Tour of Washington County Stage Race: 50+ Report

Road Race:
This is the Smithburg RR course. From ABRT we had Art Brown, Ali Meller, Bob Walters and Ted Harris, though Ted was doing the RR only, not all three for the GC. DC Velo had Paul Mittelstadt, Lauriston Marshall, and Stephen Schultze. AVC had four riders. A bit of a wild card was Bernie Sanders from Van Dessell Factory Team. The total field registered was 21, with 20 of those registered for the GC. But you had to finish each stage to go on to the next, so the field size shrank in the course of the weekend.

The race started with AVC riders taking turns doing very long pulls, and then nearly going off the back when they blew up. Early in lap 2 (I think), Lauriston Marshall jumped reasonably hard and I went after him (he told me later this was part of the DC Velo plan, because they figured Lauriston had a chance to stay away, had been allowed to stay away for some time last year, and the chase pack had shed riders by the time they caught him). We quickly opened up a gap, and that grew to 30 seconds and then 40 seconds, before staying at 30 seconds for over two laps. I was careful to not work too hard (no harder than Lauriston), and watched my power meter to ensure I was staying under threshold except for pushing up some of the short hills. I also let Lauriston go by me part way up the longer hills, trying to hide my climbing strength from him. I thought that the second lap was too early for a break to succeed, so was not committing to it, but I did work harder as time and distance went by and it started to seem like we might be able to stay away (In retrospect, I wonder what would have happened if both Lauriston and I had gone hard and kept going as hard as we could sustain. We might have stayed away, but might have been in serious trouble if caught).

Eventually we were caught all of a sudden. Art told me after the race that AVC had blown every one of their riders as each pulled hard for a lap and then went off the back, leaving just a four man chase group of Bernie Sanders, Art Brown, Stephen Schultze and Paul Mittelstadt (one ABRTer, two DC Velo and Bernie). I also learned that Bob and Ted had been blocking to let the chase go off WITH Art and WITHOUT too many other riders.

I expect neither DC Velo nor Art were working too hard in this situation. Bernie Sanders apparently decided it was time to catch us, and singlehandedly closed 30 seconds on us in a flash, towing the other three with him. All the strong guys (I later learned that two of the AVC guys were decent, but were not in the break) were in that 6 man break, so stayed away easily from the remains of the main field. Bernie was very strong, taking very long hard pulls. I decided not to risk jumping myself, but was prepared to cover any moves... but there were no serious moves from then on, though we had to chase Paul, Stephen and Lauriston a few times. Unlike the 40+ race finish last year which went hard from the point we stopped going around the loop and headed for the finish line, the 50+ set up for the sprint was sedate until the bottom of the last hill, it was almost a track sprint.

I was hoping my climbing strength would help at the uphill sprint, but learned that four of the other five riders could generate rather more short term power than I could. Even though I was well positioned near the back and could watch everyone, and see the moves and respond, I could not generate enough power to stay on their wheels. Art in particular just jumped away from the rest (come to think of it, I have had great views of Art launching a sprint and easily riding away from me and anyone else near us, for much of the season). Lauriston was 2nd, Paul 3rd, Bernie 4th, I was 5th and Stephen 6th. I was a little disappointed to be so close and end up 5th, but this reinforces my belief that I need to work on sprinting. Bob and Ted rolled in close behind us.

Time Trial:
This is the first part of the normal AVC TT course, shortened to 20k, on an out-and-back route. The turnaround point is slightly after the highest point on the course. If you divide the course (each way) into thirds, the first third is slightly downhill, the next two thirds are uphill, coming back the first two thirds are downhill and the last third is uphill. I concluded coming back was going to be a lot easier than going out, and decided to ignore the advice to negative split and save power for the second half. I rationalized that 15 watts more power would not get me much speed going downhill, but it would make a bigger difference climbing on the way out. I think there was a headwind going out.

My time ended up being 29:56, good for second place, about 49 seconds behind Bernie. OUCH!! I was going as hard as I could as I really wanted to win the TT. I set new high CP12, CP20 and CP30 values in this race.

Art's TT started badly when a bee flew though a vent hole in his helmet and stung him on his forehead. He ended up 5th in the TT, so was behind Bernie at this point (recall that Bernie was 4th in the road race). I was in 4th place overall behind Bernie, Art and Lauriston Marshall (by 2 points), who I passed in the TT, but who finished within a minute of me. He did this on his Cervelo Soloist carbon with clip-ons and a 404 front and a disc rear wheel, so not even a real TT bike! Paul Mittelstadt was three or four points behind me, with a TT finish behind Art.

Crit:
Mark Sommers of DC Velo decided to race the crit, which made Art and my jobs rather more complicated. We were worried that Mark would tire us out, or tow Lauriston and/or Paul off the front. Once again AVC led early while everyone else waited. Once the two AVC guys who could pull were a little tired, DC Velo started rotating attacks. I was taking a while to warmup and was thinking about my own finish position, so initially followed Paul M. or Lauriston, leaving Art to chase more than his share (sorry, Art!). But riding 7th or 8th, I could see the attacks start, and would shout "Sommers left!"or "Mittelstadt right!" to warn Art. I was not worried about Mittelstadt staying away on his own, and did not think Lauriston would be strong on a crit course. The game actually got simpler for us when Sommers jumped hard, and we let him go. With Mark up the road, Art and I had only three DC Velo riders attacking.

The opportunity came just after I pulled through the greater than 90 turn (the tight one), with Art and Bernie right behind me. I heard a pop (tube bursting?) and a crash, and a split second glance revealed one rider down and another hitting him. I was just starting the climb and while I did not go into a full on sprint, I pushed hard thinking we could get a gap, and we did. At the top of the climb I led, with Art and Bernie on my wheel, and 10+ bike lengths to the next rider. I yelled "we got a gap!"... Bernie asked "will you guys work?" and Art quickly replied "yes, of course". Bernie took a long hard pull, taking us clear. Art and I also took hard pulls, but shorter. An AVC rider was given a free lap and chased back on, making it a four rider break. We quickly lost site of the riders behind us, who were basically the three DC Velo (Lauriston, Paul and Stephen) and some AVC riders, along with one or two others.

At one point, with a few laps left to go, Art saw one or more DC Velo riders chasing and told the rest of the break. We upped the pace and lost site of them. The fear was that Mark had caught the DC Velo guys behind us, and would pull them back up to us. But with Bernie (the monster) taking big pulls and me taking shorter hard pulls along with Art, and the AVC guy doing less and less, we stayed away. I pulled up the hill to start the last lap, and confident that we had a good gap slowed up to let someone else get to the front, but no one pulled through. I slowed down to rest so that if/when a jump happened I could chase, but it did not happen, I led down the hill and accelerated while doing it, and hammered through the less-than-90-turn hard, with Art right on my wheel. Apparently we gapped Bernie here; very shortly after getting through that curve, Art yelled "go" and I went, not quite full sprint, but hard/fast. I had to slow down for the technical curve (I probably eased up too early) and Bernie must have chased back on here, but he basically had to sprint twice, once to get back on, then corner, then go into the real sprint. Art went coming out of the turn, launched his sprint, and disappeared in the direction of the finish line (the usual thing that Art does). Bernie rolled by me as I struggled to accelerate. At this point I was very lucky; the AVC rider was also gapped and spent from chasing, so had even less of a sprint than I did, and I held him off and rolled across behind Art and Bernie (I needed those points!).

Mark Sommers had won the race, but Art beat Bernie, so won the GC by one point, while I gained points on Lauriston, passing him for 3rd overall (I beat him by two). Lauriston ended up 4th in GC, with Paul Mittelstadt 5th.

I did not see enough of the other races to provide reports, but heard ...

Andreas rode a great RR, and a really good TT, to lead the 40+ GC going into the crit. He was right where he needed to be going into the last turn of the crit, but was taken down. He somehow got up, got back on the bike (apparently with only one shoe) and managed to finish high enough in the crit to keep second in the GC. Kudos to Ryan and the rest of the 40+ team for the support they gave Andreas.

Lance Lacy was foiled in the cat 4 Road Race sprint with some chain slipping problems. He finished 11th in the RR, then rode a strong TT to be close to the lead going into the crit. Fabrizio was riding in support until he finally popped, leaving Lance to close a log of gaps on his own. Lance ended up 3rd in cat 4 GC.

Steve Doetschman nearly went down in the 123 road race when Ramon crashed on some gravel. Apparently Steve bunny hopped over the carnage and ended up in someone's front yard. He, Ramon and Eric chased for several laps, but could not get back to the field.

Ali

A First Race Experience

After riding with the club on training rides for almost two years, I decided finally to take the plunge and go to do the Greenbelt Training race series.

I got there pretty early given that I really didn't have a lay of the land either in terms of the race logistics or the course. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to schedule a meeting at Goddard Space Flight Center (a couple miles down the road) from 2-4:30. How perfect is that ;-) Fabrizio had a good point that if you have not prepaid, you have to buy a voucher from a guy across the street in the TGIF parking lot (evidently they can't take money in the park, no doubt some wacky federal park reg). This is not in any of the web site info. If you didn't know this and got there without much time, you might not have gotten any warmup. I rode over there because I wasn't sure how fast the parking would fill up, plus it was a little extra warm up.

I did 3-4 warmup laps at various speeds, mostly because I wanted to see how the backside hill would feel at various efforts, especially as you got to the end. Again, I had no idea what kind of pace to expect (note the theme). I thought this would be especially important on the last lap to help gauge the final effort, if I were in a position for it to matter. Also, I wanted to get a feel for the entry and exit of the one turn. All very standard stuff I'm sure, but since I have so little experience with courses and groups different from our standard Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday rides, I wanted to try and understand any subtleties. Sure it's about as easy a course as there ever could be but, one can never be over prepared. My goals were 1. not crash, 2. put in a good effort, 3. learn something and 4. enjoy myself.

I lined up in the front so that I could be in the top few for the first time around the corner. Not knowing anyone except John/Mike/Jerry, I had no idea of what to expect in terms of bikehandling. Looks can be deceiving (anyone looking at my stem might think that)... The first few laps were at a reasonable pace and I stayed basically in the top 5 or so. I ended up leading a few laps because I didn't like the spot I was in so, moving to the front was certainly a way to get out of that. But I always kept it at a sane pace to save as much energy as I could. Kind of like going to the front to control the pace up Harwood hill. Keep it fast enough to keep the status quo, but not waste too much energy. There were a few surges generally after the turn or at the bottom of the hill, but it never sticks, evidently pretty standard in the C race.

I loved hearing words of encouragement throughout the race from the peanut gallery, especially Lance's "Don't be a bus driver" with about 4 laps to go as I was bringing the field up past the parking lot. After that, I moved back a few for the next couple laps wanting to save as much energy as possible for the last lap. After the last turn, I was on the inside of two lines, second wheel, nice and comfortable. The guy in front of me had been up front around me most of the race, so I didn't think he was going to pop on the last hill. The pace wasn't as hard as I thought it would be given the last time up, so I was looking left for any attacks. Sure enough, just before the road that exits the park a NCVC guy and another guy jumped. I was able to react and quickly get around to the right of the guy in front of me and get the second guy's wheel. Once securely on, I looked back and saw that we had a gap. Then with 50m I started my sprint to the left and I finished just in front of the two riders. Perhaps a bit of luck that I was able to get around to the right of the guy in front of me as I supposed if he had been a little farther right it would have boxed me in. I was talking to another guy after and he said the he DID get boxed in by the same guy who must have gone right after I passed him. But, I was happy that I properly anticipated the final surge and was able to get on. The course length was about 17+ miles, ~13 laps(?) and my average was 21.3 mph, basically half the Tuesday/Thursday ride distance and about the same speed (for me).

Did I meet my goals? 1. I didn't crash, 2. I put in a good effort, 3. I learned (reinforced the knowledge?) that being prepared was very helpful and that paying attention is key, 4. winning is sweet

Just a plug for next year's SPAIN trip: I credit that trip to getting me to where I am conditioning wise. No question about it!

Spring Training Camp - Villeneuva Del Rosario, Spain

Thanks to Doug Milliken, ABRT was introduced to Idlebreaks training camps. Two groups of ABRT riders went in February/March for 7 days. The trip was all about riding/training, no phones, no internet connections, and very few other distractions. Just hard riding with friends and some awesome scenery. One of the things that made the trip so unique was having a guide, in this case Ironman Andy Idle, who knows all of the local routes and along with John, his sidekick, took turns riding with us and following us around in the support van. As they say, Airfare: $700, Training Camp: $700, Spending Money: $200, Support Van: PRICELESS.

There were many memorable climbs, such as Puerto Del Sol (left) which was 7km at 8%, but the highlight climb of the trip was the climb up Pico Veleta in the Sierra Nevadas, just east of Granada. The climb was 32k at an average gradient of about 6.5%, but the first 10k was more like 9-10% with a few shorter, harder sections just to soften you up. This route is used occasionally in the Vuelta Espania. The following video is contains a slide show of the climb:

The week was not all work though. We did have a lot of fun; uh, the kind of fun only a guy-only group can have (the second group I was in was only men, the first group was mixed). The humor, in our group anyway, was, shall we say, sophomoric as shown in this video:

To see more pictures and videos of the trip including the decent of Pico Veleta in the van and some other climbs, see this You Tube search or watch the slideshow below.