#27 Tuesday crit

No racing last weekend. I was able to get about 4 hours on the bike between Saturday and Sunday, so I guess that's cool. 1.5 of it was on a trainer at an obnoxious hour though.

For the final two Team Dayton Tuesday crits, they changed it up and the B group had the course to themselves for 30 minutes of fun. After such a long day yesterday, I can't even remember how many people started the race. I knew there were more than a few that I could drop quick, so I went right to the front and led most of the first two laps. Then it came down to one guy in an Ireland jersey, one woman from Krietler, me and 6-7 team Dayton people.

/rant about training crits

Training crits are for training yourself. When 95% of the field is from your team it's pretty stupid to think you are there to practice team tactics. It just doesn't work and leads to (this term I hate) negative racing. A couple of years ago, we would just attack each other for the training of the whole thing.

/ok, better

The guy in the Ireland jersey spent a lot of time pulling everyone, but not attacking.
David Rich Jr, pedaled hard for 3 seconds and looked back. Again. Again. Again.
David was the only one who even feigned an attack.
Every time I went to the front I tried to hit the corners hard as I feel real comfortable racing there and am pretty confident in the corners. It's just the sprint I suck at. Which leads to...

Last lap bell and I find myself on the front. No big deal, so the plan was to hit corner 3 hard and see what happens. Couldn't shake anyone and most of them passed me by the rise at corner 4. It was a good workout though.

#26 speedy feet tt July

Largest group yet to this time trial. In another long winded blog post, I got 3rd overall. 10 seconds separated the top three. Speed was 25.5, power was 280.

#25 & #26

Troy Classic and Tour d'Burg

Criteriums are no longer fun. Long live the time trial.

#24 training criterium

It hurt like a race, was held on a race course and I didn't win. So therefore, it was a race. I chose the B race because I wanted to at least feel like I could be a factor longer than three seconds. There were maybe 25 B riders.

Really I was there for training and not to try to win so I kept floating around, hitting corners hard and making little accelerations. During one of my jumps, I caused a break of three riders. Oops. During another jump, I caused two more riders to bridge the gap. Then it was down to the rest of us. Half way through it was down to five of us in the "chase" group, a half lap behind the leaders. I continued to not play nice and hit the corners, jumped and screwed around for the workout. On the last lap, one kid took off and no one chased (I was sitting last wheel, getting ready for my own attack). He was gone, so then I took off on corner 3 and rode in hard ahead of the rest of our little group.

Good training day. We'll see what happens when it's for real this weekend.

#23 Colavita TT July

Not much to say about this one. The weather played a factor into the slower times. I rolled a 24.5 average and was the only one to break 30 minutes in my division. 7th tt win of the year.

Won some Hammer Gel and some Heed. My cupboard overfloweth with Heed. I like that.

#22 Blue Streak

Not counting the HPV's, I was 10th out of 70+. Everyone had good times last night and I shaved well over a minute on my personal best, rolling in with a 25.92 mph average. 3rd in my age group of 30-39.

Big ride by Kyle Lyman, going over 27mph with the only aero gear being a skinsuit and shrinkwrap on his helmet (that is, if he rode the bike he was warming up on...his road bike) - Team Dayton, get that guy a tt bike. Jeez.

Results:
http://www.speedy-feet.com/2009/0708/BlueStreak.htm

Half year review

Happy July? It's cold out...

This is just a small review of the half season that it's been.

Mileage wise, I am way off the pace. Due to everything that's been going on I just haven't had the time or energy to put as many miles on as I would like. Right now, I'm at 3,154.91 for the year.

Running half year totals:
2009 - 3,154.91
2008 - 4,013.80
2007 - 3,769.5
2006 - 4089.47
2005 - 4,455.07

On the road racing front, I've been complete crap. Six races - 3 dnf, 2 last places and 21st place out of 25.

Time trials on the other hand have been going well. A nice way to start the year was winning the series of indoor TT's for my age group. In 12 outdoor time trials, I have 6 wins, two 2nds, two 4ths and two 5ths. My new position, skinsuit, shoe covers and front wheel have made up the difference of my declining health, training and increasing weight.

So that makes 21 races right now. With the potential addition of cross races and the rest of the season's time trials, I should have a decent number of races by year's end. That's not even counting crits, as I'll do a couple of them for fun.

In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away trying to get dropped less and less on group rides, try to get my TT speed up and work on the weight.

Cyclocross

From the looks of it, cross racing is becoming more popular than road racing. What is a guy to do? Well, buy a cross bike and hit the dirt/grass/sand/pavement!

Now I'm getting pricing on a singlespeed cross bike that I can use for adventure racing and commuting (whenever I move) as well as cross races. That should help retain some fitness over the late fall/early winter season and stave off some of the trainer riding.

One nice thing about cross races is that there are more categories than road racing. I can race beginner 35+ to start. Races start in late September.

How am I going to mount my powertap on a singlespeed cross bike though??? HA