Enumclaw Omnium Road Race - A pleasant ride in the country

Not being a great climber, today's goal was to stay in contact with the bunch up the Mud Mountain Road climb for at least the first of three laps. Close but no cigar. I lost touch with just a few hundred meters left the first time up and spent the rest of the first lap in a group of about eight riders trying to chase back. Most of us in the group understood the plan: pull through and swing off as soon as you hit the front. When we managed to keep it working smoothly, we were definitely making great headway coming back to the group. Periodically however, someone would sit on the front too long and the pace would drop and the rotation would be disrupted. We managed to get within a few hundred meters or so, but could never quite close the gap.

Approaching the climb for the second time, at least half the group shut off, probably feeling that even if we caught back on, we'd immediately get dropped when the climbing started again. That sealed our fate to a day off the back. Shortly after the climb began for the second time, a pack of riders with lead and follow cars miraculously appeared before us and we were gaining quickly. As we drew closer, our dreams were dashed as it turned out to be the Cat 4 field which had been neutralized to allow our field, the one we were chasing, to pass. A few of the stronger riders in our group attempted to climb past the Cat 4s and a few of the weaker ones had already dropped off our pace. My pace on the climb was just enough to match the neutralized Cat 4s and so I followed along up the rest of climb behind their follow vehicles. Climbing a steep hill while breathing the exhaust of the follow vehicles gave me a new appreciation for the pros you see climbing the Alps in the Tour led by a number of cars and motorcycles.

After the climb was crested, the officials released the Cat 4s and they began to pull away. Our little group had splintered and I found myself working with one other rider on the descent back to Enumclaw. He seemed a little stronger than me and we were working well so I was surprised when he told me he was going to pull out at the fairgrounds and bail on the last lap. I told him I was going to finish it off and was left to start the third and final lap by myself. On the flat farm roads that begin the lap I was making good time and soon found myself up the back of the Cat 4s who again had been neutralized for some reason. Just as I pulled along side their follow car to ask if I should attempt to pass or not, they were again released and quickly left me behind.

The third and final time up the climb, I just rode at a comfortable pace and topped out with another rider in view just up the road. I picked up my pace and soon caught him. He turned out to be another master C/D rider, but he was pretty dead and unable to hold my wheel. I set about trying to get myself back to the finish as quickly as possible. Partway down the SR 410 descent I was caught by two members of our original chase group. We stayed together to the finish where I put in a token 75m sprint only to finish second in our group.

All in all it was a really enjoyable weekend of bike racing. The event was well run and marshalled, although I'm continually puzzled why it takes so much longer to put together the masters results as compared to any other field. I will definitely try to put this race on my schedule for next year.

Next up is my home race the Methow Valley Tour in two weeks.

Enumclaw Omnium Day 1 - The satisfaction of zero

Having never competed in this race before, I really didn't know what to expect. The TT course seemed to be favorable for a big guy like me, nearly dead flat with good pavement and short in length. Coming into the weekend, I was hopeful I would break 15 minutes for the 6.4 mile course. I didn't know if that would be good enough for a top-10 and omnium points, but it seemed like it was doable and might be just good enough to eke out a point or two.

There seems to be a new trend among promoters putting together their TT start lists. Instead of being truly random, they are sorting them alphabetically. This is the third race this year where I have started first in my class and as there is usually a couple minute break between classes, it leaves me with no "rabbits" to chase. Today, the break ahead of me was three minutes long. I saw no one to chase until the last 200m.

The race itself went well, I started off quickly and settled into my rhythm quite well. The course has three narrow turns at intersections and I took them all pretty well, maybe not on the limit, but reasonably fast. The one "hill" on the course, it gains all of about 50 feet or so, went by smoothly without disturbing my pace too severely. At the end, I stopped the clock with a time of 14:42. It was good enough for 13th in a masters C/D field of 76 riders. I was stoked to have beaten my target time so handily and was happy with my placing as well even if it netted zero points.

The criterium in the afternoon turned out to be another pleasant surprise. My recent history in criteriums has been poor at best, usually being pulled by the officials to spare me the insult of being lapped. The Enumclaw course is dead flat, "8" shaped, and a fairly long lap so I figured I'd be able to make the necessary halfway point to stay in the omnium.

I was actually able to stay in contact with the pack until around the halfway mark, and after being dropped managed to avoid being lapped thus finishing my first criterium in a very long time.

Tomorrow's road race with its three trips up Mud Mountain Rd. ought to provide another stiff challenge for me. Although I probably won't increase my current point tally of zero, hopefully I'll have another satisfying day.

Wenatchee Omnium - Road racing and a satisfying weekend

Yesterday was the final day of the Washington State Omnium Championships in Wenatchee. The day's event was the road race which takes place on a very challenging course. It features a very long (10 mile) climb. The first half of the climb is almost totally up with a frequently changing gradient and a couple short sections of up to 16%. The second half of the climb is more rolling in nature, but continues to gain significant elevation. As we all learned early in life, what goes up, must come down and this course is no different. It features an equally long descent on which riders' speeds approach 50mph. The final feature of the road course is a long mostly flat section back to the finish that usually features a strong tailwind.

Just as last year, I'm still not a climber so my plan was to limit my losses as much as possible on the climb and then hopefully hook up with some willing partners and chase like mad on the descent and flats back to the finish. The masters C race started with an out and back on saturday's TT course before heading to the climb and the rest of the road race course. These first nine miles on the TT course seemed more relaxed to me this year or at least the pace was more steady. There were a couple of short lived breakaways but not much other action. At the turnaround point it was annoying to find that the organizers had not placed a cone for us to mark the turnaround. There was a "turnaround 200m" sign, but the pack had to make a 180 on a two-lane road at what it collectively thought was the spot. All in all it went quite smooth, but a definite turning point would have helped.

As we started the climb, I tried to positition myself mid-pack. My expectation was to ease off the back on the early pitches of the climb and stay within myself. All went according to plan, the climb got steeper, I maintained the pace I could manage, and the pack left me behind. I was much more comfortable on the climb this year. I don't think I was much faster, if at all, but having done it once before definitely made the steeps less fearful.

Across the rollers on the top half of the climb I kept on the lookout for partners for the chase to come. I hooked up with a rider from Baddlands and started the trip down with him. On the steeper, upper part of the descent, he was unable to hang with my gravitationally enhanced physique and he lost contact. I had a tense moment at one point as I was approaching an object in the road on the descent at 40mph. At first I thought it was just a scrap of plastic wrap blowing across the lane, but as I got closer I saw that it was a water bottle that had been dropped by a rider and it was rolling down the hill in a somewhat weaving manner. I avoided it and also negotiated the one 180 degree switchback on the steepest section of the descent. Just after this turn, my Baddlands partner returned on the wheel of another rider and finally I had a group to work with. Our rotations were a little sloppy as we continued downhill, but they did begin to get a little better. Just as we seemed to get it all together and work well with each other, Mr. Baddlands was gone again.

My remaining partner and I finished the descent and turned onto the flat highway to the finish. Along the way, we picked up a couple more riders. Everyone worked well together and the finish approached rapidly. At this point, I was trying to figure out how to get the best placing out of this group of four that I was part of. I figured the rider I descended with was the strongest of the other three and that the other two that we caught up to were likely weaker than me. The Second Ascent rider who had been just in front of me in the rotation was pretty ragged in his pulls so I figured he had little or nothing left. At the 1k to go sign he went all in and attacked. He only got a gap of about 5om but it seemed to be holding and no one else reacted so I decided to go across to him. As I pulled up to him, I told him we had a little gap and asked him if he had anything left. His reply, "A little", didn't exactly fill me with confidence so I pulled, but definitely not all out. He faded and the other rider we caught on the highway pulled along side me at the 200m to go sign. The final 200m are uphill and after a day as challenging as this one, the shorter the sprint, the better. We continued up the hill and I watched and waited for him to jump for the line. At about 75m to go, I realized he was already giving it all he had. I lifted my pace and easily took the sprint in my group (okay, so it was only for 25th, but it felt good anyway).

My elapsed time for the road race was almost exactly the same as last year, but I felt much, much better this year. For the weekend, I ended up 16th in the omnium, basically the same placing as last year. Given the increased field size in my category this year though, I consider that an improvement and am very happy with my results from the weekend.

Next up is the Enumclaw omnium in two weeks.

Wenatchee Omnium Criterium - An unexpected development

This afternoon's crit was fast and furious and unfortunately ended with my typical crit result, being pulled by the officials after being dropped. There was a pleasant surprise this afternoon however.

They are requiring all the riders to sign in before each event to confirm their participation in order to be scored in the omnium standings. Unlike some omniums, they are also requiring that you finish each event to remain in the omnium competition. For the criterium, as long as you made half distance before being pulled, you were considered to have finished and were placed.

As I was waiting in line to sign in, I overheard the rider in front of me discussing with the official that he had been mistakenly scored in my category for the TT. The official said they'd check into it and correct it if necessary. Fast forward to this evening when I went back to make sure I was credited with a finish in the crit as I was pretty sure I made it past halfway. I checked the crit results and saw that I was credited with 32nd of 35 finishers. The bigger development though was that they had corrected the aforementioned misplacing of riders in my category and it turns out I got 9th in this morning's time trial and scored a couple of points in the omnium.

It was a great morale boost to make the top 10 in the TT and will make tomorrow's heinous climb on the road course a little easier to bear. The road race course is a beast, but I managed to come away with a couple points last year on it, so I'm hoping I can do it again tomorrow.

Wenatchee Omnium TT - Reading between the numbers

Today's time trial was a mixed bag for me. Conditions were good, not quite as windy as last year and temperatures in the low 60s. I was the first in my class to go off, starting after a couple minute gap to the class in front of me. This left me with no one in sight to chase. Having done this race last year and having been unpleasantly surprised by the severity of the headwind on the return leg, I tried to hold a little back on the way out for the return struggle. This plan worked well and I turned in a time that was about 10 seconds quicker than last year. Unfortunately, it was not quite good enough to equal my 10th place and single point from last year. I ended up 11th out of 38 riders. Last year's TT field was only 35 riders, so from my perspective, this years 11th is maybe an improvement of last year's 10th.

Next up is this afternoon's criterium downtown, never one of my strong suits.

The Night Before

Tomorrow is the first day of the Washington State Omnium Championships in Wenatchee. It will start with a TT in the morning, move on to a criterium in the afternoon, and finish up with a very difficult road race on Sunday. Last year was the first time I did this race and I entered it with few expectations. I managed to score a 10th place in the TT and got some points in the road race as well.

This year, in part due to my "success" last year and the fact that I've raced and trained a little more leading up to it, I'm hoping, and maybe even expecting, to do a little better. A local TT ridden earlier this week shows I am at least as ready as I was last year and probably even better. Its a little like waiting to open your Christmas present in the morning. I'm ready, excited, and hopeful. Lets tear in to it and see what we get!

The Power of New Routes

I'm pretty lucky. I live in an area with a pretty good diversity of training routes. There's some flat terrain, some good rolling terrain, and of course the Methow Valley is at one end of the spectacular North Cascades Highway and some serious climbs in the mountains. What we don't have here, is a great quantity of training routes. The riding we have is great. What's not to like about quiet country roads and cooperative (for the most part) drivers? It's just that, well, its easy to get that "been there, done that" feeling occasionally when you live here.

Last Wednesday was shaping up to be one of those "been there, done that" type of days. I figured I needed around a 50 mile training ride and with an iffy weather forecast and the thought of my regular routes not lighting a fire under my butt, motivation was lacking. I couldn't do anything about the weather but maybe some new roads would do the trick. I logged on to MapMyRide and searched for likely routes within an hour or so drive of home. Nothing really jumped out at me, so I decided to drive over to Okanogan and ride up towards Omak Lake and then back down to Omak and back to Okanogan on the roads on the west side of the Okanogan Valley. I'd never ridden any of these roads, but on the map, they looked like just the right mix of terrain and distance.

With the weather looking ever more favorable, I parked at the American Legion Park in Okanogan and headed east across Highway 97 and into the hills towards Omak Lake. Soon after, I made a serendipitous mistake. I missed the turn towards Omak Lake and continued up the Cameron Lake Road. This road is a really great climb to nowhere. About 10 miles from Okanogan, the pavement ends on a high plateau. Little traffic and some difficult pitches make it a great climb to file away for future training rides.

After failing to find Omak Lake at the end of Cameron Lake Road (imagine that), I came back down and took Cameron Lake-Omak Lake Rd. over to Omak Lake Road. A sign indicated that Omak Lake was only 4 miles up the road. At this point, Omak Lake Road looked like any other county road in Okanogan County. It was a somewhat narrow, chipsealed two-lane road. Just before reaching Omak Lake though, it changed dramatically, for the better. It became a wide, smooth two lane highway with 2 to 3 foot wide shoulders on both sides. Unlike most highways though, it had almost no traffic on it. The stretch along the lake featured a few short climbs and great views of the lake.

I had expected the pavement to end in the vicinity of the lake, but it just kept going, and I kept following it. I was blessed with almost no wind or traffic and plenty of smooth pavement. I just kept rolling along until I finally had to turn back to get back to Okanogan before dark. It turned out to be a little over 60 miles for the day and one of the most enjoyable rides I've done in a long time. Maybe this road is busier on the weekends or later in the summer, but on a midweek day in late April, it was a nearly perfect training ride. Given my earlier lack of motivation and enthusiasm for my usual routes, it was a day that demonstrated the power that a new training route can sometimes have.