Reports by:

• Mike Z.
• Ziggy
• Garry
• Iwan
• Scott

Category: 4/5+
Result: Did not finish

I rode in the first EB race of the season. We had a good FFBC turnout. Brian J, Brian Z, Iwan, Brad and I were all there. I rode to the course from home which was a nice warmup, unfortunately, I cooled down rapidly due to the foggy weather. Registration was no problem and I listened in on Larry Nolan, et. al. give a pre-race mentoring session (lecture only, no lab). Had time for 3 warmup laps and then they started the race fairly quickly.

Due to the weather, I expected a slow start. That was not to be. Some young whipper-snapper (can't remember his name, but the best 17 year old road racer in the state I guess) took off with Ziggy hot on his heels. I think we averaged about 28 mph for the first 3 laps. It calmed down a little after that. Brian J. and I made a break to bridge the gap to a solo breakaway and had a 3 man break for a couple of laps. We were brought back to the field and then the first crash of the season occurred at the 30 minute mark. It included quite a few riders and one had to be taken away in an ambulance. Last I saw he was sitting up, so I don't think it was a head or spinal injury.

Things were pretty slow for a few laps and then we were stopped with 2 laps to go when the ambulance came. We waited about 10 minutes. During that time, Larry Nolan and another postal rider conducted an after action review of why the crash happened. When the race started again for the last two laps, I left the field for a couple of reasons. (1) After warming up and cooling down several times, my legs didn't need the additional punishment and (2) it was obviously going to be a sprint finish and I had already spotted another young whipper snapper, Daniel Holloway out there. If you don't know who he is, read Richard's track emails. Daniel took the race in the sprint (for once, I wish I could have bet the house on a sporting event because I would have put everything on him).

Almost forgot. At one point, Ziggy made a break with one other guy. I moved to the front to do some blocking. Just as I did, up on the outside comes one of the postal riders who was riding as a mentor in the race with a orange vest (Larry Nolan was also). He towed 5 riders straight to Ziggy and the other guy and shut down that break in about 20 seconds. I dropped back and was telling Brian J. about it. Larry Nolan overheard me and I said, "Yeah, one of your guys." I don't think he believed me and then we both looked to the front of the race, and the postal mentor guy was leading the peloton. Larry goes, "What is he doing?" and rode to the front of the race and told the guy to back off with me yelling behind him, "Hey, we've got some team tactics going on here."

I had a good day. Hope everyone else did too.

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Category: 4/5+
Result: Did not finish

As Mike said, it was a fun race, except for the fog. Right from the gun, Adam Switters, who shouldn't have been in our race as he is a cat 3, took off, and I followed him with one other guy. I don't think we ever got much of a gap, but we did manage to string out the race pretty good. This would normally have been a good start to a crit for me, but I had a couple things working against me: only a two lap warm-up, and the fact that I don't quite have the same legs and recovery ability I did at the end of the season last year.

Because of our 28 mph rocket off the front, I spent the next half of the race recovering and re-acquainting myself with the tail end of the race. Positions were tightly held today, so the only way I could get to the front from the back was with a big sprint on the front straight. The speed from this carried me into the break Mike spoke of. Again I ran into trouble with strength and was fast running out of steam. I was soon caught by the mentor lead train of riders and spent the rest of the race mid-pack. After the crash, I pulled off because I didn't really have it in me to chase back on after almost coming to a stop to avoid hitting the young Adam Switters who was walking across the course after he had gone down in the crash. My ankle was also getting really tired from all the work I was demanding from it. Great start to the season! Intervals, intervals, intervals! Must do intervals!

BTW, I watched about half of the 123 race. Larry Nolan and two others were putting the hurt on the rest of the field. 35 seconds lead and growing when I left. Perhaps the skipper will fill us in on how bad they had it handed to them by the end.

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Category: 1/2/3
Result: Back of pack

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls

Please give it up for.............................Scott Regan, who after a very intelligent race hammered home his sprinting superiority and took the novice 5 race. Most excellent start to the season. I will leave it upto Scott to give us all the details for inclusion on the web page.

In the 1/2/3/ race we had 3 of the 4 FFBC RT cat 3 racers in attendance, Bob Russell, Tim O'Hara and yours truly. Tim had driven back from the Grand Canyon the day before and had consumed nearly all the food between there and Newark, so he was feeling decidedly unfit. Bob and I both commented that we felt o.k. considering the session the day before.

As Ziggy said, the race started quite briskly, all 65 of us moving along at about 26-27 mph. I was on the front within 3 laps and did a pull on the 4th lap. This was it seems a good launch pad for an attack. Only 5 laps in and a breakaway formed, Nolan was in, along with Steve G of the VSRT and 3-4 others. They soon built up a goodly lead and several groups attempted to bridge, myself having a go but soon realising it was not going to be glorious. The field settled down to a good steady tempo and several mini breaks wandered off the front. I again made several moves to bridge, in fact I got within 25 yards of one of the breakaways before the speed gave out and I had to wait for the peleton.

Bob R moved up in the last 1/3 of the race and started to ride aggressively and Tim finally digested what he ate in Nevada on his return trip and felt good enough to creep forward. I had another few forays off the front, determined to extract as much out of the race as possible. In fact my last effort was thru the bell, although I did not know it was the last lap as I pinged off the front of the pack.

Anyway, Bob made a long sprint on the right into the wind and took the field sprint and Tim was far left and got either 2nd or 3rd in the same gallop. I made a token effort not to cross the line last. The Lead breakaway had grown to 6-7 but did not lap us, and I understand there were 2 other groups in the gap, although I could have sworn we got them back.

The same James Hibbard who appears in Zigs email rode our race? He was using a power tap wheel and exchanged some data with me. We averaged 26.2 for 1 1/4 hours and he had a top speed of 36 mph, a max watts output of 1150 watts and an average of 244 watts. I wonder what that all means. I do know that I rode harder, but less sensibly than he did, but what the hell, it's a training race.

I would like to say that it was great that we had a large turnout, better that we had no one fall off and really fantastic that Mr. Regan brought home the bacon. If this is a sign of things to come, than I for one will be having a really fun season.

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Category: 4/5+
Result: Top ten

The dense fog in the morning made me want to return to bed, but the call of my precious chainRing was strong. It was drawn to its master, the VeloPromo... anyway, not to make a short story, long, I got up and rode down to Dumbarton circle, registered and started the race.

Race started off fast. I was mostly sitting in at the tail of the peloton hangin on. Fortunately, the rather large slinky stretched for what seemed like half a block, so I was never in danger of getting dropped. I decided I didn't quite have the power to move to the front and struggling for position in mid-pack was unappealing and seemed hazardous. So I hung out in the tail hoping just to finish without incident.

Three things helped me in this race. The first was Mike pointing out to me some sprinter guy with a red jersey to watch out for. The second was the obligatory mid-race crash, which made everyone more cautious and slower afterwards, and the third was the re-start of the race with two to go.

The re-start definitely helped because I was well rested with two to go. I tailed Brian for the first lap, then on the last lap I spotted the sprinter guy and followed him. There was a mass attempt to pass on the left side going into corner one but the road narrows and they all got cut off (hehehe). By the time we entered the final corner it seemed like a lot of people had sat up. I was sitting at around 20th and thought I wasn't going to get anywhere. Then I saw the sprinter guy was also sitting in waiting and realized this was a good position. Sure enough, the sprint went early and people started fading with 200m to go. This sprinter guy then made his move on the left and got a good gap with two others (I think his teamate led him out). I couldn't quite follow but was able to pass several people and finished happily in 7th.

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Category: 5
Result: 1st

I was in the Cat 5/beginner race this morning, 11am. Did the 10am mentorship, which made for a good warm-up... but also got me shivering because the sun wasn't visible yet. The shivering only lasted for about 15 seconds into the race. There were so many people in my race that they had to split us up into 2 groups, one I think about 15 seconds behind the other. I got to the line early so I was on the line at the start, in the first group. The refs estimated we had two groups of 50 people. I was surprised to see so many team jersey's and apparent teammates in a "less than 5 races" experience race.

The gun went off, and so did another guy and myself. At about 1/2 lap into it, we looked back and had about a 200m lead on the pack. He looked at me and said, "Hey, where is everyone?" We were only doing about 25mph, but had a nice little lead. We lasted about 1 lap, but it was fun to see who was awake at the start.

I spent the majority of the time in the front 25% of my group. There were a lot of surges, as riders in front tried to drive up the pace but couldn't hold it. The peleton surged up and around the lead riders at least a dozen times in the race. I tried moving to the outside ASAP when that happened, in order to grab a wheel and catch a free ride back up to the lead riders again. I was also taking the turns on the outside... mostly out of fear of being taken out by a crash. The outside ended up working out great because riders on the inside were hitting their brakes a bit; so, I could keep my momentum when I was able to stay outside and even gain some ground sometimes. Like a true sucker, I tried to always have a wheel. But, I lead a handful of times because I felt like I had the energy and had this ridiculous desire to pull my share. My biggest concern in the race was not knowing myself well enough to know if I was going to have the energy by the end. The team practice race yesterday helped with that a bit, since our team pace was higher than the Cat 5 race. I also found that when I pulled, riders behind were much more cordial in letting me back in the line.

There were a lot of break always, but everyone of them was short-lived, and rarely chased. About half way through the race, we lapped the group that started behind us. On the last lap, these two guys with plain white jerseys and weighing 200+ pounds each, tried to break-away. Someone yelled, "Same team, somebody cover them!" So, I covered them... especially since they looked relaxed and were keeping a high pace and pulling away from the group. I was hoping they were my ticket to a three-man sprint finish. But nope, we were caught. However, it was obvious the pack was running out of steam... lots of heavy breathing and bobbing shoulders. This time we were caught just before turn number 3 (the last 90 degree turn before the finish). I moved immediately to the outside and grabbed a wheel heading for the front. The one crash in my race happened on this last lap, right between turns 3 and 4. A guy who was riding alone, ahead of us as we were about to lap him... hit a bot dot and it took him out. The peleton split in two to go around him. Before I knew it, I was in the front five riders coming around turn number 4. The wheel I was sucking kept moving up the group, and with enough distance from the others that no one leaped over. Not sure what our speed was at this time, but I think we were just under 30mph. So, here I was, on this guy's wheel, in second, pulling away from the rest of the pack behind us. I kept expecting some 40mph sprinter to come blazing by. I looked left and right to see if I needed to really jump on the gas, but it seemed that the gradual acceleration we had going was plenty. There were a couple of guys that tried to make up the distance in the last 200 meters. At that point, I came around the wheel I had, and stepped on the gas with what I had left. I was able to keep these chasers about a bike length back... and then, I won.

Our race averaged 24mph.

Some of the riders in my group were pretty frickin scary! Going in to turn 1 on the last lap, a rider we were lapping was on the outside and wanted to move into our group as we took the corner. He was sitting up, arms locked out straight, bobbing up and down with his pedal stroke... obviously tired and looking for some last minute excitement as he started to veer right, just as we were about to start our turn. Knowing I could remain anonymous, I yelled, "Stay left please, far left, and out of our group so we can pass!!!" He stayed out of the way.

I hope this is enough detail for the report... I tried giving the abridged version.

Thanks Garry and Brian for sticking around and cheering... or at least I think you were cheering. Someone was yelling "Go Scott," so even if it wasn't for me, I pretended it was.

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