3 race recap

The results are starting to come in, but I feel I should be doing more. I won a bunch of merchandise at a race in Pennsylvania on Sunday (8/3/08) by taking both preems. I misjudged the finishing sprint and got 19th overall at that race.

Wednesday (8/6/08) at the velodrome, I seemed to be following moves rather than making them. The key to my racing is knowing that I can break the will of the competition. Everyone looks strong until they crack. I've been good at waiting for opportunity to knock, but not at making the race go my way. This leads to occasional wins and consistent 3rd place. Need to attack and sustain. I also need to start sprinting much sooner, before the 200m line, not coming out of turn 4 with 50m to go.

Tuesday (8/5/08) I raced at Floyd Bennett field to get some tempo work as preparation for the velodrome. I was in a small break but it wasn't working out with 4 laps to go. Just as we were about to get reabsorbed someone was gracious enough to shout "Right!" as an Organic rider bridged up and shot past us. Seeing an opportunity, I jumped on his wheel. He pulled through the first corner, kept going for a little bit, then bonked. I was on my own with a big enough gap to stay at the front. Since my goal was tempo work, I settled in fast but not impossible pace and started thinking about the upcoming time trial (on the same course). I think I'll bring music for the TT. I stayed away for a lap on my own. On the long straight I hoped to get a bit of a draft off the pace vehicle but he drove off to my dismay and I stupidly stayed in the middle of the course where the entire field could see me. It would have been smarter to ride near the bushes and hope they would forget about about me.

Eloy was the first to attack when I was caught -- and for a brief moment I thought I'd grab his wheel as he passed, but I didn't have the jump. If anyone is still reading this, this is an awesome team move and should be the status quo. No matter how you slice it to have someone attack when the field's been working to catch a team mate is the right way to race. I floated to the back of the pack, recovered for a lap and worked my way back up to the front where I could see who was racing and who wasn't.

A couple of riders had been taunting and shadowing Jim Butler - especially during the second half of the race. James is a nice guy who just recently just started racing and has already won two races on this course. I might have made more of this opportunity, since they were just tiring each other out. Neither JB nor his taunters got top 5.

I calmly sucked wheels right up to the finish line for 7th. In hindsight I might have been able to sprint into some prize money and upgrade points. Or I might never have made it. I'll just say I came in 7th because I had a nice draft most of the time instead of being some punk's leadout rider.

I'll never know for sure.


To the left, blue and orange reflective helmet.

Field Sprint at Rockleigh

Finally won a field sprint at the Rockleigh criterium

Course description: 45 minute flat technical course, 6 turns. A big sewer grate on the first turn and a jolting stretch of pot-holes between turns 4-5.

Finished: 4th out of about 25 riders.

The Race: There were a few teams with a strong presence, westwood-velo, GS Park Ridge, and a new team aptly named retro-velo, plus a decent sprinter from WS United whom I know from racing and riding in the city.

Two preems were offered. I was in contention for both but I didn't get either one. On a breakaway with one other (westwood) rider when they rang the bell for the second preem. We were both tired but had 250 yards lead on the field the last time I looked back. I wasn't worried, and was amazed when two sprinters blasted by to take the preem at the line. I think this effort turned into an incidental boon for me. The other sprinters had lit and burned their biggest match, but I had a bit of energy left at the finish.

The Sprint: I wasn't feeling so great, and I wanted the sprint to be as short as possible. Just before the final turn, I was on the wheel of a guy who went early. He slowed down and I didn't come around since it was too soon. The field caught up. Coming up to the finishing stretch I stayed at the front. I didn't want to be at the front... but that's where I was, moderating the pace. I looked around to see who would jump. With 335 yards a retro-velo guy accelerates hard. He's on my left with 2-3 team mates on his wheel. I think to myself, we are too far from the line but I have no choice. I have to stay on the front and cut my losses now. I accelerate ahead of him and hold them off. With 100 yards to go to the finish line, I can feel other racers breathing down my neck. This adds the extra motivation/fear I need, and I take mental note there is nobody ahead of me. I'm on the front and I don't have to worry about anything but finishing! I put my head down and jam as hard as I can, shifting 1-2 more times, elbows out, ass on the saddle, low and aero, giving everything I have. I am surprised nobody has come around me yet but fear there is still a small chance, as the course is fairly wide. I throw my bike and win by a bike length. On a slightly uphill finish into the wind top speed was 35.5 mph.

I didn't raise my hands or do a silly victory dance. It would have been ridiculous since 3 other riders from a breakaway group finished ahead, leaving me the spoils of fourth place. My friend Mattio also raced. He got 6th overall, 3rd in the field sprint, and this was his first criterium race.

The entire ride from my apartment to the race and back was 70 miles.

Photos from the finish line camera are available.

Keeping track

This is just to remember what I've been doing for the week.

Monday: Master's track, 3rd on the omnium. Short sprints felt good, longer efforts did not. Mike W. really helped me a lot with the win and out.

Tuesday: Floyd bennett field, abandoned on lap 9/10 after going out on a flyer. Looking at the data from this lap, HR averaged 185 for 4 1/2 minutes. It's no wonder I couldn't take it any more. There was a two man break up the road for most of the race... and that's just the type of breakaway that gets me raving mad and chasing like a maniac. On the last lap I decided we weren't going to catch them and wouldn't have anything left for the sprint. Why suffer? Highlight was the ride home, 17.8 watts/kg for 5s racing a motorbike down flatbush ave.

Saturday: Brooklyn Grand Prix masters. Eloy told me he'd go off the front early, Joe looked good at the end, and I attacked once - but with an average speed of 26.5mph for 34 miles, nobody was getting away. I thought I might have a shot in the sprint but was about 15 feet too far back and boxed in with no room to jump or finish in the top 10. Finished 15th.

Saturday's lesson: There is no such thing as a sprint for 10th place.

Success!

.... has it's ups and downs.

Ups
Two days ago (Monday) I rode as if imbued with superhuman strength at the velodrome, although I felt a bit unsure how to wield this unexpected power.


Scored two wins and a second place for first place on the omnium.

What's changed? Looking over my road racing data, I was hitting 140-150 cadence in almost every road race. I wanted to start using more muscle strength. This is the reason for changes #1 and #2.

1> 49x15 instead of 47x15.
2> Moved the cleats back a bit for greater leverage (same as moving toes forward) .
3> Raised the saddle a bit.
4> Rode hard at Unionvale (the day before).
5> Rested for two days prior to Unionvale.
6> Felt relaxed.

The last thing, #6 is also important, riding relaxed helps efficiency. I was also mentally concentrating on efficiency. And steak tartare from les enfants terribles the night before.

Downs
Today (Wednesday) I was still feeling a little spent and only got one or two points at the velodrome. Meaning that I had only one sprint (matches to burn) per race, and then spent the rest of each race holding on for dear life. It was also harder to relax in a bigger field.

Unionvale 35+

This is a fun race, with a bit of turning, a bunch of hills, good organization, and best of all, close to NYC. The finishing climb averages 7.3%. It's 682 feet of elevation over 1.78 miles from the roundabout to the finish line. It starts out steep, but I was able to pick up some speed on the second half.

Elevation and route link for the last climb.
Map for the course not including the finishing hill.
[Click elevation profile to view the hills.]

Finished with the leaders at the base of the climb, then rode up at my own pace and lost a minute to the eventual winner.

It might have been smart to push the pace on the way to the climb or even try to break away, since nobody was chasing and everyone was just about equally well rested at the bottom of the hill. Or simply push harder at the base of the climb where the decisive split occurred.

15th place, 56 starters.

Floyd Bennett Field - flat course and flat tires

Flatted with 3 to go. Extracted a 1.5 inch long nail from my tire.

The wind was blowing capriciously. It seemed to hit hard on the back stretch where we almost always have a tailwind. Riders were tempting fate, riding close to the bushes, and often ducking to avoid shrubbery in hopes of getting a better draft. It was a perfect opportunity to ride in echelon, but as category 3 and 4 dudes (not european pros), this is unlikely.

Was in a promising break with schmalz, prinsloo, shusaku, and a couple of others. When one of Deno's sprinters bridged up I'm certain he didn't want the break to happen. Meaning this: his pulls were not 'Manly'.

Shusaku and i were pulling hard, some of the others in the break seemed willing to work as long as we were willing too keep at it. I have no clear picture of what happened after I flatted but found out the break got caught 1/2 lap later.

Again from what I heard, Prinsloo who rides for southafrica.net recovered for a bit and then solo'd for 1.5 laps to win it. Nice.

Flats suck. Headwinds are awesome.

Peak power numbers:
5s: 12.6 w/kg
30s: 7.8
5m: 4.1

Category 4 park race report

Today's cat4 park race was a crash-fest, no surprise. We had a big showing and I took smash-mouth Yack's wheel for the last 1/4 lap as he bussed it up to the front. I wasn't entirely confident how long he'd last since I'd heard him say he had nothing left going up the hill on the final lap.

BVF was well organized and their sprinter Alessandro took 1st, again.

Riding relaxed makes a huge difference. Two times I was so close to a crash that I'd say I was in it -- but I didn't hit the ground.

The first was at the bell for the final lap, I actually unclipped and put a foot down as I had to navigate the mess of bikes and limbs. The second time narrowly escaping disaster was less than one minute away from the finish. My sprint consisted of bridging back to the tail end of the leaders group then dredging across the finish line on a BVF wheel.

Finished 13th. Meh. Not crashing, awesome!

Power Numbers
Peak 5s: 13 w/kg
Peak 30: 7.8 w/kg
Entire race: 2.65/kg

Average speed: 25.4

Friday the 13th

It's been a horrible year for flats. I seem to get one every time I put on a new tire.

These are significant flat tires not just random punctures.

In the past 30 days, I ripped a tire on a curb (the curb was hidden under freshly mowed grass), tore the sidewall in some unknown way (on a new prorace3 tire), and just yesterday punctured a new Vittoria tubular over a small shard of glass riding out to a race in Rockleigh.

There was an explosive boom at the parking lot for Jiminy peak. That was when I discovered that Vittoria Corsa CX tires and Bontrager Race X Light wheels aren't compatible. They don't seem to share the same circumference.

Here's hoping that Friday the 13th changes everything.

Handlebars, stems, top tubes, and bike fit

Establishing the correct amount of reach and drop seems to be one of the more challenging aspect of proper bike fit.

For me, not enough reach means nether regions, hands, and fingers might go numb. Too much reach and the bike rides like a torture device for stretching out the back, neck, and shoulders.

I've not yet shelled out three hundred dollars for a professional bike fit, as much as I would like to do so. I have great respect and appreciation for some of the more in depth fit methods like wobble-naught, but for that same amount of money I can buy a lot of parts like stems and maybe a different saddle. Having parts on hand can be useful for experimenting, and I feel that bike fit can sometimes be a dynamic attribute.

Bike fit formulas seem at best an approximation of what works. After trying a number of the formulas I have always required small adjustments to make the fit work for me. I usually (always) carry an allen key when I ride and use it to make small adjustments. As a rule of thumb, adjustments are made in very small increments. The rule is as follows: adjust only 1/2 as much as seems necessary.

It would be easy to go on and on about the finer points of bike fit but there are many others with more knowledge and experience in this aspect of biomechanics than me.

Different handlebars have widely different dimensions. These dimensions are width, drop, and reach. For the most part width remains constant. A 38cm handlebar measures 38cm wide, and a 46cm handlebars measures 46cm wide even though some manufacturers measure from center to center and others measure from outside to outside. Still that's not the meat of the issue.

The meat of this post is that a bar with 4cm longer reach will make the bike feel 4cm longer in the cockpit and consequently should call for a shorter stem for the same feel while riding in the drops. A bar with 4cm more drop will require a few more spacers under the stem, or a different stem angle, etc, etc. This little calculator can help figure out stem length and angle. So if a bike feels like it almost fits, don't give up until trying a different set of handlebars.

Below is a table describing what has and hasn't fit me based on what I've been using. My bikes are
* 54cm Felt TK2. 53.5cm top tube
* 51cm Lemond. 53.2cm top tube
* 49cm Lemond. 51.5cm top virtual tube (too small for me)

Handlebar	Drop	Reach	Sum(TT+Stem+Reach)	Experience
DedaPista	173mm	109mm	734mm-752	Doesn't fit on Felt with 90mm stem or on 51cm Lemond with 110 stem. Too deep.
Nitto 123	170mm	108mm
3T Zepp XL	170mm	100mm	752mm	Feels a bit deep on lemond with 120mm -8 degree stem but is working ok for now.
Nitto 125	150mm	88mm	733mm	Fits pefectly on Felt with 110mm -6 stem and some spacers.
Ritchey WCS Logic	144mm	82mm	734mm	A bit too wide for me (42cm), but felt ok with 120mm -8 stem.
Ritchey Biomax II	130mm	75mm	733mm	Love these bars! Was very comfortable on 49cm Lemond with 140mm -6 stem but geometry and handling felt off. The width is 39 on the hoods and 41 at the drops. But it doesn't have enough drop on 51cm Lemond.

[Highlighted rows had good fit.]

It seems obvious. In addition to measuring the top tube and stem length, the handlebar should also be factored in for proper fit. I should probably try a shorter stem with the Zepp XL handlebars.

This leads me to offer one of my bike up for sale. It's a 49cm Lemond titanium bike. It's one hell of a ride, for a medium/small sized person. I'll accept any reasonable offer. :)

Tour de Parc

Not much to say, just writing my race reports so I can refer back to them later.

Molly came to watch the races. She described my race style as a cat chasing a feather. A good analogy but not exactly a compliment to my cycling prowess. In the masters race I chased everything and was always at the front... but not in the winning break.

Cat 4 race, no breakaways. Contested the prime but otherwise I rode conservatively. Final result: 8th place (in the money!).

Masters 35+. There was a break early on. We were caught. Then a few small attacks followed by the successful break that started at around the midway point of the race. At first I let it go, thinking they'd get brought back, but when a few other riders bridged I decided I really wanted to be in it. I buried myself for 3 minutes trying to catch up but couldn't quite make it. I had waited too long. I saw a strung out field gaining ground on my solo effort so I sat up. A few more times I tried to go with other guys to catch the break but alas, unsuccessfully.

Overall a great weekend for Kissena.


early in the cat4 race


small break, goes nowhere


a few more laps to go...


Sprint sprint sprint sprint, coming around the Setanta rider on my right


It was a close one

...Master's 35+

Working hard to catch the breakaway group, it never happened.

credit: These are Skip Straub's photos that he posted at velocitynation.