stalking fitchburg

I drove out to Fitchburg on this sunny memorial day to try and figure out how to survive it this year. Those who were there last year will remember me limping to the top of the access road after riding two laps on my own and missing the time cut for the next stage of the race.

The big goal of the summer, on my quest to cat 4 domination of NE cyclocross, is to do well at the road stage and be a useful domestique in the crit at fitchburg. Im hoping that we again have a GC rider who can place in the race, and im hoping that to eventually be strong enough to help that guy (Nick? Gary?) win something.

Despite my efforts to get teammates to join me on a scouting ride i ended up out there alone. I felt like i remembered the course pretty well from last year. typically im pretty dubious of "pre-riding" a course. But in this case im glad i did it. My memory of the loop was definately a little bit off and riding it alone gave me a chance to sort out the sections of the course and understand how to ride it.

I feel like i mostly hear about the climb through princeton as the key part of the race. Today I felt like that was definately a dramatic part of the race, with some pretty steep sections, but I think its just where you see the race split, not where it actually happens.

Starting at the ski lodge, the course is pretty fast without anything especially challenging for the first few miles. A little ways after turning right at a "captain bobs" dairy bar you pass a soccer complex and thats where the climbing starts. The Princeton climb, where the feed zone is, is just the last part of a 8-9 minute grind, that starts just past the soccer fields. There are 2 shallower climbs with brief flats on them before making the turn on 62 where it really starts to hurt. I think that getting up that first section is key to staying with the race and getting in position, once you turn into princeton center and see the feed, your about 2 minutes from the end of real climbing. The steep pitch on 62 into princeton and the turn killing speed and then the final pitch past the feed are the final straws for a lot of riders, they were for me last year. but it was the climb into those sections that put me at the back of the field chasing.

After the princeton climb you get about 5-6 minutes of rolling hills, and even a short downhill grade before hitting the second section of climbing. The grade is deceptive, its not a killer, but the lack of good visual markers make it seem shorter than it is. This section is about a 6 minute grind of varying pitch, with only one real flat section to rest briefly. There is a good reason that the end of this climb is the KOM point. Its also a nice setup that will help thin out the climbers on the final lap before hitting the access road on the last lap. On the first three laps you get a nice long fast descent just after the KOM, past the ski area and back down to the flat section of the course. and about 15-20 minutes until you have to do real work again, assuming you hung onto the group.

Sadly the access road is under construction and also being guarded by a ranger, so i couldn't ride up it. Im going to try and go back once that is ridable again. Im pretty confident that knowing the breakdown of the course is going to help a lot this year. Id like to have a sense of how long the final climb is and how the pitches come at you.

Did I win a race?

I did!

* 1 lap Chariot Race

1. Seth Davis Cambridge Bicycle / Igleheart Frames

2. David Tremblay

3. Todd Eves Minuteman Road Club

4. Michael Tobin Unattached

5. Willie Walker Unattached



How in the world I won a 1 lap sprint against anyone is a huge mystery to me. In both the heat and final I dumped it all at the gun and have no idea what happened behind me.

So i guess training works?

Post in which I do the opposite of sandbagging...

...And ride with people clearly faster than me.

I went for a ride this evening with some of the Cat3's from Cambridge, Cary and RMM. The plan was to ride out to Blue Hills and climb the observatory access road. I wont bore you with the details since the ride was pretty uneventful, except for a very Karmic-ly timed flat for Cary, just after he started giving me some sass about riding Tubulars.

But the Hill is a killer. Its nice and long and well wooded, with no car traffic since its a closed service road. If you picture 6 minutes of idyllic climbing then your pretty close, except take out the Idyllic parts because unless your watching it on Versus, in slow motion, Climbing never feels elegant or graceful. There are a couple sections where I was definately maxing out my cassette and still Cary and RMM were gradually getting away.

In fact the only times I beat anyone up the hill are when Mike missed his clip in at the bottom and I got a few seconds lead as we started up.

The point of this post is that getting my butt kicked by a long hill and two cat 3's I think i figured out how to climb. By which i mean, I figured out how I climb. In the lead up to battenkill there are a lot of opinions about tire choice, tubular vs clincher, and gearing. And I decided today that a lot of that is like watching pre-game for the superbowl. People just need to fill time before the big show starts and its easy in biking to over think and over share your overthinking with others when it comes down to gear.

What I figured out today is I need to spin to be able to climb fast. Ive sort of known this from cross, I consistently undergear myself compared to the other cambridge guys. And I placed well at Freddy v Jason with absurdly light 34x14 single speed gearing. Today on the climbing I actually felt best on the last few climbs because i started spinning on the less steep sections, keeping cadence up enough that I could stay in the saddle made a big difference in how fast i got up the hill. On the steep sections when i ran out of bigger cogs i just dont have the power to spend. So im very excited about the 11x28 cassette that came in the mail last week.

So thats what works for me, but im 130 lbs with only 3 months of serious training going for me. So dont take my advice on anything unless you are a secret twin or something.

Maybe there is hope for me as a climber yet?

People keep making themselves my enemies!

I guess I've been lucky in the years ive been racing bikes that I have never actually been involved in a crash while racing. There have been a couple times when people have crashed around me, but ive been able to avoid these "entanglements" myself.

So it was a shock on sunday, at the first race of the year that I found myself out of the race and unable to support the team because of a crash at Marblehead. And a silly crash at that.

I think we all accept a bit of risk when we race, and there were certainly several chances to take yourself out this weekend. A car on the course that could not be cleared before the start, the famous "Marblehead Hairpin", and the rookies who are always part of mixed 4/5 fields. But I was crashed out because of someone being dumb.

CCB fields a number of Juniors and most of them are fast kids. I found myself behind one of them several times in the first half of the race and noticed that his bike was squeaky and he was not a smooth rider. A squeky bike on race day means one of 2 things, either you dont know better and dont care, or you ride too much to keep things clean. If you are on your bike 7 days a week ill forgive a dirty bike that makes some noise, but once i started seeing some of the hard cuts into the field the kid was making I was pretty sure that he was the former and that he was best avoided.

With 4 laps to go we had our first crash of the race when someone finally got sloppy near the car on the course and bounced off it, I found out later this took Gregor out of contention. At the end of the back half of the course my favorite squeaky cervelo found himself in front of me when he decided to cut in on a wheel and cause our second crash of the race. It was a typical crash. Front wheel versus rear wheel, the kid lost his front end and went down at decent speed, turning his bike sideways. A racer who had been moving up to pass us both got caught as he went down and blocked the only room I had to avoid. Being the type of person who keeps things in pretty good and functional shape, if not always perfectly clean, all my bussiness worked well and I got things stopped a couple inches from running the culprit over. But of course people behind me were less aware of what had hapened and ran into me, knocking into the crash. By the time I got up the field was a good bit ahead, but still visible. Pretty quickly i determined that everything was working, but that my shifting had bit of a delay in it, but it was minor. I chashed up, trying to catch the field as they slowed for the hairpin, but soloing into the headwind took too much and I was still by myself as I made the turn. After a hard lap of chasing I started finding wheels from others who had been involved in one of the crashes, and among them Gregor. We rode it in together, finishing the race and beating the dreaded "DNF" that would have otherwise appeared on our "road-results.com" file.

So this kid is now on the list of wheels to avoid, and hopefully give me reason to bark at the next time im in a race with him. Im not injured but I have a sore stiff knee, a bike that needs adjustment, and a carbon tubular that needs to be stripped and trued. I keep thinking of a quote from the book version of "Silence of the lambs" about how Hannibal Lector preffered to "eat the rude", and now i can relate. The only moral I can take from this is Im glad ive been riding the EDGE wheels for the last week and had a pretty good feel for how the respond to heavy braking. If I had just thrown them on for race day im pretty sure I would ran over the kid rather than just falling on top of him.

I also keep thinking of a project that a former roomate kept trying to get going each year, early in the road season. Its a website called ICANTRIDEINAPACK.COM and I think we have our first candidate.

Sandbaggers in the NEWS!

Students help sandbag as river keeps rising

FARGO, N.D. - High school and college students were let out of class Monday to help with sandbagging as residents raced to hold off possible flooding on the rising Red River.

Too Good!

Drag racing

The function of sandbagging is to guarantee a win by outperforming the slower opponent at first, and then hitting the brakes near the finish line in time to just barely beat the opponent.^[2] However, sandbaggers run the risk of beating their dial-in time, thus disqualifying them from the race. Sandbaggers must be experienced in controlling this technique, and therefore, it should not be attempted by beginners.^[2] Sandbagging faces much criticism, as many argue that it is essentially cheating.^[2] Television shows such as Pinks and bracket racing rules discourage sandbagging by creating automatic disqualification for breakouts.

Product Review/call for swag- Rapha Cap

I mentioned my "sweet prize" in the last post about the Freddy/Jason/Predator Race that happened last week. Now your going to hear all about it. As the first cycling product if bought/obtained in 2009 it will also be my first product review on this blog.

First off I should say that I think of myself as a craftsman. Ive worked for Parlee (as a framebuilder) and for Seven (as a painter and finisher). Ive also built rowing shells, Kayaks and spars that in their realm are quite high end. In my current job I deal with a lot of rowing equipment that is handmade and a lot that is "manufactured", and have a good eye for thoughtful design and quality construction. I dont mind paying for quality, things like Oakley glasses and Iphones are expensive because they work better, and im fine with that.

Second, since this hat was a prize I cant say for certain that it is first quality. It is entirely possible that this is a second or a reject, and given my opinion of it i hope this is the case.

So I really wanted to like this hat. I really want Rapha clothing, which is about as high end as you can get, to be worth it. I am still looking for a pair of boots that will last me forever and hold out some hope that there is cycling apparel that will as well. After wearing it for a week and looking it over a bit in good light. I have to say i feel let down.

The design is great and the materials certainly feel high-end, but the construction just doesn't seem to be up where it ought to be if this hat is sold for $40 US.

Cycling hats are a pretty simple design and there is not many places you can make a mistake. The most obvious one on this hat though is pretty obvious. The brim isnt centered on the hat. When your only major design element is a black stripe on a white hat, you pretty much have to get this right or things look a little "off". Mine is not right, its not off by much, but its of by enought that I notice it and that means its wrong.

Inside the hat there are some stiches that are loose, loose enough that the top thread pulls through and stands out. I am guessing that with time i will start seeing the stripe lifting where the thread is loose.

I should say that functionally it is a great hat, it sits on my head and I enjoy wearing a little bit of fancy when i go for an evening ride. It has also stayed remarkably clean for a white hat that my hands have touched while i am at work.

If it saves my life or catches fire, there will be an update. As it stands I feel a little bit let down, like i just figured out Santa wasnt real. If Rapha cant make a fancy hat that impresses, who can? And if Rapha misses on hats, how nice are the $750 tweed softshells really? They take pretty pictures of some really impressive rides, and they know design. But at the end of the day, the stuff also has to work as a hat. If in fact this hat was donated as a prize because it was a second, Ill retract my sadness, and happily review any first quality product Rapha wants to send me.


Loose stiches inside the hat.
Classy branding, just enough to know who made it.
A view askew of the slanty brim.