Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen

Among American bike racers, Europe is the yardstick by which you are measured. Cycling has been established here as a major sport for so long that it is widely accepted that Europe is the true test of a racer. "Well he's good in America, but I wonder how he'll handle racing in Europe." And if Europe is the yardstick, Belgium is the measurement mark at the top.

Never one to just dip a toe in the water, my first race on Belgian ground was the 3 Days of West Flanders.

The race began on Friday with a 7km prologue time trial. A very simple course: 200m off the ramp, a right turn into a solid headwind. Go out for ~3km, two quick rights, and ~3km back with a ripping tailwind. A pure power and aerodynamics course. The last time I raced a flat, fast prologue of this length in a 2.1-ranked race, I won. But the Tour of Elk Grove is not the same as a 2.1 in Belgium--the field was much deeper this time.

I would be the last to start on our team. Some guys don't like to spend the whole day waiting for an 8-minute effort, but I'd much rather get to the race 4 hours before my start than to feel rushed. I had plenty of time to get feedback from each of my teammates as they returned from their efforts. The winds had really picked up for the earlier guys, but died down a little by the time I started in the late afternoon.

I had done two practice laps of the course earlier--if there are only 3 turns in the race, I may as well know how to really rip through them! While I was warming up, I was running through the pacing in my mind. I visualize each turn, the gear shifts that I need to make while approaching each one and the points at which I brake, dive into the turn, and get on the gas at the exit. I also think about how much I should be hurting at various points in the race. I have always time-trialed by feel (without a power meter), so this is easy for me to do.

Everyone believed that I was capable of a top-10 result, so that was my minimum acceptable placing. I was racing to win.

Finishing a time trial in a headwind is simple: hold back a bit until you make the turn, then light the whole matchbook on the way to the finish. Finishing with a tailwind is tricky. There's not as much time to make up on the return leg, so you've got to burn most of the matches getting to the turnaround and hope you have enough left to get home. Having decided that I was racing to the turnaround almost as if it were the finish, I went for it.

The first 200m off the ramp were sheltered from the wind, so I picked up as much speed as possible before the first turn. I hit the turn full-gas, then sprinted out of it and immediately made myself as small as possible. My coach in the follow car said that I came out of the turn at 50kph and accelerated from there. In hindsight, doing the first kilometer over 50kph into a headwind may have been a bit much, but I was racing to the turnaround, remember?

I stayed as small as possible, fighting to maintain speed, knowing that I would get a short rest in the turns later on. I finally got there, and then the fun began. The first part of the return leg was twisty, so ripping through each turn in the 11-tooth distracted me from the quickly-growing agony in my legs. There was one crosswalk ramp that I knew to hold on extra tight for. I hit it at 60+kph and was in the air for a moment. A couple sweeping turns later and I popped onto the 1.5km finish drag. Dead straight and wide, all that was left to do was get every last bit of energy from my legs. I was starting to regret the pace of the first kilometer as I really ran out of steam, but I crossed  the line at 8:10, good enough for 10th place with an average speed of 51.4kph (31.7mph). I was satisfied, but I think if I had gone a couple of seconds slower in the first kilometer, I would have more than made them back in the last two.

Stage 1 was 183km (113mi), mostly flat but with a handful of cobblestone sections and one cobbled climb, the Kwaremont. We had a conservative gameplan, as we had only 6 guys in the race. The goal was for me to maintain my 10th in GC and for Luka to feature in the expected field sprint.

The first time I did a Pro/1 cyclocross race, I was shocked at how physical the battle for position was on the first lap, especially the holeshot. During stage 1, I frequently wondered whether I was actually in a cyclocross race. With all of the traffic furniture creating frequent bottlenecks in the road, the cyclocross holeshot fight was happening every time. A bottleneck or turn would appear up the road and everyone would just start sprinting. The guys that won the battle got to shoot through at full speed, while everyone else's penalty for losing was panic-braking, then sprinting back up to speed. Some guys would seek alternate routes around or over the obstacle.

The race became a blur of sprinting towards some unknown bottleneck that all the locals knew about but I was unaware of, slamming on the brakes, and sprinting back up to speed. The road surface and conditions changed frequently, and you have to be prepared at any moment to jump over a crack, curb, ride in the grass, on the sidewalk, and so on. It was a high-speed obstacle course.

The race got more interesting when cobbles were approaching. Suddenly the fight for position became as fierce as a sprint finish. We would be on a wide road, banging bars, pushing and shoving as the speed constantly increased, then make a turn onto a one-lane cobblestone road. In what became my pattern for the weekend, I was always at the front just 500m too soon. All the guys who have raced these roads their whole lives know the exact moment to time their surge to the front, pushing me back to mid-pack just before the turn. Very frustrating.

It was my first time to race on proper cobbles. I can be light and smooth on the bike, so I found the fast sections to be fine, even as my hands and feet quickly went numb from the overwhelming vibrations. The closest way to simulate this in the US is riding a rumble-strip on the highway, but the even spacing of a rumble-strip might make the ride too pleasant.

I was even able to move up through the field on the fast cobbled sectors. On the slow stuff, though, it was very difficult to get into a rhythm as I was bounced all over the place.

The fight for position before the Kwaremont was hilarious, a vicious battle for position before a turn onto a road that as barely the width of a small European car. Then the guys at the front slowed to a crawl as they could relax. With the road completely clogged, they were in control. So we pedaled easily to the bottom of the climb, then they took off. The road pitched up and turned to cobbles, and things went sour when the guys in front of me crossed wheels and fell over. I had to unclip, then could not get moving again. At one point I had both feet on the ground. By the time I got over the top, I was in a chase group a long way back. After 15k of chasing, the race was back together.

In a very nervous field sprint, I finished around 50th. I maintained my GC place, but there was a time gap of 4 seconds. Luka is still finding his field sprint legs and faded in the finale after hitting the front too early, but we had another chance.

Sunday's stage was basically the same, and things played out the same. Chaotic racing over an obstacle course, lots of panic-braking and sprinting, and finding myself at the front just 500m too soon before the important moments. The positioning fight was the most illuminating part of the weekend. For the main cobbled climb of the day, I needed to be at the front 15km beforehand because the roads just weren't conducive to moving up in the pack; the road was completely clogged up and I was stuck mid-pack.

The race exploded over the final cobbled sector, and our group didn't rejoin the leaders until we entered the finishing circuits at 30k to go. The circuits were brutal, with many turns on narrow roads--we were single file almost the whole time.  I finally made it to the front at the start of the last lap, getting Luka into position for the sprint, but my legs were fading fast and I drifted back. When the field split in the last few K, my group finished 8 seconds behind the leaders.

In the end I dropped to 14th in GC, which is a good result for my first Belgian race, no doubt. But with better positioning, I would have finished 5th or 6th in GC simply by not losing time in the field sprints. Part of the problem was legs, as I have not done a race like this in a long time. I've been doing races with steady hard efforts, not repeated sprints, so it was a shock to the system.

Just to give you an idea, I had Teun, the team's data guru, analyse my power data from the last stage. The number of times I did a 5-second effort over 800 watts? 39. 39! 21 times it was 10 seconds over 700 watts.  Add to that the dozens of times I did a 500w effort for 20-30 seconds in the gutter, and you have a tiring day. All that in a 4.5hour race in which I averaged 283 watts (330w normalized). I spent 72 minutes (27% of the race) over 400 watts.

In summary: I can only imagine the chaos that would have transpired had it also been raining. Don't worry, though, I have another chance of experiencing a 'real' Belgian race on the 19th, with Nokere Koerse.

La Drome Classic

The beauty of a pair of one-day races is that the second is a brand new race. The reset button has been pushed. Once again, we were given free rein to go on the attack. We would try to work harder at riding as a team when possible so that we could help each other in the event of trouble, or just to get into position for important points.

The race, La Drome Classic, was a bit shorter than the previous day at a mere 185km (114mi). The course had a lot of up and down, but no large climbs. We would do 3.5 laps of a big circuit with 2 categorized climbs—both less than a kilometer with large pitches at 17%+ gradients—before hitting 2 climbs of a couple kilometers on the way back to the finish. It was a windy day, and we knew that certain sections of the course would be exposed and could break the race apart.

The staging was more straightforward and the neutral section was long, so I was close to the front when racing began. The moment we passed KM0, it was as if somebody turned on the wind. I was in position to follow the first attack as the whole field strung out in the gutter. The winds kept it so that only the first 20 riders could be in the mix, and I was having a great time surfing wheels as one attack after another was launched.

It wasn’t long before we realized that the race was coming apart behind us, and the attacks became more urgent. Again, I really wanted to be in the break, but nothing was really getting clear. Finally a group had a 100m gap as we approached a small town, so I attacked to bridge to them knowing that the narrow and twisty roads through the town would help us establish a gap. It didn’t work, though, when we ran out of steam on the hill outside of town and a large group counter-attacked. Warren, after his strong ride on Saturday, was ready to go and pounced on the move. It was a big group of nearly 20 riders and I really wanted to be in it, but needed to recover for a moment and couldn’t follow.

The field didn’t want a group so large to get away, so the attacks continued with the break just 15 seconds up the road.

At this point, we were about 15km into the race. I was sprinting into a corner to follow a move and the perfect set of circumstances came together to spoil my day. I went from high cadence out of the saddle to suddenly stopping pedaling as I chucked the bike into hard right-hander. At the same moment, I hit a sizeable bump and the chain’s momentum combined with the angle of the bike and bump tossed my chain over the big ring when I resumed pedaling.

It only took a couple of pedal strokes to get the chain back on, but I quickly knew that a link had been twisted in the process. Every time I would try to go hard, the chain would skip every few pedal strokes. I thought that it would be okay and that I could still finish the race on it, so I kept going.

It wasn’t long after that we made a sharp turn and were slammed into the gutter by strong winds. Just that fast, the field exploded into the several echelons. I was in the same echelon as Thierry and Johannes, and we worked hard at the front to claw back to the lead group. The gap was just a couple of seconds when we made the turn onto the first climb and I realized how badly I’d messed up my chain.

Climbing a 17% grade is not a pretty sight--bodies flailing everywhere to keep the pedals turning over in a prolonged uphill sprint. I think my chain slipped two dozen times on the climb as I slipped further and further back in the field. I simply couldn’t get the power to the rear wheel and contemplated waiting at the top for the team car to get my spare bike. Unsure of the state of the field, though, I decided to hang on as long as I could until I was sure the car was there.

Things calmed down a bit on the backside, and a quick look back at the end of a long stretch of road revealed just how much damage the wind had done—no cars in sight. I would have to finesse my chain to last until I could get my spare bike.

My strategy was to hang at the back of the field (which was now only about 60 riders) to see if the cars returned. When we got closer to a climb or the crosswind section of the loop I would get back to the front so that I could 1) help keep Thierry and Johannes out of the wind and in good position and 2) sag climb to take it easier on my chain.

After a long wait, the cars finally showed up, but the race was too hot to risk a bike change. Groups were constantly attacking because the break was never much more than a minute ahead. Then there were the climbs and the crosswind section to deal with. Finally we calmed down a little bit and I decided to go for it. I tailgunned for 20 minutes gesturing to the commissaire to call our car up, but they never arrived. It seemed that it was only part of the caravan behind us. I would have to wait another lap.

At long last, after another trip up the climbs, the car arrived and I jumped on my spare bike. I had managed with a skipping chain for over 70km. A bit of motorpacing and I was back in the field. In the time I was tailgunning and changing bikes, Thierry had joined Warren in the group up the road, which was now a small peloton itself.

The next lap was very fast as a few teams desperately chased the lead group back, catching them just before another climb. Warren, unstoppable, joined the next move as well, which would go to the line.

Life was much better on my spare bike as I could now really sprint out of corners and up hills. My legs were already losing their snap, though. In contrast to the previous race, this one was less about constant power and more about the frequent surges and sprints.

There wasn’t much to be done, though. We weren’t going to attack or chase with Warren up the road, and the chasing teams had lost their steam. After exiting the circuit, they finally threw in the towel when we turned into a headwind. From that point on, it was a group ride to the finish over the final 2 climbs.

Warren, tired from a long day of attacking, managed a hard-fought 8^th place.  There were a couple of smaller groups behind his, and the main field came in around 20^th place, about 10 minutes later. Of the 150 or so starters, 85 finished the race and I’m pleased to say that I was one of them.

My weird mechanical put a damper on my race, but there was still a lot to be pleased with. I was doing well with positioning when I tried, and my legs never quit on me even though they were getting tired by the end. I’ll bounce back even stronger for this weekend’s 3 Days of West Flanders, which opens with a 7km prologue. I do love prologues.

La Classic Sud Ardeche

After a productive two weeks of training in Lucca, I returned to France again for the next batch of races: Sud Ardeche and La Drome Classic, two one-day races. Our team for the races included no definite leader, so it was really an opportunity for all of us to go on the attack. I was excited.

Sud Ardeche was first up, and promised to be a real kick in the pants. The 195km race (120mi) featured 8 categorized climbs, the longest of which was 13 minutes at race pace. Not mountains, but certainly tough climbs.

Before the race began, however, there was the Staging Game. This is the challenge of starting the neutral rollout at the front. It just makes sense to do so: it requires zero energy and is one less time that you have to use energy to get to the front. Another option is to “simply” get to the front during the neutral section if you want to start at the front, but sometimes the neutral section isn’t long enough or there are just too many guys trying to get there (which is the case when everybody knows that the race is going to be hard from the start).

I say all that to say this: I am terrible at the Staging Game. I’ve accepted that such is my lot in life. I had the same level of success in school. I would study hard for a quiz, then the teacher decided to make it open-notes. Sometimes I was just too swamped to study and I really needed to catch a break; this time the quiz would be closed-notes. The same goes for the Staging Game. No matter how hard I try, I cannot catch a break.

This is especially true for the staging areas that can only be accessed from the front—the guys that arrive late have “no option” but to back it in. I’ve been on the start line for 10 minutes because one of my greatest fears is missing the start, and these guys show up 30 seconds before the gun and suddenly I’m at the back. I have a special loathing reserved for those who, when the staging area is cordoned off with a rope, will pull up next to the guys at the front and then move the rope over their head.

In the context of my rant, I started Sud Ardeche towards the back, primarily because I wanted to be at the front so I could go on the attack. The neutral section was short, and the field strung out immediately as we wound our way up a low-grade, twisting climb. For a few minutes I was making my way up there, then immediately started following moves. One big acceleration came just before a small village bottleneck and suddenly we were a group of 20 with a nice gap. Unfortunately, I was the only Giant-Shimano rider there, so I had to be very quick to jump on any group that had riders from the big teams or was more than a few riders. Going on offense was an option, but a risky one because I could easily miss a counter-attack with such a big group. It was safest to just follow wheels until backup arrived. When the field regrouped, a break of 3 riders from smaller teams was about 30 seconds up the road.  Satisfied, the field just clogged the narrow road and let the break get clear. I had averaged 410 watts for the first 10 minutes, so I was glad to have a rest.

With that, a very bipolar day of racing lay ahead. We soft-pedaled for a long time and the break got up to 11 minutes as we twisted through the rolling terrain. Then FDJ took the front suddenly and stretched the field out over the next climb. The gap had fallen to 7 minutes, and they eased off the gas as we neared the flatter section of the course, sending the gap back up to double digits.

I had drifted back during the relaxed pace and was deciding whether I should take a nature break when we made a left turn across the river. All at once, we were out in the open, exposed to a hard crosswind. I don’t know whether FDJ anticipated this or simply seized the opportunity, but they put the pedal to the metal. We went single file in the gutter, then Thomas came up to me and we began the surge to get to the echelon at the front. Just as we got there, I saw around the bend that the whole FDJ team had a 15 second gap on the field. The pace didn’t relent for another 5 minutes, when we turned into a headwind and were at last able to close the gap.

Then we took it easy again. Like I said: bipolar.

With half the race completed, we got to the real climbs. We would repeat a 10-minute climb twice, then repeat the 13-minute climb twice before hitting one shorter climb in the last 15km. I did a poor job of fighting for position for the first climb because we knew the key was the later climbs. In hindsight, just starting that climb at the front would have made the positioning easier for the rest of the race.

We hit the climb and started sprinting—500 watts for nearly two minutes, then gradually eased off the pace until we reached the top. I averaged 430w for the first 5 minutes, and 390 for the whole 10 minutes. I started the descent in the middle of the field, but it was so narrow and bumpy that there was no moving up. By the bottom of the descent, the whole field knew to fight for position, so I didn’t make up much ground. Then we were on the climb again…with the same power numbers the second time up.

Again, not much time to prepare for the next climb, and my position was less than ideal. 13 minutes at 380w. I was still feeling pretty good, but that would change soon.

As expected, I had adapted well after my last races and my training. But those races had only been 140km or so. Things really change when you add another 1.5 hours to an already tough race.

The road was completely clogged with riders trying to get to the front because it was no secret that the last big climb was going to be berserk. As such, having been mid-pack for the last 3 climbs, that’s where I would start the last one, too. Only this time the pace was full-gas from the bottom and my legs finally quit on me a few minutes into the climb. I had just passed 4000kJ, 15 minutes shy of 5 hours of racing.

From there, all that was left to do was ride in our small grupetto to the finish, arriving about 10 minutes behind the leaders.

Warren had made the front group over the final climbs and came to the finish with a group of 35. It would be too much to expect our star climber to also be a field sprinter, and he finished an enviable 18^th.

Numbers are in my blood, I love to dig into the data and see what there is to learn; it’s a blending of the engineer and bike racer in me. The analysis of the race is telling—it was hard. I spent 20% of the race (over an hour in total) above 400 watts. Another 25% was between 300-400 watts. I’m continually learning, and my legs are continually improving. My legs would have been competitive in Besseges, but the goalpost was moved this time around. The bar was raised, and now I have to reach that one. #KeepChallenging, right?

Etoile de Besseges: Sacrifice and perseverance

The two days between GP Marseillaise and Etoile de Besseges were nice. We’d get a good night’s sleep, then have a solid breakfast from the hotel (enhanced by the soigneurs’ grocery runs for condiments and other miscellaneous desirables). Then we’d get out for a ride by late morning and enjoy the nice weather while it lasted. After the ride: lunch, massages, and general relaxation until dinner.  It’s a hard life, but somebody’s got to do it.

Etoile de Besseges is a 5-stage race:  4 road races, each in the neighborhood of 154km/95mi, capped off by an 11km time trial that finishes with a tough climb. The road races traditionally finished in reduced field sprints because the courses were challenging. In our arsenal, we had John Degenkolb and Tobias Ludvigsson, dangerous in reduced field sprints and climbs/TT’s, respectively. So we had a legitimate chance of winning every stage and the GC. The rest of the crew was well-rounded with me, Tom Stamsnijder, Dries Devenys, Albert Timmer, Jonas Ahlstrand, and team captain Roy Curvers.

I was much less anxious before the race start than just a few days earlier. It’s surprising what just getting the first race out of the way will do for your mentality. It had rained overnight and there was still standing water on the roads, but we were unsure if we would get more rain. That question was answered while waiting at the start line. The spectators were amused that we were crowding under the protection of their umbrellas while waiting for the start, considering what we were about to do.

Shortly after the race started, Tobias had a small crash during a sidewalk adventure, but escaped with some minor scrapes and bruises.  The break of the day escaped early, and we all relaxed for a bit as we continued to get soaked through. We weren’t cold while racing, but the coast-off to give the break some leash changed things quickly. We all went back to the car to get our rain jackets—we were already soaked, but the jackets would at least help us retain heat.

The stage was rather uninteresting, aside from puddles so large that we were joking at the dinner table that some of the smaller riders needed snorkels. There was one ‘climb’ that we did twice for KOM points. It was about 2 minutes at 15% grade. The first time we climbed it, I wondered if we were racing up somebody’s driveway, it was so narrow and potholed. The field strung out along the top and especially down the backside.  The second time over the top, we made doubly sure to be close to the front. Sure enough, the field split into multiple groups on the backside, and we managed to get our whole team in the front group.

Then things turned sour for us. John realized that his rear tire was going soft. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but the field was spread out into multiple groups and the cars were all behind the rearmost group, not even in sight. We waited as long as possible to see if the cars would get to us, but after about 10 minutes (only 40km remained in the race), it was clear that we would have to settle this ourselves. I was chosen to bite the bullet for John, as I was the least experienced with the leadouts. So I pulled him to the front of the field, where we immediately swung off and came to a quick stop. I gave him my rear wheel and a push, and then a few of the guys paced him back up to the group. I picked up my bike and waited for a new wheel, then did a bit of motorpacing to get to the chase group that had been holding the cars up. The group didn’t have the legs or motivation to get back to the leaders, so we cruised into the finish. Up ahead, the break had managed to stay away by just 20 seconds, with John winning the field sprint for 7^th. It was hard not to think how things might have been had John not flatted, as I would have been able to help with the chase.

The sun came out for stage 2 and we enjoyed a nice ride once the break got away. Before that happened, though, things were chaotic. We didn’t want to be in the break, but we had to make sure that other teams with sprinters weren’t in it, either. Constant attacks went for half an hour before the right combination of riders finally got clear. Tom joined in the pace-setting at the front, as the leader’s team was obviously not very experienced. Rather than set a steady pace all day, they would go hard on the climbs and take it easy on the downhills. Under Tom’s guidance, things were better.

The race would end with laps of a 7k finishing circuit that featured a 5-minute power climb. The break still had a couple of minutes at this point, so John asked me to give Tom some backup. Over those laps, our pace continued to accelerate as the time gaps started falling. On the penultimate lap, the break was finally within shouting distance, and a few riders from the field attacked. We couldn’t risk letting fresh legs get far up the road, so we increased our pace further.  I had the satisfaction of ending the chase with a downhill pull over 70kph towards the end of the lap. Then the front was swarmed with leadout trains fighting for position going into the hill for the final time. I sat up and rode to the finish. John was barely outkicked at the line, finishing second.

The rain came back for stage 3, which would be very similar in nature to the GP Marseillaise…tough all day. We would do 3 laps of a big loop that included 1 big climb and 3 smaller climbs. The big climb started just a couple of minutes into the race. We didn’t even go hard for the first portion of it, and I still averaged 400 watts for 12 minutes—those last 5 minutes at 460 is where the race really exploded. Then we stayed strung out down the twisting, wet descent and through the next town, all the way to the next climb, where the pace never relented until finally a small group got away.

By the time we bottomed out on the next descent, the time gaps were quickly going up. We didn’t have the luxury of playing the poker game of seeing which team would work on the front all day, as the breakaway was not the usual tactical composition—it was one filled with really strong riders who could very well go all the way to the line if we weren’t careful. Roy made the call to start riding quickly so that we could limit the damage. Albert and Tom were selected to set the pace, while the rest of us saved our energy for later in the race. Those two were absolute motors, I was thoroughly impressed. On lap 2, Lotto-Belisol contributed a rider to the chase, and the gaps stayed steady at a few minutes.

The feed zone was just before the final lap started, and I took a musette so that Tom and Albert could continue setting the pace undisturbed. I pulled everything out as quickly as I could, while getting pushed back in the group as everyone fought for position. With my pockets stuffed, I made my way back to the front where I refueled the workers. When we reached the steep part, the attacks started flying and I quickly learned that my legs were nowhere to be found. I fought as hard as I could and managed to get over the top just off the tail end of the main group. Good thing I’m comfortable with wet descents by this point! I was on the back of the lead group by the bottom, and enjoyed the more calm pace set on the next climb after the team had regained control of the front. By the bottom of the next descent, I was back to the front.

Tom had been dropped on the big climb, so now I was in the rotation at the front as we slowly reeled in the break.  On the final climb of the day, I had to sag climb while attacks were going, and hang on to the back of the group again. Then on the descent I once again made my way back to the front and jumped back in the rotation.

We got to the finishing circuits just a couple of minutes behind the break, and the pace was ratched up to 50+kph on the flats. More teams had pitched in with the chase, and now we had about 8 guys on the front going full gas. With about 8k remaining, I finally ran out of steam. I thought that was the end for me, but I managed to hang on to the tail end until an easier section of the circuit. “I’ve got one more effort in me” was the phrase of the day, so I took the hot route around the outside in the double left turn after the finish line and ended up next to Roy and John. With the field strung out, I kept them out of the wind, then on command hauled them back up to the front before the fight for position began. With that, I was truly done. John got 3^rd. We were so close every day, we knew that eventually it had to all come together for us.

Stage 4 would be our last chance for a field sprint, and of course it was raining. I was ready to go when the flag dropped and jumped on the first move of the day when several riders from big teams were in it. We immediately got the gap up to 30 seconds on the gradual climb, but it was obvious that somebody was giving chase behind, and it wasn’t Giant-Shimano. So that was good. We continued to push the pace up the climb, but the gaps weren’t growing much. That was partly to do with the poor rotation in our group. One rider in particular was feeling good and would accelerate hard every time he reached the front, and the rest of us spent our energy closing gaps that he caused (rather than driving the group ourselves). We reached the top of the climb after averaging over 400W for 14 minutes, and I willingly took the front on the descent. It’s just so much fun. We reached the bottom, and once again our rotation was spoiled by Mr. Fresh-legs.  Our time gap started to drop after another hard 15 minutes, and finally he surged so hard on a small climb that he split the group while I was at the back. My legs were zapped, and I ended up going back to the field with a couple other riders. This put our team in a bad position, but FDJ had already taken up the chase and were getting help from the Colombian team, so we didn’t have to help.

The finish circuits featured a steep 500m climb that ruined what was left of my legs. I managed to get to the front when it was a bit calmer and help keep our leadout train in position, but as soon as the pace picked up I was more help by getting out of the way. John took 2^nd in the brutal uphill sprint. Having racked up several 2^nd places myself at the start of last season, I could definitely feel for him. But I know he’s going to be ripping legs off soon and the wins will start coming in. I’ll be glad to be a part of it!

The time trial would be held under beautiful weather, and we were all looking forward to finishing the race strong. There was absolutely no pressure on me, but the course suited me perfectly. The question was: were my legs up to it? I gave it my best, but that was only good enough for 37^th on the day. After taking a thorough beating this week, my legs just need a bit of rest and I’ll be flying later this spring.

The real news was with Tobias and John. Tobias, who had laid low for the most part through all of the other stages while staying close on GC, was finally being let out of his cage for the time trial. And boy did he shred it! He won the stage by enough of a margin to also take the GC, and in the process put an end to all of the ‘almosts’ we’d experienced in the first 4 stages. John, to his credit, put in an equally impressive ride to take 6^th on the stage and 3^rd in GC. To cap it off, he also took the Sprint Jersey, and we won the Team GC. 

After a week of hearing about the Dubai squad winning every sprint, and the incredibly dominant women’s squad in Qatar, we could not be happier than to have our hard work and sacrifices pay off with a big win for the Besseges squad!

It’s shaping up to be a very good year for Team Giant-Shimano—I can’t wait for the next race!

School is in session

Well, I've got my first race with Giant-Shimano under my belt! It's been a while since I gave a blow-by-blow report of a race, but I think such a landmark in my career is deserving of just such a thing.

My travel day started bright and early, but I arrived in Marseille without incident, met a few teammates, and we were shortly picked up by the giant Giant-Shimano team bus. Seeing that beast come around the corner to pick us up, I thought, "Welcome to The Show!"

We were greeted at the hotel by a large box of new kits, a welcome sight after training the last month in my worn out Optum clothing. With the eleventh-hour sponsor shuffle, they've been working on making our new kits. They made everybody one kit for the pictures, then started on small batches in the order of who raced first. So we don't yet have all our clothing, but it's a good start, and enough to fill up my luggage for the return trip. And it's all so comfortable and well-fitting!

The race, a UCI 1.1, featured a mix of ProTour, Pro-Continental, and Continental teams. The race is the European season opener, so everyone, especially the French racers, would be excited and revved up for the race. With a start in the early afternoon, I made sure to have a big breakfast, but in the excitement of preparing for the race, failed to have a small snack closer to the race.

We got dressed in the comfort of the bus, then headed for sign-in where there was no shortage of spectators looking for autographs. One guy came up to me with my Optum trading card from last year, which was cool. We didn't race in France last year, which means this guy has done some traveling to races!

The race wouldn't be very warm to start, and we would do a lot of climbing, so I had to dress warmly. Thankfully the rain was done for the day, at least. The race was 140km, and was never really flat. We would either be climbing or descending the whole day.

At the start line, I was pretty cold, but I think nerves were contributing to the shivers. As is always the case, I just wanted to get started. Then all my nervous energy goes away as it is channeled into the bike. We had a 9k neutral rollout, but it wasn't slow. I worked my way to the front to be ready for the attacks to start, and it didn't take long for me to applaud my return to 42cm bars after 3 years of 44s. They're just so much easier to wiggle through the pack!

The race started at the bottom of a gradual climb, and I was at the front. 4 guys immediately attacked and I was wishing so hard that a few ProTour riders would jump on so I could join. We would be playing conservatively, only following the moves that were really dangerous. After they got some leash, the real attacks started. The climb wasn't very steep, but we were going so fast that we couldn't pedal through some turns. After averaging 420W for the first 6 minutes of the race, we finally settled down.

I was feeling pretty good, so I settled in, ate a bar, and reviewed the tape on my stem for the next climb. The first bit of the race went smoothly. I drifted back on the first descent, as it was wet and I was still getting a feel for the tires and the brakes with the Shimano carbon rims. I also had to get used to the flow of the field as we navigated the innumerable roundabouts and other various road furniture.

Everything was going smoothly until we reached the first categorized climb of the day (but really the fourth or fifth climb), at which point I found myself out of position. As it turned out, this would affect the rest of my race. There were a few contributing factors: first, I didn't realize that we were so close to the climb. I had drifted back during another wet descent through a town (during which I checked off the list: hop a curb and ride on the sidewalk), and lost track of how many kilometers we'd already ridden because this is my first race with an SRM PowerControl. Its default screen does not show distance, and I'd failed to reset it when the flag dropped, so I had to take my hands off the bars and press a button to see the wrong distance, then do mental math to determine where we were on the course. Complicated, right? So I didn't know we were almost to the climb.

When I did realize it, the road had narrowed significantly and I simply couldn't move up. I stayed with the main field on the climb, although guys were getting dropped behind (I averaged 380W for 15min). The descent, though, was just as narrow as the climb, and the road was just as rough. We strung out single file as we navigated the myriad switchbacks. We finally bottomed out on a straight road and saw that the field had split in half, and I was in the wrong half along with Dries and Warren. We joined in the rotation, trying to catch the field in the few kilometers before the next climb started, but weren't really making up ground.

We were about 30 seconds behind at the base of the biggest climb of the day, at which point Warren (winner of two stages of the Vuelta last year) torched it, with Dries helping. I was just trying to hang on, as I averaged 400W for the first 15 minutes before falling off the pace just before we caught the field. So I worked in the chase group just dangling behind the main field, averaging 350 for the next 15 minutes as the climb flattened out and the speed increased.

By the top of the climb, we were cold and wet. There was snow lining the edges of the road, which was covered with runoff and making my feet very cold. We crested the climb about 45 seconds behind the tail end of the field, I took on the only fresh bottle of the day (there was no official feed zone in the whole race), and prepared myself for the descent. Soaking wet roads, a technical descent, cold, and a field that's not getting any closer. Leroy Jenkins, let's do this! I dropped the rest of my chase group in the first 3 corners and set off on my own.

Here is where I insert a plug for Vittoria tires and Shimano brakes and wheels. The tires didn't slip once through dozens of switchbacks and hard turns, and the brakes had great feeling, were smooth, and quickly cleaned the rims of moisture. I just had to focus on good lines and proper braking technique, and how much fun I was having beneath it all. I pushed hard the whole descent, and by the bottom 15 minutes later was halfway through the caravan, which was very stretched out as riders were spread all over the place and the officials were diligently barraging us from the back of the field.

I reached the front of the caravan and joined a group of about a dozen just as the final categorized climb was beginning. We had just 15 or 20 seconds left to close on the group, and I could see that my team was setting the pace on the front. After 15 minutes at 360W, we caught the field as we passed beneath the KOM banner. I immediately rode to the front to join my team, and Roy instructed me to use what remained of my energy (I was starting to drag by this point) by rotating with Dries at the front. There was one rider away solo with a bit over a minute gap, so we were simply riding a hard tempo to keep the field subdued and keep things together for John, who stood a great chance in the field sprint after one smaller remaining climb.

Another 15 minutes of working at the front, and then we hit the final climb. I fought for 5 minutes before finally sitting up and riding in to the finish, where I learned that John had gotten 4th in a tricky field sprint on a slight downhill with a headwind.

I knew going in that this would be a learning year, and my first race has already proven it. Let's go through the race again hypothetically, had I done everything right. By being in the right position on the earlier climb, I would have been in the front split and not had to chase to the bottom of the big climb. I could have climbed at the lead group's pace, instead of the faster pace in the chase group. I could have rested on the descent in the group, and done the next climb at the pace of the leaders. Then I would have been fresher for my work at the front and held on over the final climb and been able to contribute in the field sprint. It's a ripple effect, for sure! I've already figured out how to configure my SRM screen to show distance automatically, so that's one problem down.

I finished the day with a 280W average for 4 hours (including the neutral section), and a normalized power of 325. By the numbers, I actually had a pretty good day, but I was using my energy in the wrong place--off the back of the group! I'm also excited that these numbers come from the first race of the season, because I improve quickly with a bit of racing in my legs. In 2 days, we start the 5-day Etoile de Besseges, and the weather promises more rain. C'est la vie, right?

Also, here's a video recap of the race. You can see in the sprint finish why you should just focus on the sprint and not go looking around...ouch!

Searching for free speed at the velodrome

I can’t believe that I was at training camp just 4 days ago. The morning after camp ended, I was flying to Florence, then a train to Lucca, and then finding and getting settled into the apartment. I got an Italian SIM card for my phone, and got some fresh produce from the store below the apartment.

The following morning, I walked a mile to the supermarket with my backpack for a more extensive grocery run, and to get the other miscellaneous things that I needed. The forecast had called for rain, but it was a beautiful day. After getting back, I set out for a ride only to see the clouds rolling in, so I spent an hour riding towards the gaps in the clouds before heading back. It was a nice spin to loosen up the legs, at least.

Wednesday morning I wanted to get in a longer easy ride of 2-3 hours, but my flight from Florence was at 2:30pm, and I chose to take the earlier train from Lucca at 10:30 to give myself a decent buffer—this was the first time I was flying out of Florence. That morning, the street in front of the apartment was closed down for a giant market. I really wished I had more time to wander around and see everything. It was another beautiful day, but too cold to ride with the clothes that I have at the moment.

I got to the Florence airport at 1, which was more than enough time before my flight. No worries, I’ll just read to pass the time. Then I learned that a labor strike had resulted in the cancellation of my flight. I was moved to the 6:30 flight, meaning I got to kill 5 hours at the airport. Since the airport is outside of town and I was travelling with carry-on luggage only, I didn’t want to pay for the bus back into town and lug around my backpack all afternoon, so I didn’t even try to venture out. So I stuck in my headphones and watched Cool Runnings on my computer (in honor of the upcoming Olympics, of course!), and listened to a bunch of podcasts. Oh, and I enjoyed my complimentary 10Euro flight-cancellation meal (just 10Euros for 5 hours of my time!).

By the time I reached my hotel in Holland, it was 1am. Up at 8am for breakfast, and then we were headed for the velodrome in Apeldoorn. The velodrome is part of a bigger athletics facility, which was really impressive. The infield had most track/field events, and the arena was huge with restaurants on the upper levels. They’ve got things figured out!

The track itself is a wooden 250m, but the bankings aren’t as steep as the Superdrome in Frisco, where I’ve done the majority of my track racing. That’s good, though, as we wouldn’t be riding track bikes. No, the happy day had finally arrived where I would get to meet my new time trial bike, the Giant Trinity! And she is a beaut.

I hurriedly (but really, quite slowly) put on my skinsuit—I think I could have filled it out when I was 100lbs at 14 years old! I was warming up on the track, getting used to the force in the turns while in my TT position. It was no problem when I was looking where I was going, but we would be testing aerodynamics, meaning I needed to be in my normal TT position. This one:

So I did lap after lap after lap, trying to stay on the black line while looking only 4 feet in front of my bike. I kept missing the start of the turn and ending up too high, or continuing to turn too long, ending up on the apron. I finally got a feel for the rhythm of the track at speed, and after about 20 minutes I was glued to the black line, knowing when to start and stop the lean into the turn. I was so focused on this that I wasn’t paying attention to how fast I was going. When I decided that I was comfortable, I looked at the speedo and saw I’d been holding 48kph during the warmup. I guess I was feeling alright!

Before I continue, I should probably explain what we were doing at the velodrome. Basically, it’s a cheap windtunnel, and growing in popularity as a means of aerodynamics testing. By using an indoor velodrome with known atmospheric conditions, measuring power output and speed during the tests, and some fancy computer work, you can calculate the aerodynamic drag and determine which position is fastest. It’s not quite as precise as a windtunnel, but is very effective at rough adjustments. We would be using the track to dial in our positions well, and making a trip to the tunnel later in the season to perfect them. Another selling point of testing on the velodrome is that the rider can really ride in the position to see if it works, as sometimes a position that you can hold while stationary in the tunnel does not work on the road.

The task at hand for me was to replicate the tunnel-tuned position I raced in last year with success. The first order of business was to put the sharper ski-bend extensions on so I could get my hands higher. Then I was right at home!

We discussed the test protocol, and I was asked if I would be alright with 50kph(31mph) as the top speed for the test. Considering my warmup, it was safe to assume 50 would be okay. 2 laps each at 40-42-44-46-48-50kph, with a lap between each to speed up. With my knowledge of statistics and experimental procedures, I knew that smoother, steadier tests would yield the best results. So while focusing on staying on the black line without looking where I was going, I had to be smooth on the power and hold the right speed. There was a lot going on!

Then the tests started flying by. Also testing were Warren Barguil, Tobias Ludvigsson, and Georg Priedler. While somebody was testing, the mechanics were working on another bike and we just kept rotating. Once we got my position replicated, the baseline calculation showed that I was marginally faster than my tunnel position of last year, which I attribute to the bike, as I was in the tunnel with Orbea’s 7-year-old frameset.

With that settled, we started moving things around just to see what would happen. I also tried out the bowl-shaped helmet, and as comfortable as it was, I lost time with it. In the end, we kept my tried-and-true position, but with the front end just a little bit lower. The result: faster than last year. Yeah, buddy!

Ludicrous speed! Any faster and I'd be plaid.

Then it was back to the airport, arriving in Florence at 10:30, just as the last train to Lucca was leaving. I could wait 6 hours for the next one, or do the smart thing. So I took a taxi to the train station (should have waited half an hour and saved 20Euros by taking the bus, but I was tired) and made the short walk to a nearby hotel I had researched and got a cheap room for the night. After a good night’s sleep, I took the train back to Lucca and got rained on during my ride.

After all that, I’ll be up early tomorrow morning, making the trip again before the sun comes up to kick off my race season in France.  Stage 5 of Etoile de Besseges is an 11K TT with an uphill finish….

Homes of Hope/More Than Sport

This week is one of planes and trains for me. So to make the time pass a bit faster, I’ll do some typing. A story that has been nagging me is that of my trip to Mexico last fall. Cycling has led to the coolest experiences of my life. The top two: racing through the heart of Florence past the Duomo in the World Championships, and building a home in Tijuana. It was truly a disservice to the experience to only give it one paragraph in my 2013 summary.

First, some background. I don’t speak of it much, because really, I don’t speak all that much anyways, but my whole family shares a strong Christian faith. I was raised in the church and my faith is still very important to me, even more so since my dad’s Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis in2010 as a never-smoker.  My parents also raised me to always give a tithe to the church, something that certainly isn’t easy as a broke bike racer. In practice, I spread my donations around to charities and ministries that I feel a connection to. 

Regardless of the recipient of donations, though, simply giving money is never as fulfilling as giving time and effort. Sometimes it just feels lazy to click the ‘donate’ button. And that’s where the other half of this backstory comes in.

I met Guy East at the Optum-KBS team launch last year, and sometime later we connected on Facebook. My profile says that I am Christian, and so is Guy. He put me in touch with Todd Henriksen, a friend who travels the country to bike races to lead a small-but-growing ministry to professional cyclists—seeing as ours is a weekend sport, church attendance is a near impossibility for most of the year.

I finally met Todd at USPRO National Championships last year, and ever since have been involved with the Athletes in Action ministry, through which I met Ben King (with whom I now share an apartment in Italy).

Now then, how it all comes together: Guy has been living in Tijuana, Mexico for a few years and has coordinated a few home builds as part of the Homes of Hope and More Than Sport charities. While planning the 2013 build, he and Todd were sending out invitations, and I got one. I knew immediately that I wanted to go, I just had to make it happen, as it would not be a cheap trip for a domestic pro. Wouldn’t you know it, I had the bare minimum of frequent flier miles to make the trip! All that time flying around the world has paid off.

I made the flight to San Diego, where I was picked up by Guy as we waited for the rest of our group to be assembled. Optum was well-represented with me, Jesse Anthony, and Bob Gregorio. We were joined by several other cyclists, some from AIA, as well as Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson.

With the group complete, we piled in the vans and got to know each other as we drove into Mexico. Guy was our tour guide, telling us about the sad state of Tijuana and the unseen results of illegal immigration; most of the illegal aliens caught in the US are returned to Tijuana with no money regardless of where they are actually from, resulting in ‘tent city’, a hopeless place filled with people with no ability to leave. Then there’s the sex and organ and drug trafficking problems. All of this within shouting distance of the US.

But the good news was that we would be helping a family in need. We arrived at the Youth With A Mission campus, complete with dorm rooms, a soccer field, and aquaponics greenhouses to grow the facility’s own safe vegetables.

The sunset our first night in Tijuana

The campus in daylight

We spent the afternoon throwing the Frisbee around as our team bonded, then played soccer under the lights after a delicious dinner. Work would start early the following morning.

Todd wonders how many times I can get juked in 5 minutes

After an early breakfast, we watched the obligatory safety films and were given more details about the family we would be helping. Six months earlier, the family had been approved to receive a new home from Homes of Hope. This is a huge deal because the vast majority of homes are insecure and poorly cobbled together with plywood, cinder blocks, and the like. The banks are not trustworthy, and there is no loan system in place with which families can build a new home all at once. So they save up a little bit of money at a time, then spend it on a few more cinder blocks. That’s why all the houses look incomplete—they are all works in progress. It would take a small family an average of 7 years to make enough to buy the house that we would be building them. The results of this new house are really quite profound, as kids start doing better in school with the certainty of a good home, and money that would have been spent on a house can be put to use in other vital areas of life. Two months before our build, the father of the family died in a car accident, making this an even more significant gift to the family.

After half an hour in the van on spine-rattling roads, we arrived at the site of the build. The concrete foundation had already been poured behind the shack that the family called a house. We unloaded the tools from the truck and moved the stacks of lumber to various locations around the site for each crew. To begin, there was a crew painting the siding while another crew started building the roof gables. Jesse, Todd, and I were hard at work cutting the hundreds of pieces needed to frame the walls.

That first day was such a blur as the house flew up. It seemed we had barely begun when we were already putting the walls up. Even the mother and her 3 kids were enthusiastically helping where they could. I didn’t want to stop for lunch; I would’ve worked through the night to finish the house if they told me to. I was riding the high of building something with my hands and helping a family that desperately needed it. I wasn’t going to be satisfied unless I had given everything I could to make this house perfect for them.

It requires many cyclists to lift a wall

It just looks like I'm standing around, but I really am helping

During our lunch break, I finally had a chance to really take in the neighborhood. Every house was dilapidated and meager, and most didn’t even have doors, much less windows. The roads are all dirt and potholed. Vendors drove around all day advertising their wares through megaphones. Some sold tortillas, others clean water, some bought scrap metal. Drinking water was stored in barrels outside the house.

By the end of the first day, the house was 80% complete. Our whole team had worked very well together, everyone focused on their tasks, and finding a new one as soon as they were done. By the time we got back into the vans that afternoon, all that remained was interior trim work and painting, shingling the roof, and the finishing touches like the front door and the porch cover.

On day 2, before starting up work, we took a collection from the team for donations to help the family with groceries. From what I remember, nearly $1000 went into the hat. Later in the morning, as the job neared completion and there were more workers than work to do (or space in/around the house for them all), part of the crew went on a shopping spree with the family.

The receipt for multiple carts of food....

Meanwhile, the house continued to come together, but a problem had sprung up. The dirt surrounding the foundation was giving way, and the retaining wall eventually gave way completely, meaning that the solid ground was now only a foot from the corner of the foundation. So a small crew was dedicated to fixing the retaining wall to secure the foundation, and they did a great job. I was up above with the roofing crew, doing the best shingle job the world has ever seen.

Eventually, nothing remained but the final paint touch-ups and assembling their new furniture. Then the family returned with bags and bags of food, and we had a dedication ceremony where each member of the crew and family shared their experience with the build.

Success!

It was certainly and unforgettable experience. It was so great to know that I’m directly helping a family in need, and to work with my hands to achieve it. To finally put skin in the game of helping others is very powerful, and I have thought about it every day since. It’s impossible for such a trip to not give you some perspective.

I am a professional cyclist. Even with my meager earnings, I achieve a standard of living, a quality of life that these families can only dream of. I’m blessed to be able to do what I love for a living, but I also realize that my job isn’t ending world hunger. They’re just bike races. My career could end any day with an accident, and to have no purpose in life besides crossing the finish line first could be a disaster.  I can’t begin to understand the grand plan of my life, but the Good Lord has seen fit to give me legs that pedal better than many and open the right doors so that I could reach this point. So I work as hard as I can to be the best, enjoy every day that I get to be a bike racer, and trust that somehow I will be able to accomplish some good in the world.

That final night, we used the last bit of our energy in a very enthusiastic game of soccer, in which most of us managed to injure ourselves in some minor way. Then we all parted ways, a big group of friends after such a powerful experience.

This trip was certainly not my last, and I can’t encourage you enough to find some way of volunteering or giving that directly connects you with others. 3 months afterwards, I still think about the trip nearly every day...that's the kind of effect that the experience can have, and don't you want that?