Mengoni

Rainy morning, actually chilly. But I'd pre-reg'd so up I got and into the park.

An interesting mix of locals and "big girls" who were heading to Thater the next day. On the second lap, an attack on Harlem Hill split the group and while I thought the girls around me would chase down the leaders, they were all protecting their teammates up front. As I didn't have a teammate up front, and I didn't realize early enough that burying myself in a chase was a good idea, I ended up in the 16mph group. The other solo rider in our group of six or so, Annie from Amarosa, and I finally got our acts together in the last lap and put in a bunch of attacks, but while no one else wanted to push the pace, neither did they want to let anyone get away. (We'll leave aside the fact that it's awfully hard to get away from people when you've been going 16mph for 3 laps!) I threw away my finish by attacking early on Cat's Paw and blowing up—figured we were sprinting for 11th or so anyway, so I'd try something new. New is not necessarily good, and it turned out there were fewer people up the road than I'd thought. We were sprinting for 8th. Oops. At least I gave it all a good shot and didn't just accept my fate sitting down. (Thanks go to B who gave me a metaphorical kick in the butt when I whined instead of doing something! It didn't make a difference in the finish, but it did make a difference in my morning.)

CRCA Club Championship

Andrea and Maria pulled out 7th and 8th. I missed most of the race after an unfortunate mishap in the first lap that left me by the side of the road with six broken spokes. Didn't go down, miracle of miracles, but wasn't able to keep riding either. Ah well. The three of them (A, M, and Alison) made sure to stay in the mix and did just great. Nice teamwork!

Tour de Christiana by Nancy

I was a bit destroyed before the Tour de C began (but managed not to crash). 4 big overnights at work in the week leading up the the event pretty much ensured failure for me. The weekend was well worth it, though, because I was a good rabbit for Maria and she did really well. I had finally had had about enough in lap 4 or 5 of the crit and quit. Then along came Maria and I wasn't about to let her off the hook! Do as I say not as I do... I tried to but couldn't hook her back on to the chase group at that point, but she braved it out with a couple of the girls who got dropped and finished FIRST in the cat 4's. She can TT just fine on her own and if it weren't for the all too pleasant scenery she probably would have won that too.

Team Cup #4 by Maria

6am in July and the Central Park roads seemed to have much more horse dung on them than usual. As Alison and I warmed up before the race, we tried to make mental notes as to where it was especially bad. The air was thick and the humidity was high...a lovely day for a race.

There were points up for grab every time we hit Cat's Paw after the first lap, so the pace was fast and the attacks were plenty. Nancy racked up the points with her sprinting while the rest of us chased attacks. No attack ever got away and the team maintained a presence toward the front of the field for most of the race.

On our final lap, a CRCA rider took down Nancy with a sudden jerky movement to the left on the descent after Harlem Hill. Nancy was not hurt too bad, but she was frustrated to miss the final sprint. I was in a breakaway at the time and when the rest of the field caught us we heard that there had been a crash. Someone mentioned that they thought that someone from
Bicycle Workshop had gone down. I looked around and only saw Andrea. We were about half-way through the final lap so we did what we could to position ourselves for the final sprint since Nancy was nowhere to be seen. The pace increased up Cat's Paw and the field seemed to thin out a bit. Martha from Sanchez Metro jumped on my wheel and Andrea was on Dominique's. When she blew up on Cat's Paw Andrea moved over to get whatever wheel she could. Comedy took 1st and 2nd, Elena from Radical took 3rd, I took 4th with Ann Marie from Sanchez Metro in 5th, Andrea in 6th and Martha in 7th.

Nancy was third in terms of points, my 4th place finish slotted me into 6th and so we kept our 2nd place ranking in the standings. Comedy has pretty much crushed everyone, but we're still trying to rally.

Luckily super woman Nancy is ok. She even stopped to help a racer that had crashed in the men's field on her way to the finish line. She ended up with road rash on her leg and arm and also needed a couple stitches in her knee (yes, she stitched herself up!)

Overall we worked very hard as a team, with everyone giving their best and working together to chase down attacks and rack up points in this difficult race format. Without Liz or Maggie this morning, we were missing two of our strongest riders but everyone stepped up to the challenge and rode very well. Yeah Team!!

ESG 2006 in Rochester

The Empire State Games are like the Olympics of New York State. Athletes compete in their sport against the best of six New York State regions. For the cycling events, a stage race is held over the four days of the games and points are won by every team member who completes an event. Since the mens teams each have up to 10 riders, it's a medium-sized field. The women, on the other hand, have three riders per team. And when some eligible riders choose not to attend, leaving a field of 12 riders ranging from cat 4's to cat 2's, the women's cycling is less like a proper race and more like the Olympics when the East Germans are beating up on the Jamaican bobsledding team.

Or something like that. Erin Dwyer, Cindy Ma and I were the New York City team and we felt a lot closer to the Jamaicans than the East Germans!

Day one started off with the 10-mile individual time trial. Kerry Traynor of Western took the gold, a full minute ahead of her teammate Cindy Dunn. Kerry would have beaten 2/3rds of the mens field with her time. Erin shocked herself by coming in the middle of the field, 45 seconds ahead of Cindy and me. It was a hard ride—I haven't been focusing on time trialing, and I probably overgeared a bit. I have this theory that I could be a good time trialist if I could only find the right gear....this was not the day I found the right gear though!

Day two, we were all woken early by the sound of thunderstorms rolling through the Rochester area. They stuck around through the beginning of the road race which made for loads of fun when we hit the big downhill. By that time, Kerry had flatted, so while the group had broken up in the uphills, the leaders were still in sight for a long while as Western tried to hold things up for her. Unfortunately, the wheel van was following the LI girls who'd been dropped on the first hill, so it took Kerry nearly half an hour to get her wheel change. I can't say I was sad to see her by the side of the road—I need all the help I can get in road races and not having her drive the pace up front gave me a chance. To make a long story short, Erin took the field sprint, was relegated one position for theoretically taking pace (on a 45mph downhill!) from another field, and ended up with a bronze. Kerry caught me right before that downhill despite having had another flat after her first one, so we battled it out for...7th.

Day three, the crit. Kerry and Cindy took off from the gun, shattering the field. Western ended up taking all three medals, I took fourth, Erin fifth. The course was a fiasco—short and non-technical, the mens field was halved within 20 laps.

And then a TTT on day 4. The three of us weren't the strongest riders out there, but we were very well matched. Despite a bobble in the turn-around, we won silver over Adirondack by 8 seconds, despite their having two riders who'd done much better in the ITT.

Put together with the mens results, and we all took home a bronze in the overall team ranking as well. I never think I'll enjoy ESG but this was a pretty good year—good fun and a good bunch of riders.

Tewksbury ITT by Maria

The flyer warned: "An Individual time trial on an extremely demanding course". They weren't kidding!

My friend Paul and I decided to drive the course before I registered and we ended up getting lost due to a sign pointing us in the wrong direction (it was fixed by race time). I realized that I would have no warm up, so I did my best to stretch in the car. When we finally arrived in the parking lot for registration, there was a long line. My start time was in 10 mins! I explained my situation and the riders allowed me to go to the front of the line and get my number. I then visited the Port-A-John while Paul put my bike together and pumped up my tires. He then pinned my number on my jersey whiIe I put on my shoes and helmet. With no more than a couple minutes to spare, I rolled to the start line and was off.

I was so frustrated from the morning's events that I started off too hard. Right after the first turn, I had already passed a rider. My heart rate was way up there, so I slowed down a bit and got into a rhythm with my breath and pedals. The course had many hills, but luckily none of them were too long. By mile 6, the half-way point, I picked up the pace a bit and passed a few more riders. I knew that the final climb would be brutal, so I made sure to ride right below my max so I could make it up the steep hill. Within a mile or so, a woman passed me. I paced myself behind her until about a mile before the final climb. I then passed a young guy struggling. He asked how much further. I told him not to give up, just three more miles. In an attempt to distract myself from the burning in my legs, I started to chant in my head, "just three more miles, just three more". My coach is right, warming up is very important.

Next I hit the climb. The hill was steep and just long enough to make you want to cry or vomit, or both. I was told after the race that it starts out at about 8% and then toward the top hits 18% and then 21%. I am not sure if this is true, but my legs weren't disputing it. When I glanced at my cadence it read 44rpm, I couldn't believe it. I encountered two riders walking their bikes up the hill. I couldn't blame them, but kept telling myself to just keep pedaling. Then I heard "go Maria, you are doing great, go go go" It was my friend Paul. He was comfortably seated on the hood of his car. You would think I would want the encouragement, but I wanted to strangle him for being there. At that moment I realized that I could get off my bike and go home. I focused forward, tried to ignore him and charged up the last part of the hill. The descent was sweet, but ended with a sharp right turn. The marshal was chatting with someone in a car and had his back to me. I yelled "Which Way?" He pointed a bit too late and I fishtailed and almost lost it. I am not sure how my bike stayed upright, but I made the turn. I increased my speed and stood up and sprinted when I saw the people in the distance. I have no idea where found the legs to finish at such a high speed, but I passed one more person about 100 meters before the finish line. Finally, it was over!

I spun out for a while and waited for the resutls. More than two hours and a sunburn later, they were posted. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I got 1st in the Cat 4's,(#2 was about 1.5 minutes behind me) and I placed 3rd overall for women. The stressful morning with no warm up had a happy ending after all.