win a bicycle race

Yesterday I won my first bicycle race! I planned out excellent routes through the city to get to each checkpoint. The checkpoints were set up so that it made sense to climb at least 2 massive hills. Here is my winning route

It was cool that I finally won a race, but sadly I didn’t feel extremely challenged to win this one. The night before this was the midnight Greenlake race. I attacked in the last quarter mile, but somebody caught me in the final 100 yards. I’ve gotten 2nd twice, 3rd once and around 5th two other times. That race is the one that I just can’t seem to win.

47 year old tradition in Marin. The old hill climb. Sea Level to 2000 feet up Mt. Tamalpais. +500 of us went screaming up the mountain today in truly blessed weather.

55min even was my time. Not a win, but somewhere in the middle.
Best time was about :48 min.s; Worst 1:10. Racing against pro’s and killer good Ams. the like.

It kind of pained me to not place, it is my mountain after all – but considering I was a physical disaster in June after graduating I should say I did pretty ok.

This season was really about getting back in shape. Now its time to rest a bit, then start training for next season.

This season was a break through for me. I started off with a win at the NOVA Desert Classic Marathon in April, and have since racked up 3 more wins including the Deer Valley Marathon in July, and two XC races in the NMORS series.

Zoooowee – Who’d think I’d ever write…”I’m racing regularly now.” 2 months ago I wouldn’t have imagined I’d say that.

I’m still training. We’ll see how this season plays out.

Off to the races in Oregon!!! Riding with Lance this weekend! YA!

We hosted the Sausalito criterium race today so I didn’t race today – we marshaled the race in the rain instead. That makes our new team an official UCI sponsor or what-ever. We’re a new team so I guess that’s important.

Tomorrow is the prolog race to the very first Tour of California! Yes I ‘m so excited about this.

My very good friend Vera Crossing the finish line with a flat tire. That took some courage – Way to go Vera! She kicks ass regularly.

Here are some photos of the day: The pros going 45MPH down turn 4.

My first race. Damn that was fun! My team seriously dominated most of the race. Everyone had there job to do and it went fairly well I have to say. It was the second race of the pre-season (So, not a very big or serious race)- the first time we road as a team in a race. It helped that a lot of us knew each other socially and from other riding. Jeff and I lead out Bur with 5 laps to go, and he took third. Really, not bad for our first race together.

Two crashes – one in the woman’s race – she left in an ambulance. Yikes. Didn’t see it, don’t know what happened. Serious bumber. Crash #2: One of my teammates hooked handle bars with another rider and they both went down – right behind me. You can’t look around at all going 27MPH 6 inches from a chain of 45 other bikes other wise you take more bikes down – so all I heard was SPAAAACK!!!!! sliiiiiiiide-crunch.

No one was seriously injured amazingly enough. Todd went over his bars and landed square on his helmet. The other guy went onto his shoulder – the famous collar bone breaking landing, flipped and came down on his bars snapping them in half. There went a pair of $350. carbon fiber handle bars. That was the incredibly loud snap I heard. He was a bit more bruised, but walked away form it. All in all a little road rash and that’s it. Feeeww. Lucky – both of them.

There’s a lot of training ahead – but its SO FUN! I can’t wait to do that again. Being on a team with a bunch of good guys is extremely cool. What an advantage. What a joy.

Time to put my money where my mouth is on this one.

Sunday – Is that soon enough. (Shitting in my pants soon in enough.)

Just a pre-season race Criterium(Gran-prix style road racing through the city streets). Noone is going to kill themselves(hopefully) to win this. However it’s my first race of the season. And my first real live sponsored, licensed, race. The plan is to go and see how it is. No one is really in shape yet – its January for crap sakes. I’m just going to ride and start to build this idea.

Today – road up and down those big-ass hills San Francisco has to offer. I’m going to be sore tomorrow.

Won the cat 4 race @ mount tabor #4!

... been doing 150-200miles a week (vo2, intervals, sprints, hills), handful of top 10 finishes, time for some top 5 finishes to get those upgrade points! Allez!

So, I have two races under my belt this year, both at Mason Lake. Saturday, March 12th was a 36-miler and my first race of the year. Everything felt good – I moved easily through the peloton when required, had the juice when the pace picked up, and felt like my pack mechanics had never left. I also avoided a major crash (still haven’t gone down in competition!), which split the pack. I found myself in the chase group and finished a minute behind the peloton.

Saturday, March 19 (48 miles) was a very forgettable day. I spent the night at Mason Lake, and when I was changing in the morning, it started pouring. Already nursing a cold, I thought about not racing, but thought, what the heck! I need 10 starts to upgrade to Cat 4, and this would be #7. So, I started, but by the 25th mile, I was shivering and couldn’t feel my extremities. So, I decided to drop-out. My biggest challenge will be recognizing this as a minor set-back, and getting back to racing full-force when I get better.

More to come…