Bike Racing

Andrea

Southern Cross… Take 2

The training I did in Arkansas over the Winter break paid off. The 50 something gravel-grinding miles were tough, but I owned it. Though I wished that Carey Lowery (who I lost to last year) was racing, I still nailed it. When the race started, I made sure to pace myself up the first ~11 miles of climbing. Once I hit the descent followed by a section road, I was lucky enough that the one tandem couple passed me. Though they were eventually going slightly slower than was aiming for, they provided me with an awesome draft for about 10 miles of pavement. That allowed me to really nail the final climb/descent.

Maybe I’ll revise this to a full-on race report, but I’m enjoying an amazing homebrew coconut porter right now, so you’re just going to have to wait…

Andrea

Columbia CX Race #3 and the Hangover Ride

In my continuing quest to poach TBRA points, Ryan and I daytripped the 3rd race of the Columbia Cyclocross series. Once again, Kim Bishop and I were the only 1/2/3 women lining up with the Masters and Cat 3 men. The course was good for me- several power sections and a long, steep run-up.

I went all out from the gun. Unlike the first Columbia race, (where even though I won the women’s competition, overall I didn’t place well) this race was not prefaced by a 20 hour training week. I held a decent position at the start and, with each lap, kept moving up. The guys I passed would occasionally put up a fight and try to pass back, but were unable to hold position because I’d ride right back through them. It was a take-no prisoners type of ride. I wasn’t sure of my placing overall, but on the last couple of laps, I had one more ahead of me that was within range. A couple of times, I found myself on his rear wheel but unable to get past. I ended up finishing a few second behind him. He turned around as I crossed the line and asked if I was smelling blood today.

Yeah, I guess that’s how you could put it…

Turns out he was the 2nd place cat 3 guy. Not bad, though today at the #4 race, Kym F. came over from Chatanooga and beat ALL of the guys. Pretty kickass if I do say so myself!

We got home sometime around 7:30 last night then met up with some friends at Flying Saucer and ended up staying up WAY too late! There was a Marx & Bensdorf team ride scheduled to leave for Potts Camp, MS at 8:00, but those of us at the bar decided that we’d have a “hangover ride” today around 11:00. It turned out to be a really, really good winter training ride. We kept a hard but steady (for the most part ;) ) tempo for close to 50 miles. The weather was gorgeous and the sun came out after a while, so it was a pretty perfect day on the bike.

Andrea

Bike for Sale

In light of a couple of new rides heading my way, I need to clear some room in the stable (while also filling my wallet a bit)

2008 BH Connect- 54cm Complete bike w/SRAM Red

Want to stick out from the heard a little bit? I bet you don’t know many guys/gals on your local hammerfest that ride a BH. BH is a Spanish Company that makes some seriously kickass rides. The look is definitely NOT your usual Trek, Giant, or Specialized- the carbon frame has oversized top and downtubes- making it one of the stiffest ones out there but still giving you a really great ride quality. It feels great on climbs and once you cross the top, goes down faster than a drunken sorority chick.

I’ve built this bad boy up with SRAM Red- which is, IMHO, the best component group you can get. The wheels are Rolf Vector Pros- I think they look pretty awesome. Are they light? Hell no, they aren’t light- they’re for training! Nothing screams “I have a hard time keeping up” like arriving to the local group ride on light, fancy wheels. The tires follow suit- 25c Gatorskin up front and a kevlar-belted Bontrager out back. Besides, if you race, then you’ve already got a set of light race wheels for when it really counts.
The handlebars are FSA Omega compacts (size 40), the stem is an Edge (alloy) 120mm, and the seatpost is Thompson (no setback). I hate interior cable routing, so I ran a solid cable housing from the rear DR to the shifter. It works great, but there’s nothing wrong with the routing that the bike has through the chainstay other than I didn’t want to deal with it. Last but not least, the saddle is a San Marco SKN. It’s been ridden less than 10x because it’s much too narrow for me.

You can read the Road Bike Action review of this frame HERE

Retail on this frame/parts is around $4000 (you can find the frame on closeout for ~$2k and the Red group runs about the same). It’s used, but other than a couple of cosmetic paint chips, it’s in really nice condition. This can all be yours for $2,000. If you’re feeling lucky, make an offer!

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Andrea

2010 Race Schedule

Here it is! (starting with March). Road events are in green & MTB in orange

3/7: Rouge Roubaix
3/14: Hell’s Kitchen (maybe)
3/28: Ouachita Challenge

4/10-11: Mississippi Grand Prix
4/24: Cohutta 100 (first 100 mile MTB race!)

5/1: Syllamo’s Revenge
5/15: Dirt, Sweat, and Gears 12 hour
5/29-30: West Feliciana Stage Race

6/5: Mohican 100 (Ohio)
6/12-13: Tour de Louisiane
6/19: MBSN Gran Prix (Memphis)

7/3-4: Oxford Crits
7/17: Breckenridge 100 (Colorado)
7/31: Wilderness 101 (Pennsylvania)
I’ll likely pick one of those two since they’re both a long way from Memphis

8/15: Fool’s Gold 100 (Georgia)
8/21-22: Oak Ridge Omnium

9/5: Shenandoah 100 (maybe- depending on if I need the NUE series points)

I’m sure I’ll throw in the random XC race here & there, and I’m likely to add/subtract some of these, but this is the plan for now.

Andrea

Roadtrip Rebound

So my between-semester winter break was officially over yesterday (faculty meeting), and classes start tomorrow.

I’m having a hard time coping.

After several road trips, random adventures, meeting new people, going new places, etc, now that I’m back to “normal” life, everything seems really, really boring, and it’s a little depressing.

*sigh*

At least Southern Cross got rescheduled- it’s going to be on the 23rd… which is good to combat the boredom, but is also going to keep me from going to the TBRA CX race on that day. Right now, I’m ahead in points for the series, but the gal in 2nd is going to be getting really, really close now if I don’t make an 8 farking hour trip to Johnson City for the last two races of the season.

On the plus side, I’ve made a tentative plan for my 2010 race season. It’s shaping up nicely, and it looks like I’ll be able to strike a good balance between mountain and road events. I wish summer would just hurry up & get here.

Andrea

Eastbound Days 3 and 4- Unicoi Gap and Back

Not long after I took those pretty photos Friday morning, a couple of hikers (Kyle and Bart) showed up at the hostel (after hitching rides from the Appalachian Trail a few miles away). They’d parked their car at Unicoi Gap and been shuttled to the Southern end of the AT and had planned on hiking back to the car. However, when the snow and ice came through, their progress had slowed, and they weren’t going to make it back to their car in time for Bart to catch his flight home on Sunday.

Then I got the call- Eddie and Namrita (the Southern Cross race promoters) had tried to go to the race venue (Camp Wahsega) and were unable to because of the ice on the roads. They were going to have to postpone the race.

By then, it was a little after noon. I decided that I’d stick around the hostel for another night and head to Chattanooga for some “normal” CX racing Saturday morning since the Big One was called off. That evening, bored with sitting around the hostel watching CSI reruns, Bart, Kyle, and myself decided to head to town for dinner. I found out that they’d called a taxi service to pick them up in the morning and drive them to their car about 45 minutes up the road… to the tune of eighty bucks! Always up for a little adventure, I offered to drive them up there for the low, low cost of dinner and a tank of gas.

The scenery out to Unicoi was gorgeous! At the parking area, the trees on the hillside were still frozen in snow and ice, and the sunlight coming through them was amazing.

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Kyle, Bart, and their car
Kyle, Bart, and their car

After dropping them off, I headed back to Chattanooga. Along the way, I drove past Brasstown Bald, site of many an exciting race finish during Tour of Georgia. Eventually, I made it to Booker T. Washington State park- just in time to change and head out for a quick lap around the MTB trails to loosen up my legs after a couple of days of doing nothing. Luckily, the race promoter had reserved the bunkhouses at the park for anyone who wanted to stay there, so I had some dinner & bedded down.

Today (Sunday), I’m hoping to finish my road trip off with a decent CX race.

Andrea

Eastbound

Just a quick update before I hit the road…

SouthernX is this weekend!!! It’s back again, and it’s longer and much colder. I’m leaving today so I can make stops along the way & enjoy some local trail riding. Just like last year, I’m heading back to Chattanooga on Sunday to get my *ss kicked by Kim F. at Cross-a-nooga.

Updates to follow!

Andrea

Training Camp ’09- Days 5 and 6

Yes, this is a combo post- yesterday I rode, packed, and skeedadled out of Mountain View so I could get back home to Memphis before bedtime, and had a bunch of stuff to do once I got home, so I didn’t feel like updating.

The sunrise/blue moonset was a really nice way to start the day:

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The ride was just a simple loop in the National Forest. I started out at Blanchard Springs on my MTB and headed up the mountain to Green Mountain Road. From there, I rode up a while then dropped back in to Gunnar Pool . It’s a gorgeous campground with a small lake, dam, and waterfall, but I didn’t hang around for photos because it was pretty dang cold. You’ll just have to take my word for it ;)

From there, I turned around & climbed back up to Green Mountain, tracked east, then headed south on Sandy Flat, which drops down quickly to a creek crossing then climbs again back to Green Mountain road. The entire loop was less than 30 miles and took about 2.5 hours. Each of the 3 climbs was between 500 and 600 ft of elevation gain, and I rode the rolling sections between climbs at a decent tempo, so I was happy to get back to the decent back to Blanchard.

Once I was back, I figured I’d take some photos of Sylamore Creek…

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Today, Ryan and I day-tripped the Columbia #1 cyclocross race. It was cold and reletively uneventful. Kim Bishop showed up and gave me a run for my money. My legs were wondering WTF I was doing. Not only did I put in nearly 20 hours worth of riding/hiking this week (my TSB is -38 right now for all you Training Peaks geeks), I haven’t done any CX-type efforts since the Outdoors race several weeks ago. Needless to say, I wasn’t really thinking about the usual cat 3 boy-beatdown that I liked to administer earlier in the season.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder, so we’ll probably venture out to the WRT for a couple of hours on the mountain bikes.

Random thought of the evening: Barleywine tastes like neither barley nor wine. Discuss.

Andrea

Outdoors, Inc. Cyclocross Race

Getting out of bed Sunday morning, I wasn’t sure how my legs would respond to my requests to pedal, run, and jump as hard as possible. I generally ached all over from the day before, though I knew I’d done everything within my power to recover as much as possible (short of taking an ice bath… I hate those as much as they work).

The weather was perfect. In fact, since it stopped raining a couple of weeks ago, the weather has been 60-70 and sunny every day. Does anyone else find that somewhat scary? (in a bad, climate-change sort of way)

I digress…
Teammate Casey Malone and I lined up behind the Cat 4 and “B” Masters men. Unlike the TBRA races I’ve been in lately, this time we’d start a minute behind these guys (instead of at the same time as the cat3 or 1/2/3 guys). Lame!

I hadn’t really warmed up much- when I was pre-riding, I had a tire burp air, so I convinced Ryan to let me use his nice DuraAce wheels/Jett tires that were a better match to the course than my Bulldogs/heavy Zero AO28s. So, when the start tape was raised, I wasn’t too sure of how I’d feel.

Surprisingly, I felt really awesome. I was passing the tail end of the men’s race within the first part of the lap. Casey hung on for a while, but dropped off at some point. The course was a lot of fun- it turned & went up the river bluff a few times and had a few chicanes & even a tiny bit of mud. I wish that more ladies had shown up to race!

Ryan took a few photos of my race, and I photographed the A race as well. I’m hoping that more pop up since there seemed to be a lot of photographers around the course. Here’s a link to his gallery: Outdoors, Inc Cyclocross on RoadCX.net

Andrea

Lock Four 6 Hour Race

With a lingering head cold, I wasn’t sure until Thursday or Friday if I actually wanted to do this race. However, I figured as long as I wasn’t coughing or feverish that I’d be alright.

So, I woke up at 4am Saturday morning and got on the road to Gallatin, TN (on the NE side of Nashville) to go ride in a race that I hadn’t trained for much at all. If anything, it’d give me a good benchmark so I’d know where I stand fitness-wise before embarking on my epic training schedule this December at the Syllamo trails.

Thanks to Cyclocrunk, I can now nail a LeMans start to the M.F.ing WALL! Because of that, I had good placing going into the singletrack. I started out quick, but was sure to not burn too many matches on the first lap. The course was fun- it featured a few rocky sections, drops, jumps, some wide switchbacks up & down some hills, and a couple of short, screaming descents. It was a 29er dream course for sure.

Speaking of… the new Air9 frame was great! I forgot to write about it, but I sealed up some new Maxxis Ignitor tires on Thursday, and they prettymuch rocked. For a sub-600g 29er tire, they’re nice & knobby! Personally, I’ll take a hit on rolling resistance for better traction any day. Bonus- my bike now weighs in at 23 pounds, 7 ounces…

Anyways-
Laps 1-3 feel great. I could see going in to lap 4 that I’d put some time on Laureen Coffelt (super endurance chick, also from Memphis). At that point, she was just emerging from the woods as I was re-entering. However, about a mile in, my back started to hurt really bad. I’m not really sure why- bike fit, camelback, hardtail, fitness… combination of all those? Most likely.
I had to slow down because every bump was sending waves of pain through my muscles. Somehow, I finished that lap. When I arrived back to the pits, I grabbed some asprin and slammed a Redbull with part of a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. While I was stopped, Laureen passed me. After a quick stretch, I was just glad to be able to continue.

My last two laps were good. Good enough for me to hold on to 2nd place (about 6 minutes behind Laureen). I was a little dissapointed in myself, but didn’t worry too much about it. I think Laureen’s been at this since before I knew how to ride a bike, so to finish just 6 minutes back from her without any specific training is not a bad spot.

After the awards ceremony, I packed up & headed back to Memphis. BTW- driving 3.5 hours after riding for nearly 6 is Hell.