Bike Racin' Part One

All right, I know I try to avoid purely cycling-related posts, but things are just going to well not to share it with my fans (hah! shouting into the vacuum). These past couple weekends have presented some great rides for me and my team, and since this is a personal blog I'll take the opportunity to embrace, and embellish upon, my personal rising fitness.

I was worried about my China trip and its potential effect on training, but if it set me back it is all but undetectable. In fact, I suspect that such a respite from intense training allowed the fitness to ferment somewhat. I touched back down in the states on Saturday afternoon. An easy ride that day and the next prepped me for an intense week of leg-ripping intensity (my own legs, for time being). Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday were interval days and the jet lag made for some rough sensations.

That following Friday evening was the Tour of Eagle criterium. Being a few blocks from where I work, I could not resist the temptation to invite the entire Ugobe workforce down to the event. In the end, a handful of them showed up and suffice to say they now view me in a different light (strange to see someone in a tucked-in button-up shirt and slacks every day, then suddenly tight lycra and tech-wear the next). Back in the day I feared friends and family seeing me race and felt a lot of pressure to perform. Not so anymore; I suppose I realize they don't care so much about my results; I also feel a heck of a lot more confident in general.

So I won the criterium! I'm still waiting for some pictures to appear, when they do I'll make sure to post them. We raced VERY well as a team and had the victory in the bag a few times with at least two guys up the road each time. For various reasons each break got brought back until I went with about 8 laps remaining. My personal hero story stems from a broken derailleur cable I suffered 10-minutes in to the 45-minute race. Having to race in my hardest gear for those 35 minutes made me re-think how I race crits... you simply can not afford to scrub any speed unnecessarily; it is much to difficult to re-accelerate. It made for some difficult strategery, as local pro Remi M. was paying a lot of attention to anyone with good legs. When I went I went super hard and opened up a large gap in a lap. The race was actually neutralized with two laps remaining due to a massive, severe crash in turn one; fortunately no one was injured beyond some road burn and a concussion. At that point I had about 2/3 of a lap's advantage on the main field and was awarded the win. Yahoo!

That night was also the onset of Ron Miller's bachelor party weekend; following the crit I ventured downtown to the Balcony, then to the Neurolux. Five mixed drinks and approximately 4000 dance moves later Lauren and I walked back home to our North End cottage and called it a night. A 3:00 AM bedtime wasn't ideal for recovery but was ideal for the soul. I went up to Sun Valley with Ron and his cronies the next day and logged some beautiful mountain bike rides, marvelling at some great legs juxtaposed with my rusty technical skills! My shins are still bumped and bruised 10 days later.