Fresno State Daulton RR, TTT and Crit. (Race Report)

Today was a good day for the Aggies. I'm speaking for the men's A's. (I am sure the other categories killed it too).  We did the 5 lap road race that was on the same course as Madera's road race.  Fairly flat with a gnarly "cobble" section followed by rollers to the uphill finish.

All in all, a good turn out. Quite a few teams, considering Fresno is in the middle of CA.  Stanford was well represented, followed by Cal Poly, Berkeley, UCLA and the list goes on.. Davis was well represented too, we showed up with Bassetti, Piasta, Walters, H-D and I.  This morning I was nearly late to the race, between the long lines at reg and the porta potties. (Thank you, to the girls who let me cut line!)

This morning it started out cold, but no showers. The day warmed up and turned out to be a great day for racing. Windy (as always), which made for an interesting race.

Lap one, not much action.  Lap two is where things got good. Sam, John and I started some rotating with a UCI rider on the rough section.  After a few hard pulls (to the point where I thought I was going to explode), I realized that Stanford was not sitting on our wheel, but instead we had a fairly large gap.  At that point I told John I couldn't take another pull, and furthermore, I was so cooked that I couldn't even hang on to them!  I watched Sam, John and the Irvine rider motor away.  With two riders in the break, I knew that that was according to the plan.  I rode back to the pack and did work there monitoring the race.  Between H-D, Walters and I, we really destroyed any chance of the pack catching Sam, John and co.

What really bothered me was when we were just about to take a pee break, some SDSU rider insisted that we race and not take a pee break.  Really now?  Anyways, a couple laps later when it was obvious we were not going to catch them we got to take care of things.  But yeah, whatever.  Sitting in the pack, I enjoyed shutting things down and riding easy.  Staying "fresh", if that's possible with the wicked cross winds out there. I do not know how Sam and John did what they did. They are studs and I am glad to see my team mates bring home the win.

From what I heard, they were in a three man break (with the Irvine rider) and between the two of them they were able to use their numbers to their advantage, bringing home the 1-2 win.

Oh, and on the last lap, our group evenly took pulls and rode solid to the finish.  I flatted out on the rough section, DNF-ing the road race.




Team Time Trial.

Given that this was Fresno's first race, they did a great job pulling this whole thing off.  However, there's always going to be one or two hiccups.  One of them being that the start of the TTT was six miles away, and we had to pick up our numbers and find out our start times at the head registration. The prob was we didn't get to do that till 2:00, and our start time was at 2:32.  They did not plan to change the start times, it was our job to get there.  We pinned up numbers, threw on race wheels and literally TTT'd it all the way to the start.  We made it with a minute to spare, only to find that they delayed the start by 30 minutes.   Well, anywho, we were well warmed up!

As for the team time trial, I'd say we did well. We felt smooth, did everything technically right. The power was not there, but I think that's a given, considering two of our strongest riders were in a break away for 3/4 of the race.  I happened to be the one going through all the turns on the course, I took them pretty well. It felt so awesome to be riding all together, wearing matching kits and wheels, all that.  There's a great feeling to have four fine tuned machines racing together as a team.  That was my first team time trial, and I am glad to have been exposed to that end of racing.

Warming up during the 30 minutes we had to spare. 

Our TTT finish, catching Cal's TTT. (I love the pain face H-D has on)

The women's A TTT taking first place as well. The pink aero helmets are a new addition. 

So, when the results came out, it turns out that we won the TTT by 3 seconds, over Cal Poly.  Must have been the aero gear.. But really, we felt good with our riding, even if we were fried from doing the 80+ mile road race and Pre-time trial effort riding to the start.

 A great day so far, and I'm getting the deluxe treatment at Shana Summer's house.  Appetizers on the table and lazagna in the oven.  Time to eat, more racing to come!
Seriously though, if you're an Aggie (or friend of an Aggie) and in Fresno, this is the place to be.  It is a shame more team mates didn't stay here, because it was by far the best host house I've stayed at during any cycling weekend.  The food was awesome, the whole family was nice and I am really glad I got the chance to stay there! (I can't believe people would PAY for a hotel when Shana offered her house up for the weekend!) ;)

(And that's just the appetizers.. So much food!)

Note: If you read this blog, you can probably tell I'm super proud of my team's efforts today and I'm stoked out of my mind to be FINALLY racing for UC Davis!!

Good job guys, I'm proud of you. (John, Sam and other Aggie riders).


2/12/12
Fresno Criterium

Today's criterium turned out well.  I think the B's deserve a shout out for fixing practically all five of our A rider's bikes with less than 20 min to the start.  Shifting problems, what the heck! Oh, that's right, Sam planned on getting an entirely new bike.  Not my case, I just got new housing! Anyways, we got that all sorted out.  Seemed to do the trick, because our racing was pretty darn good for racing a lot yesterday.

My job was to get a sprint workout by winning primes, as well as try to shut down anything that got up the road. As it turns out, that consisted of chasing down Sanford rider after Stanford rider.  At least they are really easy to spot with their bright red and white jerseys.  There must have been at least ten riders from Stanford, and despite their numbers, they lacked the organization to really pull anything off.  That, and we (Aggies) did a good job shutting things down.  Big props to H-D and Walters for doing work.  Same goes for the brains of the group, Sam and John who were vocal during the race.

I won't go into much detail, but racing collegiate is fun!  It's really fast, like really fast.  We hit 40 at one point (with a cross wind) and my heart rate was through the roof from lap one.  Literally the first lap was a prime lap and John was like "Anthony, go get it" and I made my way all the way up the pack and got second. The rest of the race was more of the same..

In the last lap, H-D was off the front by a few seconds, followed by me on a Stanford rider's wheel.  The funny thing was, he was just sitting there! I let him do that for a while until his team mate chewed him out and sprinted madly after H-D.  That was my free ride until another Stanford rider took over, doing more of the same. I followed his wheel, dumping us right into the last turn. So, technically I led it out, but in reality I was just chasing Stanford down like no other!  It worked out well, because Sam and John dashed to the finish, along with Alex. They went 2,4,6 (Sam, Alex, John).  That, and we collected a handful of prime points.

I have to say, racing for UCD is awesome, having a team and working together is a priceless feeling.  This weekend was great, I'm stoked to see how the rest of the season unfolds.

Intersquad TT and Paskenta Race Report

This weekend was the intersquad time trial on Saturday, followed by Paskenta on Sunday.

On Saturday Dani and I rolled over to Putah creek at the crack of dawn to ride a time trial.  It was cold, very cold!  I went because it's the team's chance to see who's where in terms of time trialing abilities.  I am not a strong time trialer, and I have not spent many hours perfecting the art of time trialing.  Therefore, my time trialing abilities are somewhat limited.  However, Saturday I gave it what I had and that's that.  Fortunately, for collegiate we don't have the time trial bikes and fancy aero stuff to use.  That seems to put everyone on a level playing field. (perhaps gives me the advantage with my slim Felt AR frame?)  Anyways, I had a decent ride at 24:23.

As for the ride itself, a few notes (more for my sake than anyone elses).  I started off strong, but tried to keep it reserved for the first two or so miles.  After that I tried to keep my heart rate at the top end of my ME, in hopes that I'd be able to sustain that long enough before ramping things up in the last few miles.  Like I said, I am not the expert, but this is what I did, wrong or right.  I was able to maintain upper ME, fortunately that felt great.  I only once or twice backed off a little to not get in over my head with the effort during the middle of the TT.  Possibly next time, no backing off and see if I still have enough gas left in the tank to finish strong.  As for the finish, yeah, it got hard.  (That means I'm doing it right, right?)

The TT felt good, I think the training is paying off.

Sunday: Paskenta
I love and hate this race.  A lot.. As it turns out, this year I made it through the gravel without flatting.  That's a pretty big deal if you ask me.  The gravel is infamous for making or breaking the race for most riders.  That's where the attacking happens, it's where things get hard(er).
This year, the pack dwindled down one by one until we had about 20-25 riders coming into the gravel section.  Those were some pretty solid dudes too!  It'd be a fair assumption to say that all of us were P/1/2 (with some real pros in there).  At one point in the race, before the gravel, I myself had some trouble with the cross winds.  It was not easy keeping out of the wind, but fortunately from experience I knew that I had to get out of the wind.  It was not an option, there was no way I'd survive if I was on the center line (or in the gutter on the wrong side of the road) getting ripped to shreds by the wind.  I think that's what popped most everyone off the back by the time we made it to Paskenta.

As for the gravel, I was doing sorta well until we descended down the steepest of the gravel hills.  I took the turn too fast and wide, forcing me to slow it down and regain my balance which opened up a gap between myself and the three riders in front.  After that I was toast, there was no way I could motor back up to them, considering the were rotating through on the gravel.  It was rough, hard to manage!  I didn't flat, so that was a plus.  But seriously, I had to pee bad, even before the gravel. The gravel didn't help that.

After the gravel, I was back onto solid ground. That's when I snapped my chain when downshifting in the front.  Once I busted the chain, I optimistically thought that I could bend the broken link in and ride it.  That lasted all of two seconds.  The next moment I look down and my rear derailer is ripped off, hanging on top of my chain.  That was the end of my day, I was done for.  Fortunately I got a ride in with the sag wagon..

Not how I wanted to finish the race.  This is the second time I've watched the second half of the race from a vehicle. Next year I'm going to finish it!  The real bummer is, every time this happens I can't really test my fitness. How would I have done in the last twenty miles, the last ten, last mile? I don't know, but I can tell that my fitness is really coming around. I've trained consistently for the past month. That's something I'm proud of, coming from a rider who's raced his way into shape.  I used to ride when I wanted for as long as I wanted.  There would be weeks at a time where the bike would go untouched.  This year, I've done a better job being disciplined with my training plan (considering that this is the first time with a training plan, and a garmin, and strava..)

As for now, Here are some photos of the Paskenta carnage.
And I think it's possible that the mullet was just too much for my chain, it just gave me so much power that I snapped my chain.  That in combo with the Paskenta 'Stache, which is said to give one the power of ten riders. (:

Darn..

This is how I feel about Paskenta!

By the way, this sums up how my girlfriend feels about my mullet. It's quite controversial! I'd say it's hit or miss. Either you love it or hate it.  Personally, I love it. We'll see how long it sticks around.

Fresno is next weekend! See you there.