Onion River Racing

My adventure began on August 7th on a cheap AirTransat flight from Montreal to Nantes.  After an easy train connection to Lorient, I  was met by my gracious hosts at the bar run by the organizers of the Velo Club du Pays Lorient (VCPL), a successful local amateur squad.  The team director, Monsieur Trehin had arranged for me to stay for free in the unoccupied team clubhouse apartments – where I could sleep, and cook for myself.  I was  flabbergasted by this generousity.

VELOCITY CHALLENGED
Adapting to the higher wattage euro racing again after some time off was tough.  My only peloton miles beforehand were a couple hours in the Montreal-Quebec Classic before I crashed. Despite adequate base, the lack of speedwork and race legs showed:  Although  the day after I arrived, I survived a 90 km criterium for Category II-IIIs and finished an Elite level 100 km race in the remnants of the peloton on the third day, I generally lacked the speed to survive at the front in the normal cycle of attacks and single file echelons encountered here.  Because the VCPL team was preoccupied with stage races elsewhere, I usually rode considerable distances to each race by myself. This was great training and nice sightseeing but tough for getting results.  At the races, I  soon gained a reputation as some strange “touriste” who showed up at races on bike with a big backpack, camera and roadmaps.

There were some fantastic touring moments in the rustic Morbihan and Finistere  regions , but my racing never really hit its stride.   There is no excuse except old age for getting dropped in three elite road races  and only finishing one.  I did  finish three out of four 90 km Cat II-III criteriums that I entered, I was more or less just hanging on for dear life, except for an easier one in Southern France, where I got off the front for most of the last lap until I was swallowed by chasers, 200 meters from the line.   In Brittany, if you don’t attack out the peloton and into the breaks or chase groups, usually the peloton will eventually be a receptacle for the weaker riders and it will give up, and you will thus become  part of the laughing pack.  If I dared to race again in Brittany I would prepare the same way I would for Belgium with strong doses of one, three and five minute intervals and motorpacing. Climbing App Gap just doesn’t help for this stuff.

French races are often  held on unbelievably narrow and  hilly but well paved circuits which were almost always completely closed to the car traffic, well marshaled and much safer than in the US – also because the skill level of French riders is higher than chez nous.  French road circuits are fairly turny and often only 4 or 10 kilometers long so they almost feel like the criteriums. On the other hand, the criteriums I encountered had longer 2Km + circuits with little hills,  and were at minimum 80 kilometers long- making them less much more like road races.

FRANCE VS. BELGIUM: WHICH HAS A BETTER RACING?
I’d recommend Brittany over Belgium to any aspiring racer with an entire summer or spring to invest in racing. The cost are about the same: once you get over their its’ really much cheaper than racing in the US because the teams in France will host you and take you to races which cost about $8 to race in. Breton races have more hills, less wind, and the speeds are steadier than Belgium, and the riders are possibly less juiced up- although local races do not seem to have dope controls at all.  On the other hand, Belgium would still be my pick for anybody who wants a race quick fix in 21 days or less because, you can race any day of the week there and usually locate yourself where it is easy to ride your bike to races and thus avoid needing a car.  Below are some photos and links to race vids (posted on YouTube)

VIDEO LINKS:

Cornering  in Concarneau

Cherves – Race Scene

Hilly race near Poitiers

john Uncategorized

While sometimes a race report can detail the exciting duel for the win or defense of a high GC position (congrats to Andrew M.!!, see below), mine is more a tale of life at the back of the bunch.  Sometimes in bike racing simply surviving to the finish is cause for celebration.

Friday mornings Cat. 3 TT, held under sunny, near perfect conditions, save for the pesky, speed-zapping NW headwind provided me a clue as to what I had already suspected going into this years GMSR:  I wouldn’t be a threat to anyone’s GC dreams.  I won’t post my finishing time here -you’ll have to look it up online if you’re truly interested- but I will say the time spent groveling in the ‘pain cave’ did serve well to open up the pipes and legs for the next days effort.

Of the four races that comprise this stage race, Saturdays 72 mi. circuit race was the one I feared the most.  The obstacle responsible for the fear was the Duxbury ‘gap’ climb which had a KOM sprint at the top.  The climb itself  isn’t overly hard or long in the scheme of things, more so, it’s the pace at which it’s climbed (whipped up by those contending for the KOM points).  72 mi. equals 4 times (1 neutral) up Duxbury and, heck, 72 mi. is a distance I’ve only trained at a handful of times this season.  The goal was to not get dropped on that climb; not be riding in alone 28 min. after the pack had finished.  Well, I’m glad to report that goal/victory was achieved.  Having survived the climbing, it was time to think about the finish at the Ward Access on Rt. 100B.  Coming into the last 2K or so, the field was all bunched up tight with no one team or rider willing to throw-down and open up the sprint.  I could smell the upcoming crash brewing; sure enough, on the newly resurfaced 100 B bridge, wheels were crossed and carbon and bodies started hitting the deck.  The unlucky (myself included) who were behind the crash were forced to slow while the front 30 or so accelerated and opened up the sprint.  As I threaded through the mess and dodged the guy who saved the most insane death wobble I’ve seen in a while, I tried to bridge the split to the front group.  This max HR effort involved avoiding 2 more more guys laying in the road who had come together in the fight for position in the now lead group.  At the 1K to go point, I ended up working with 4 others to the line finishing about 15 sec. behind the splintered lead group.  And, oh, yeah, there were 5 more guys laying in the road 50m short of the line as I rolled by.  Sheezh……

You’d think Sunday’s RR might be a fearsome proposition for a non-climber type such as myself with its ascent up Brandon and App. Gaps.  It actually was not, as my goal here was only to hang with the field until the start of the ‘Baby’ gap climb.  Again, I’m happy to report that goal was achieved also, although it did involve getting gapped off the back of the bunch in the final 2K of the Brandon climb.  Having a teammate there at that critical time provided the priceless motivation to keep pushing up and over the top and during the chasing descent (51 mph!).  After yo-yoing the Bristol Notch KOM climb and rejoining the field on the dirt road section, it was just a matter of sitting in until Baby Gap and hopping in the autobus with a couple of dropped Cat. 2′s and shattered 3′s.

Mondays Burlington downtown Crit is one of my favorites and a race I’ve won as a Cat. 4, but with 3 days of hard racing already in the legs, I couldn’t be sure how it would go.  With a GC time bonus sprint on lap 30 of this 34 lap crit, the race started very fast and proceeded to stay that way for awhile shelling about half the field in the process.  I hung on and moved up when it slowed a bit mid-way through.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to move up enough to factor in the finale (17th, leaving me with severe post-race case of the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s), but I did see Phil B. make a nice move up with 3 to go which ultimately netted him 7th in the field sprint.

So, even without any real results to brag on, it was still a very cool and worthwhile experience  made all the better by my great  teammates (hopefully they’ll blog about it too, soon) and sponsor.  The GMSR is a super way to cap off the road season.  Heck, I might even do some practice TT’s and hill repeats before the 2010 edition.

matt Uncategorized

Photos from the Burlington Crit

[flickrset id="72157622322324526" thumbnail="medium" overlay="" size="medium"]

admin Race Results 2009, gmsr, Racing, vermont

Andrew passed this along to me- republishing because, well,  damn!

Green Mountain Stage Race 2009 Category 4 Race Report

I started racing this summer with the intention of focusing on the GMSR as the culmination of my season’s endeavors.  Although my first season became far more active than I expected, I went into this years stage race never having lost sight of what I wanted to do from the beginning.  The Cat4 stage race opened with a bang on Friday.  Having intentionally avoided training on the ITT course, I was ready to go out from the start and hammer every inch of the course.  Attacking the first portion of the climb, I came around the first bend and had a good view of the two riders who started before me spread out along the road ahead.  With them as targets, I spun up the hill and had caught both by the first false flat.  A third rider farther ahead on the last portion of the climb immediately became a third focal point that pulled me to the top.  As I crested the hill the headwind briefly slowed my progression and I found myself after about 800m having eased just a little to much.  At that point one of the riders who I had passed on the climb pulled alongside me, and we helped push each other all the way through to the final climb.  I over-geared the last portion of the hill, and came across the finish line worried that I had not pushed the final stretch fast enough.  I was very pleased though when I got back to the start to find I had posted the fastest time in my category by 1 second, completing the course in 16:01.

I was very fun to be able to start the Moretown circuit race on Saturday in yellow, and gave me an added boost of confidence.  Going into the stage the top ten riders were all very close, easily within reach of the yellow with the 15 second time bonus offered at the finish sprint.  Although I was worried about the possibility of losing the jersey, I remained focused on just staying relaxed as possible; this was a task that I quickly found to be difficult.  Whenever an attack went off, I found that I would ultimately spend more time pulling in attempt to bridge the gap since other riders believed I had something to lose. The only scary part of the race was on the final climb up Duxbury when a crash occurred about half way up the hill right in front of me. Looking up the road as I attempted to jump back on my bike, I saw a group of about 15 riders about 200 meters up the road and accelerating for the KOM.  Knowing that they had the potential to stay away I didn’t want them to crest the hill with that large of a gap and I attacked the remainder of the hill and just caught the very tail end of the group by the KOM.  The remainder of the race was fast but uneventful.  I led the final 3k out in an attempt to break the final sprint up a bit and rolled through the finish in the top twenty.  Unfortunately, the rider who had placed second the day before in the ITT pulled through in the top 5 and gained a five second time bonus, enough to give him yellow.

Even though I went into Sunday’s road race in second overall, I knew I had the opportunity to make up more than enough time to secure the lead if I rode Ap Gap well.  With that in mind, I rode very conservatively the entire race.  A break of 9 riders formed in the first 15 miles, and by Brandon Gap had secured between 3-5 minutes ahead of the pack.  It was a close call, but the right one to stay in the back and let others pull as we just caught the remaining two riders of the break at the base of Ap Gap.  Three riders immediately accelerated up the first stretch of the climb, pulling through the first switchbacks very quickly.  I carefully sat in third waiting for the long 8% stretch after the false flat to make an attack.  When we were about half way up that four of us accelerated and quickly put a gap between the rest of the field behind us.  As we came around onto the final false flat before the giant wall leading up to the finish line we were all neck in neck.  Two riders were able to accelerated just enough to have about 10 meters on me going into the final climb.  Yellow was right in front of me.  About halfway up the climb the rider in yellow did a single switch back and lost his momentum, and I accelerated past him in one last try to catch 1st and 2nd only 2 second ahead.  I wasn’t able to close the gap within a few second of the lead, but crossed the line in 3rd and successfully put 2-3 seconds into yellow jersey.

Only a couple of seconds back going into the crit, anything was possible.  Third place was within grasp of my position and I was within grasp of first.  I knew I had to attack every time bonus sprint in an attempt to gain the lead, but was also focused on defending my position from the 3rd place contender.  It was pretty amazing to consider the fact that any mechanical issue could easily take me from the podium.  The race pace was fast from the start.  Without anyone to defend, I found that any attack that I made was easily bridged by the other four riders fighting for top five.  Things quickly became frustrating as the man in yellow had nothing else to do but stay on my wheel.  Although I grabbed some time bonuses, so did the leader.  I was able to get enough bonuses after 15 laps to go to give myself 2nd in the G.C.  At that point I found myself literally crossing my fingers and hoping that I wouldn’t have a flat or crash in the final 8 laps.  The road conditions were not good and I found it extremely difficult to find a clean line coming into the home stretch, and I always seemed to lose about 5 meters going into the sprints.  I came across the finish though in 6th and successfully held onto second place in the general classification.  I am very pleased with the outcome, and looking back over the weekend have no regrets for how I performed and am glad that I avoided any mechanical problems and crashes that could have easily taken me out of the running.  All in all a perfect weekend.  I look forward to getting my upgrade to Cat3 this week and the opportunity to continuously improve.

admin Race Results 2009, gmsr, onion river racing, race