June Recap - Mt. Hood, etc

What's more boring than a race report? How about a six month old race report? Well, I wrote this while on a plane a while ago and figure I might as well post it. So here's a little trip down memory lane to June of 2011.

June was a busy month with two big targets for the team: the Mt. Hood Classic stage race and Elite National Road Championships. After an evening prologue, Mt. Hood started in earnest with an 80-mile road race with plenty of climbing:

We'd raced on the same roads previously at the 2009 Cherry Blossom stage race, although in a slightly different order, and knew it was going to be a pretty hard day in the saddle. The race started fast with everyone, including us, wanting to get in a move off the front, making the first tailwind climb and following couple of climbs pretty darn hard. After a lot of splitting and regrouping we hit the base of the first big climb with a small break off the front, in which we had Chris Parrish for HB. The break came back about halfway up the climb as Nate English and Ian Boswell hit out at the front and although the race was split into several small groups over the top of the climb, most everyone caught back on during the long descent and following headwind climb. Four or five miles before the second trip up the big climb, I got into a little move with a few other guys which turned into a ~10-man split with about 40 seconds on the field at the base of the climb, and I was happy to see my teammate Dan had bridged across.

Chompin' at the bit

There was very little cooperation so I just rode a medium tempo at the front with one of the Pure Black guys when the climb got steep, as it doesn't really make a difference if you're in front or in back on a slower climb like that. Our group was splitting up a bit but I wanted to ride hard so I could get over the climb with the guys that I knew would be attacking from the field - I knew from the previous lap I couldn't hang with English or Boswell so my best bet was to get off the front and hope I could get over the top before them. We held them off until just before the summit of the climb and although I dug deep I couldn't hang that time either. Luckily I was able to get back on during the descent with a few other guys, and there was a general regrouping on the headwind climb and final Rowena descent so the pack was about 40 guys with 10k to go with Parrish and Dan also there for us. Parrish and I put in some attacks in the last 5k but we couldn't get anything going, and Dan had to nurse a bent chain. We finished with the group but didn't contest the sprint.

The next day I had another forgettable time trial on what was a deceptively technical farmland course. The big news of the day was the very unfortunate crash of my teammate Parrish who was hit by a negligent motorcyclist and suffered a serious head injury. [Thankfully he is back on the bike now training and will race with us again before the end of the season. Looking forward to having you back Chris!]

The next stage was the crit, which I was just happy to get through without getting crashed like this guy:
Mike Olheiser put on an impressive show of force and soloed the entire race wire to wire for the win.

The last stage was the "Three Summits" Road Race, which was mis-named because it was actually four summits. It was CRAZY! An insanely hard day on the bike. The profile looked like this:
We decided to make things harder for ourselves by attacking from the gun:
Spencer and Kenentt were off the front for most of the descent, but then got caught. I countered and got off the front for a bit:


But everything came back together before the first climb started. Then Kennett attacked AGAIN and got into the main break of the day. Kennett ANGRY! It turned out to be a good move because we ended up taking it fairly easy up the climb the first time as the leaders' team let the break establish a gap. The descent was pretty crazy and I actually got a little bit dropped but luckily was able to get back on before we hit the same climb for the second time. This time things were serious, as Nate English put his Yahoo guys on the front to chase down the break. The pack trimmed down quite a bit up the climb and it was a small group of only 40 or so guys at the top. Down the descent for the second time I didn't have any problems; having seen it before I was less tentative. This time we took a right turn about halfway down the descent and hit the third big climb of the day. As we hit the steep pitch at the bottom of this climb Nate attacked hard and the race exploded. We were catching the remnants of the break and I gave Kennett a little pat on the butt and a "good job" as we went by. Or at least I thought that's what I said; it probably sounded more like "mmmplsapsldpapspa" since I was going pretty hard. There were a lot of accelerations on the climb and I was hurting pretty bad, but a lot of guys were getting dropped so I just focused on keeping it steady, staying on wheels, and closing down any gaps that opened up without accelerating too hard.

I made it over the top of the climb with the small front group of about 15 guys, but instead of a big descent right away there were about 10 miles of false flat and rolling terrain along the top of the ridge. Even though the race leader Olheiser had been dropped and super strong guys like English and Salas were off the front, there was no cooperation in the group. One of the guys from Rio pulled a lot and I took a few turns to help keep the speed up. We finally hit the last big descent, the fastest and most technical of the day, very narrow with some unexpected gravel sections which caused one of the Pure Black riders to crash.

I managed to get down the descent safely without getting dropped (surprising, given how I was descending earlier in the race) and the group hit the final 10-mile climb more or less intact. English and Salas were still off the front, but we had caught the last two guys from the early break. We'd beenr racing all-out for over 4 hours by that point and everybody was a little cracked. I was feeling pretty cracked too but knew I had to dig something out of the hat. Cooperation in the chase group had completely broken down and there were some really good climbers there, like Ian Boswell, so I knew I would have to get off the front and was looking for opportunities. A Marc Pro guy had just attacked and was dangling off the front so I bridged across to him, then a few minutes later Stefano Barberi and James Mattis bridged across to us. That was pretty much the group for the rest of the climb, I was on the rivet just pulling through with Stefano just killing it. He attacked as we turned onto the final 3k-loose-pavement section up to the ski area from Cooper Spur. It took everything I had to just hold his wheel - I pulled through once and then blew up without a K to go, but held on for 4th on the stage, which moved me into 12th overall, which was a great result for me at such a hard race.

The rest of June was jam-packed with more racing. The next weekend we did the Capital Stage race in Olympia, a new race put on by Erik Anderson, It was an awesome event with a lot of great new courses and was a refreshing addition to the calendar. The race itself was a little frustrating for me as I lost the "beat your teammates into the break game" and had to settle for a late-race move with Karl Krusher Kunnigham to salvage something near the top 10, but several minutes down and out of the GC. Like every other time we stacked the break but didn't win. I love my teammates but I truly cannot fathom how you put 4 out of 10 in a break and don't win.

We turned it around the next day in the Oly Crit when Colin and Logan got off the front of the crit together and Steve came through with a clutch field sprint win (since he is, you know, "good in traffic") for a complete HB sweep of the podium:

Believe that.Proud of my bru's!

I wish I could say I helped but really, in that crit, I was mostly trying not to drive my bike into the ground. The final stage was a 90-mile road race connecting the same roads used by the Vance Creek and Independence Valley road races, but run the opposite direction. With a few guys within striking distance of the GC lead we were trying to get a good group off the front to put pressure on the race leader, who was flying solo. Somehow I found myself off the front solo, which wasn't a great tactical situation because I wasn't a GC threat, and I alternated between thinking I should just sit up and go back and riding kinda hard to stay off the front. In the end I rode hard enough to stay out there, hoping a group including one of our GC guys would bridge up. Finally Steve bridged up to me and we started putting the hammer down, but despite our best efforts we got caught with about 30 miles to go. Turns out two little guys can't really go that fast on a downhill tailwind drag.

When we were caught I found out Colin had been forced to drop out due to a mechanical, which sucked because he was our only guy within reasonable striking distance of the GC leader. After some confusion over what we should be doing, we started hitting out with more attacks. With 3 climbs in the last 20 miles, the overall and the stage win were still in play and our best bet was to get a favorable break going. Each climb guys would get dropped, some would get back on, but the group got smaller and smaller. We hit the final climb with about 20 guys, over the top it was down to ~10 and we had 4 with Steve, Logan, Winger and I. I was intent on ensuring we won this time, so I attacked a few times and made sure the other guys were on the same page about attacking as hard as possible until we got somebody off the front.

Inexplicably, I kept getting chased down by guys who had no reason to do so - I didn't threaten them on GC and they were some of the worst sprinters in the group. Here's a tip: if you're in a group with good sprinters and you are not a good sprinter, you have to attack in order to win, not tow the sprinters up to the guys who are attacking. I didn't take it personally, though, because we had 3 other strong guys there to counter off of each other and the most important objective at that point in the race was to win the stage for the team. GC was no longer in play thanks to they typical inability of WA teams to understand stage racing tactics. Just once I would like to do a stage race around here where everyone is on the same page about isolating and putting pressure on the race leader instead of just chasing each other down and playing right into their hands, which is what happens all the time. Anyhow, after a lot of attacking Logan got away solo with about 3k to go and stayed off for the win, and Steve won the field sprint again, so we had another awesome 1-2 for the team.

Stay tuned for recaps from Elkhorn, Nationals, and the rest of 2011.