Wolfpack Classic Top of the Hill RR

2 days ago was my first race of this season, the Top of the Hill road race! Before I give you a race report, here's some news and stuff that's happened since last time I've talked to all you guys. We've been getting a lot of snow here( about 3 inches, twice). It has snowed 3 times in the last 2 weeks and stuck to the ground twice--pretty unusual in North Carolina. Because of this, and that the snow just happened to fall on the weekends, my first test of the 2010 season which was supposed to be on January 31st, was postponed to February 6th. The ride I'm talking about is January Nationals, which I've done for the last 3 years now. Although it is just a ride it is pretty prestigious to win, and lots of good pro-1/2's try to win it every year. This year, I wasn't sure how I would do because I haven't done much intensity at all, and nothing that would replicate the demands of a hard race. My goal was pretty much to survive in the pack.

The race started pretty good for me, but with every acceleration I seemed to get more tired. I went for one break, just a 30 second or 1 minute intense effort, but after that I felt like I never recovered. On the last 2 laps of the 7 lap, 49 mile ride I was really hurting. About 4 miles from the finish I was barely hanging on to the back of the pack, which seemed to be only going faster and faster. I wasn't going to be with the field much longer. I was then dangling 10-30 seconds off the back of the field until my teammate, Andy, nearly pulled me back up to the field. He made it, but I didn't and finished off the back for the first time I've done this ride.

I was pretty dissapointed after the ride. The fact that I had not done much hard efforts in training before the race hardly made me feel any better. I tried to thank God for how I did, but in that situation it was extremely hard. Now I was just hoping that that I would do decently at the Wolfpack cycling classic/NC state road race, a week from Jan. Nats. If it was just a cat. 3 race I knew I would be fine, but it was a 72 mile long Pro 1/2/3 race--my first.

The day after Jan. Nationals, my new bike came. It is made by Stradalli, with a full carbon frame, fork, seatpost, and handlebars, and sram force components. We already have wheels for it and we are using a spare stem, but I think we will be getting a better one sometime soon. The Stradalli is very very light as a full bike, and is way stiffer than my aluminum Mottobecane. The most noticeable difference is when doing sprints and on uphills, especially short, steep ones. I thought that my new bike would give me an advantage in the upcoming race.

Wolfpack Classic top of the hill RR:

This pro 1/2/3 race started at 8:30 in the morning, when the temperature was 25 degrees and there was still some snow on the ground. They combined my race, the Pro 1/2/3, with the collegiate A's, so with the 2 fields combined there was a pack of anywhere from 65 to 85.

The race started pretty fast, but in the 1st 2 laps there were some really hard parts, but a lot of easy parts too. I was thinking that I would just have to focus on conserving as much energy as possible during the race to survive, which I think I did a very good job of. With 2 laps to go, I realized that I was actually feeling pretty good, and let myself spend a little more energy moving up in the pack, which was down to about 35 at this point. I survived the hardest hill on the course, with just over 1 lap to go. Then I knew I had less than 20 minutes of pain to go until the finish, so I tried to get ready for the biggest hill on the course, which ended about a mile of a mile and a half before the finish.

Over the top of the last hill, the field split, with about 15 people in the front pack and 10 in the trailing one. Over the top I was at the front of the second, only a couple of seconds back from the first pack. I tried to catch the field with a steady effort, but I never got completely in the draft. In hindsight I wish that I had tried to sprint up to the first pack and get a break before the final downhill, which I'm not even sure that I could have done, but since I didn't I dangled right off the back of the 1st pack down the hill. We were going about 40 miles per hour on the decent, and I was spinning my junior gears out like crazy trying to rejoin the pack. At the bottom of the downhill, within sight of the line, I was a little bit further back than at the start of the decent. I caught up a little bit sprinting up the hill, but still finished just a couple of bike lengths off the end of a very strung out group.

Even though I made the mistake of not sprinting over the top of the last hill, I was very happy with my results, especially because of how I did on the same course just a week before. I went into the race thinking I would be happy with staying with the peleton, and ended up easily within the top half of a competitive field. I was even more happy once I learned how I did: 13th in the pro 1/2/3 (24th out of the 2 fields combined), out of about 35 or 45 pro 1/2/3's. I think that I was the 2nd highest finishing cat. 3 in the race, so I should be getting some more points! Even if

So that was my first race of 2010, and I thought it went pretty good! I did way better than a week ago, some of which I'm sure was because of my new bike. Even if I had done badly, however, I want to thank God for keeping me safe and giving me the strength to do pretty good.

Today, my Dad an I drove to Raleigh to do the group ride there. This was the first time I have done this ride, and I don't think I will ever see other group rides in the same way again. The ride in Raleigh attracts lots of extremely strong riders, like Dave Leduc, a cat. 1 or 2 who is one of the best masters riders in the nation, my teammate Terry Huss, who is a very good cat. 1, some of my other teammates like Kurt Massey, and more of my teammates and other good racers. Soon I will describe it in more detail. It was a great ride, very fun and it offered some great training. The idea of the ride is to do a 100k long, hard tempo ride, being very consistent in your effort. We averaged 21mph for the whole ride, and I averaged a normalized power of 191 watts, with a TSS if 220. Both of these features, NP and TSS, are available in the Training Peaks software, which is excellent for tracking your progress. Also, I want to post some pictures of my new bike up soon.

SAMI racing and other Off Season News

It's been a long time since my last post. Since then I've gotten a cyclocross bike, trained through the off season, and switched teams to SAMI racing.

SAMI racing is a new team for 2010 based in Michigan. It is an elite junior team that currently has 3 riders-Alexey Vermeulen, Rudy Peterson, and myself. If you've never heard of them before, I'm sure you will soon, but here is a little bit about them.

Alexey Vermeulen-Racing age 16 in 2010, Alexey is the favorite for Junior Nationals this season. Some of his results include 3rd place overall in the 15-18 category at the Green Mountain Stage Race, a cat. 3 race victory and many other cat. 3 podium finishes, and 5th in the TT at Nationals in 2008. Unfortunatley Alexey couldn't make it to Nationals this season, but he was invited to the National Development camp in Colorado Springs this past October.

Rudy Peterson- Racing age 15 in 2010, Rudy placed 8th in two of the three events at Nationals last season, and crashed in the other, which he had a great chance of a top 3 finish in. He upgraded to a cat. 3 after Nationals, which is incredibly rare for the racing age 14 year old he was at the time. In addition to this, he won a big LAJRS race, the Chicago Criterium, last July--in the 10-18 category.

Given the talent of my teammates, I think that 2010 will be a very good season for us. I think we have the potential to dominate the 15-16 category this year. Regardless of how I race though, I want to put my 2010 season in God's hands. If I do good, I want to give Him the glory for it.

Another thing that's new is that one of my Birthday gifts was a cyclocross bike. My Dad and I built it up ourselves, and since then I have been riding it a lot. I think it is better training than a mountain bike and is more fun, too. It puts you into the position of a regular road bike, and is much harder to handle than a mountain bike, which hones your bike handling skills.

I also want to thank the Raleigh Allstars cycling team for being a great team for me in the past 3 seasons. I have gotten much better as a bike racer under them, and they have also helped many other juniors improve in all aspects of cycling since I joined. Thank you.

My Bikes

My first road bike was an orange Trek 1000. It came with Shimano Sora components and is heavy compared to my current road bike, but I loved how fast and light it was compared to the mountain bike I had previously.

Fast forward to 2009 and I use my Trek 1000 for training. Most recently it is equipped with the Powercranks I have borrowed for a few weeks. With the Powercranks and pedals it weighs about 23 pounds.

My current bike is a 2006 Motobecane SL Le Champion. I got it in August 2006 and it was certainly an upgrade from my previous bike which was 5 pounds heavier. My Dad got it for $1,300 dollars which was a great deal given it weighed only 15.6 pounds. It has a 2.7 pound aluminum frame with Shimano Ultegra components and 10 speed compact FSA SL-K MegaExo Carbon Cranks.

American classic 32mm deep wheels came stock on the bike, but when I am training I use a DT Swiss back wheel equipped with my powermeter while keeping the American Classic front wheel. During most races I use Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels, except in time trials when I use Bontrager deep dish tubulars.

PowerCranks!

A couple of weeks ago and after months of asking, I finally got the chance to try PowerCranks. Greg Combs, a local coach, let me borrow them for a couple of weeks. PowerCranks are huge gold crankarms that rotate independently of each other, forcing you to pedal smoothly, eliminating the dead spot in your pedal stroke.

As soon as I took my first pedal stroke on PowerCranks I realized that it was going to be difficult to manage even 30 minutes on them. Even clipping in is weird as you have to clip in with both pedals at the 6 o' clock position, and standing is also really different and takes some time getting used to. It turned out that I rode 1:10 and was really tired after that, but suprisingly I wasn't that sore the next day.

If you've ever implimented one legged pedaling into your training, PowerCranks are very similiar except you're doing it with both legs at once. Your first time with them you'll be able to ride 30 or so minutes at least, and it will probably take so much concentration to maintain a good stroke that you probably shouldn't ride on heavily trafficked roads.

According to PowerCranks you could see improvements in as little as 2 weeks. Unfortunately I've only used them a couple of times so I can't verify that claim. However, although there seems to be a lot of benefits of using them, PowerCranks are heavy (although I guess that would only make you stronger), and the cheapest model is worth $899.

You can go to http://www.powercranks.com/ for more info, including testimonials by pros, coaches and amateurs alike.

All in all, PowerCranks are pretty cool and I'm definitely looking forward to using them as an off season training tool.