PIR 4-29-08
Tonight was an experience, one that had me questioning myself quite a bit, all the way out to the track the words to a Metallica song were running through my head “AM I WHO I THINK I AM!” was I really ready to step up and race the 3/4′s….didn’t seem like that big of a jump, but at the same time seemed like a huge step. “AM I WHO I THINK I AM!”
All I wanted to do was hang on and not get dropped and if I was feeling froggy maybe attack off the front a couple of times “AM I WHO I THINK I AM!”
Well I got my chance to attack once getting a huge jump on the field down the front stretch with a giant tailwind, I noticed I was motoring at 29mph and nobody was chasing….this might work….unfortunately the giant tailwind turned into an enormous headwind on the back stretch and just before I got caught I noticed I was barley doing 19mph “AM I WHO I THINK I AM!”
I managed to hide back in the group to recover and didn’t bother with any hot spots although I tried to stay near the front, the pace stayed fairly high and I tried to get ready for the sprint finish and boy what a trip. This thing wound up halfway through the far corner at over 30mph before we even hit the finishing straight. I saw a gap and started to take it when the rider on my left came into me, pushing me into the guy on my right; somehow at over 32mph we all managed to stay upright. I was all in at this point and possibly squeaked in around 8th barring anybody with hot spot points
“AM I WHO I THINK I AM, COURT IS IN SESSION AND I BANG MY GAVEL DOWN!!” “AM I WHO I THINK I AM!”
Mudslinger
As reported by James after another epic early season event:
After a brutal race at Horning’s where the mud was either slick, watery, thick, sticky and any combination of the above I was looking forward to an ‘easy’ race. I finished strong on the last lap and Heather did a great job riding strong the entire race and ending up 2nd. Not bad for someone ‘not training’… After much discussing, it was determined I would be heading solo to Blodgett for the Mudslinger.
This being my first year racing the Oregon races, aside from short-track, I had a few reports of mud and a few photos from last year to build my pre-race prep. OK, so it will be muddy. Well as soon as I hit Salem, snow became a very real possibility, Corvallis ended up with a record snowfall of 3″, the latest recorded snowfall since 1859. Regardless, the race ended up being muddy but in pretty good shape considering the weather consisting of rain, hail, and snow. A long climb started us out with a few early steep pitches that found you racing the guy next to you who was pushing his bike. My legs really weren’t there early, a consistent theme for these early races, as I got into more of a rhythm and the terrain became more varied, rather than just up, I began to pick off a few riders on each descent and didn’t let them pass on the following climbs. It was almost surreal as the singletrack became less rideable, I kept feeling and riding stronger. The organizers did a great job of laying out the course and am looking forward to what they will throw at us for the TOE.
I ended up 9th and am pleased with the finish. In the future I am debating bringing a trainer to get more thoroughly warmed up before the start and will also be hitting the hills the next couple weeks on the mountain bike to build the muscles for all the racing to come in the next few months.
A big thanks to Casey M. of Organic Athletes! He was thoughtful enough to lend me a sweatshirt while I waited around for the tow truck to unlock my car after hastefully locking my keys inside prior to the race. Without that sweatshirt I don’t know what I would have done for those next couple hours. Thanks Casey!
“the helper”
“the helpie”
Toro, Toro, Toro!!
Last night was another Tuesday night PIR and like the week before saw an extremely full field. Unlike last week I took a slightly different approach to this short race and decided to try a couple of attacks to see how the field would react.
During my warmup I thought that a good spot for my first effort would be on the back stretch just before the riders come into the full force of the headwind and another good spot would be on the front stretch with the massive tailwind to help push me away from the field and with any luck maybe at one of those jumps I might take a few guys with me.
NOPE! not a one, in typical PIR fashion, a rider jumps, the field chases, the field sits on, nobody is willing to work for the win. No worries, that’s the benefit of being able to race every week.
VRV ended up having a good showing in the overall with Jeff Brock railing through the field for what currently looks like 13th and I managed to drag myself in around 15th.
Valley of the Sunburned Kings
Today was the Kings Valley road race, just a few miles outside of Monmoth and you couldn’t have asked for a better day for racing. Let me first thank the promoter and all of the officials for pulling off another great OBRA event. If you haven’t raced Kings Valley, then you really need to put it on your schedule for next year; a few rough spots in the road are more than made up for by a spectacular race route.
The 4/5′s started out sedate enough, maybe because of all the sunshine or maybe because nobody wanted to do any work, either way it was a nice pace to start the racing…..it all went downhill from there starting with the incesant yells of “SLOOOOOWING” followed by the non stop accordian action of the field. (listen guys, try racing with your head up and your eyes forward for a while and you wouldn’t need to be screaming that the guy in front of you touched his brakes again!)
The first two laps went off without much of a hitch, the team hung in there, Earl riding strong mid-pack, Jason hiding waiting, for his moment to pounce and me not able to find my rythum and suffering on every roller we came to.
By the end of the second lap the pace had picked up prior to the finishing hill causing the elastic to snap for Earl, though he time trailed in vain to catch back, he just wasn’t able to as the field actually sheeled quite a few riders on the downhill section as we railed along at 35+mph.
At the start of lap three Jason rolled up beside me and said “I feel good, I’m gonna try something” and I thought, “Oh great, my own team mate is going to drop me from the field!” Needless to say, I started to move towards the front anticipating the carnage to come; fortunately by this point I was starting to feel pretty good and was actually looking forward to putting a little hurt of my own on the finish. Neither of which happened.
After much yo-yoing in the field with a little less than 2km to go, as I was working my way to the front, two riders touched wheels resulting in a spectacular crash with one rider sumersaulting across the road into the ditch and the other laying body and bike perfectly down directly in front of me. The remainder of the field managed to avoid us as I slammed on the brakes and stayed upright, but couldn’t get clipped back in to my pedals in time to catch the field without a huge effort (last match in the book)
Jason stayed with the field and had a very respectable finish, coming across the line in 37th, while I struggled to finish 50th barely nipping one of the strong Organic Athletes at the line and Earl road the remainder of the race in uber tough guy time trial mode finshing an extremely impressive 67th.
Considering the course, weather conditions (sunny and awesome) VRV had another great race that we can all be proud of. Good job guys, I am honored to race on the same team as all of you; even if you didn’t force me to put on sunscreen!
Some photos courtesy of Tim Ehlers
Horning’s
This past Sunday marked the first mountain bike race of the ’08 season and VRV was well represented by the dynamic duo of Heather and James Westfall. (full race report to follow) Conditions looked tough with plenty of mud and extremely tough conditions. Both Heather and James pulled off great finishes with James pulling in 13th in the men’s Sport class and Heather stomping her way to 2nd in the women’s field.
Congratulations to both, outstanding results!
Pictures of the tough conditions can be found at,Oregon Velo
PIR 4-8-08 – Updated
First PIR of the season and everybody managed to stay up (big plus) Jeff led us out tonight and got the group spread out pretty quickly while I found a nice little spot to tuck myself into never more than about 10 spots back. As usual nobody really wanted to work, but what do you expect for a 12 mile race, everybody wants to “save” themselves for the finish.
For the most part the pace was kept pretty high with minimal bunching up and no real attacks, although there were a couple of attempts including one from Jeff that had caught the field hesitating since I was sitting in right on the front and they weren’t sure who to watch….slowly he was reeled back in.
The last lap saw a moderate pace and I had good poistion, but when we came around the last turn onto the front straight I had nobody in front of me to draft and had to start my sprint about a half mile from the finish. Being early season I just couldn’t get on top of that 53×11 and started to fade towards the line, with at least one rider coming around and another already in front (3rd overall)
Jeff managed to pick up a bunch of spots as the rest of the field splintered and faded, 15th overall, that’s awesome considering he hasn’t had time to do any real training. (The rest of the field better hope he stays this way or he’s gonna hand out some real ass whoopings later in the year!)
All in all, it’s great to be racing during the week after work again, good times!
De Ronde
Well, that was hard.
Paul, Laird, Jason, Jeff and I met two hundred or so of our fellow Portlanders in true flashmob style to ride 50 miles in honor of the Tour of Flanders. We left from Portland brewing about 10:00 and finished around 4 hours later on top of Council Crest. I am happy to say that I did not walk a single meter of the route. It was right up there in terms of the most fun I have had on a bike. A big thanks to the (un)organizers for not putting this thing together. I didn’t appreciate it at all. Here’s proof.
smiling my way up brynwood
the captain vomits a lion
jeff rolling cool up saltzman.
is laird listening to the director sportif or primus?
the rain jackets came in handy.
the shark puts down the camera and rides tough.
the photo above of our photographer was lifted without permission, but with deep gratitude, from kevin wagoner. check out his full set here, including this. I was smiling that big all day long.
thanks again to everyone involved. it was the kind of day that makes me proud and happy to be a portlander. more great pics and a map & description are here.
oh -and a big thank you to the guy who was at mile 35 with water & gatorade. i wouldn’t have made it the last ten miles without a refill. he was getting word out for jackson’s ride the gorge. check it out.
“so what’s next?”