research and development
today is day three of the nature valley grand prix. first stage was the tt on wednesday. it was a 4.5 mile out and back on the banks of the mississippi river. it was a pretty windy course with a 200 ft rise in the middle and a false flat heading out to the turn around. if i'd had a tt bike and had ridden the day before, i probably would have really enjoyed the course. as it was, i kind of enjoyed it. i've never done a tt like that on a road bike. its not that bad, but definitely a disadvantage. i couldn't really relax in an aero position and still put power into the pedals--i didn't feel like i hade as much power. more than that though, i was sick a week ago and didn't get to ride yester, i went out feeling good and was pretty much blown for the last 1 km in the wind. i think that happened to a lot of guys. dustin came out our best placed rider in something like 50th place.
yesterday was a 92 mile road race. it started at 445 pm and was about 90 minutes away. three hours of driving for 3:20 in riding. yeah! they called up about 20 guys to the start line, including adam curry, cause he's from new zealand. lots of local guys got call ups. anyway, the racing started off pretty fast. the course was essentially flat with a few short climbs coming later on. it finished with six laps on a 2.5 mile circuit with a .6 mile climb that averaged 15%. damn. in the first 20 or so miles there were a lot of moves, none of which stuck. i think the local teams were riding with a lot of anxiety; they were putting in hard move after hard move without doing in a really smart manner. one big group did get off without a broadmark guy in it, so i put in a big bridge effort. i wasn't able to get off clean and was pulling a number of guys across. i pulled off to see if anybody would pull through and nobody would. i attacked again and was going solo. after a bit a group, which i thought was the front of the pack came past me but i couldn't get on. the pack came to me and we hit the side wind sections which would define the race. i was feeling the effort and was now guttered. i held for a while but then started opening up gaps. i slid back a while but then the course turned and i we got a respite from the side wind. i was able to recover a little before the next side wind. i was near the front when it strung out again and i though i could jump across the guttered group to get to where the echelons were formed. well, i put that effort in but didn't quite make it and started going backwards, not able to get any cover. huge gaps started opening up and i fell off with one other guy. another group came past us well off the back and i got on and rested. we picked up a more and more guys and got a decent group of 20 guys. ahead of us the pack was under pressure and breaks were getting off. adam got into one of the moves, which was pretty disfunctional. none of the pro teams besides endeavor was working but all the amateurs (probably local guys) were killing themselves. adam finally popped and came back to the group. once that break got off, the pack slowed down significantly and my group was able to get into the caravan and work its way up to the safety. i think a good portion of the pack was pretty worked. we moseyed for quite a ways. things would get tough in the side winds, but none were as long or intense as the first. with about three or four miles to the finishing circuit, a webcor guy went into the gutter while we were strung out in the side wind. he tried to get back onto the road but simply fell over, caught on the lip. this took out 6 guys and disrupted the pack. dustin and owen were right next to it and made it with the peleton. i was behind it and got caught behind the split. adam was stopped but was able to draft a car back to my group. none of the guys in my group, would take regular pulls so we fell off the pace of the main group. we hit the finishing circuit with a quite large group less than a minute behind the pack. the local guys all started killing it (whereas before they wouldn't see any wind) in front of the crowd. first time up the climb they all started attacking. they didn't quite have as much gumption the second time. my second time up a stiff link in my chain (the shimano guy screwed me!) caused my chain to drop twice. i almost fell straight over because my new pedals were a bit stiff! ha ha! adam was not far behind me. i was lapped by the leaders and i was pulled. didn't want to go up that hill again. in the end quite a number of racers were pulled by the time cut and a number simply dropped out.
today we're chillin' out. tom and i went out to spin an hour to prepare for the crit. the rest stayed in to play XBOX. i'm not sure if they've gone outside yet. motocross.
a friend of our host works in research and development at pilsbury. she brought over about 10 pounds of freshly baked chocolate chunk cookies.
