ride joe ride

I skipped Sherman Park this morning, but apparently there was a pile-up in the 4’s race which sent one or more riders to the hospital. Since corner marshalling at Monsters and watching a dozen or so people hit the ground and two get hauled off in ambulances, my feelings toward crit racing have been ambivalent. Today’s news made this somewhat more clear, though: I’m done with racing crits. There has never been a doubt in my mind that crit racing is potentially dangerous. This season has been driving the point home, though.

In my adult life I’ve been a “bottom of the top third” participant in two other sports besides cycling, and both are usually characterized as being pretty dangerous. Rock climbing has its obvious perils. Ultrarunning, especially when you move into the 100 mile distance, almost guarantees injury. In all three 100s I ran (including the one I failed to finish) I was incapacitated for days afterward. The creepy systemic things that invariably happen post-ultra (temperature spikes, massive sleep disturbances etc) are reminders that lurking around the corner are dangerous systemic failures. Most 100 finish lines are graced by a few people hooked up to IVs. People end up with transient and even permanent kidney damage from blood-borne byproducts of muscle damage. I honestly couldn’t walk for three days after my first 100.

The dangers of both of these sports, however, are different from the danger in crit racing in two important ways. First of all, in ultras and almost always in climbing, the dangers of the pursuit are directly dependent upon the participant. If you get hurt ultrarunning, and usually when you get hurt climbing, it’s your own damn fault. Too much vitamin-I causes kidney failure? Your fault. Your knot wasn’t tied properly and you cratered when you sat back to congratulate yourself on that 5.12 redpoint? Your fault. True, your life always sits in the hands of your belayer while climbing, but choosing your climbing partner is something usually done with a with some serious thought.

If you ride the low cats in crits, you know that cycling is not at all like this. It’s more or less like climbing with a belayer you’ve never met who also happens to look a little drunk. Your safety in a crit is only as secure as the wheels around you. More often than not in cat 5 races (cat 4?), those wheels are being run by somebody who is not entirely confident and/or good at what they’re doing but really really intent on doing it. I am, without a doubt, a very good example of this tendency. You know all that overshooting turns and then grabbing the brakes in fear? Yeah that’s me too. We all have lots of desire to win and less than perfect skills at not causing other people and/or ourselves to crash.

That said, I think the second reason for ending my road racing career early is the one which really sways me. It’s also the one that is more likely to piss you off if you’re a crit racer. If that’s you, you can finish up here and chalk this up to me stopping racing because I was worried about getting hurt. That’s fine with me.

So it’s not really the fear of physical danger itself that’s the problem: it’s the physical danger for such a small payoff. There is no doubt that crits certainly can be fun. When it comes down to it, though, crit racing is riding short laps around a park or a parking lot. The idea that I’ve sorta had floating around in the back of my mind since my first crit is this: it’s really hard to imagine a crit being epic. You know? What would an epic crit be? Can you imagine someone writing a story or making a movie about a crit?

That alone is totally not a problem — we all have fun doing stuff that isn’t potentially epic. The problem is doing something fun, but totally un-epic-able which is also pretty damn dangerous. I used to have a number of pursuits which could be described like that when I wasn’t such an old fart, I suppose. At this point in my life, though, I’d like the physical danger of my hobbies to be in direct proportion to their potential epic-i-tude. If I am seriously risking potential injury, I want it to be doing something that I really believe is worthwhile and not just entertaining. So with that, I’m done with crits.

Road races? Dunno right now.

Alright, no matter what anybody tells you: I didn’t get lost on the midway during Monsters this weekend. The guy three wheels up from me decided to turn into the wheel pit (no, I don’t think he needed a wheel), one guy started to follow and then there was some cussing and squealing of brakes. I swerved off the course to avoid crashing.

And that’s how the 5’s rolled at Monsters: kinda nervous with lots of brake grabbing. By the time I looped back out, the break I had been in was gone and I latched on to the chase group 20 seconds or so back. At that point we could have seriously caught back up. One guy was trying to organize an echelon, which was quite nice of him. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to work very hard and it became apparent that we were not going to catch up. The idea of bridging up was not sounding so good, so I cast about for something else to entertain myself with.

Luckily, fellow UCVCer Ari was in the pack and we quickly set about scheming. We decided that one of us ought to be afforded the distinction of having finished somewhat ahead of the group we were in. We decided it would be him. We sucked wheels near the back of the group and plotted the location of our attack. The plan was for me to lead him out just after the second turn on the last lap and pull him until I blew up. Other than me almost dropping him when I jumped, it worked very well. We got away without any of the guys coming along, and he got his solo finish well clear of our group. Most importantly, we were entertained.

As you’ll read elsewhere, there were some pretty serious crashes — the word at this point seems to be that everyone injured is doing well. I spent lots of the day marshaling the first corner with Allison, so I got to see more rider to ground contact than I would have liked. Despite the ambulance visits and the resulting skewed time tables, Jesse, Dan and all the UCVC volunteers pulled off an amazingly well run event that was very much to the club’s credit. Good job guys. I shot lots of photos, edited them and then accidentally deleted the folder in which they resided. I have most of them still on a card, but it’ll be another day before I post them. I’ve posted some photos from the race here.

For me, Monsters marked the end of the spring training periodization cycle, so after some easy riding this week (including a weekend in Arkansas) it’s back to the build phase next week. VO2 intervals! To keep things interesting, I’m making some changes in the power metric system I use. More on that soon.

Also, I haven’t made a follow-up iBike post, and that is on it’s way as well. The bottom line, though is: I have a nice Powertap system available for sale if anyone is interested.

Driving to the race in Vernon Hills this weekend, I had a big epiphany about why I race and how it all fits into the scheme of life etc etc. I’d consumed a truckload of coffee and was listening to highly motivational music, though, so I’m not sure how appropriate it would have been had I remembered it. Fortunately (for you) by the end of the race I’d utterly forgotten it. This was not because my race, as a entity itself, was especially exciting — we spent an awful lot of time riding around at a conversational pace — but because I both won my first tangible athletic prize and crashed for the first time in the same race. Allow me to elaborate. (It shouldn’t be tough considering you may have actually spent time reading about me riding a trainer while watching movies if you’ve spent any time reading this blog.)

Okay so, on the third or fourth lap, I got a bit antsy sitting in and decided to make my way up front and see why we were going so slow. There was a guy off the front by a few bike lengths so I rode up behind him and yelled “let’s go.” He was smart and indicated that if we were going it was going to be me to be who was going to be doing the work.

If you’re reading along and are not familiar with racing tactics, please realize that this is not how breaks are supposed to work. This dude and I were dangling about 40 feet off the front of the peloton working out who was going to pull for our little breakaway. Sad. Anyway, I didn’t feel like sitting in, so I pulled for a bit. Then he pulled for a bit. This wasn’t a breakaway, mind you, we were just sorta hanging out a bit in front of the group but since we were going about 18 mph, it didn’t make that big of a difference.

As we came through the start, I heard the announcer call a prime for the next lap. I realized that hanging off the front of the pack was not the best place to start trying to win the prime, but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway so I buried it. The guy I’d been off the front with hung for a bit and eventually faded back into the pack. By the time I came through the penultimate corner, I looked over my shoulder and realized I had a pretty big gap on the field — big enough that I didn’t think anyone could reasonably come across (though someone did try according to fellow Tatitos.) When this sunk into my somewhat oxygen-deprived brain, I have to say it was a pretty awesome feeling. Hearing the dude calling the race over the loudspeaker announce “#720, Joe Kallo, takes the prime easily” was also pretty gratifying.

I shoulda really laid it down at that point since I wasn’t feeling gassed. I doubt I could have stayed away, but at some point the field would have had to decide to let me win or pick it up a bit. But sitting in suddenly sounded like a good idea so I sank back into the pack over the next lap. Somebody asked me a lap or two later if we’d caught my teammate who was off the front. I grinned.

Okay so that was the prime. The crash came in the same penultimate corner where I’d had my revelation earlier in the race. Basically everyone was getting excited for the sprint and the dudes in front of me overshot the corner or were pushed into it. One jumped the curb and the other went down, and I t-boned him and rolled off my bike onto the median. I felt kinda bad as I was all sorts of ramped up for the sprint. When I went down I went into cross mode: I was on my feet in 2 seconds and was about to ride away before remembering that this was asphalt and people actually get hurt when they crash. I looked over my shoulder and asked if everyone was okay. They were (or said they were) so I rolled away to see that Damon Nelson, the most inspirational cross sideline shouter in the world, had turned around to make sure we were okay. You rock Damon. Of course the field had ridden away, so no sprint for us.

So my first ever athletic prize won? It was so utterly perfect that I am going to violate my “no photos on the blog” rule for the first time and show you what could be an argument for the inherent order of the universe:

That’s right, a bottle of Italian wine. Utter genius.

You only get one first road race. Further, just because yours ends with an ignominious flat tire does not mean that you can’t write a bloated, overwrought, race report about it. Cf:

This weekend’s kermesse, held in Leland, Il and hosted by Flatlandia was run on a 10 mile loop out in the cornfields west of Chicago. If you kinda squinted, it looked like the pastoral portions of the Paris – Roubaix, and it shaped up to share the spring classics’ tendency to be windy and foul weather-wise. The howling wind made for some really brutal crosswinds, and the sky was black with potential rain. The course itself was flat and had a few turns before it ended with a mile packed dirt farm road to truly echo the spring classic style.

Fellow TATI riders Eric and Francisco were in the 4’s, and I lined up with ~40 of my fellow 5’s for pre-race briefing. After being briefed, the two groups were led away a couple of minutes apart by their own pace cars. After a half mile of neutral start, we rolled across the start and the pace picked up quickly. I made my way up to third or fourth wheel, and it wasn’t long before two Cycle Smithy riders pulled to the front and cranked the pace up still further. This was good as it allowed me do what I really was looking forward to doing: making the first attack of the race. After a few minutes of tempo riding, someone a few wheels up shouted “rough road” and the group slowed a bit which was the mark I’d been looking for. I jumped out of the line into the headwind and heard two people shout “TATI left!” Ah, now that sounded nice. I hammered for a minute or so to open a gap, and looked over my shoulder to see that someone had come with me. Even nicer. The pack wasn’t having any of it though, and they were back on us within a couple of minutes. As we sank back in, another attack went off and the pace surged again.

By this point, we’d covered a few miles and dropped the vast majority of the field — there were maybe 15 or so riders left in the group with a largish knot of XXX riders. By the time we reached the mile of dirt road which marked the end of the lap, we were even fewer. In fact, I was snoozing as we turned onto the dirt, overshot the turn, and had to slow way down to keep from bogging into the soft shoulder. As a reward I got to make a gut churning charge to get back on over the dirt road. Despite the massive crosswind from the right, riders were inexplicably holding the center line when there was a really nice line to the left — i.e. allowing me ride out of the wind. I thought I might use this information on my next lap. I made my way back to the front of our group just as two guys were attacking (a smart place to do it!). Nobody seemed interesting in chasing so we watched them ride away. As we came through the finish line for the second lap, our group had dwindled to 8 people with the two guys off the front. At least four of these guys were XXX riders.

Everyone took a break for a few miles, which felt pretty darn nice, and we began to encounter riders who’d come off the back of the 4’s and 3’s races. Soon, it was time to start working again, and I settled very well into my role of wheel sucker — I figured that with XXX so well represented in our group, they would be happy to do the work. I was starting to form a plan involving trying to attack right at the outset on the dirt to maybe shake the group up a bit when the wheel I was following suddenly jerked to the right and in it’s place a big pot hole appeared. I tried to stand, but we were traveling at nearly 30mph and my rear wheel dropped into it very hard and instantly started to hiss. I screamed an explicative, pulled out of the group, thought (wished) maybe I’d imagined the whole thing, made a move as if to slide back in, and heard the guy who was next to me say over his shoulder “no dude, you’re flat.” And I was.

As I walked down the road for the next 25 minutes pushing my bike, I had lots of time to think about how things could have gone, and what difference it would have made, and what I thought about road racing. I decided I liked it lots. The walk was kind of nice, but I would have liked some cleat covers and a bit less rain. It was nearly 10 minutes before I saw the next group of cat 5 riders.

I finally made it to the dirt road and was a couple hundred yards down it when Julie Popper of Half Acre rode up, stopped, said “you’ve got to ride in with dignity man,” tossed a flat repair kit at my feet and pedaled off despite my protests that I didn’t deserve it. Julie rocks. I fixed my flat, rode the last half mile in, and dropped to the cheers of my awesome friends, who’d driven all the way out there to watch me race.

Eric and Francisco came through soon after, and had to suffer through a fourth lap during which the bottom fell out of the sky. A huge cold wall of rain roared across the course and made a seriously epic last lap — they both looked like they’d ridden a cross race afterward, they were so covered in mud.

Flatlandia is to be commended for putting on an awesome race. I know I echo a common sentiment when I say that I look forward to next year’s kermesse.

There was beer (though not to be opened in the park). There was a robot. There was birthday cake for Kevin. How could that not set the stage for a good night of racing? I know I certainly wasn’t the only one of the ~30 people lining up thinking that the smaller field, and tired legs might lead to a friendly group ride with a 2 lap sprint at the end. In fact, I thought I had successfully campaigned for this as we were lining up. Alas, it was not to be. The evening was a mix of two of the three worst weather features of the week: it was cold (the PT conked out on the ride down) and there was a stiff breeze blowing directly from the west. As we’d learned earlier in the week, this wind meant that working in small groups was a serious pain in the ass — for the majority of the loop drafting did little. The really fast guys took advantage of this, and I wasn’t savvy enough to position myself near them at the start. Gotta practice that for sure.

The first lap was quick, the second quicker, and then the hammer really dropped. The field strung out and then splintered into several lead dudes who were causing the harm, two chase groups and people shelled off the back. I was in the second group and worked with some good guys to pull us back up to the first chasing group.  At this point, my legs were feeling okay and I was doing some goofy “let’s go get em” stuff. By the time we joined the lead chasing group the leaders had 10 seconds or so on us and they were pushing harder. We were working together pretty well, with Matt Stevenson of XXX taking the brunt of the work. Honestly, though, I didn’t see us defying the wind and clearing the distance to the five or so remaining lead guys. Things get a bit hazy, but with eight laps or so to go, our bunch picked it up again, and my legs announced that the week of abuse was officially at the end.

I sat up and pulled out of the pace line. I know now that I was in about 8th place at this point, and that the next nearest group was way back. I should have jumped on with that group when they came through 30 seconds later, but I was already thinking about the birthday cake waiting at the finish. In retrospect, I wish I’d worked back up, but that probably has to do with me not currently being at the end of a 35 minute sojourn in the pain cave. Ernesto Ciccolini pulled off the win to make it four for the week.

So the aftermath: my house looks like a mid-century modern version of a pro cyclist hotel room — bike stuff everywhere. I have some serious bike maintanance to do, and last night’s running the tank dry after a week of racing has left me pretty worn down. I’ve got to work out a plan this week for not going into the Hillsboro-Roubaix next weekend super trashed.

I’m working on a letter to the city peeps thanking them and Half Acre for all the work, but it bears repeating: this was one awesome event and Half Acre deserves serious kudos for bringing this kind of series to our backyard. Half Acre was assisted by a bunch of volunteers including Allison who worked as a course marshall (and rode with me to/from the races for the most riding we’ve done together in months!). Thanks to you all — it was a great week.

Something clicked last night down at the park in Calumet. I don’t know if it was the near-perfect weather, me finally starting to feel comfortable in the pack, knowing the week was almost over or what. I’ve been thinking a good bit about what a cool thing Half Acre has put together with this series, and last night I finally started to appreciate it while it was happening.

Anyway, the race was a good one. We started pretty slowly, but I missed my clip (again) and had to chase back on. I made a conscious attempt to put myself more inside the pack, and found myself getting more comfy with this. Several attacks went off and but the pack was having none of that and all were shut down pretty quickly. I was hanging around the back about 15 minutes in, just crossing the start/finish when I realized I was flatting. I was bummed as my legs were, surprisingly, feeling good. Fortunately, Liz, J, and Patrick had me rolling on Liz’s rear wheel in a few seconds as I took my free lap. Mental note: when you’re getting your push-start back post free lap, you probably don’t want to be in the same gearing you were at when you flatted (i.e. at 25mph).

I chased back on, recovered in the draft for a couple of laps and then started to try to spend more time up in the front of the group. I am starting to notice that staying further up in the pack is sort of not a static thing. Once you’re there, you have to continually keep your eye on your position or you gradually slide back. It’s different than riding the rear of the group where you’re always focusing on not falling off. At one point Francisco and Jesse went off the front, and I pulled my way up to the front to try to make a false chase. I was thinking that given my (new) UCVC kit, people would not have immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was in cahoots. That worked for approximately 30 seconds, and then I was told very politely (ha) that I needed to get on it.

Things fired up on the bell lap and the group shed a number of people. I managed to hold on as things strung out mostly because I wanted to get another close up view of the finishing sprint. I passed a couple of guys with my feeble sprint, and probably finished 18 or so back.

Learned:

I need to spend more time in my drops. Pack dynamics are something I’ll probably keep learning about as long as I do these things. Ideal race tires are not the same as ideal training/racing tires. The front of the pack is where you really want to be sitting.

Nice day at the park — very different from the previous two. Most significantly, the wind was weaker and had shifted directly from the west after two days of gusting from the south. The course is roughly an oval on a north/south axis, so this had the effect of making the vast majority of the race in a crosswind. It could have been this, or it could have been the fact that people are starting to get tired, but after settling in the main pack hung together. There were attacks, but for the most part the pace was consistent.

For my part, I did what I planned to: find a way to wheel suck and recover. After some early exuberance where I messed around at the front of the pack, I mostly sat in toward the back and enjoyed not drilling it. In a big group, the accordion effect is a real thing. I tried to watch the front of the group so I could see when they jumped so as to get moving before the people in front of me reacted. This sorta worked, but I was working harder than I would have if I were closer to the middle of the group, especially in the corners. On the upside, the whole race felt much, much easier than the last two and looking at the power graphs from day 2 and last night’s race, you can see why. Though my average speed, top speed, and top wattage are all higher on day 3, my average wattage is more than 30 watts lower. Not being right on your lactate threshold for 45 minutes (TT or cross style) has a way of making things seem a whole lot less bleak.

Learned:

1. Corners taken five people wide at 25mph are pretty scary.

2. Being toward the front of the pack in the middle is the sweet spot. I need to practice being there.

3. Field sprints are nuts. After a whole race of people behaving in an orderly fashion, all of a sudden everyone is trying to find a hole to thread. Maybe field sprints are for people who don’t have wives/kids/jobs they have to go to the next day.

4. Positioning leading up to the field sprint is really important (knowing this and actually experiencing it first hand are very different).

I’m beat, so this is super short and sweet. I’ll add on tomorrow after some sleep. Rainy, windy conditions at the start, but I managed to get off much better and was hanging with the mainish group for a few laps. A breakaway pulled off and I was working with one of the splintered groups when, with about 8 laps to go, I starting feeling like crap — the group dropped me and I soon realized I was flatting. Super bummed, but I got my first real laps at full(!) speed with the main group. From here, I can see what needs to be done. Time to do it.

Learned:

1. You don’t have to be the strongest. You have to be the person willing to suffer longer than the dude next to you. Eventually people pop off. Try not to be the one who pops off. The goal isn’t to win, it’s not to pop.

2. Quietly tucked into your group is much better than being the idiot out front yelling about getting the dudes in front of you (that would be me). When you blow up, the dudes you towed up won’t stop and pat you on the back.

3. When you go off the front of your group and nobody follows, they don’t think you’re gonna make it. It turns out that they are often right.

Edit:

So to complete the story, last night while fixing my damn flat I managed to strip my rear skewer. Many, many thanks go to Patrick for lending me his so I could ride home.

This morning dawned as clear and cool as last night was thick and rainy. I’m looking forward to tonight’s race, though I may take it easy tonight and practice the art of wheel sucking. My legs are not feeling overjoyed at the thought of three more nights of races.

My blogging fatal flaw is actually finishing posts. Three decent posts sit in the unfinished bin and are now sadly out of date — including a snazzy one in which I planned my approach to this week’s races using the (terribly implemented) predictive functionality in WKO+. Ah well – onward.

So here it is: spring is under way, I’m mid-way through the build phase, the first hill ride in Wisconsin is in the books, and the first race of the season has arrived. Given the format of Kevin’s Crits (5 days of racing in a row) there are some unique opportunities for learning present. Most obviously, by the end of the week I’ll have raced almost half as many times as I did during the entire cross season. Put your dork-sensitive glasses on, but if you remember the scene in the Matrix in which Trinity gets an upload of the “motorcycle driving like a badass skills” — I am imagining this will be something like that. Same course, many of the same people and back to back days of racing allow for plenty of experimentation. It will also be instructive to see how the bod holds up to days of short but intense efforts.

So I am not arriving here in the bestest of shape (hard week of riding last week leading to hill and beer reps in Wisconsin this weekend) but I am going to try to record some of what I see in my first 5 crits over the next few days.

Post Race:

First crit! Woohoo! Well the rain held off and after some logistical changes (we shifted the course to account for the lack of lights on the original roads, though we discovered that there were no lights on a leg of the second course either) we were off. I missed my clip-in and it turns out that somebody thought this was a cross race — when I looked up, the field was receding in the distance. I worked with a couple of guys to try to pull back up over a few laps, but then the main group really disintegrated and there was less of a target to move up toward. At this point it kinda turned into a cross race/time trial with a little more tactical/wind stuff and going around corners faster than you thought you could but seriously lacking in mud. Fun and totally good for building the cross chops. No clue where I finished, but that wasn’t the point, right? Learned tonight:

1. Don’t forget the coffee dumbass.

2. Don’t miss the clip dumbass (it’s as big of a deal as doing it in a cross race). Subsisting without the main pack hurts.

3. If the dudes around you don’t respond to encouraging prodding to organize, then at least use them until you drop them (i.e. you really shouldn’t sit there and pull for them until you get tired of it and take off).

4. My FTP is higher than I thought it was: WKO+ says my 20′ max was 304. Power graph for the race is here.