Dromgoogle

Picture from The Great Brewers GP Gloucester Cx  by cyclingcaptured.com

I hadn’t been on my cross bike sine the State Championship race in December, and it was looking kind of lonely. So once I realized I would be in town this past weekend I decided to put myself through 90 miles of Denton and Wise county’s finest gravel for The Spinistry’s Texas Chainring Massacre. The event had already been sold out, but I was able to get a transfer from a teammate, so I was in.

There were some big names signed up already, Russ “Big Daddy” Walker, Tom Brandish, Ben Spies and his teammate Simon Essl were also signed up. Eventually Bryan Fawley, and Chris Powers got spots from people who backed out so we were gonna have a pretty good group of strong riders.  

Mike Bohn and I previewed the course on Thursday evening, even though it was night, we got a good feel for what the course was going to be like.  Lots of undulating hills, and plenty of gravel, some sections had gum ball to golf ball sized gravel, so I was certain the course could not be completed on a standard road bike. We made it out of the pre ride without incident, and were feeling pretty good about the upcoming Sunday. 

Sunday morning came and after a slight comedy of errors  we were out of the house and headed north. The temperature was in the high 30’s for the start, and didnt get too much warmer all day. Most folks were bundled up with all the clothing they had. I went with a vest, and knee & arm warmers, as I didn’t want to overheat once we got going. I did however go with a liner in my gloves as cold hands will quickly make a ride quite miserable. 

We rolled out at 9:00 sharp, and I led the way across Hwy 35, I knew there were a few corners relatively soon and didn’t want to be caught up in the group going through them.   It wasn’t long before “Big Daddy” was on my hip ready to go. I was messing with my computer for a bit, and he went up the road a few hundred yards. Bryan, Tom, myself and a few others were ok with letting him dangle there for a few minutes, but not too long. Once we hit the gravel, and the cross wind, and we were all back together, Russ moved to the left side of the road and put everyone in the gutter. Russ and Bryan and two others got a gap, including my teammate Mike Steeves, and I looked around and realized it was up to me get up there. 

We rotated a few times, and then I looked behind me and it was just Russ and I. We rolled away and no one really wanted to give a major chase just yet, as we were only 6 miles into the race. We strolled through a few miles of smooth asphalt and hit the real start of the gravel and were still alone. At the feed zone, at mile 27, we would have 4 minutes on the group. We didn’t know this but kept plugging away, taking turns and keeping a good pace. We were having good luck so far, getting through the water crossings without incident (Russ had 80mm deep dish wheels), and no flats. 

The wind was out of the north so the first “half” of the race was into a headwind. We would keep an eye on who was behind us, and as we entered Muenster Russ could see Bryan Fawley and Tom Brandish about two miles back. So once we made the right turn to head back south and worked our way out of town, we knew we had to hit it. Russ was on his road bike with 27mm Roubaix tires, and a 53x11, so I tucked into his draft and tried my hardest to keep up with him as I had cross tires which provided a much higher resistance than his smooth road tires, and cross gearing(46x11 was my biggest gear). This went on for about the next 20 miles, we would take turns at the front, but I was already tired from pushing just to keep his wheel. 

Just one of the early hills.

The hills seemed to be worse on the way back in once we had passed the feed zone again after mile 71. It may have been the exhaustion setting in, but Russ would gap me on every hill, and it took me longer and longer to get back each time. The final big hill gps at mile 78 is what did it too me. I finally cracked and had no motivation to get back on Russ’s wheel. We would finish solo from here, I sat up for a minute, had a Honey Stinger Waffle, and some water and felt a little bit reenergized. At this point I didn’t know how far back Fawley and Brandish were. I thought maybe 5-10 minutes possibly. Little did I know that they had some tire pressure issues and would finish almost 30 minutes behind me.

Now the goal was to finish the last 10 miles without getting caught, as Russ was no longer in view, and I knew I wouldn’t catch him. The good news was the remaining miles were a gradual downhill back into town, not without some rollers of course though. At point I was catching a few of the last stragglers that were doing the short course, which was slightly motivating, and kept giving me a carrot to chase. 

I finished the 89 mile route in 4 hours and 36 minutes, 6 minutes behind Russ. This was definitely a tough route, with some very well linked together roads that kept you on gravel probably for 80% of the route. This was good training for some of the races I have coming up in Late February and Early March. I may add some of the roads into my regular training route rotation when it gets a little bit warmer. 

Bob’s Red Mill and some Tom Waits on the stereo. Not Black eyed peas, but I’m not really one for traditions.

Bryan Fawley and I headed up to the Showdown at Sundown in Broken Arrow, OK arriving an hour or so before our race started. We got our numbers, had a look at the course, and proceeded to get dressed. We had surveyed the course from the highway when we were coming in, and it didn’t look like there was going to be a lot to offer, it was a driving range so from afar it seemed really flat and really stretched out. Once we were dressed and on the course for a few warm up laps, we were showed it had a bit more to offer. There was a steep climb with a set of barriers at the top, some good connecting corners on the backside. Add in the wind from the highway across the treeless driving range in we were in for a long cold race. We got call ups based on USAC points, Steve Tilford, Fawley, a few others, and then I heard my name. I got the second to last spot on the front line.

We got the whistle and it was on, tearing down the straight to the hill and run up, it split immediately down the back side of the hill, the first few laps were game on, but soon the wind began to beat us down. We would separate and come back together on the backside, 7 of us would ride together for the most of race, occasionally yo-yoing apart. The last few laps it started to get going again, it split with two to go, but slowed on the backside with the headwind and we all got back together. Heading into one to go, there was some attacks heading to the hill, some separation, and everyone was chasing as hard as they could to catch back on. Fawley would make it back up to Tilford and Laskey and take the win. While Matt Ankey and Chris Drummond would stay away from me and I would finish 6^th, catching one other rider in the last lap.

Podium Pic from Showdown at Sundown 

Saturday was the Ruts and Guts event, Fawley had raced it the year previous and knew it had potential to be really hard. We were not disappointed. There was about 125 feet of climbing per lap. Each lap being about 5 minutes long we would do over 1500 feet of climbing in a little over an hour. The race started up a steep incline and onto a a downhill right handed sweeper then down to the bottom of the stair-ed run up. I was feeling good and was in the front group, but would get gapped off by the time we hit the climb on the backside, and would ride with Stefan Rothe and Andrew Coe for a few laps until I dropped my chain going up the stairs. I would catch back on before we went through the start finish but Stefan attacked and I went with him, but was riding too close to his wheel when we hit one of the hills and had to un-clip and run the hill.

This would be the last time I would have contact with them. I was keeping them at a sustainable distance for a few laps, but then I could see Fawley around the next bend from them and they must have tried to chase him down because they disappeared. Now I was riding in no mans land, as I would look back every now and then and would see no one anywhere close. I got the 4 laps to go sign, and checked my clock. 50 minutes. There was no way I was going to do 4 laps in 10 minutes, so as I knew I wasn’t catching Stefan or Andrew I let up a little, not so much to let anyone catch, but enough that I was burning less matches, as I knew I was racing Sunday in Fort Worth as well.

I’d finish at almost 1:10, in 9^th place. I’m happy with the result as there were some really strong riders in front of me, some of who had fresh legs, having not raced Friday night. We headed over to the awards party, got our money, grabbed some Marble-slab Creamery for recovery and started the trek back to DFW.

Pic from the off camber climb at Ruts and Guts

Sunday would bring myself and Michael Wilder down to Fort Worth for the Escalera Loco at Trinity Park. Michael had raced the day before, and as we drove up said the course was very similar looking to the previous days course. We got our numbers and headed over to the course to warm up. It was nice having an open hour between races to get ready. We took a few leisurely laps and did some leg openers on the start/finish straight. The course was wide open, had a few connecting corners, but they were wide enough to be sweepers. There was a set of barriers, a short sand pit, a few rides up the levee, and one run up the levee. They had extended the course from the day before, adding in some more sweepers on the far side of the course. This was a definite power course, which was good news for me.

Cross Insanity, what with the yelling.

We lined up for the start, by registration order. Usually they separate the categories, but they decided to put us all together, so there were cat 3’s on the front line with myself, Wilder, Paul Bonds, and Ian Moore. The start seemed long enough to space things out, but there wasn’t. I hit the levee first, but a cat 3 rider was surging right next to me. He hit the turn first and went back up the levee. There was an off camber section, right away and I knew I had to be in front of him before we got to it, so I made my move and got the hole shot. Through the barriers, and back up the levee, and it had sorted it self out a bit. We hit the barrier before the run up, and Paul and I hit it first. Wiley, Stefan and Austin Stewart were right behind. I knew Paul wasn’t going anywhere so I tried to make a gap between us and the next three. We did a lap like that and on the second lap Stefan came rolling through on the road section like a freight train. I hoped on Pauls wheel as he came around and settled in. I ended up back on the front and had a small gap on Paul and Stefan with a group of four chasing hard. I was feeling good settling into a nice pace, but on the back side of the course I went into the corner heading back towards the course and took it a little too hot and washed it out. I rolled out of it, and remember seeing Paul’s wheel on top of me almost immediately. Him and Stefan passed me, as I tried to evaluate the situation, the group of four with Wiley, Steven Williams, Austin, and Scot Minard came by me. Moved my shifter back into place and put my chain back on, and started chasing. I was probably 15-20 seconds down at this point. I turned myself inside out for 3 laps trying to chase those guys down, making a little bit of headway each lap. I caught Wiley first, then the other three. Austin was attacking the group as I was coming up so I bridged to him after another half lap or so.

Getting back on the bike after the run up as I catch Austin. 

I was looking for two things when I caught Austin, I wanted to catch Stefan, and if that was not possible I wanted to insure that I got third place. We rode together for a lap, and I was leading, but Austin wasn’t going anywhere. So I started attacking out of the corners, which there were plenty of. After two laps of this we weren’t getting any close to Stefan, so I knew I needed to separate myself from Austin. I let him pull up the road straightaway to take a drink of water and we got three laps to go. Once we got back to the dirt, I could tell he was fading a little bit, so I hit it back up the levee and put a gap between us. By the time I hit the barriers I had a sizable(5-8 seconds or so), so I knew I could concentrate on Stefan. He was a little too far up the road with only two laps left, but I kept it on, incase of a incident on his part of mine. I would get close, but not close enough before we crossed the finish line.

Paul Bonds got the win in first, Stefan came in second, and I rounded out the podium in third. 

All in all a very productive weekend of 3 hard races, after a hard week of training. My first full weekend on the Zipp 303 CX wheels, and I was very happy with the way they felt, and performed. The Vittoria Xgs were a perfect tire, even on the grassy course on Friday night, they hooked up plenty in the corners and I knew I could take them with a little more speed. This week is a recovery week, perfect timing too as my mother is in town for thanksgiving. My wife and I are headed to the Fort Worth Turkey Trot 5K tomorrow, so that should be a fun time for sure. Not much else planned for the weekend, rest and relaxation mostly. A whole bunch of book reading most likely.

Click through for a video from Tulsa as well. 

Rut N Guts 2011 from Design Your Ideas on Vimeo.

4th today and 5th yesterday. Pretty good weekend for training hard all week. Next week is recovery and I have a new set of wheels coming in. So next week should be pretty good as well.

Cyclehaus Tough Cross

Race Report from this weekends racing. 

I got 7th on Saturday and 6th on Sunday. 

Pictures as soon as they surface.