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First Wednesday World’s

Great job to K-Puff on his victory down at the Austin Tuesday Night Trainer.

The first Wed. World’s were a wake up call for many. One rider was overhead saying, “this was like a July Wed. World’s.” About 40 or so showed up for the first event of the season. Among the participants was Dan Daly of the IRS. Sporting new shifters, new chain, new silver hoops, and white shoes, the diesel looked the part. Several Tortugans, a few Bacardi/Nuvos, and a smattering of well-known Bloomingtonians joined the new voice of the Peloton, Geraint Parry, who gave the orders and led us out to the course, a 4-mile loop utilizing old and new 446. Geraint will be announcing at select races this year, sharing his wry, Welsh wit and inside-the-peloton-scoop with the audience. A blend of Chris Boardman and Paul Sherwen, Geraint will add a colorful flair to the weekend races.

The course features two big-ring graded sections and lots of headwind on the new 446, with rough, undulating terrain on the old 446 section of pave. After a tame first lap that saw the Welshman go off the front with Bennet Van der Genugten (BvG) of Bacardi/Nuvo, the peloton came to life on lap 2, by the end of which, the two escapees were caught.

The inevitable counter formed the break of the night, with Kehrberg, Sonneborn, Ballinger, Kroll, Hans ?, Serrier, BvG and myself. A gap of at least 2 minutes was quickly formed despite the protagonists being a little unsteady at times. Surges from the new to the old section of 446 split the front group nearly every lap, but a regrouping occurred the first 4 times as BvG, Kehrberg and Kroll duked it out for ‘primes’ at the Speed Limit 40 finish line and then sat up to recover.

At the beginning of lap 7 ( of 8 ) the elastic snapped for Serrier and myself. Not sure what happened to Serrier, but I continued solo while the break quickly disappeared from view. BvG took the final sprint in addition to the majority of the primes, showing great strength here in the early season. Nice job to BvG and all the members of the break.

Tonight’s avg. speed was about 1 mph faster than previous season-1st Wed. World’s. Although unconfirmed, it was suggested that next week’s event will traverse the Upper Paragon loop, a bastardly hilly course certain to sting the legs.

Thanks to everyone for making it a great workout tonight. Plenty of racing available this weekend with the Pike-Gibson Challenge in SW Indiana. Closer to home, a 10-mile TT will be held on the main forest road in MMSF Friday night and a 14.6 mile TT will utilize the MMSF loop Saturday morning. Those not racing are encourage to come out and cheer on your TTing teammates who will ride an additional couple of hours after the Saturday event.

Quail Run Race Finale

A recap of our tallies so far: we each had one win, one loss and a tie. So the final “race” up the 3-mile climb to homebase was to be the deciding factor for the overall title. It’s pretty lame I guess, but it’s a great way to simulate race-pace intensity – especially at the end of a long ride.

Karim and I were both tired today. Our legs felt pretty sapped, our breathing was a bit lathargic and our morales certainly weren’t as positive as they were on the first day. We intended on getting a solid 4 hours in today, figuring we’d make the most out of the warm weather training opportunity we had, but after 1.5 hours into a headwind under cloudy, cool skies, we decided to head back after our gas station sag stop. Mentally, I felt a bit livelier, knowing we were on our way back and that translated into a bit of pep in the legs.

The trash-talking started soon after our turn toward home. We caught the draft of a slow accelerating concrete truck on the long, straight stretch of Hunter Rd. just prior to the turn up Quail Run. Karim lasted a half-mile or so, but dropped off when small chunks of concrete started kicking up off the back of the truck at around 45mph. A stayed on for another half-mile (can you say Keirin!??) and had a good 500 meters on Karim after I finally came off the back. I had a mile to go before the start of the climb, so I continued tempo to the base. I had a few fleeting thoughts of continuing on to an easy win (Karim wasn’t chasing), but decided to wait for him anyway.

Long story short (and I don’t like to gloat) – I spanked his sorry arse. I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted that hard (uphill!) before. He had his small win the day before, and today I had mine. Back at home, we boxed up our bikes and shipped them back to Indy in hopes of having them to ride again on the weekend once we get back.

Day Four – Part II

Karim and I heard about this semi-legendary training race that goes off every Tuesday (apparently beginning the first week in April) at 6PM just south of Austin. Although there were no Lance sightings, there were well over 100 people that showed up for this thing. We were told that the “A” group would do 4 laps, while the slower “B” group would do one less. The group formed at the entrance of a new subdivision, and I noticed that the course leading out of this area started up a formidable 1/2-mile climb right off the bat. The backside of the 9-mile loop was pretty much uphill in one way or another.

I jumped toward the front right away and Karim got stuck in the middle, so he had some work to do when the two groups naturally formed themselves. The “race” was fast throughout, as many of these Texas boys have been training throughout the winter here. I was sitting comfortably near the front, taking my share of pulls here and there for most of the race – however, on the third lap going up the big climb I was getting pretty fatigued and found myself the last one up the hill. Karim came by me and said some sort of encouraging words as he went over the top. I recovered and made my way back up through the pack on the generally downhill 2nd half of the course.

It turns out that we were only doing 3 laps instead of 4 — which was a good thing. I’m not sure how well I would have fared up that climb one more time around. I felt very strong, especially considering we had 4 solid days of long rides (and 2 hours this morning), but my legs were starting to fill up with some of that lactic crap.

I flew by Karim a few miles from the finish and gave him another “plip, plip” as I went by – hoping he would hop on my wheel. As the set up to the sprint progressed, I ended up behind him for a bit – I thought I’d ride his wheel on in to a good spot. However a split formed and I jumped across to it. I figured there was less than a mile left so I was pretty stoked to make it across, but the group ended up coming back together anyhow. We rounded the last turn and the housing addition was in sight. I jumped on the left from about 10th spot. Then the head wind hit me hard in the face and I snapped back to reality (and back in the pack – what was I thinking?) At about that same point, Karim jumped hard and was able to hold off these Texas boys and beat them at their own game!

I was happy with my perceived effort throughout the length of this semi-tough course, and Karim’s morale was no-doubt boosted from showing his decent sprinting form a week and a half before our first official race. All in all, a fruitful day of training and racing. One more day of riding here in Texas tomorrow and we’ll be headed home.