Brentani’s Cycling Blog

I’m not too happy with my performance on Whiteface, which is probably why it’s taken me until Thursday to write up a race report from Saturday. I was expecting a time of somewhere around 1:08, but that was based on flawed calculations, so I actually came in at 1:02:45. My calculation was figuring I had lost ~5 minutes over 3.7 miles on both Okemo and Ascutney to Doug last year, so my time should be 10 minutes more than his – though I figured longer distance and easier gradient would mean that I’d probably loose a bit less than that. I misread Doug’s time of 48 and change as 58 and change, which was how I came up with 108. So in the end I was almost 4 minutes slower than I had hoped.

The biggest factor, I think, was a bungled warmup. I rode down the course from the “North Pole” theme park where my car was (about 2 miles) and toodled around for a bit. Figuring I wanted a decent warmup, and remembering (correctly) that I had forgotten to lock the car, I decided to get a feel for the hill by riding back up to the car. I kept an easy and sustainable pace, and was pleasantly surprised to see that 8 mph wasn’t very difficult to keep up. Got to the car, locked, went back down. People were lining up, so rather than be the jackass who’s race prep is too important to hang out in the group, I just lined up too, but that meant I was standing still for upwards of 30 minutes. From the gun my legs were burning. And the same spot where I had been easily keeping up 8 mph suddenly seemed very hard at the same pace. My average was probably 9.4 mph during the first 2 miles, and it steadily dropped for the rest of the climb. Never really felt like I was able to get much momentum or power or even really the motivation to get things rolling.

That said, I did very much enjoy the climb. The first 3 miles up to the toll both are a little boring, but the last 5 up to the summit are incredible. The finish, in particular is dramatic. The road is almost dead straight until just before the top, where you get two swoopy switcback finally arriving at the Castle.

Following the race, I navigated NY backroads, a ferry, and VT backroads to get to teammate jerry’s house outside of Burlington. The next morning, we rode around some of his favorite hills, ending up back at Bolton Notch, a complete spanker of a hill, right by his house. Last year he told me that it was “almost as steep as Lincoln Gap” and at first I just assumed that this was the usual “my driveway is the steepest hill on the planet” hyperbole you find all over the internet. Turns out he’s not far off. The first 1 KM averages almost 17%! It’s quite similar to Mount Tom. There are two immense walls of 20%, punctuated by a couple spots to recover, if only slightly. There are also some dirt/gravel sections to contend with. What makes it easier than Mount Tom, is that Mount Tom’s sections of 20+% are both longer, and happen a bit later in the hill. The first section on Bolton Notch is sprintable, and you can get up it with a little determination. After the short recovery section, the next section on Bolton Notch is really, really, nasty, but once you get to the top of that, you’re done with the really evil stuff and you can roll it up to the top. On Mount Tom, just as you finish one huge slog, you’re hit with another one just as bad, and that second one is much more demoralizing. Jerry had bid me farewell at the bottom saying he’d just go up for a bit and turn around, but he was cranking up the hill not too far behind me when I got to the top.

I haven’t checked in in a while, so there’ll be a lot of somewhat unrelated things in this post. First of all, I did Ascutney back on July 18, and posted a report here. The next day, I drove up and did a loop around Lincoln Gap and App Gap. For Ascutney, I (with help from Brian, of course) set up the Circle A as a single front chainring of 26. Matched that with a 13-29 in the back. The gears felt just about right. I spun out on the brief down-hill/flat section at mile 2.5, but otherwise was fine. I spent a lot of time in the 26/29, but never felt like I wanted to downshift, and was able to shift up and down pretty smoothly as the pitch changed. (Contrast that w/ okemo where I was firmly stuck in the 34/29 from bottom to top.) For Lincoln, I of course needed some bigger gears (for the flat and descents), but also needed the low gears. I used the Gazelle for that, which, if you don’t remember, has a compact triple (46-36-24, w/ a 13-26 in the back). The 46/13 is a little easier to spin out on flats than you might want, but otherwise the gearing was also pretty good.

Ascutney Setup

Lincoln Gap…starts out with a short steep section. Nothing to worry about. It levels off and gives you some extended false flats, which eventually become dirt. When the pavement returns, that’s when the fun starts. The transition from 36 to 24 is pretty hairy, so I stopped and shifted into the 24 right at that point, since I didn’t want to mess with it once the gradients really picked up. The next section is very steep, probably mid-teens. At a certain point, you turn a corner and see an immense section of over 20%. That part is going to hurt anyone, probably no matter what gears you bring. I did it in the 24/26. Once you get up that and turn the corner, it “eases up” to about 18%. It was at this point that I stopped for a breather. I couldn’t tell what would happen around the next corner, and the Gazelle doesn’t have a computer, so I didn’t know how far I had gone. Turns out if I had just perservered another little bit, I would have been at the top. Oh  well.

Next Item: Carrie went to a wedding a month or so back, and google maps inexplicably sent her on some back road on her way up to Burriville. Turns out it was a hill, and she asked if I had done it, which I had not. I went out on tuesday to give it a try. The road in question is Brayton, and is right near Burlingame. Nothing too difficult, but definitely worth knowing about. There’s another road (Rogler Farm) that also goes up to the same point. Here they are:

Here’s my report, on the Refunds Now Site. Enjoy.

Yikes. That’s one tough course. I knew from the start I wouldn’t finish with the pack, so I really just wanted to feel like I put in a respectable effort at the end, and avoid crashing, flatting, etc. I did all that, so I’m happy.

Here’s my report.

Only my second non-hillclimb race this year, I went down to Jamestown to race in celebration of Rhode Island’s favorite perpetrator of genocide (I would have preferred Heinrich Himmler or Pol Pot, but I guess Columbus will have to do). We had an incredibly large Refunds Now team. Out of 75 riders, we had 11. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have anyone who was a clear winner. To make things extra fun, I was racing with the rear wheel from the Gazelle. Yesterday after an easy ride, Aaron and I decided to do a couple laps on Blackstone Blvd. Just as we started an interval and I put some pressure on the drive train, I heard a horrible snap, followed by some clanking. A spoke on the rear wheel popped out, and the wheel was completely out of true. I was going to try to ride it slowly home, but I couldn’t coast without the chain skipping on the cogs. So Aaron, who fortunately lives only a couple blocks away, drove me home. Once home I swapped the cassette from the ritchey wheel onto the gazelle’s wheel an everything seemed to work fine.

anyway, back to Jamestown. I tried to stay out of trouble for most of the first lap. When we hit the hill (probably 1/2 mile at 5 or 6 percent, top .6 miles from the finish) I got a decent test of my form. Unfortunately, there were a couple of badly placed cars parked on the side of the road, so every time I thought I could sneak up on the right side (I felt like I could probably climb the hill faster than most of the field at that point) I’d see a car in front of me and was boxed in. In any case I felt very comfortable and was hopeful about my chances on the hill next time around. I really didn’t get myself into any better position the next lap, and was stuck on the inside. I risked the shoulder once or twice to make up a few spots, but the cars were still there and it made things quite difficult. As I was squeezing in to avoid the first car, I felt the guy behind me (on the right, not the person I was squeezing into…) touch my wheel and then crash hard into the car. I felt a bit bad, but hey, how could you not know there was a car there?? once things started thinning out a bit, I finally had some space to start rolling. I flew past a large percentage of the group, but was still a little late to catch the front group that had formed. They were probably about 50 meters in front at the top of the hill, but I couldn’t bridge once the road started going down hill. I’m pretty happy with my result anyway, since I had little to no expectations, but I’m also a little disappointed I couldn’t get myself into a better position for the final climb, since I’m pretty sure I climbed as well as anybody in the field once I had escaped the clusterfuck – except maybe teammate Graham, who went over the top with a sizable lead over the hill, only to be nipped 50 meters before the line. (it’s a tough race for a climber, since the hill isn’t hard enough to really damage the non-climbers and it’s a long fast 1/2 mile from the top to the finishing line.)

Short version:

• 5.8 miles
• 2 miles flat
• 3.8 miles of climb
• 11.6% average grade
• 19% maximum grade
• 2100 ft elevation gain
• 55 starters
• winning time: 29:19
• Doug Jansen’s Time: 32:29
• My time: 37:28
• place: 15th
• lesson’s learned: 34-29 is not as easy a gear as you think it is, and don’t underestimate the guy in the Sponge Bob jersey with a 26-34.

long version: Here’s my story and I’m sticking to it: I beat the predicted winning time of 43 minutes by about 6 minutes. Never mind the fact that all the contenders at the start line looked at each other and chuckled when the announcer made his prediction. Doug had told me that he was hoping to do it in 35. Since this was my first hill climb, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Turns out that hill climbs really aren’t all that complicated. Fun as hell, but not complicated. So here’s how it went from my perspective. After picking up my number, I headed out to the “warm up” area. It turns out the warm up area was actually a 2 mile (or so) climb. The gradient wasn’t very tough, however, so I could keep it in the 34-23 or 26 and keep the ride nice and easy. I showed up for the start with 54 others. This race was a little different from most hill climbs because we had to ride along the flat 103 for 2 miles before starting the climb. The climb itself was 3.8 miles at an average gradient of 11.6% and 2100 feet of elevation (so the whole race was 5.8 miles). I wasn’t really looking forward to the first part, because I was afraid that either I’d be killed by one of the cyclo-tourists who had never ridden in a pack before, or that the cat 1’s and 2’s would drop me before the climb even started. Thankfully my fears were unfounded and we kept up a nice and easy 20-ish mph until the climb, and no-one was trying to get a hole-shot or anything dumb like that. The climb started off with a bang. No more than 100 meters in, the race had already separated into the real racers and those just along for the ride. And a bunch of riders started out very hard. I had to check myself to not try following them, since I’ve killed myself in the first 1/2 mile of a climb more times than I can count. I made the executive decision that I wouldn’t pass Doug, since there was no way in hell I’d be beating him to the top. I didn’t have to work very hard to adhere to that decision. I hovered a few meters back from him, and was gradually working my way up towards him, and then he was gradually moving away, and then I stopped worrying about Doug, since before I knew it, he was pretty far up the road. I rode with a Mystic Velo Club rider for a while…eventually the steepness got to him and he pulled off to the side and stopped to catch his breath. I fought the temptation to do the same, since I knew where it would get me. It turns out, 34-29 isn’t as easy as I thought it was. Through the steepest sections I was going just over 4 mph, which means my cadence was pretty damn low (and I don’t feel like figuring out what that makes my actual cadence). At about this point a couple other riders from behind caught up to me. I lifted my pace enough to grab the wheel of the first rider and rode on his wheel for a while, until the pitches went up again. Somewhere in here, someone on the side of the road told us that we were 13, 14, and 15 on the road. Eventually I lost contact with those 2, and that’s when we hit the fog. From here on, I could just barely see the two of them up the road at the edge of the fog, and I could just barely see a couple riders behind me. And that’s how it stayed until the top. My computer hit 5.9 miles (the race was supposed to be 5.8) and began thinking that someone had played a horrible joke on me (and that those 500 ft and 250 ft to go signs were just lies). Then out of nowhere the I was at the finish line. I had enough energy to correct the announcer when I read my name and was very happy to see a finishing time of 37:28. That’s well within the range of what I was hoping to do. I’m just happy to have a baseline to improve on.

And, I’m sold on the whole hill-climb thing. For the same reason I love the north, the people who are at these races are there because they want to be there. The climb hurts for everybody, from the winner to the last finisher, and everyone pushes themselves to their limit. As a result, there’s no bitching at the end about so-and-so who sucked their wheel, or took a stupid line, or refused to work in a break, or how I should have won, but didn’t time things right. I can’t wait for my next one, I’m just not sure when it might be. Maybe Ascutney, or maybe Burke in the fall.

Here’s Doug Jansen’s take and here are the official results in case you don’t believe me.

I had many reasons to not do Blue Hills today: the whole bottom bracket fiasco, the chain-skip on the Gazelle, it was raining and cold, I got maybe 2 hours of sleep last night (not for lack of trying…), and being my first race of the year, I really had little to no expectations. So, after deciding to ditch my glasses (couldn’t see shit with them on, but kept getting water and debris in my eyes with them off…) I lined up near the back of the cat 4 field. There were 75 preregistered, but clearly many had opted to stay in their warm beds. Refunds Now had a pretty strong showing: Graham, Casey, Radu, Mark G., Michael, Tony and myself. I felt pretty unsure of my form and my ability to stay upright in the rain, so I took it easy at or near the back of the pack for the first couple laps. It really didn’t present me many problems. I actually wondered if we were in a neutral start well after the race had started. Radu was off the front for much of the first lap, with Michael keeping the pace under control at the front. The hill was definitely over-hyped…I only knew we were on it because some people started struggling. (I stayed in the big ring the whole day…) I looked over at one rider just in front of me and noticed he had a triple. That made me a little happy to see that I wasn’t the only one. But then he shifted INTO his granny ring. Clearly not his day. He also sounded like he was having a heart attack. I felt really good on the climb and started reevaluating my potential performance (my goal all along was to not get dropped and finish with the pack). On the second time up the climb, a few more people got ditched, and I moved up mid-field. I didn’t work very hard to maintain my position and was back a the back of the pack (which was a bit smaller) when we hit the climb for the third time. Again, really felt very good on the climb, and started watching the proceedings a bit more carefully. Sometime about then, the downpour started. The last lap was absolutely soaking. When the final climb started I moved up as quickly as possible so that I was probably only 10 riders back as we came to what I thought was the last part of the climb (and I knew there was still about 500 feet or so from the top of the climb to the finish). Graham was up in front of me, Radu was behind me, and Casey was, I think somewhere near me. I felt fidgety and almost jumped myself. Then a rider jumped from one of the first three positions. I think that all of us in this front group were feeling pretty fresh. Graham led the chase, and I was able to respond for a bit, but ran out of gas – this is where a little more interval training and top-end would have help immensely. (If I had jumped when I thought about it, I probably would have finished a few places higher, but still wouldn’t have placed top-ten.) Radu nipped me just before the line probably at about 20th or so, Graham placed top-10, and Casey placed just behind Graham. Michael and Mark weren’t too far behind in the next group. I think I was essentially right at the back of the decisive split, and I’m pretty happy with that, for my first race of the year.

On another note, I don’t think that the Gazelle is responsible for the sudden crap-out on the Circle A’s bottom bracket (see Khalid’s comment yesterday…) I think that the Circle A must have some sort of weather forecasting ability and decided to crap out all on its own so that it could sit this one out in the nice warm comfort of the house, while the Gazelle and I went out for a thorough soaking.

On my way home today I decided to ride up River Ave. Not exactly an unfamiliar hill, since it is only about 1/2 mile from my house. I never really thought about adding it to the blog, in spite of the fact that it is pretty steep, until I realized that it was quite close to the 500 feet of George St. in Worcester, MA. I heard about George from a post by Brian at Circle A about the recently held George St. Hillclimb. I’m kicking myself for missing that one (500 feet at about 20%–winning time was 23.7 seconds, my new teammate Nathan took 12th on his beautiful Circle A fixie (note: that is not Nathan in the picture) with a time of 32.69). So I figure that River and George are roughly comparable, in a way. River is about 1/2 as steep, but it is about 65 meters longer. Here are the graphs for comparison (see the comments for info about some changes to the gradient program):

and George:

So, my time up River today was (about) 32 seconds. That makes my speed 7.35 meters per second. So all I have to do is keep up the same speed for the 171 meters of George St and I would have a winning time (23.31)! That is obviously impossible, since I’m guessing that the steepness probably plays a bit of a factor, but if I could ride at 2/3 the speed I did River, I would still have a respectable time of 35 seconds. The next step is to drive up to George and try it out. Jenckes, starting at Benefit and ending at Congdon, would be almost identical, so that would be a good test as well. In any case, I know what I’m doing at the end of July next year.

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Woke up nice and early today to head out to Fall River for my second race of the season (the first being at Sterling, way back in May). Against my better judgement I decided to do the crit–I hate crits–and I decided not to swap out my tires even though the back one was paper thin, and had several nicks and one nice gouge on the side that bulged a bit when I topped the tire off with some more air. All in all, the race went ok. I was mostly tucked in at the back of the ever diminishing pack, and I had to close down gaps the whole day (one of the many joys of tailgunning). I had two teammates in the group (Joseph and Scott–Michael and Nathan had some problems with directions and showed up about 10 minutes after we started). The course was fast with a long descent starting at the start/finish, with two fast sweeping corners. After the flat back stretch, there was a long (by crit standards), fairly easy hill, which didn’t feel so easy by the end of the race. Basically, if you got a good line through the corners, you’d be in good shape when you got to the climb. If I didn’t get a good line, or had to brake, the back stretch hurt like hell, because there would be gaps everywhere and I’d already feel beat when I hit the hill. Those laps hurt. The laps where I had good lines and stayed in contact felt good, and the hill actually felt like a bit of recovery, since the pace was usually not too bad. 4 laps to go. I was still hanging in, about 15-20 riders back from the front. I took a bad line going into the corner going into the hill. Or more precisely, I tried to correct my line to avoid the man-hole that was sticking up, and the guy behind me was forced off the road. I apologized, but I’m also not quite sure what he was doing trying to take an outside line around me, when I was already taking the corner pretty wide. Anyway, next lap. Same corner, same position, I heard the unmistakable sound of a tire blowing out, and a rider about 7-8 in front of me tumbled over and slide off the road, taking 2 or three other riders with him. I was on the opposite side of the road and safely missed it all. Teammate Scott told me that he immediately looked around to see where I was, since he knew about the precarious condition of my tires and figured it might have been mine that blew. I think when I heard the sound,  that was my first reaction as well, but looked down to see my tires still holding together. Bell lap. Still holding on to the back of the main group (no breakaways all day), I knew that the final climb was where I’d need to do something if I was going to place highly, and I was hoping to at least pick off a few riders who I figured would struggle on the climb. Unfortunately I was one of those that struggled. I passed a few people and didn’t lose much to the main group, but ambled in a few seconds behind the pack. My place was 20, though I heard some grumbling that a couple people might have been left out of the standings, so it might still drop 1 or 2. Scott came in 2 behind me at 22, and Joseph held on for 10. Casey, my Brown teammate, was 9.

Stuck around for the Women’s race, and watched Hannah take that race for The Hub/Circle A team, so that was good to see as well.