Geriatric nationals day 3: USAC shits the bed, several times...

Today was a low down dirty dirty shame. With championship jerseys on the line race organization should be top notch, but today was a mess. There were several events that took place that directly affected the outcome of two races.

In the 35-39 race there was a group of 5-6 off the front. A crash took out two or three riders and in the fray, The break sat up a bit to try to figure out what to do, but one rider decided to keep the hammer down and rolled away. He was solo for a few laps. He was at least a minute up on the field when he flatted. He pulled over toy get a wheel from Shimano neutral support, but they just drove right by. Apparently they though he was a dropped rider. Would he have stayed away? probably not, but if nothing else he would have gotten back in the field and had a chance at the win.

In the 40-44 race the officials screwed big time. The race had 100 starters, and it was on from the gun so people were shelled left a right. lap traffic was a problem. with 2 laps to go a group of four had a 40 sec lead over the main pack, and there was chase of 5 or so in between. With one lap to go the lead had shuffled a bit with 2 riders leading the chase group of 7-8 and the field charging hard. Apparently the moto refs and the lap counters can't keep track of the leaders the two leaders did not get the bell lap. It is not clear what the chase group had been told, but i think they got the bell. Coming into the finish, the two leaders were about 5 seconds up on the chasers, that is within sight.

The course was a bit strange with the finish line not being part of the main loop so that you had to go straight/right at the top of the hill instead of making a left to continue on the course. The lead moto took the two leaders left for an extra lap, and a few of the chasers followed. Some on the chasers were paying attention and went right/straight to the line. One of these smart men won. Rick put in a huge solo bridge and managed to close the gap to a few seconds by the finishing climb and ended up in 5th passing some of the people that made the wrong turn.

After the debacle that took place at U-23 nationals last year I've pretty much lost all faith in the blue shirts. Officiating is a difficult and thankless job, but today the officials stole something from a few riders, and cheapened the national champion jersey that was awarded in the 40-44 Road Race.

Geriatric nationals day 2: Road Race flail, epic flail...

Ugghhhh, That pretty much sums it up.

Todd and I lined up for the 30-34 age category road race today. Weather was pretty much perfect, and we had 13 (lucky) laps of a 5 mile course that was pretty much like every roller-coaster ride i've ever been on. Slow grinds going up, stupid fast descents, and corners that make you hold on for dear life. Also, I felt as if I might vomit a few times. This course would be a blast to do a group ride on.

It was a bit of a reunion as I ran into Luke Seemann from CBR before the race and then I lined up next to Tom Burke (former West Mich. Coast Rider). Cycling is such a tight community that It you're bound to run into several people you know at just about any race you attend.

The race started off quickly with DC velo sending Josh Frick from the gun. The gap quickly grew to 40 seconds and then the bridge attempts started. It was pretty much a bar fight from this point on. I chased a dangerous attack through the feed zone on the 4th or 5th lap which damn near killed me. I finally recovered only to have another dangerous group roll off. Todd had been really active and I thought that I needed to pitch in as the field seemed content to let it go. I kept the group in striking distance until we hit the base of the major climb. The group went ballistic up the climb, and I got shelled. I chased through the chaff that was shed on the next climb, and ended up in a three man chase group for most of the day. Todd continued to battle, and just missed getting across to the winning move. BIg ups to Rick and Nima for getting me bottles, it was a warm day and every ounce of liquid was needed.

I'm not one to call people out over the internet, but today something happened that stuck in my craw. On the last lap, our group of three started picking up riders, none of them even attempted to contribute to getting to the line as quickly as possible. Let me make this very clear, I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE SITTING ON IN THIS SITUATION. We've all be shelled and just want to get things over with; some times sucking wheels is the only option. What I do have a problem with is when some ass, Jacob McGahey, decides to sprint for the line. I made my displeasure known to the folks around the finish line by sitting up and pointing at Jacob McGahey as we crossed the line and shouted something to the degree "That dude is awesome, he just got 15th place after sitting on for an entire lap". I was hoping that Dave Towle would publicly chastise him over the PA, but no suck luck. More so than any other the race, at National Championships the only place that really matters is first. I truly hope that the 16th place finisher, Jacob McGahey, will be remembered for being a feckless weenie

Geriatric nationals day 1: Travel and the assisted living races...

Todd and I (not "the Todd") packed up and left for our tour of the eastern half of the U.S.A. We are going to the old peoples bicycle racing national championships, and then to New England to race Fitchburg against the youngsters.

I'm excited to be going to nationals, but more excited to not be peeing out of my butt every hour on the hour like old faithful. Last weekend goes down in history of the worst weekend of racing...ever. Two mechanicals, riding 55 of 65 miles of a RR solo with two gears was a bad start. Then my TT bike "ate" my rear derailleur while warming up 5 miles from the start. Needless to say I got my second DNS ever. At this point I didn't think it could get much worse, but tuesday I came down with a 102F fever and the runs. I didn't eat a "normal" meal until saturday night. Just about everyone in our race picked up an intestinal bug from the cow poo laden run-off water that resulted from the massive downpour during the first hour of our race. But enough whining, I could have swine flu like Bloomer.

Anyhoo, on to the task at hand. We're at masters nats chasing jerseys, not like the the "jersey chasers" at superweek, rather we are actually trying to win a bike race or six, and get a fancy red white and blue jersey (or six) for our hard work.

Todd pulled the long haul and drove the ~10 hour leg from B-more to L-ville.


Forty miles outside of Louisville. I call Rick for a status update on the tandem RR. call goes as follows (sorta):
Rick: Hello?
Jamie: Rick, It's Jamie.
R: We got our first national championship jerseys.
J: Sweet.
Todd: Awesome.
RN: Gotta go mack on podium bitches.
(Click).

Here is the photographic evidence:



Rick is the on the left, and note that this is the first time I've ever seen him smile after a race.

Kids say the darnedest things...

On our way back from lunch on monday, Alex and I overheard a young woman utter the following into her mobile phone, "I hate my sister cuz she looks like a dude."

I slowly came to a stop as I tried to wrap my head around what i just heard. Alex just started laughing.

Podium(s)...

Yes kiddies, It has been a while since I've had a finish worthy of standing on some numbered boxes, but my luck changed this weekend. This weekend was chock full of good racing and circuit race courses. Saturday was SoYoCo, a 2.5 mile loop with a nice mile long false flat to a steep kicker 300 m to the line. We had limited numbers (with Just three of us) so we tried to mark/jump into moves rather than initiating them. Todd had some bad luck and flatted out about halfway into the race. The short of is is that I got frustrated with the team tactics and killed it for most of a lap. One dude came through when I swung off and boom, we had a group of eight, with the right teams represented. Some guys were sitting on so I tried to shake it up by attacking on the kicker each lap, but never got a smaller group to work. It looked like we were going to come to the line together, so i started preparing for the jumps/ last ditch attacks. An Alliance rider (Mike) dropped a bomb with a little over a km to go and no one reacted. at about 800 to go a Landrover guy jumped after him and got a good separation. I got boxed in bit and by the time i got out he had a good gap on me. at this point it was a bar fight and we just motored to the line. I picked up one rider on the way to the line and despite my best efforts he grabbed my wheel, at about 200 to go we caught Mike and the dude on my wheel attacked. I clawed my way back to him and past him to finish second. The Land Rover guy won. His attack was well timed and he earned that win fare and square.

It was a great feeling to be competing for a win again. It was a little weird, there was a point where I wasn't sure if I would know how to "finish", but offseason training and experience came through.

Today (Sunday) was the Carl Dolan Circuit Race. We had mostly a full squad and were ready to try to rip the race to shreds. The plan was to let the early race action keep things fast and then start dropping bombs. Things didn't go exactly as planed as Rick and Jeff got off in a group of 5 on the second lap. That quickly turned into a group of four as one dude got dropped. This was a break that we wanted to support so it was all hands on deck to shut things down. The next 5-6 laps consisted of a flurry of attacks with out team siting one or two guys on every move. The gap slowly creeped up to 30 seconds, and then there was finally a lull in the filed letting the gap grow to a little over a minute. The attacks continued, but they never really made a dent until about 5 laps to go. The break had dropped to three riders and the field was still full of motivated guys that wanted a field sprint. It was a little touch and go, but Rick drove it hard to make sure that they stayed away. In the end, Jeff came up about a half of a bike length short of the win and Rick held on for third. I tried to lead out Marc F. for the sprint, but hit the front a bit early and didn't have the gas to get him to 300m.

At the end of the day we raced really well and will get that elusive win shortly. Next weekend we have the Tour of Ephrata stage race. It has an 8 mile TTT with the last 4 miles being a significant climb. It is gonna be interesting.

Philly 2-Day recap...

This a a week late, but I was laid up with my annual "spring cold". Hopefully this year I'll recover from it a bit better. I've got my physicians in a row and we're being very proactive with respect to my asthma so that I'm not still hacking up a lung in the middle of June. Anyhoo, last weekend, Bloom, Nate and I headed up to Philly for a 2-day omnium, Circuit on Sat., Crit on Sun.

We had initially though this would be an easy race to nab some upgrade points for the young-uns, boy were we wrong. Empire showed up with a full squad and were ready to throw down. Bobby Lea and Choderoff from OUCH/MAXXIS were there too. To fill out the field there were squads of 8+ from GPOA, Pitt. Elite velo, and Indiana Med center. That last squad included my old housemate John Rowley, It was really fun to see him again and not surprisingly he can still ride quite well. To add to the drama, Sat was stupid windy, with gusts upward of 30MPH.

The race was pretty fast from he guy, with lots of attacks. There was a lot of "follow the pro" with tons of people scrambling for Bobbies wheel. I understand that he's likely to make the selection and following him is a smart move, but if you make that selection you are racing for second place. This was especially baffling as the bigger squads should have tried to get something away without him and make him/Choderoff work. In the end Empire got two guys away with Bobbie and it stuck. GOPA chased but were not organized enough to do any damage. The gap settled at about 1 min and that was it. I took a flyer after a prime and spent a few laps out there solo, but it the group behind pulled me in. At that point I tried to shepherd Bloom to the line for the sprint. I dropped him off at the front with about 500 to go and he was able to jump on the surge up the left side and grab 7th. I rolled in for 13th, Nate 21st.

Sundays crit was fantastic, it reminded me of Winfield (saturday) except the finish was at the top of the climb. It had some good technical turns and a nice steady big-ring uphill. The plan was to try to get Bloom a good finish and hopefully a top 5 in the overall. I was on the Hunt for some primes; my legs were really sluggish on sat and prime hunting is a good way to get the snap back. The race was a little more negative than saturday as Empire was trying to isolate Bobby, and noting too major ever developed. With a handful of laps to go, Nate got in a move of four that go t a gap of ~20sec. Empire and I went to work shutting it down. The break was not super organized and had a few guys sitting on, but it still looked like it would stick. Bloom got on my wheel with 2 to go and it was on. The leadout from empire stalled a bit on the last lap and I lost Bloom. When things got rolling again I was a little further back than I should have been, but whatever. The front of the sprint actually caught the break a the line, but Nate held on for 3rd place. I ended up 10th which was good enough to end up 9th overall. Overall we raced pretty well especially given the competition and our small numbers. Also a big shout out to our teammate Jacob who let us crash at his pad outside of philly. He raced on sunday too and Nabbed a prime and helped keep the race active.

Next week I'll be racing the Carl Dolan crit/circuit. Pray for better weather than last year (the photo at the top is from that race). We're out for blood and win so it's gonna be a barfight. I can't wait.

The Shaving...

The season has officially begun. Legs have been shorn and them pedals have been turned in anger for the first time this year. This is by far the latest start to any season that I can remember as I'm not allowed to race the collegiate stuff any longer.

The season opened with a bang and a crash at the Jefferson Cup race in lovely Charlottesville, VA (the location of the University of Virginia). The weather was perfect and the 1/2/3 field was filled up at 125 riders. Things got started off fairly quickly with some attacks going on the first climb. Strong headwinds/tailwinds and oddly enough little cross wind kept most of the field together. Our guys had some digs but it was pretty clear that nothing was getting away. That was till late in the race when a group of four slipped away. We held them within striking distance with the plan to reel them in so that Jeff and Jacob could mix it up in the sprint. With about 2 miles to go they "mixed it up" in a bad way and got into a huge stack with several other riders. It happened just in front of me to my left and I swear that Fuentes from Harley was flying through the air level with my head. The pace let up as teams tried to figure out who was left in the pack after the crash and we never got as organized as we should have. I didn't see the finish but apparently the sprint caught two of the four off the front and was ~50 yards behind the other two.

All in all it was a fast tough race and while we didn't come away with the result we wanted, I think we rode fairly well as a team.

In related news, Rick and Lusby went to town on the masters 35+ field with Rick taking the vee.

In the coming days I'll post some pix of my new rides. If you though my road bike last year had a big head tube, you need to see this years frame.

P.S. Thanks to Sophia for getting me off my lazy ass and updating this here blog.