Mt. Diablo Hillclimb TT, June 21, 2014

Copyright 2014 Craig Huffman

Event	Mt. Diablo Hillclimb TT
Date	06/21/14
Group	M45 Cat 4/5
Bib #	148
Result	4th of 22
Course	(from the race flyer) 10K (6.2 miles) time trial up the North Gate side of Mt. Diablo. Course begins at the entry kiosk on North Gate Rd. and finishes at the ranger residence just short of the junction (intersection of North Gate Rd. and South Gate Rd.) covering over half the total distance to the summit. Climbing with gradients up to 15% begins after 1.5 miles of gentle rollers. Total elevation gain of 1,740 ft. Road has good pavement.
Details of Race	While I enjoy solitary, brute force efforts while cycling, I don't focus on time trials (TTs) much because for me they lack much of what I love about cycling in the peloton. We have several local stage races which usually include a TT on the same day as the criterium stage. This one TT won't have any impact on my ranking, nor will I accumulate any upgrade points for it. But the Diablo Hillclimb TT is a local classic “must-do” because of the climbing (another being the new year's day San Bruno Mt. Hillclimb TT). It's a good opportunity to compare my ability with other good climbers that I've raced against during the year. While USAC currently ranks me nationally in the top 5.6% of all ages of male cat 4 road racers (#392 of 6978), I don't expect I'll develop as high a ranking in the TT discipline. Since this TT is a climb, and my bike, Tweety weighs 21 pounds, I geeked out a bit, prepping for this time trial. I used a scale to weigh each of the elements of my total payload, such as bottle cages, bottle cage bolts, bib shorts, jerseys, CO2 inflator vs pump, etc. By selecting my lightest, most essential kit, I managed to reduce my usual load by about 1.25 pounds. I could've foregone the CO2 inflator and spare tube, but I figured I'd want to ride the rest of the way up the mountain after finishing the TT. My body weight has been dipping nicely, hovering now at 135 lbs, so that's 2 pounds lighter than during my most recent race. I even priced the rental of a carbon bike, but just couldn't justify the expense. When totaling the gross weight (rider plus clothing, bottle, bike & accessories), I estimate I saved almost four pounds, compared to how I'm outfitted for my usual rides (gross wt: 157 lbs vs 161 lbs). The week prior was hectic, so training was limited to two hard rides, totaling only 80 miles. Warmup consisted of spinning on the rollers at high rpm, while drinking 2 bottles of electrolyte and supplementing my breakfast with a few Medjool dates and a banana. I usually spin at 100 rpm in a small gear, with occasional 130 rpm intervals for 1 minute. The first 130 rpm interval, one of my fan belts failed and I had to stop quickly to keep the remnants from jamming the rollers. With 15 minutes to go before my start time (9:33am), I put everything away and rode the 1.2 miles to the start ramp. Another rider on the start ramp Riders are started every 30 seconds. The first couple of miles of the course are fairly flat, rolling, big chainring terrain with a couple of downhill sections. Then the climbing begins. I caught my minute-man here, and a couple minutes later, Shane Kinney, who started 30 seconds after me, said “C'mon buddy! Let's go!”, encouraging me as he came past. Shane has been an "animal" on the road this year. I checked my heart rate to see if I could afford to match his pace, but I was already at 177 or so. I know from experience that I can't maintain 180 bpm efforts on warm days for long, without cramping, so I stuck to my pace. I kept Shane in view for 2 more miles until the road began getting more curvy (and he drifted farther ahead). I passed many earlier starters, so while I lost sight of Shane, I knew I was doing fairly well. Copyright 2014 Craig Huffman I've raced several times with nearly all of the 22 starters and had a pretty good idea of their climbing performance. I estimated that I was likely to finish at least as high as 5th. Copyright 2014 Craig Huffman I monitored only heart rate and cadence on my Garmin device, trying to maximize my effort based on them alone. I've done this climb several times over the past 40 years, but not frequently enough to know the road as intimately as those on my own side of the bay. I was lucky enough to read another racer's report, which mentioned that the finish was only a few hundred meters beyond the “2000 ft. elevation” sign., so I didn't know how close I was getting the finish until I saw this sign. I hit it with everything I had left at this point and was rewarded with a finishing time of 29:29.6, good enough for 4th place. Since the course ends only 2/3 of the way up the mountain, I ascended to the summit before returning to the registration area before seeing the official results.
Advice Results	Gearing: A 53/39 x 12-25 is ideal for this course. I thought about shedding the big ring, front dereilleur and cable to save another 12 ounces, but the big ring is needed for the first two miles. Hydration: No more than 1 bottle needed Feed: If you're well-fed through warmup, there's no sense in hauling more in your pockets. This is only a half-hour effort. http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2014-2054&bypass=1

Weekend? What Weekend?!

The gig was good!
photo: ©Tamarind Free Jones

I'm glad I skipped the race on Saturday. The weekend was full enough. On that day I just did a fast-ish 52-mile ride.

Our band No Exit's Sunday gig at the Haight Ashbury Street Fair was a lot of fun, if all too brief (30 minutes). Twenty or thirty of our die-hard fans came out to support us, and we entertained some salty denizens of SF's Park District.

The stage crew was extremely professional. Not only was there a board operator for the live mix, but a dedicated tech for the monitor mix. He roamed around onstage during our sound check tweaking the monitor mix using his iPad until we were happy with it. There was a secure barricaded perimeter for equipment and plenty of extra hands to load in and out.

I think we hid any goofs on our performance pretty well and overall it was a great morning. Jen and I were home by lunch time.

Oh Those Busy Weekends!

Arrrgh! I really hate to skip the Pescadero Coastal Classic this weekend. It's on Saturday (tomorrow as I post this) but I've got a full weekend booked. I know it's a wussy thing to worry about crashes, but the rest of my band would be justifiably furious if I couldn't show up due to a mishap on the bike. You see on Sunday, my band No Exit is playing at San Francisco's Haight Ashbury Street Fair at 11am on the Masonic Stage. Missing the race is disappointing but playing at such a large event in San Francisco will be a blast. And since I don't have to leave until 8:15 to meet the rest of the band at the stage, I'll have time to watch some of the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné before I take off. The Pescadero Coastal Classic is a popular NorCal road race... in fact I noticed more than a week ago that online registration for my age group (m45 4) had closed already because the field was filled. Of the eleven races I've done this year I've raced with the m35 cat4 group five times, so I'd have happily done so again this weekend. I'm 53 but so far I haven't noticed any difference in speed, power or tactics between the m35s and m45s. I'll still squeeze in a local training ride Saturday and look at the NCNCA calendar to see what races to do next. I'm really interested in the Little City Stage Race, June 20, 21 & 23. And of course there's the Mt. Diablo Hillclimb TT on June 21st. I really should take a lesson from my brother-in-law Dave, who had a great post this morning on his blog about "tapering." He wisely takes a longer-term approach to preparing for races. I'm not only too disorganized to successfully plan ahead that much, but I'm often racing several weekends in a row. The only tapering I have time to do is to have my last hard training ride on Wednesday or Thursday, then easy spin/recovery rides until that weekend's race(s). I'm managing to average about 175 miles per week (10 hrs/wk) lately. I'll hit 3000 miles for the year this weekend and have 212,657ft of elevation gain. This month if time allows, I'll attempt to increase weekly bike hours to 11. In July, bump it up to 12.
Links	No Exit on Reverbnation	http://www.reverbnation.com/noexitsf
	No Exit on Facebook	https://www.facebook.com/NoExitBand.BayArea

Early Bird Criteriums and Clinics

Events	Early Bird Criteriums and Clinics
Dates	Five Sundays from January 5th through February 2nd, 2014
Group	45+ 5
Bib #	multiple
Results	01/05/14	01/12/14	01/19/14	01/26/14	02/02/14
	11/41	9/38	7/20	4/26	2/12
Course	A flat, wide, 1.3 mile, non-technical criterium course in a business park. Excellent road surface.
Details of Races	The Early Bird Clinic and Race series is a valuable pre-season refresher for anyone planning on racing. Each Sunday leaders and mentors provide instruction, tips and drills, focusing on pack riding skills. While we ride year-round here in California, the actual road racing season basically ended in Septermber for most. And many, like me, haven't actually raced for years, or not at all.  After the clinic, each category has their own race. We raced eleven laps each time. These are pre-season races, so no results are recorded. Any results I listed above were based on my own observation. Besides the valuable training, some categories earn upgrade points for participating. I participated in all five clinics and races each of the, earning 7.5 upgrade points. I had one point from the Mt. Tam Hill Climb back in September, so I only needed to pick up 2 more points in the Early Bird Road Race and the Cherry Pie Criterium. A simple matter of submitting a request to upgrade through USACycling resulted in an official move up to category 4. My yellow, steel Ron Cooper, Tweety, drew a lot of attention (who knows?... maybe it was my amazing prowess on the bike;-)) and each week I made several new friends who are now riding buddies and fellow racers.... ... even though one Sunday I bore the "mark of the beast". I highly recommend the Early Bird Training Series.
Advice	Attend as many as you can. This is a great time to practice moving around safely in the pack. It's also great practice for trying out different plans for timing your sprint. I never quite got it right, but you can see by the progression of my results I was making progress. And it sure beats making the same rookie mistakes during the actual season... now I just make other rookie mistakes.

Links	Results	not recorded
	Strava	http://www.strava.com/activities/104346452 http://www.strava.com/activities/106001225 http://www.strava.com/activities/107651055 http://www.strava.com/activities/109270802 http://www.strava.com/activities/110830223

Cherry Pie Criterium - February 9th, 2014

Event	Cherry Pie Criterium
Date	02/09/14
Group	35+ 4/5
Bib #	957
Result	5th of 20
Course	1-mile lap on good, wide roads in business park area. A stiff 100 meter climb on each lap. Uphill finish.
Details of Race	It was pouring rain, but I needed one more race to qualify for an upgrade to category 4. I decided to go for it, but chose to ride the spare bike, my $179 eBay find, a mid-80s Raleigh Competition. I mounted good tires and hoped that using the bar-end Dura Ace shifters wouldn't foul me up in a pack. I fought for all three primes, but won none. These sprints definitely split up the field. Two attacked on the final lap and I tried to bridge alone. I was losing ground so I sat up to rejoin the remainder of he pack and sprint for 3rd. I ended up with 5th place & I won a soggy envelope containing a 10-dollar bill! On the following Monday I submitted my request for a 5-to-4 upgrade and it became official about 2 hours later.
Advice	A good early season criterium with a good hill. Even though it's in a business park, this course is sort of technical. I like this race.
Links	Results	http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2014-385
	Strava	http://www.strava.com/activities/112292203

Wente Vineyards Classic Road Race - April 26, 2014

 

Event	Wente Vineyards Classic Road Race
Date	04/26/14
Group	45+ cat 4/5
Bib #	832
Result	4th of 65
Course	This course is 3-plus laps of loop through the rugged hills on the eastern edge of Livermore, California, for around 4300 ft of total climbing. It's... well… windy… but the presence of thousands of electricity-generating wind turbines on the surrounding ridge tops foretold that. Total distance for our group was about 45 miles.

Details of Race

I got up at 4:40 am, yet I was ultimately about 10 minutes late getting to the race. I usually like to plan my arrival for 90 min. prior to my heat, to allow for sign-in, number pinning, eating, agonizing about my wardrobe and warmup. Our heat started at 8:30 a.m. With 65 riders. Rolling north on Greenville Rd., the pace was relaxed. I kept my eyes peeled for any breakaway attempts that can, I hear, happen on the first climb, which begins at mile 3. With so many of us fanned out across the road, and me half of the way back in the pack, I couldn’t have controlled anything up there anyway. Those first 3 miles are fairly flat, averaging maybe 2%. Turning right (east) on Altamont Pass Rd., we're pushed by a lovely tailwind from the west. We hit the first climb after turning onto Flynn Rd. This takes us past the finish for the first of four times. I pre-rode the course 2 weeks ago to get a feel for this. The pack stayed unified during this initial 350 ft climb which averages 5.1% but has a 13% section as well as a tough 8.5% slog. The grade eases as you approach the finish line (I wish I’d remembered that later). Passing the finish, there’s a false summit as we pass over interstate 580. I didn’t see it happen, but Mark Johnson (LuxVue-SunPower Racing) attacked off the front here, joined by fellow San Rafaelian, Jim Forester (Cushman Wakefield Racing) and stayed away for the rest of the race. I ran into Jim several days later and he told me that Johnson dropped him later on that lap. Jim forged onward solo, but was absorbed by our group during the end of the final lap. He must’ve been working pretty hard out there alone. Everything that follows mentions “leaders” or “lead group” but this is where my head was at for the race, so I'll continue with the charade for now. After crossing over i580, we climb another 250 ft. over 1.6 miles.We’re all together through this. Lap 2 was a duplicate of lap 1. Then on lap 3 the climb up Flynn produced a gap. I had to really bury myself to hook onto the lead group of 12 or so as they began ascending after crossing 580. I gave a free ticket to 2 other riders while bridging. In the group there was testy chatter, like to “Let’s go!’ as we each glanced back to see a 200 meter gap to our nearest chasers. Once we negotiated the roller coaster back through the valleys to Greenville Rd., we overtook some stragglers from other heats. Descending at speed was much easier and faster without a full pack. Once on Greenville for the final time, we had about 20 or so riders in our “lead” group. To avoid the cramping I experienced during last Saturday's Copperopolis road race, I used every opportunity to hide in the pack. On Greenville this was particularly beneficial due to the strong crosswind. I barely had to work from the fast descent through the flats, sheltered in the group, sticking to the right side. I relaxed my upper body, stretched each hamstring several times, drank the rest of my fluids, ate and kept an eye out for a move. Just before the 580 underpass, a guy attacked on the front, but not hard enough to create a gap. I don’t know what he was working so hard for. He just stayed out front and we had a free ride going on the gradual upgrade eastbound on Altamont Pass Rd. About halfway to Flynn, where the climb begins in earnest, he sat up and dropped to the back. We shrugged and thanked him for the pull. As the grade increased, I sat in the front 10, watching for moves on the climb. I didn’t want to hammer too hard if I didn’t have to. A couple of individuals tried pushing the pace, but they fizzled. Attrition put me in the front 3 or 4, so I tried to be careful not to pull too many wheel-suckers, but it was hard to listen for their tires, shifts and breath over my own. As the grade begins to ease from 13% to 8% I could sense that only 5 of us would contest the sprint. Just before the grade eased to 3 or 4 percent, I dumped it down a gear or two and hammered. With 150m to go, this was a bit too soon for an uphill sprint, but I risked it. 3 guys got on my wheel. One shot past fast, the other two were neck & neck with me.  One just edged me out by a bike length and I held off the third. I “whoop”ed at the line like I’d won. I was so happy to finally place well in a cat 4 race. And of course at this point I thought I had third place. As I congratulated “first place” guy, Jay Parkhill (Team Roaring Mouse), he informed me that we were sprinting for 2nd. Oh well… 4th is still great. I earned 4 upgrade points. I won a t-shirt and a bottle of Wente Vineyards Chardonnay. Very happy indeed.

Advice	The rider who got away spent an awful lot of time solo. I'm sure the hills helped keep the peloton from building up too much momentum. The descents are slowed by the peloton as well, so going solo can give further advantage here. If the weather is warmer than 70°, you'll probably need more than 2 bottles for hydration. A person in the feed zone would be handy. I was lucky this time because it was barely 65° so I consumed 1 bottle per lap, which was just right. If the group is together on the final approach to the finish, try to sit in near the front 10 or 12 and coast. Stretch anything that's been threatening to cramp, breath deep, have a drink and keep an eye out for attacks.
Links	Results	http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2014&id=1202&info_id=76234
	Strava	http://www.strava.com/activities/134526491