July 22, 2008 - Mt Holly

White 2nd at Attleboro Criterium, July 12

I've learned quite a bit about bike racing in the last couple months. For a variety of reasons, I stopped training after Mt Hood, and the extent of my bike riding became riding back and forth to work. Call it mental fatigue or burn out, or whatever, I couldn't get myself to go out for a training ride to save my life, I thought I was done. After a number of weeks of that I got nervous that I could get REALLY out of shape, so I signed up for a race to force myself to get a real work out.

Two or three really short crits, later I had finished some bike races, and actually even raced a little. One race I spent the entire day in break working for Phil and Toby, and then they pulled off the win and fourth. Another race I found myself bridging to NRC heavy hitters, and dangerous moves with relative ease. These were all pretty dinky races, nothing to serious to speak of.

At Attleboro, a race that deserves a little race report, I bridged to a first lap move started by our own Charles Toby Marzot. I immediately told Toby to sit on, and cranked up the speed with the other riders. In no time at all we had lapped the field, a small group of 6, but with the mighty Frank McCormick in tow.

Toby and I made many attempts to get clear of the field again, with the help of Steve and Hayden, giving us groups to race off of, or lifting the race to an attack-able pace. The team rode really strong, I felt like we had 8 guys in the race not 4. In the end it came down to a field sprint, I got myself on the Fuji train, and sat on fighting off one master racer after another.

I kicked it in 100 meters from the line off Franks wheel, but just couldn't get around him, and rolled in for safe second place. After 2+ months of no training, a second place and another race in the books I felt like it was time to try a "real race" again. I requested the team allow me to race Mt Holly, despite being very afraid of the distance of 75 miles. It's only 9 miles to work, I don't even need a gel or anything for that.

White 8th at Mt Holly Grand Prix, July 19th

Mt Holly went off like a shot, a flurry of attacks, a lined out Colivita team on the front, and after an hour of sitting last wheel of a single file field, wishing there was anything I could do to move up, I slung shot myself off the front of the race to form a somewhat large group of 16. With over half the race left I knew I would have to play it pretty cool if I wanted to finish well.

This was a stark contrast from the Matt White of a year ago that won the Mt Holly Sprint Jersey simple because he spent so much time on the front of the break pulling his ass off, he happened to take all the points. I had matches, and when stupid kids have matches, they play with fire.

Well in 08, my match book was pretty empty, so there were no fire works. I figured out to skip a pull here or there without getting bagged out by the rest of the break, and probably didn't take one pedal stroke that was harder than anyone else. The rest isn't that exciting, towards the end of the race a couple professional bike racers were able to get away from me, and the other tired ass break riders, and we never caught up again, so I was now racing for 5th, against a bunch of guys throwing blows for final 10 laps.

I just kept tagging on the back, or catching guys in the corners. I patiently waited for the sprint, and followed that Borajjo guy, down the final stretch of the course and into the last turn, and took 8th. So just by playing it cool, being patient, conserving, and believing in myself a bit, I finished a race that was at least twice as long my longest training ride in months, and finished it respectably.

It took entering all these races without great form to relearn what racing is all about, it's at least half mental! You gotta know how to race, know which moves to make, know how to conserve, know how to hold back, and know when to unleash some of your strength or all of it. You can really only learn this stuff and its subtle nuances by racing, but sometimes it takes a a little attitude adjustment for it to really sink in.

For me the attitude adjustment was knowing that there was absolutely NO justifiable reason for me to have the physical strength of the guys I'm racing against, I would have to rely on something else. Racing with just your head might be worth a try! Now that I've done some races unconditioned, I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do when I whip myself back into shape. I hope I can remember, as I refill my match book, what it was like to race over the past couple weeks.

Weller 3rd at Mt. Ascutney Hill Climb, July 19th

With Phil looking forward to tackling Mt. Washington this summer, I thought that I'd join him in the mission of riding some of New England's steepest roads. So, this past weekend, I headed to Ascutney State Park in Vermont for the 3.7 mile hill climb the park hosts up the access road to the top. Though I'd never ridden the climb before, I was able to drive to the top on Friday night to scope out the road for the race on Saturday AM - my first impression was that the climb wasn't as bad as people had made it out to be, but then again I was in my car and not on the bike....

On Saturday morning, I hit the starting line with a pretty standard road set-up (38 inner chain ring, and a 28T SRAM cassette), but specialty bikes were pretty common, with lots of people were running a single 28T front ring.

My age group was the first wave to go up the hill, and when the gun went off, 7 or 8 guys rocketed off the start line and sprinted up the hill, straight into the steepest part of the climb. Knowing (or hoping!) that most of those guys would fade after 5 minutes or so, I rode a more conservative pace, and had picked off all but one guy by the end of the first mile. I was able to gradually bring the gap down to the rider in front of me over the middle of the climb, but as we got closer to the top and he got out of site around some turns, I started to fade a little. The last half mile of the climb was by far the hardest for me, and the last pitch to the finish seemed to get longer the closer I got to the line.

All in all, I got to the top in 27:30 or so, which put me second in my age group and third overall. A few of the racers there were using Ascutney as a tune-up for Mt. Washington, and I can't imagine climbing a road that's just as steep as Ascutney for twice as long! Good luck to Phil on the big day coming up.