Reflecting on the ULCER

This year's ULCER hosted a team time trial as it did last year. Here's my perception of the race.

We begin this time trial in a bunch start. I suppose this makes it easier, and it is possible there just isn't enough time in an hour to start the number of teams there were signed up. At first I thought this would just turn into a road race instead of a team time trial. It turned out to be a good mix of road racing and time trialing; I'm glad I was wrong.

As usual a group of 50+ people in a small group can cause some scary moments. I heard of a crash not too far behind us, and there was a near crash directly in front of me involving a team member which did a phenomenal job staying upright. The person in front of him swerved and caught his front wheel, he reacted and gained control, we scattered and I believe all stayed rubber-side down. Good stuff.

The rough roads at the beginning of this course don't help either. Plenty of potholes cause plenty of sketchy riding, even though the roads were marked extremely well. At least I didn't lose a water bottle due to road conditions this time, as happened in my last two races. I hear there is a chance the ULCER will go to the west of Utah lake and through Eureka next year; I hope that's the case. I really don't care for the course weaving around the little towns of Lehi, Springville, etc. Too many turns, too much traffic, too many stop lights and signs, and definitely too many road obstacles.

Once we got going as a team - after our 22 mile stop - we did extremely well. We caught the pack nearly at will, did it again at 44 miles, and just worked quite efficiently. Everyone ended up doing a great job, we worked as hard as we possibly could, we put on a killer chase at the very end, and we just barely missed the win in our category by 12 whole seconds. Rogers did a superb job, I mean superb, at chasing for the last section of the course. Turns out we were 3 minutes back from the overall win, that's amazing!

Overall a great day. A little annoying to be that close to the win, but we gave it all. We had great weather and great support!

Tour de Park City: Check too!

I ended up with a 10th place finish which is spectacular for me.

It was a great race team day in my eyes. We worked as small groups throughout the race, helping each other through wind, flats, downhills, and uphills. Our team got amazing results of 5th place, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 17th and 18th in the top 20. I believe everyone in our team that started this race finished - a feat in itself!

I don't know how many times I've said or written this: This was the toughest thing I ever did on a bicycle. The first 100 miles were great, well except for the complete lack of racing etiquette from the Category 5 racer assholes. Any racers out there let me explain neutral zones to you: You back off the tempo until the crowd gets through the feed zone and catches up. Back off you assholes. Let's have a real race. Are you truly afraid of finding out if you have a chance to win if you play fair?

That stupid climb past Mirror Lake was so hard I remember having a tough time just keeping my body upright, holding my hands on the handlebar, being completely out of energy. I mean out. I stopped and laid on the side of the road for a minute or two. That really really really sucked.

But things worked out well after that. 4 of us caught back up at the top of the climb and rode into Kamas together. Great times! Until that evil climb back to Park City...but by that time it was just survival. It was sweeeet to get a 9th place finish out of the deal. Yeah, it was a 9th place when I first showed up. Then some Category 5 racer appeared in the top 9 after I showed up, dropping some of us down one spot. Speaking of race organization...

Well, an optimistic person might say there is some room for improvement with race organization. I think they did ok, could have been worse, but there were some critical problems. Twist-off bottled water that do not fit snugly in bottle cages at the 25 mile stop? 3 or so people to handle all the water at the 50? COMPLETELY OUT OF WATER AT THE 75??? Um, Category 5 racers were the 5th group to start thus 0there were 20 other groups following, where did all the water go? And where the hell are two of my three musette bags? I personally handed my last one back to the person that handed it to me at mile 125. It didn't come back. How can it not come back? It was in the guy's HANDS. I was there. Somewhat delirious, but really I was there.

Ok, the feed bag handout at 100 was awesome! Of course, 100 was actually 106 ish; that's pretty important info to give us. Water handout was good for 2 of the 4 of us at the 150. The other two of us didn't realize there was a water stop coming and didn't have time to grab a bottle. That cost them an extra stop in Kamas cause they didn't have enough water to finish.

Whew. This one is checked off. It was rough. I am quite happy I made it in 9:20 - way under the 10 to 11 hour expectation I had. Now on to LOTOJA for the grand finale.

Mis-quoting a riding buddy: "Dude this was fucking nuts / stupid / crazy. See you next week."

Holy wheelset batman!

My new wheelset is just amazing. I wish I could be objective here by having controlled test environments but I cannot; there are so many variables at play. I can just say WOW!

I put the wheels together after I received my favorite tires - Continental Ultra Race kevlar - on Wednesday evening. My first ride on the new wheels was a totally relaxed commute to work of 3.5 miles each direction. I admit I did not feel much difference uphill. But downhill, wow, I can't believe how smooth these wheels were, and how FAST! These things just zipped down the hill without any effort. I'm talking a 1/2 mile downhill here, where I usually play around and try to see how fast I can go. I reached 35 mph without even realizing it; this is the number I typically attempt really hard to reach. Promising...

Saturday comes and I go to race at Chalk Creek, which is 25 miles of uphill rollers, a turnaround, followed by 25 miles of the same rollers downhill. During my warmup I play around with a few hills and again am amazed of the downhill ease and speed. I stand and accelerate up a little hill in town and start thinking "hmmm, maybe there is something to these wheels uphills".

As the race goes on I find myself working pretty hard to stick with the lead pack. They put up a ridiculous uphill pace as usual - probably still a bunch of sandbaggers but I digress - and I am able to stick with it until the turnaround. On the way down our team really starts working. I cover attacks which takes some stiff accelerations. I stick around during significant uphill accelerations, and by the end of the race I realize I actually have to reduce my effort during such uphill accelerations by the pack because I am accellerating too fast and end up having to slow down. I also realize the flat sections were just handled instead of fighting to hang in there.

How much of this is training? I donno, probably some. How much is just due to these killer wheels? I donno but I am pretty confident it is a significant amount. That's something else: confidence. I have gained confidence I won't just suffer through flats and downhills. WOW!

Here are some facts / variables to consider:
- 260 grams is the weight difference between my Bontrager Race Lite wheels @ 1660 grams and Williams Cycling System 19 wheels at 1430 grams.
- Tires on the Bontrager wheels are Hutchinson Fusion Comp rated at 210 grams. Tires on the Williams wheels are Continental Ultra Race kevlar rated at 220 grams.
- Tubes on the Bontrager wheels may be Forte Ultra light at approximately 70 grams or no-name cheapos at 107 + grams. Tubes on the Willams wheels are Forte Ultra light.
- I had never raced Chalk Creek although I have ridden it 4-6 times. I was in much better shape than I have ever been for this race.
- I had not raced in over a month. I trained significantly in the time period between races.

what a race!

How can I be excited about an 11th place finish at Chalk Creek? Let me list the reasons:

1. Our team got 5th place.
2. I did my job. My duty was to help the team leader and I did. I covered some attacks during the last 24 miles, but most importantly the last 1/2 to 1 mile I believe I hurt some of the pack and set a fast enough pace to avoid last minute attacks. I led my team leader to the last 1k of the race.
3. I stuck with the lead pack. That is quite an accomplishment for me. Much easier said than done; those guys were tough as hell on the way up and down.
4. Our team executed the plan extremely well. I am quite proud of the whole team; everyone was willing to do their part for the team leader. Jerry kicked some serious ass setting tempo and Adam was able to be patient and let the race happen around him.
5. The race was simply a lot of fun.
6. It was great to have a cheering section. As boring as it has to be it's fun to get to the end and have people be there that care.
7. It was an impressive team showing. 14ish people wearing the same team kit in the same group had to make an impact.

On a more somber note, I hope the person that crashed behind my back wheel is ok. I doubt I had anything to do with it; from what I was told he accelerated and looked away just as the pace slowed, although still in the mid 20mph I am guessing. Sounded like it hurt badly though. Shitty deal.

Turns out there was no need for the jitters. It was awesome, and, additionally gave me confidence for the upcoming two crazy ass races of 170 and 206 miles.

Why the nerves?

The Chalk creek road race is in 12 hours. I am nearly in a panic, why?

Maybe because I haven't raced for over a month? Maybe because I have high expectations? Is it the hype of the team? Is it the new wheels? WTF??

I walked my dog an hour ago telling myself: I can do it. I will do fine. I can do it. I can do it.

Maybe criteriums are good to stay sharp and reduce the racing cobwebs.

Death ride: Check!

It is done. It wasn't easy, it wasn't anywhere near "as easy as" last week's 3 canyons effort even thought the numbers seemed to be right. Again, depending who you believe, the elevation gain was either 13,8xx, 17,714, or 19,928 feet. All of which are significantly more than last week's effort.

But, we made it. A shitload of climbing later we have our exclusive 'Five pass finisher' jerseys! I conquered it, I am happy with it, I don't need to do it again. My buddy is already talking about doing it again. Freak.

I ended up leaving the now-named Super Death Monkey early in the day. I didn't mean to, I just thought the top of the first climb was imminent so I stepped it up a few notches. I was wrong, soooo wrong about the top of the climb, but by then I was a ways away. I waited at the bottom of the first descent but he never caught up.

As many people as there were it was an individual effort for the majority of the day. A few people fit my tempo a few times during the day, which allowed for some good conversations if the oxygen allowed for it.

Here's what my day looked like: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6258865 or http://connect.garmin.com/activity/359884.

This one is checked off the list.

In preparation for Death...ride

Our last training ride before the Death Ride was held yesterday during what turned out to be a gorgeous cycling day. I had to wake up entirely too early to meet in Salt Lake at 6:00 but I have to admit it was nice to beat the heat for the two of three major climbs of the day.

I am thankful I was...um...how would I say...suggested to do this one last ride on Sunday even though I had just done a 95 mile ride Friday. The biggest reason: Ride statistics show that we actually climbed as much as the Death Ride in 30 less miles and 2 less climbs. That means we worked harder yesterday than we're going to Saturday. That is good. That is really good for physical and more importantly mental conditioning.

Comparing the elevation chart on yesterday's ride at http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6182144 vs the Death Ride at http://deathride.com/elemap.html you can see we climbed for longer durations, which translates less breaks between climbs, which translates to less recovery time, which means it was tougher. Work with me here.

Now to get ready for a 1200+ mile road trip...