Cycling in Heaven (almost): D2R2

In my heaven there are no hills to ride up, only descents.  But in the real world Newton's First Law of Cycling applies:  for every uphill there is an equal and opposite downhill!  As a result, you have to do a little work to get to the reward.  Other than that, the D2R2 is cycling in heaven.  There are almost no cars, beautiful views, plentiful food and water (in heaven there are going to be beer stops, I just know it), and super nice people volunteering and watching.  Even the drivers of the very few cars that we saw were totally cool when they had to wait for us. 

I signed up for this ride a couple of months ago and had been looking forward to it for a while.  I have never in my 24 years as a "serious" cyclist done more than 100 miles in a day and the last time
I did that was years ago.  So, I opted for the shorter of the two rides, 100km.  Part of the reasoning was the 3 extra hours of sleep I would be able to get Saturday morning before driving most of the way across the state.  But I also knew that if this course was as hard as the bloggage from last year indicated, this was no place for me to try and set a new personal best for distance, time, or anything else.

After checking in I found the Cycle Lodge crew (Jim, Beth, Barry, Dave, Simms, etc) and headed out with them at a very reasonable 9:15 AM.  Those on the long ride (180km) had mostly left around 6:00.  The first hill came after about 10 minutes on flat farm roads and it was an eye opener.  I'm not a great judge of steepness but this was steep, maybe 10%?  More importantly, it was mostly soft sand with plenty of stretches that just sucked up whatever speed you might have generated on a more forgiving section.  Plus there were just enough loose rocks on the surface that you were sure to bump into one at the worst possible time.  After switching tracks one too many times looking for a good line, and trying to get around others already hiking it, I succumbed to the sand and had to walk quite a bit of it.  At this point we were about 20 minutes into what I expected could be a 7 hour ride and I was already questioning my choice of gear (39x28), tires (35 mm city tires) and footwear (road shoes and pedals).  Oh oh, this is going to be a really bad day if this is how its going to be.  At least I had my trusty steed, my Indy Fab Planet X cross bike.  Although not as efficient as my road bike, it was the only sensible choice for this ride although I would soon realize that cantilever cross brakes with last years worn out pads barely have the stopping power needed for 15% grade descents with 90 degree corners at the bottom.

Fortunately, this first climb was the worst climb of the day, although not the steeepest.  I managed to keep the pedals turning on every other climb but I couldn't even begin to count how many times I double checked to make sure I was really in my lowest gear.  I rode almost every hill bottomed out in the 28 and checked two or three more times on many of the hills looking for one more gear only to feel the limit screw.  Better than feeling the spokes I guess.

I can't really remember all of the hills now, but we basically headed northward, upward, downward, upward, and downward until we were well into Vermont.  I noticed that I didn't see a single town line sign on the entire route, but I did notice a granite marker for the Mass/Vermont line that looked like it has been there since Shay's Rebellion (i.e. a very long time ago if you don't know your Western Mass colonial-era history).

If you missed the granite marker, you knew you were in Vermont when you reached the covered bridge which is the turnaround point for the short ride and the lunch stop.  Here is a picture of the diabolical genius who created the D2R2, Sandy, in front of the bridge:

By this point I had let the Cycle Lodge crew go ahead so I could just enjoy the ride without having to suffer on the climbs.  An extra gear would have helped, but I had decided that I was just out for a tour at an easy pace.  The last I saw of them was as they pulled out of the lunch stop.  But I ran into a team mate, Steve Curren, and we rode the rest together and even found another Mass Bay guy, Peter Lastnameidontknowyet, to ride with.   None of us are naturally gifted climbers so we made a pretty good group.  We also seemed to pass and then get passed by the same 6 or 7 riders the rest of the day so they were like part of the group too.  After the lunch stop the long version of D2R2 goes strait up a long hill but the 100km version mercifully follows the Green River downstream for several miles so lunch can digest.  Then there is a sudden switch back turn and it goes straight up hill again.  The good news here though, is that the ice cream truck is parked near the top.  I haven't yelled "ice cream truck" so loud since I was about 10 years old.  Bart's ice cream is almost an institution in Western Mass.  Their Mass Mocha flavor (get it? MOCA= Museum Of Contemporary Art in North Adams) has chocolate covered espresso beans in it and I figured I could use some of that for the rest of the ride.  Knowing that hard exersise and dairy are sometines not a good combination for me, I ate most of the beans and less than half the ice cream, but that was enough to make it well worth the $3 investment.

For some reason, I started feeling better at this point (caffeine is my friend) and pushed the climbs a little more.  Apex Orchard had free apples and peaches for us but you had to climb a nasty paved hill to get to them.  As with all things D2R2, the reward is well worth the effort.  Then you get to descend and that is something I think I do well.  Some skills I guess I developed to make up for sucky climbing ability, good equipment, and thus far never having a serious crash on a descent probably all help.  But the key is weight to surface area ratio.  At 205 pounds, I generate momentum pretty fast and can usually pass smaller guys even if they pedal.  Plus, I'm the master of the slingshot.  I love descending and D2R2 has some places you can let it fly.  There are also some places you should definitely not let it fly.  I probably got lucky once or twice because I had no problems and never flatted (I've definitely jinxed myself for next year now).  There were lots of people with flats stopped on the side of the road on the descents.  Fortunately, everyone that I saw was ok and well equipped for repairs.

At some point the climbing was mostly done with and there were only a few turns still to be followed on the cue sheet.  I knew I would make it to the end but every few minutes I ended up saying to myself  " I'm really glad I didn't try to do the 180km."  I must have said it 5 more times while I was drinking post-ride beers from Berkshire Brewing Co.  But today, two days later, I'm already starting to think about next year and maybe doing the long version.  I must be nuts, I know better.  I did the right thing this year.  One year older isn't going to help. 

The post ride spread was great, as was the beer.  Solobreak bought me a beer, and Steve didn't want his so I had his and mine.  Three nice beers after 7 hours in the saddle and I was feeling very mellow.  I managed to lose about three hours in what seemed like 20 minutes.  All of a sudden it was time to drive to Easthampton to go to Adam Myerson's "How to Train for Cyclocross" seminar.  It was 6:30, the seminar started at 7:00 and my GPS said it would take half an hour to get there if all goes perfectly.  GPSs are amazing (thanks Mom).  I almost got Solobreak to join Steve and I under the pretense that he could heckle Adam during his seminar.  But in the end Foley couldn't bear the thought of the $25 entry fee so it was just me and Steve.  We got there right on time while Adam was still working out the tech details of the power point presentation.  He must not have been an AV Club kid in high school, although it wouldn't surprise me if he was.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet that cycling generally has a much higher percen12 tage of AV Club and marching band geeks than other sports, but that is a topic for another day, I still need to find time to practice my saxophone tonight.

Adam got it going while I poured us some beer.  Fortunately, Al Donahue had some nice commemerative glassware left over from the Gran Fundo so we didn't have to drink Allagash Triple out of dixie cups.  Now, at this point I had been up for 18 hours, driven 200 miles from Cape Cod to Western Mass, ridden the toughest 65 miles of my life, drank three and a half beers, haven't showered, and Adam breaks out the power tap files from some races he can't even remember in 2004.  Zzzzzzz.  Actually, I was so psyched to be talking cyclocross with Adam and all the other bike geeks at the seminar, that I was wide awake the whole time.  The main point of Adam's talk was that you have to do your training for cross at highly variable power outputs.  Cyclocross isn't like a time trial so don't train for time trialing.  That's the condensed version, you'll have to sign up for next years seminar and skills camp to get the details. 
After a quick stop for beer and frites at the Dirty Truth the day was done and we found a hotel to crash.
I have a couple of weeks off from announcing now but I be co-anouncing the Vermont UCI cyclocross-Verge weekend with Alan Cote on September 18-19.  So, I'm going to race early in the day then jump on the mic with Alan and talk the rest of the day (both days).  I can't beleive it but this will be the first time I have ever raced or announced within the borders of Vermont. 
And if anyone is looking for something to do next Sunday August 29th, come see my band at the Marshfield Fair Roots and Blues Festival.  We play at 1:30 and the music only gets better from there.

Thanks for hanging out with me at startfinishbikenews, see you soon.

Harpoon Indoor Time Trial

Richard Fries got the call to work the Cyclocross World Championships in Tabor, Czech Republic, but I got the call to work the next most important bike event on the calendar on January 30th - The Harpoon Indoor Time Trial.  Richard did the announcing for the inaugural HITT in 2009, but for good reason declined this year.  When they told me it would be at the Harpoon Brewery, I was happy he couldn't make it for year number two. 

As it turns out, the HITT is the largest indoor time trial in the world with about 260 participants competing in heats of 24 at a time.  It is kind of like riding the trainer in your basement but with 23 friends all hooked up to computers that measure speed, distance, and wattage.  Too bad it didn't measure BAL also, but we'll get to that in a few paragraphs.

The technical side was handled by Fast:Splits, a shop and training facility for endurance athletes in Newton.  They seem to be quite popular with the triathalon crowd, a scene I know very little about.  Fast:Splits brought the 24 computrainers and the computers to monitor and record everyone's output.  Capron lighting and sound brought 9 big flat panel screens so everyone could see their progress in the race.  And Harpoon provided the venue and the beer - lots and lots of beer.  On tap they had their IPA, the seasonal Celtic Ale, UFO Pale, and UFO Heffeweisen for everyone to try.

We started the first heat at 12:30 PM with the first 24 riders.  I don't think any of them were USA Cycling types, at least I didn't recognize any of them.  They turned in some impressive times, finishing the 8 mile course in around 20 to 25 minutes.  I was still trying to figure out this whole "indoor time trial" computrainer thing at this point as this was my first exposure to it.  In fact, this was my first exposure to the world of watts.  I am old enough that all we had in my day were heart rate monitors and we liked it that way. And that was only the last couple of years of my so called "career".  Most of the time we just rode hard or rode easy, it was very subjective.  So when I arrived at the brewery for the HITT, I had no idea if 400 watts is Pee Wee Herman power or Fabian Cancellara power.  Turns out, it's closer to Cancellara and there would be a few who would come close to putting out 400 watts for almost 20 minutes.

The route was a simulation of the final 8 miles of the 150 mile Harpoon Brewery to Brewery Ride (aka B2B).  It was mostly flat until mile 6 where a 5% grade kicks up for almost a mile then it's a downhill to the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor Vt. Last year's best time was set by Cort Cramer (Svelte Cycles) at 19:11 with an average power output of 362 watts.  For the women it was Ironwoman pro and former US swim team member Dede Griesbauer at 20:57 and 282 watts.

Did I mention that Harpoon was giving away beer?  In addition to two free beers to each competitor, they also gave away a case of beer to the mens and womens winner of each heat.  Brian Quigley (Colavita) was the mens winner in the second heat and got to take his place on the Harpoon Hot Stool which was kind of like a wobbly life guard stand with two barstools on top.  After saying "hot stool" a couple of times over the mic, I unofficially renamed it the Harpoon Hot Seat.  I think that sounds better and led to fewer chuckles from the audience.  Quigley's time of 19:52, although half a minute slower than his second place time last year, held up for several more heats.  While on the Hot Seat, he was served as many beers as he wanted and got to wear the Mavic Red Vest of Courage, the "maillot jaune" of the day.  He told me the secret to his success was a combination of lots of basement training, Rage ATM on the earbuds, and Harpoon IPA.  Quigley won the Cat 4 race at day 2 of the Downeast Cyclocross in October so apparently he has some skills to go with the power. 

It was not until the sixth heat, 3 and a half hours later, that Quigley was dethroned by Jeff Capobianco (Breakthrough Coaching) so he had plenty of time to enjoy a couple of IPAs while on the hot seat.  Capobianco's time was 19:37 and that was looking good until the 8th heat when the inter-family grudge match between brothers-in-law Dave McCutcheon (Mass Bay Road Club) and Arnold Roest (Team Psycho) took place.  This heat also included the heavyweight sub-division for those over 200 pounds.  Among them was Scott Shaunessy, a former NHL player who lead the league in penalty minutes two years in a row.  "Just putting on the foil, coach."  He didn't look at all like a Hanson brother, but he definitely looked like a big dude on a bicycle.  He turned out a respectable time of 20:56. 

But the winner of the heat would be Roest with a new best time of 19:32, beating his brother in law by 50 seconds to take family bragging rights.  Roest is the guy you might have seen at the races with the Surly Pugsley with the motorcycle tires.  He won the Cat 4 race at the Ice Weasels race on that thing.  Here's a picture of it from the Brockton cross race in 2008.  Note the fixed cog on the front tire just in case the back axle breaks.  This bike is made for survivalist nut cases.  Roest didn't use this bike on the computrainer.

Roest's time held up until the elite men's heat.  And by the time we got to that heat, the race was running way behind schedule because it takes a while to enter each competitor's name and assign them to a computrainer.  The elite mens heat was the 12th heat of the day and was two hours behind schedule.  I wouldn't bother to mention it but it played a factor in the race because not only did the elite men start their heat well after their bed times, several of them also got bored waiting and decided to sample the beer selection before their heat. 

Robbie King, Al Donahue, Dylan McNicholas, Tom Parsons, Cort Cramer, Mark McCormack, and Peter Bradshaw were all in the elite men's heat. Two time U23 national triathalon champion Ethan Brown was in this heat also. With this crew, even though some of them had been partaking of the beer supply, you knew a new best time would be set. It looked for a while like Tom Parsons would be late for the start when he couldn't get his 29'er MTB to fit the computrainer. Only Tom could be late for a start that started two hours late. It probably didn't help that he spent more time lining up his beer feeds with Kevin Sweeney than he did checking his bike. But, he found a bike that would work and made the start in the nick of time. Read his detailed account here. Ethan Brown would set the best time, showing the inebraited road racing and mountain cyclists what power per kilogram is all about. His 18:37 was nearly matched by Robbie King (Indy Fab) at 18:46.4 with Matt Mitchell (545 Velo) only 0.1 seconds slower. Average wattages over the course for the top three men were 348, 395, and 384 in that order. For Brown, that was close to 5 watts/kg. Robbie is well over 6 feet tall and weighs a lot more than Brown so his watts/kg was less than Brown's despite having the higher raw number. It was about 11:30 when the elite men's heat finished but they took over the top 5 spots in the overall standings and nobody puked.

Mark the Shark

Al Donahue (front) and Peter Bradshaw

Apparently it was past Robbie King's bed time

Mr. Big Bikes, Tom Parsons

U23 National Tri Champ, Ethan Brown

The view from the Hot Seat

Have you ever seen this look on Mark's face? Or Robbies?  Me neither.

The women's elite heat was earlier in the day at around 3:00 and included a couple of notable triathlete celebreties in Dede Griesbauer and Karen Smyers.  Karen would take the hot seat and the Mavic Red Vest of Courage with a time of 21:05 and an average power output of 265 watts.  Having the women's elite race early in the day meant that the women's final results were likely to remain unchanged unless a big upset came along.  At least the women in the remianing open heats had cases to beer to ride for and in some heats there were only one or two women so their odds were good.  Karen Smyers remained on the hot seat until the awards ceremony at the end of the evening.  Amy McGuire was the second women overall at 22:10 and 272 watts with Dede close behind at 22:19 and 251 watts.

Dede and Karen were able to fill some of the time between their heat and the awards ceremony with the team event.  This event required 8 members on each of three teams to work together like a Tour de France TTT.  The lead rider feels the resistenace of the wind at whatever speed they are riding.  Any rider within 40 feet of the rider in front of them feels less resistance to simulate the draft.  Anyone who has ever been dropped, and that is probably everyone reading this blog, wishes you could still feel the draft at 40 feet in real life, but the simulation is close enough.  The team's time is taken on the 7th rider to finish so you can only drop one rider so it doesn't matter at all how fast any individual on the team might be able to go.  Team Psycho and Blue Hills Cycling Club were on opposite sides of the room with the Boston Triathalon Team in the middle.  All three teams are sponsored by Harpoon.  Arnold Roest, who at that point was still the leader of the men's race, was not on the Psycho team because, as he said, he didn't make the cut.  That didn't make much sense until we saw the team which included Karen Smyers and Dede Grisbauer and triathalon Olympian Jarrod Shoemaker.  To no one's syrprise Team Psycho won with a time of 20:15 for the seventh rider, which was only 5 seconds behind the team leader. 

  

The final heat of the night was the collegiate heat with about 16 riders from Boston area colleges including MIT, BC, Northeastern, and Wentworth.  Ian from MIT won the heat, and the beer that went with it.  His time was 19:56 which was good for 15th place overall.

Here is a photo of the two individual winners who both took home a set of Mavic wheels among other prizes. 

Ethan Brown and Karen Smyers enjoying their just rewards

(photo by Harpoon Brewery)

And just like that, it's over

Sometimes you see the end coming, sometines it catches you blind sided.  Sometimes it's for the best, sometimes you wish you had had a little more time together.  But time marches on and, whether you are ready or not, it's now over.  The parting is bittersweet, but at least we ended it with a bang.  If it's better to burn out than fade away, we couldn't have ended it any better.  And best of all, we will have sweet memories to carry us over to the next romance, the next love, or the next 'cross season.  

Well, I tried to be all deep and poetic, but that just isn't me. 

The Ice Weasels cometh, and unfortunately they also go-eth, and in so doing they mark the end of the bicycle racing season in New England.  It's finally time to nurse the sore bones, catch up with the family, and get some of the big ticket items off the honey-do list that has taken a back seat for almost four months now (9 months counting road/MTB seasons). 

For the second year in a row Colin and Tom, with help from Kevin, put on the party of the year at White Barn Farm and they even managed to fit in some bike races to keep us all entertained.  There are a few esential elements that make a party great.  Beer is a given.  They had that covered (for a while anyway) with two kegs of beer from Harpoon.  Music is a must have for any party.  I was happy to supply 800 watts of sound pumping power and an ipod full of tunes (until Tom pulled host priveleges and switched it to his ipod while I was out racing, gotta admit his might have been better). Good food is a must and the boys and girls from HUP had that covered.  Good people and great conversation are the only other ingredients that a great party must have, and they were in abundant supply. 

I arrived at 8:00 to set up the PA system and hopefully still have time to warm up a little before the 10:00 AM Cat 4 race.  It was nice being parked on the same side as the race course this year.  Folks, if you want to get a good parking spot at next years race, just offer to bring some heavy equipment to the race or get there early.  There was no snow where I live so the conditions caught me by surprise.  But I discovered that racing in snow and ice means that there is no way you can go fast enough to really make it hurt (on the inside) becasue you just can't apply that much power.  While I was setting up I heard talk about opening up the wait list at 9:45.  What, you mean this race is sold out?  No way! So we are going to have 100 Cat 4 cross dudes bouncing and sliding around for 40 mintes on what is almost certainly the shortest and narrowest course of the year?  Cool! 

I lined up around the middle of the pack (100 riders divided by 5 per row= 20 rows) and waited for the whistle.  We took off at a reasonable pace with most everyone choosing one of two packed down tire tracks .  I realized a few seconds later than I should have that I could easily go faster down the middle and started passing people and moving up a few spots before the first turn.  It's a good thing I did because there were very few passing oportunities on other parts of the course.  Unless someone fell down, your chances of getting past them were slim.  But lots did fall down.  After what seemed like a long time, the lap cards read 5 to go.  What?  I was about ready for the bell.  Then the next time around the double barriers where the crowd was gathered, I heard Motorhead on the PA and got enough extra kick to put the lap count out of my head and dig a little deeper for a while.  Unfortunately, digging a little deeper in slick snow means falling down more often. 

Over the course of the race I think I wiped out on ice about 6 times.  Most of the time I got up quick and laughed it off but the last ime, near the big tree, it took some of the life out of me and a few guys got around before I was back up to speed.  That was on the last lap as I was trying to catch a few guys that were tantalizingly catchable until I crashed.  I ended up 45th so I made my goal of being in the top half with a few places to spare.  The guy on the huge mountain bike (a Surly Pugsley) won it but I never even saw him. 

The Cat 3 race was next.  I had done a poor job explaining the open mic heckling concept to the crowd before the Cat 4 race becasue I was in a hurry to get to the line.  As a result, nobody had picked up the mic and heckled us.  So, I made sure during the Cat 3 race that the concept was understood:  There would be no real announcing this day, just an 800 watt free for all.  Tom got into it and got some help from Steve H. who it turns out has some real announcing experience from the collegiate racing scene.  The kids got potential. 

I have no idea who it was that was on the mic during the single speed race but he was a cycling Henny Youngman.  Great lines and a great voice to match.  I used the Chabot method to turn my old Faggin cross bike into a single speed Friday night (but didn't test ride it) so I was ready to do the double for the first time in my cross career (beleive me, 44 years old is no time to start doing the double).  I had been shifting frequently in the cat 4 race so I knew this wasn't going to be easy but at least the course is flat.  I managed ok but I was beat by the end.  The weird thing is that I didn't fall down at all in this race after falling over about 6 times in the Cat 4 race.  It could have been that the course was worn in by then.  It could have been the different bike.  Also, I did the single speed on clinchers with about 45 psi as opposed to the Cat 4 where I was on tubulars with about 34 psi.  Could clinchers with pressure be better in slippery snow? I beat the hipster in the plaid shirt and msutache but I lost to Leah from Indy Fab.  So it goes.  At least I took a beer feed for the first time ever.  Andy says it was Harpoon but it tasted like Miller and that's what he had been drinking.  It didn't settle too well so that was the only time I tried that.  I looked for a real Harpoon after the race but, the horror, it was all gone! 

After the single speed event, the racing became a blur of hideous red and white striped kits (I'm looking at you JD), beer/cupcake feeds, pumpkin pie, and bouncing aimlessly from one conversation to another. 

Then just like that, the sun set on the 2009 season and it was time to pack up.

I should point out that Tim Johnson missed the Ice Weasel's race once again but he made it worthwhile by collecting his third Elite Men's stars and stripes jersey in Bend Oregon today.  Paul Curley, Johnny Bold, Kevin Hines, and Julie Lockhart also missed the Ice Weasel's but they'll all be in stars and stripes next season also so they probably mad the right choice too.  Thanks to Cyclingdirt.com for the live video coverage of the races, it was incredible.  I can't beleive that a couple of guys were able to put together a live internet video feed from Oregon and beam it around the world for us to watch for free.  They don't even have adverts on their site.  Next time I might take some dramamine first, but still, what a great job they did bringing us the races.  Versus could learn a fews things from them.

Between announcing, racing, and spectating, I have had only one complete weekend away from bike races since mid August. I am getting tired of getting up earlier on the weekends than I do during the week.  I am ready for a break but if there was a race next weekend, I'd still want to do it.  That's probsably the right feeling to have at the end of the season. 

If something comes along that is blog-worthy, maybe I'll fire up the laptop but it might be a while.  See you next year.

What, no cupcakes?

Normally I write race reports from the detached persepctive of a (not very good) journalist.  Third person omnicient voice if I recall high school English class correctly.  This one's going to be a little different as, instead of actually paying attention and keeping notes, I spent my time cheering, drinking beer, racing, and then drinking beer again while cheering.  Foregive me if this goes astray:

The only thing missing at Gloucester was cupcakes.  It's entirely possible I spent too much time in the beer tent and missed them, but I didn't see a cupcake in all of Stage Fort Park.  But that's my only complaint. 

The conditions were perfect for 'cross with plenty of rain Saturday to create that euro mud vibe we mostly only see in videos, and then a mostly sunny day Sunday.  This created almost entirely different conditions from Saturday to Sunday, at least for the elite races.  When I was out there Sunday morning it was still a mudfest but at least the moisture was only coming from below, not from the clouds.  The mud that stuck to four or five hundred bikes throughout the morning and early afternoon Sunday was enough to leave a relatively dry course for the two elite races.  Here is the dreaded run up in all its muddy glory Saturday afternoon:

I couldn't race Saturday do to other commitments, but I arrived in G'ster in time to watch the last three races of the day (B's, Elite Women, and Elite Men).  During the B race, I ran into Solobreak Foley as he was coming out of the porta-john.  He had set me up me with some frosty beverage last year at the Ice Weasel's race so I owed him a beer or two.  As he already had a bit of a head start on me, it didn't take much convincing for him to join me in the Great Brewers beer tent.  They had EIGHT different beers on tap from eight different craft brewers, most of them local to New England.  My favorite was the Smuttynose Belgian-style single, followed closely by the Cape Ann pumpkin stout.

During the elite race, Solobreak and I were hanging near the fence at the back of the beer area.  A few laps into it, Jonathan Page had a commanding lead.  He thundered past us on one of the drier stretches of the course followed by Ryan Kelly.  Ryan saw my 1/2 full beer hanging over the fence and yelled "beer me!".  Solobreak credits Joachim Parbo for this, but it was Ryan (both were in red and white and covered in mud so it's an understandable mistake after a few beers).  Ryan was going considerably slower than Page since he had just been lapped by Page so he had no trouble grabbing onto the beer cup and he downed it before he was three pedal strokes away.  He then apparently abandonned the race soon after because we didn't see him again.  Ryan created road-results.com (along with Colin) which helps me immensely with race announcing, so I wouldn't mind buying him a whole beer of his own sometime. 

If you haven't read a real race report by professional journalists yet, Page won the race by a country mile with moustache-less Jamey Driscoll behind in second, followed by Chris Jones.  In what seemed like a very short women's race, Natasha Elliot won convincingly while a new women on the scene, Amanda Carey, took second.  Lynne Bessette is out of retirement and took third place. Here are a couple of shots from the Women's race.  My cheap camera took a beating in the rain.  It didn't take long for the picture quality to deteriorate.  I think my camera is ruined, but that's a good thing since I have always hated that camera.  Good excuse to get a new one.

Series leader and race winner, Natasha Elliot.

Rebecca Wellons

Amanda Carey

Saturday's typical conditions, mudfest.

Sunday morning at 9:00 I took the line with the rest of the masters Cat 4 field.  Actually, I took the 8th line out of 11 so I figure I started the race in a bout 85th place.  I need to start pre-registering earlier for these things.  I had a pretty good start and passed a bunch of people in the twisty stuff after the pavement.  But then I biffed it on the section behind the building which I think was the slippiest part of the course.  My chain dropped off too, just to make sure I lost all the places I had been making up in the turns.  We did four laps through this section and I only cleaned it once.     

I normally have a pretty good sense of direction but this Gloucester course completely screwed with my head.  No matter where on the course I was, I could never remember what feature was coming up next.  The worst for this was the multple coils around the pits.  It probably didn't help that I didn't pre-ride the course. I could still go through Sucker Brook in my mind now 8 days later and remember every feature in order, but I couldn't follow that Gloucester course now without the course tape and it's only one day later.  Is it just me? 

Entering the final lap I was going back and forth passing and being passed by a couple of other no-hopers.  One guy had traded places with me a couple of times but I had the upper hand going through the start finish line as we got the bell for the last lap.  He came storming past me on the right and picked up a lot of speed as the pavement began to slope downhill.  It was just him and me at that point and I heard a little kid voice say "Go daddy."  I knew that wasn't for me.  My dog's smart but not that smart.  I guess this guy was trying to show off for his family and giving it everything he had.  He must have forgotten that he had to veer right into a bumpy dirt section with an off camber turn to the right.  I don't think he even touched his brakes before he blew the turn big time and fell hard.  I don't want to say he was screaming, but it was like a cross between that and a moan.  A deep manly scream I guess you could say.  He lied there crumpled up tangled in his bike and the white course tape he had taken out.  I nearly added to his woes, but managed to stop barely before running into him.  I waited for a couple of seconds and called for help until I saw a couple of spectators running our way.  Then I figured it was ok to get back to racing.  I found out later he broke some ribs and a wrist and was taken to the hospital.  Bad enough to get hurt, but to do it in front of the whole family must be extra painful.

I had modest goals for this race (as I always do).  I had hoped to finish in the top half of the race.  68th out of 86 finishers isn't top half, but considering all those that started and didn't finish, it's pretty close.  I felt a little better about my result after I checked the bib numbers of all those ahead of me in the results (bikereg and cross results rule!) to see how much the starting positions affected the race.  I found that of 67 people who finished ahead of me, only 12 of them started behind me (based on bib numbers).  I can live with that.  Using the BikesnobNYC pass/fail rating system for race success, I guess I call it a pass, but I hope to go better next week.

I ran into Adam Myerson as he was preparing for the elite men's race and we talked a few minutes about music and UMass before I actually paid attention to what he was doing.  As he sat in his driver's seat he had pulled his skinsuit up backwards over his legs.  I had to ask what he was doing but then at the same time he took out some safety pins (from his pocket, not his skin) and started pinning up his bib numbers on the stretched material.  How pro is that?  A perfectly flat number every time.  Maybe everybody knows to do this, but it was new to me.  It's going to be a while before I where a skinsuit (another 10 pounds at least) but it should work just as well on a jersey.  I can't wait for Providence!

Adam even pins up the pro way.

At this point I had completely lost track of the time, but I knew I was ready for a beer.  As it turns out, I got to the beer tent exactly at high noon and got the first beer of the day!  That's the one race I can win.  After a few minutes, some friends from my club showed up and we had a great time comparing war stories from our races while seated at the table with the best view of the course and the ocean. One of the guys had been doing well in the 55 plus race when he rolled a tubular.  He wasn't the only one.  I don't recall seeing so many rolled tubulars in a race as there were Sunday.  3M Fasttack seems to work for me now that I have figured out (the ouchie way) that I need 4 times more than I would use on a road tire.  I just doomed myself didn't I?

The women's elite race Sunday was another competitive and exciting race.  Natasha Elliot repeated with Laura Van Gilder finishing second on a flat (but not rolled) rear tire.  Mo Bruno-Roy was not far behind in third.  The biggest improvement of the day was probably Rebecca Wellons who went from 10th Saturday to 5th Sunday.

If you haven't seen the footage, the men's race came down to this.  People have been analyzing this like it's the Zapruder film and there seems to be some difference of opinion as to how agregious Tim's move was.  I'll leave it for others to speculate if he was trying to take Page out or not.  I can't really tell from the angle we have how much Tim slowed down when he got in front of Page and I think that is the crux of figuring out his intent.  If he slammed the brakes, it was malicious.  If he was just trying to scrub a little speed getting set up for the sand, I'm ok with that.  Remember, he was nursing a sore shoulder that clearly had been giving him a lot of trouble all weekend, maybe he needed to be a little extra careful going into the sand and braked more than Page expected.  As pointed out by Adam Myerson, Jeremy Powers showed a lot of class by not taking advantage of the situation with a big attack.  Watch the video to the end and you'll see that Page apparently puts a shoulder into Powers as he passes him on the flat section after the sand pit.  But they are getting pretty far away by that point so it's hard to say if it was payback for Johnson's move or just some frustration showing through. 

After the race the hurt feelings couldn't have gone too deep because Page was mostly all smiles signing autographs.  I got this shot of him with my wet camera.  He doesn't look like he is holding a grudge here, does he? 

Jon Page after Sunday's race.

What a great weekend of cyclocross, but I really wanted a cupcake.

P.S. - I'll be doing the announcing at the Maine Verge weekend on the 24-25th of October.  If you have read this blog, stop by and say hi, even if you think it sucks.