with this. It was easily 95+ and it was hard to get enough fluid down. I started to get chills on the last lap a sure sign of dehydration. Talking to others after the race I found out I was not the only one. So a small change of plans we tried to line things up for the final sprint. Ben, Justin, Marco and Keith Lad all moved to the front, but I got boxed in and pushed back to about 20th place. There was one final small hill just before the finish. I was able to come around guys over the top of the hill and sprinted hard for the line about 500m from the top. It was a bit clogged up and I had to go around a guy on the grass, but I managed to finish 5th. This was only 1 place out of the money for the road race, but I was still happy with the result.

I was going to have to do a good time trial to keep my position and hopefully set myself up for a podium spot in the general classification. They used the same start finish line and ran us backwards on the road race course. The time trial was short at just under 5 miles, but there were a few hills to really make it hurt. As usual I forgot to reset my computer at the start, so I had no idea what my time was until the next morning. I chose not to use aero bars. With the hills I thought they would do more harm than good as I would have to get in and out of them when I shifted. We were happy to see a thunderstorm coming in from the North. It cooled the temperature down a bit. The only downside was the chance of rain and the wind. Luckily it moved to the East of the course and we did not get wet. I managed a good time of 11:13 which was a 7th place finish for the time trial.

Sunday's road race was in Ocala National Forest. It was on a flat loop course of about 11 miles. There was a short spur road that we started and finished on. The tricky part was going to be getting into position before the spur road and holding it. There was a 90 degree corner at 200m to the finish and I was going to have to be in the top 5 to 10 to get a good finish. Our plan was to push the pace and line up a good lead out on the spur road to keep things fast and safe. The race was fairly uneventful. Unfortunately there was a lot of acceleration and then breaking which really clogged things up. We managed to get 4 or 5 of us towards the front on the spur road, but a couple guys got caught behind a crash and were gaped off the back. The spur road was really scary an you had to fight to keep any position you had. I managed to move up and then got swarmed and was sitting back at about 25th with 1k to go. This was not going to work, so I took a chance and tried to squeeze up the right side through a small opening. I got bumped a bit and almost went into the ditch. I managed to keep the rubber down and got by the guy. I went around the corner in about 10th place and hammered it. I turns out I was a bit too far back and came across the line in 6th.

With my good time trial performance and consistent results in the road races I managed to finish 4th place overall for the weekend. My teammate Keith Lad finished 5th. It was a bit disappointing to not get on the podium, but overall I was really happy with my result. I really appreciate all the work my teammates did this weekend to help me out. I would not have finished where I did without their work.

Next weekend is the Lake County Stage Race. It is the last race before a month off racing. It is going to be a fun race. The time trial goes over Sugarloaf Mountain, the highest point on the Florida peninsula at 312ft. Hopefully I will be able to bring home some hardware.

Trip to the Dog Park

Theresa and I took Sadie to the dog park on Sunday. This was our first trip to the dog park here, so we were excited to see what they had to offer. I think Sadie was pretty excited too. Sadie in the car ready to get her play on.

She does like to run.

and run.

She even made a new friend.

I think everyone had a good time.