NOBC 2-Man TT

This race was up in the air from the beginning as I was suppose to do a bike camping trip along the Natchez Trace with a few buddies for the weekend.  Some stuff with school came up, so I had to bail on the trip which I was pretty bummed about but thats life.  Hopefully we can reschedule the trip for a later date as its something that I really want to do.  

From Road Biking in the South East

Anyways when I had to bail on the Natchez trip one of my team members (Jonathan Falgout) had asked me to team up with him on a 2-man time trial in LaPlace, LA.  He's a CAT 4 so it wouldn't help me out point wise but we were about equal in terms of bike strength so we thought we would make a pretty strong team.  I borrowed a bike and helmet from his brother Adam Falgout and Jed Darby's wheels and did a time trial test with the team on the Tuesday before the race.  This was my first time ever on a TT bike so it took a while to get used to the position and handling characteristics.  My teammates switched though as the rules were a little hazy with me and Jonathan being able to race together since we were in different categories, so I got teamed up with Smitty Smith.  Smitty Smith is about 5'3" and 120 lbs so drafting was going to be a questionable.  He ended up being a great partner as he was much more experienced then I was so I learned quite a bit from him about time trialing. 

The day before the race I rode with the Pack & Paddle group and decided to do another 40 miles after with Brian and Jeb for a total of 80 miles which wasn't the best idea when I was racing the next day.  I had bigger races in mind though as I recently switched over from the 60 mile Ouachita Challenge to the 80 mile version so I needed some more miles in my legs.

From Road Biking in the South East

The next morning I woke up a 4:15 ate a bowl of grapenuts and some english muffins with almond butter and met over at Precision bikes to carpool over to the race.  My legs were a little stiff from the previous day's ride but no enough to slow me down.  During the warmup I felt good with a slight tailwind on the way out I was easily able to hold 26 mph.  After the warmup when we were all sitting around we noticed the wind was shifting back & forth.  My goal for the 40K TT was to get under an hour.  I had Smitty pull first as I was worried about going out to hard especially after reading about negative splits.  After my first pull I knew I was going to be in trouble and the turn around couldnt come any sooner.  When I was drafting off of Smitty I was still basically at my threshold so I knew this was going to hurt.  Looking down at my GPS I knew that hitting my goal of under an hour was not going to happen.

From Road Biking in the South East

We ended up finishing in an 1:03:37 (23.3 mph avg) in 5th place out of 10 teams.  Not too bad especially since a couple of our teammates won our division.  Brian an Jeb also won the CAT1/2 race with a time of 53:38, now thats fast.  I had a good time and hope to improve my time trial abilities for this race season.

Rouge Roubaix XI - Results

I felt good coming into this race hoping that I could place up near the front of the CAT 5 racers.  I knew a few top notch triathletes and a CAT 1 mountain biker would be racing so I had no illusions of winning but hopefully sticking near the top.  The neutral rollout was kind of fast with two guys actually separating themselves from the group.  As soon as we rolled onto Hwy 66, some guy on a madone attacked and was quickly eaten up.  This guy would ride like this all day and I didn't believe he would last the way he was riding.  

From Road Biking in the South East

On Sligo Rd.  is where it started getting really fast with a couple breakaways that I jumped in on when it got to 5 riders or so.  We finally did end up breaking away just before the first gravel section with a group of 5 riders.  This section was really loose and had me constantly using counter steering techniques to stay upright.  About half way through I took the lead as the lines being picked were less then ideal.  Soon after a group of Raising Cane's guys bridged up to us and a guy on a mountain bike with semi slicks passed us.  

After taking the right turn back onto Hwy 969 a few riders broke off again  so with three other guys in my CAT we decided to bridge up to them.  A few miles later the two guys that I bridged up with fell back so the break was down to four.  Soon after that me and another guy dropped off their pace and stayed together on the next left turn that led us into Mississippi, where a rider bridged up to us.  The three of us stuck together and along the highway I passed a few of my Precision teammates (Scott, Mark, and Johnathan).  One of the riders in our break decided to take a piss so we slowed it down to wait for him.  While waiting for him to finish most of the peloton caught back up with us, so I decided to drop back in with them and conserve energy as I was going through my water / cytomax faster then I had planned and was completely out with 10 miles to go before the next feed.

On the left turn to go to the second gravel section one of the guys from Raising Cane's went down on some of the gravel across the road.  It didnt look too bad and I actually saw him finish later that day.  When we hit the gravel I was in second position and could feel some cramps coming on.  Half way through the climb a group of 5 shot by me and there was nothing I could do.  I stopped at the feed zone to grab both the bottles I had there and chased down some guy to ride together with.  We rode together all the way to the third gravel section where he quickly dropped me on Big Bertha as I made it only half way up this climb before walking which I did on another hill in this section.  I was bonking pretty bad at this point and had a few more people pass me on this section.  When I got out to the road section I was alone though but quickly got caught by some CAT 4's whose wheels I sucked on for quite a while until I could get over my bonk.  With about 10 miles to go one of them took off and the two of us started equally taking pulls.  I ran out of water again and bummed some off of the guy who I had been riding with.  We rode all the in together, with some guy blowing by us at the end (jackass).  I ended up 15th in my CAT, which was a little bit of a let down as I know I could of rode that course much faster.

From Road Biking in the South East

Heres a video of the race:  http://www.tunicatrails.org/VIDEO/rougeroubaix2009.html

Heres some photos:  To see the pictures go to http://www.AdamAndErinFalgoutPhotography.com click on the 'PROOFING' tab, Then type the password 'rr2009' and that will bring up all the pictures from the race! 

http://www.firstpics.net/lambra

Heres a NY time report on the race:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/sports/othersports/10cycling.html?hp

Briar Badlands Battle

This weekend I competed in the Briar Badlands Battle near Gulfport, MS on the Bethel trails, where I raced the Cat 2 19-29 category which consisted of about 15-20 riders.  The start line had us going down a half mile of forest roads before we ducked into the start of the trails.  The speed down the gravel road topped out at 22 mph but came to a grinding halt at the entrance of the trail where it bottlenecked.  At this point I was in the back half of the pack but no one had separated themselves from the group so there was nothing to worry about. 

From South East Mountain Biking

The group stayed together for about half of the first lap until we hit the river section where one of the guys near the front dabbed allowing me and a few other guys to get around and separate ourselves from the group.  At this point in the race I was sitting in third place with nobody near the two of us.  The leader was in sight but soon after the clay climb another rider bridged up to the two of us.  He attacked soon after so I decided to follow his wheel leaving the other guy behind.  I stayed on his wheel for the rest of the first lap while we kept the guy in first place in our sights.

From South East Mountain Biking

Near the end of the first lap in the "badlands" section the guy went down in front of me on a sandy turn but fell across the trail blocking me from passing.  I stopped allowing him to get back up and we started hammering, chasing down the first place rider due to the time lost.  I followed his wheel for the rest of the first lap and most of the second lap trying to draft off of him as the wind was really bad in this section.  The rider that we had originally left now bridged up to us and attacked us before the clay climb.  Neither of us had an answer as my legs were feeling tired at this point.  When we came up to the clay climb the guys wheel I had been following for the last lap attacked and again I had no answer.  I ended up placing fourth just missing the podium and out of the money and prizes.

From Blogger Pictures

Briar Badlands Battle IV @ Yahoo! Video