Race Reports: Sykelocross, Hyattsville, and Charm City

I've been delinquent in my race reports. We have some catching up to do!

Sykesville didn't go well for me. It was meltingly hot. The course was really hard--technical and with a lot of elevation gain. I had high expectations after my performance at Hub Labels, but did not live up to them. My body absolutely exploded in the heat. I can't handle heat well, I assume because I'm small and muscular, and it places a ceiling on what I can do in the heat. I hit that ceiling hard at Sykelocross. Emily came to watch this one, but I didn't do a great job for her to watch (and she doesn't handle heat well either). Ended up 5th out of 19, so a decent showing! The results were all kinds of screwed up because the timing chip computers went down. So we stayed long enough for me to protest the results, then headed out before we melted! Considering how terrible I felt throughout the race, I'm happy with 5th.

Too tired and scared to post up properly. I would totally be the person who crashes in the finishing straight.

Hyattsville couldn't have gone much better because I frickin' won! Hyattsville is basically a grass crit with only one little climb. I got the hole shot and held the lead for most of the race, except for one little stretch where one of the local butt-kicking teens passed me. I passed her back and held a gap to the end by playing up my punchiness. I assume it's harder to be punchy when you're a 90-pound 14-year-old. First win as a cat. 3 in cyclocross, and it gave me the lead in the BikeReg Super Series!

Charm City CX was presented to me as the hardest race on the circuit. It did not disappoint. Since it's a UCI C1/C2 race, AND it's a part of the new US CX Cup, AND it's a little farther north than most of the MABRA races, so it draws the top cyclists in every category from MABRA, Virginia, Pennsylvania, maybe even New Jersey. I met people from as far north as Philly and as far south as Charlottesville. The women's fields were big! And they were full of talented women (and by that I mean waaaay more talented than me)! I won't go through the blow-by-blow, but basically the teenagers blew my doors off and won everything. There were other women my age who also blew my doors off, but the teenagers were the stars of the weekend in the cat. 3 races! Both days, I hit a brick wall in lap 2 and my back and hips went into spasm. Then it went away in the 4th and 5th laps (5 laps both days) and I was able to claw some positions back. Ended up 7th on day 1 and 10th on day 2. I think I still have 2nd place in the series, so I still have a shot at the overall!

Race Report: Clear Spring Road Race W1/2/3/4

This was my longest race of the year so far at 50+ miles. And it was on hilly roads. And it was in a women's open field. My main goal for the race was to flog myself as training for the Tour of Washington County, which is my A race for the year and comes up in three weeks. I wanted to hang with the main group for as long as possible, over all of the hills if possible. To that end, I made a RideWithGPS route based on the course map and race e-mails to review the night before. I even wrote down key features of the course and taped them to my top tube (with the words "GO FLOG YOURSELF! TOWC" at the bottom). One teammate also raced, but we decided in the pre-race to hang out and take the race as it came with no specific team plan.

The course was a preview of the USA Nationals course for 2018-2019. It runs over a loop of about 13 miles, repeated in our case 4 times (with the first one slightly different to avoid the "big" climb). The first half of the loop has some rolling hills, including one that steadily gains over about 1.5 miles, then a long stretch where the roads are mostly flat or downhill, with a short, steep climb towards the end of each loop. The finish line was . . . well, I'll save that for later.

The race started with about 25 women and stayed mostly together for the opening lap. There were a few women who took the pace hard on the hills, but most of the group was able to stay on. Going over the climb that had looked so big on the elevation map didn't feel that bad, either! I turned and asked another racer, "Was that the big hill?" The second lap was more of the same, but with a little more attrition through the hills and also some rain. I responded to an attack with a counter on one of the early downhills and covered a few more. My teammate floated off the front at one point and stayed away for a mile or two. A woman from Sweetspot-Cutaway stayed away for I think most of a lap. There were a flurry of attacks to bridge up to her, but enough of us covered those bridge attempts to bring the whole pack back together eventually.

In the penultimate lap, I was sitting second wheel to a woman I've seen (from the sidelines of the 1/2/3 races) to be strong. She took a short roller pretty hard, and I was able to match her pedalstroke for pedalstroke. So I figured, why not? And took the next roller as hard as I could. I went clear of the group and stayed away for I think 5 or 6 miles. I came around and got the bell for the final lap solo, which was pretty sweet; but I didn't really think I would be able to stay away for the 10+ remaining miles on my own. I had time gaps ranging from 20-30 seconds, and my goal was to make it over the "big" hill and into the descent before the group caught me. I figured I would be toast if the group caught me in the hills.

I finally came back to the group just before a sharp left turn, and I was surprised to get kudos from other riders! One of my buddies said she would give me the Most Courageous Rider jersey, if there were one for this race. I felt a little bit like I'd proved my mettle in terms of ability to hang with the 1/2/3 racers. I drifted to the back to recover, but didn't stay there for long. My legs still felt good, and I go downhill so fast that I naturally drifted back into the front 10 wheels.

My teammate and I found each other and discussed the finale. I said my legs were still feeling okay, so we agreed that she would do her best to lead me out. Around the peloton, other teams had similar ideas, and riders were showing up in pairs and trios of matching kit at the front. It was really cool to see! That almost never happens in a 4/5 race, where multiple teams coordinate their individual lead-outs!

Sweetspot-Cutaway and Haymarket were mostly patrolling the front with a pace that was not too high but certainly not soft. Somehow, my VWS teammate and I ended up driving the pace the final time up the short, steep hill, and boy was it hard! I barely hung on to my teammate's wheel for the climb! Neither of us was sure how far away the finish was; I was just going off of my bike computer and the improvised cue sheet I had taped to my top tube. I felt like it was too early to ramp up the effort, but I didn't say anything (why didn't I say anything? Lesson learned: if you're going to be the protected rider, SAY SOMETHING!) . . . I tried to communicate periodically to Robin that I was still on her wheel as she drove the pace forward, the lead-out for ABRT on her right side.

Turns out . . . it was too early. My teammate popped, and I had probably already done too much early in the race. My legs were toast and I plummeted backwards through the field as ABRT's sprinter went for the line and the swarm came around me. My teammate encouraged me to keep going for a good result, but I could not.

Except that we passed the red tent with the lap markers where the officials had been and there were no officials. And there was no camera. A few of us looked at each other quizzically. Then I remembered that the pre-race e-mail mentioned that the finish line would be up by the school, and we hadn't passed the school yet. About that time, the moto official came alongside us and told us that the line we sprinted to wasn't the finish line. I started accelerating, yelling that the finish line was still ahead. No one else responded in time, though, and I got way out front and crossed the finish line alone. Whee!

That was the end of the fun part, for a while. The women who had won the sprint to the first line were understandably upset at the confusion. The finish wasn't marked with signs (1k to go, 500m to go, 200m to go) and the fact that there were two lines with the finish beyond the bells-and-laps line wasn't adequately communicated. The officials asked me if I knew that the first line wasn't the finish line and I said, honestly, no. I'd sprinted with everyone else and (as I said before) did not do well. I was just the one who figured out what had happened first and responded to it before anyone else could. Actually, the fact that I'd done so poorly in the first sprint probably allowed me to do that; if I'd been more of a contender at the first line, I wouldn't have had the legs to go for the second.

It was a contentious half hour or so of back and forth between judges and racers, with the race director and a few neutral observers weighing in as well. In the end, the officials decided to take the results from the second finish line, and I got the win. It felt pretty rotten at first, and I'm sure there are still plenty of women who are angry about how it ended. But I'm proud of myself for meeting my goal of staying with the 1/2/3 women for a hilly 50+ miles and for keeping my head up and responding to the situation as I saw it. I won't be relying on that as a tactic to win races, but I will remember the importance of always maintaining that awareness.

Also, my action camera was an unfortunate casualty of this race. The case broke sometime during my breakaway. I remember hearing some flapping and feeling like something had dropped or flown behind me, but I thought it was the tape from my cue sheet blowing off. It wasn't until I was back in the group and someone asked if I'd gotten my breakaway on my GoPro that I realized it was gone. Fortunately, it wasn't an actual GoPro or a Garmin Virb or something else very expensive; it was a $50 knock-off from China (via Amazon). And by the time the thing with the finish line was sorted out, I was too tired to drive around looking for a tiny grey box in the grass on the side of the road. So if you see a camera out near Clear Spring, Maryland, please contact me. I hope a cow didn't eat it.

I have a break from racing for the next few weeks, then the Tour of Washington County (which I'm pretty sure will be my last race as a cat. 4)!

Race Report: 2017 BikeJam Kelly Cup W4/5

Spoiler photo! Now you know how the story ends!

A Veloworks-Spokes Etc. teammate and I carpooled to the race and chatted on the way about how we planned to approach it. We decided to ride mostly defense, with her softening the field with attacks in the early stages then tucking in to protect me and lead me out to a glorious sprint victory. I called it a no-turn crit course as we pre-rode the course, because there were no turns except for a gentle chicane just past the finish line. The pavement was rough with a few major holes (one of which, I swear, I ran over on every single lap). The hazards were all well-marked, though, and nothing presented itself as particularly dangerous or crash-inducing. The final drag to the finish line was slightly uphill, but at a gradient so gentle I could take it easily in my big chainring. And the stretch just past the finish line had that right-left-right chicane around a park shelter then a downhill just steep enough you could really gather some speed.

Twenty-two women lined up at the start. We made note of the wheels we needed to mark--a rider from Blue Ridge Cyclery in Charlottesville who won the sprint at Jeff Cup and another from New York who took second at Carl Dolan. My teammate took off from the gun with just enough vigor to string the field out. They gave her space and she got a small gap right away. There weren't many individuals willing to put their noses in the wind to chase, and only a few teams showed up with more than one rider. My VWS comrade wasn't the only one who tried a solo attack, either; there were multiple women who casually floated off the front in the first half of the race.

In between attacks, the pack ran mostly at tea party pace. Digs from a few key players were enough to stretch the field but not break it. The woman from Blue Ridge that we'd marked at the beginning made a comment about how easy it felt--sort of boring! Hmm . . . Maybe the two of us can make things more interesting? With 7 laps to go, my teammate put in a genuine attack up the left side of the climb. I saw the woman from New York and the woman from Blue Ridge start to bridge up together. I knew I needed to mark that move, so I accelerated to get on their wheels. As I did, I looked back and saw that I had also gapped the field--this was it! This was the move! I shouted up the road that we had a gap and to go! go! go! The Blue Ridge rider heard me and dug in, and we both blew right by the other two. I caught her wheel and we accelerated down the back stretch. I heard "15 seconds!" on the next lap, and it grew from there. My breakaway companion asked if my teammate in the pack would disrupt the chase. "Oh yeah," I replied. VWS ladies have become pros at that this season!

As we took turns in the break, I was realizing that my companion was stronger than me. Her pulls were much harder than mine. Trying to match the speed she carried on her pulls was pushing me dangerously into the red. I started calculating my approach to the finish of the race. It was clear by 3 laps to go that first and second place were in our group; it was just a question of who could outwit and outride the other person. I started to ease off my pulls a little bit, trying to conserve some energy for the end. I allowed my struggle to show; I wanted to telegraph that she was stronger than me and I was doing my best. We took turns pulling the hill to the finish line, and I exaggerated my suffering on each subsequent round to project some weakness.

She took my bait and attacked me on the hill coming into the bell lap. I knew I needed to get back to her ASAP, because I didn't want a repeat of Bunny Hop where my breakaway companion completely rode me off her wheel. So I put in what was probably my biggest effort of the day and caught back on just as we started the downhill on the backside. She flicked her elbow for me to come around and take my turn. Haha! No. Don't think so. I just got the lead-out I was looking for.

I knew she was going to have to jump from the front, and she knew it too. It was my race to lose. She started her sprint near the barriers, but I was ready to accelerate with her. I followed her wheel and kept driving around her. I realized at that moment that I'd left it too late, stayed in her draft too long, and wasn't going to get all the way around her. I threw my bike at the line in a desperate (and kind of silly) attempt to get the win, but I did not. The race was already hers at that point and I came away second-best.

I played the game right, just left the sprint a little too late. Ah well. At least I got second in a different way this time! I think this was the first time I've been in a situation where I needed to time my sprint just right to win. I know if I had started my sprint just a little bit sooner, I would have come around her and won. I'm not sure where I should have started it, though, and how I'll know next time. Fortunately, I have this race video that I can review endlessly to obsess over how I could have done better!

I don't think the speed data from my Garmin is accurate. It seems a little high. It's based on the GPS file, not my speed/cadence sensor, because the wheels I was using don't have a magnet on them yet. This is my first try with using the fancy overlays for the data!

My VWS teammate won the field sprint to take third place and grab another double podium for the VWS ladies!

I'm grateful to be on a team where we can have fun with tactics and race plans in the women's 4/5 field--it makes the racing so interesting and fun!

As an aside, if you are reading this race report to decide whether or not you should race this course, I recommend it, especially if you are a beginner. The course isn't technical, the climb isn't steep, the roads are wide enough to move around through a pack, and the vibe is great. The only downside is the rough pavement, but it's not so rough that you need to worry about it; just stay relaxed and keep your head up and you'll be fine. The race (Kelly Cup) is part of a cycling festival (BikeJam) so it has a festival atmosphere with food trucks and an outdoor cafe and crafts and races for kids. Not many road races have an environment that encourages people to hang out and watch after their own race is done, but this one did. I stayed well after my race (the first of the day) to watch teammates race and to enjoy the vibe.

Race Reports: Bunny Hop & Ride Sally Ride

I'll try to keep these brief, because there are three!

Of our cat. 4 group, I was the only woman registered for Bunny Hop on Saturday. Ride Sally Ride (Sunday) was the big team-focused race. My plan was to go to Bunny Hop and get as many upgrade points as I could. I want to be able to upgrade to cat. 3 with the rest of my team, because many of them are close! I'd never done Bunny Hop before (it was cancelled last year) but it was on a new course this year anyway. The race organizers had posted a video of the course, which made it look very technical with rough pavement. Many of us were nervous about how the course would play out, especially in a beginners' field with rain in the forecast.

We needn't have worried! The course was fun and safe (or as safe as bike racing can ever be) and it stayed dry in spite of occasional cold, spitting rain. It was in a derelict office park that's now used for autonomous vehicle testing. The pavement was fine, smooth through most of the course with only a few well-marked potholes and seams. The finish line was on a long, curving, exposed stretch that started out head-crosswind and ended with a tailwind past the line. Then there was a hard right turn with a tailwind and a slight downhill, a few sweeping curves into a short uphill, a right-left chicane and a hard right turn, then another gentle turn to the left about 300 m from the finish line. A somewhat technical course, and I wouldn't want to take some of those corners more than three abreast (almost never a concern in the fields in which I race), but it felt safe to me throughout my races.

Bunny Hop Criterium Women's 4/5
Scoping out the competition before the race, I had my eye on a fellow racer from Sticky Fingers. I knew her wheel would be trustworthy where many of the women were of unknown reliability. And I was pretty sure that if we teamed up we could get a gap on the field and stay away.

With so many unknowns in the field, I started the pace off hard to set an expectation for a fast pace. I settled in after the first turn and let the field come back together a little. I looked back to see if everyone was still there. I tried to keep the tempo high and encouraged the front 5 or 6 women to work together to force a selection. That continued until the first preme lap, which I used for it's intended purpose--to create a break! I took that lap hard and won the preme, then kept going at slightly higher than tempo pace to see how long I could stay away. Five or six women came back to me, and we started working together to keep the pace high and make that selection stick. When the pace slowed down significantly on the climb, I attacked across the road and got a gap. Stayed away long enough to get another preme, looked back and Sticky Fingers was on my wheel. Yay! This was what I wanted to happen!

We worked together for the rest of the race. I told her to take the third preme, and we kept our rhythm going until the last lap. I heard after the race that one of the chasing pack tried to bridge up to us and almost made it but blew up and drifted back. My Sticky Fingers compatriot took the front on the last lap, which ended up well for her because she was strong enough to ride me right off her wheel! She gapped me on the last climb and I couldn't claw back before the end. She took the win and I took second place a handful of seconds later.

Bunny Hop Criterium Women's 3/4
There aren't many 3/4 races now that there's a women's 5 field. I took the opportunity to double up and try to pip another upgrade point or two. The 3/4 race had only 6 women, with a few apparently scared off by the wind and the rain. My plan was to sit in and do as little work as possible, since I already had one race in my legs. Sticky Fingers had two racers, but everyone else was there as a single; no teammates to work for us!

As a result, the pace was really slow. No one wanted to burn matches on the front to keep it high. On the first preme lap, no one even bothered sprinting; the woman on the front of the bunch accelerated slightly and no one tried to come around her. She took the preme comfortably.

I didn't have high hopes for winning the race, so I took a gamble on the next preme lap and sprinted from the 200 m mark. No one else came with me, so instead of sitting up after the line I followed the advice of the crowd to "Keep! Going!" I had a massive gap! I drilled it for another lap then tried to settle into threshold. I don't think I'm very good at judging what that is, yet; I think I end up going too hard and running out of steam.

I stayed away for a few laps before an RCV rider bridged up to me from a gap of 7-ish seconds. I slowed down a little until she caught my wheel, then drilled it to pull away from the chase group again. Unfortunately, I drilled too hard, and couldn't catch her wheel when she pulled through. We both drifted back into the pack. I sat on the very back of the bunch and waited for a good opportunity.

The pace was still pretty slow on the last lap. I'd planned to attack after the chicane, where no one was pedaling because they were preparing for the next turn. There wasn't really room, though, because we were so spread out. So I stayed in the back and waited for someone else to jump. I'm not sure who jumped first, but I held back for a few extra seconds and then stood and accelerated, surfing wheels to come from 6th to 2nd. Podium number two for the day--a double double!

I enjoyed this race so much; I can't say enough good things about what a terrific crit Artemis Racing put on. I recommend it to everyone for next year!

Ride Sally Ride Women's 4/5
This was our big team race. We had 5 cat. 4s in the field and a solid race plan. The course is an office-park crit with three right-hand turns and two little stretches of elevation gain. It was cold and windy on Sunday, with a strong headwind after the first turn, a cross-headwind after the second turn, and a powerful headwind with a slight downhill on the finishing stretch.

We began attacking from the beginning, opening up gaps and forcing everyone else to chase. Every time they brought one of us back, another would attack. Meanwhile, our A rider was staying sheltered in the pack. I got in two good attacks, one of which prompted a bridge from a Rock Creek Velo rider. We traded turns for a long time before the pack brought us back.

On my second break, I was afraid I might actually stay away! As I came around with 10 to go and then 9 to go, spectators were shouting that my gap was growing and the pack wasn't working to bring me back! Besides the fact that it hurt a lot, it wasn't the plan for me to stay away! I was glad to see a teammate blow past me with 8 to go. I heard people shouting for me to grab her wheel, but I didn't have the strength and drifted back to the peloton.

Another teammate bridged up to the first, so we had two working together off the front. The three of us that remained stayed positioned to disrupt any chasing efforts, then came together with 4 laps to go. I confess I got a little excited and started ramping the pace up too soon, with 3 to go. Patience, Jamie! With 2 to go, our A rider was on my wheel, and I was on another teammate's wheel. She drilled the pace for a whole lap and started a second before pulling off. Our A rider shouted to me "GO! GO!" "Wait, what? Don't GO?!" I replied, because my ears had stopped working and my brain had turned to jelly. "GO! GO!" she said again, and so I did. I buried myself right up until the final turn, going as hard as I possibly could and shouting my body down when it asked to stop. I pulled wide out of the final turn and our A rider came past me with open road in front of her. She took the bunch sprint to complete a clean sweep of the podium for Veloworks-Spokes Etc.

As fun as it was to stand on the podium and win some premes, I had an even better time working together with my team. We executed our race plan to the tee and brought home a great result. I ended up in 7th, and my other teammate in 11th, but really we won the race. It was a marvelous team victory, some of the most fun I've ever had on the bike. I'm so grateful to be part of an awesome team!

Race Report: Ed Sander Memorial CX

Hey, look!

Top step!

Only one place to go after last week's second place, and I managed to pull it off in the women's 4 race today!

I was a little nervous, pre-riding the course, because the first half was pretty technical. There was a loose W--steep down, then steep up--which I tried to ride once and crashed out on. Then there was a really steep drop-off that took me a few tries to get over (but once I rode it, I realized it was fine). There were some S-curves that I had to hit just right, followed by a barrier at the bottom of a hill that required a dismount and a loooooong run-up before remounting. And there was sand, which I figured (after the first crash) was faster to run than to ride. The rest was flowing turns around the lily ponds with a few long, straight, flat stretches interspersed, and a paved, uphill start/finish. I was concerned about the technical stuff in the first half of the course, though, because I knew we would probably get jammed up behind the back of the men's cat 5 field.

For that reason, I didn't work too hard for the hole-shot at the start. I went into the first turn third wheel, and stayed within touch through the barriers. Going into the loose W, we could see the men backing up through the tricky stuff. The two women in front of me both tried to ride the W, while I dismounted at the top to run it. They both crashed, bottled up behind a man who couldn't quite make it up the hill and put a foot down. I tripped over them a little bit, but managed to get around. I called out a pass to the man in front of me, and he let me around him before the drop-off. I kept the lead all the way through the sand, then came around a blind corner to find a cat 5 guy sprawled across the trail. I tried to dodge him and end up crashing in some thorny bushes. A woman from Baltimore Bike Club made it around me while I was extracting myself from the thorns. It's like they say--if you live by the crash, you shall die by the crash!

Attacked by a thorn bush!

I was able to catch and pass the BBC woman to regain the lead by the end of the first lap (I think I passed her in the paved section going up to the finish line). I held my effort in check for the next two laps, focusing on riding clean lines. I couldn't see anyone else behind me when I checked. I felt pretty secure in my lead, so I concentrated on not making any unforced errors (the course had opened up a lot, so I didn't have to fight as much traffic) and let off the gas a little bit. I figured I could save something for the 3/4 race later. I rolled in after 4 laps for the win!

I'd managed to tweak my ankle a little when I crashed into the bushes, and I rolled it again when I stepped off my bike into tall grass and hit a hole. I was concerned how it would feel for my second race, but it ended up just fine. I have been starting from the third or fourth row on these cat 3/4 races, but I somehow ended up with a front row call-up. I have no idea how that happened, but that changed my strategy for the race. Where I have been sitting in and letting the race develop, it felt like it would be such a waste of a front-row start not to gun it from the word go!

So I gunned it at the whistle, trying to stay as close to the front as I could. I think I made the first turn around fifth wheel. I tried to use my course experience from the earlier race as much as possible (riding smarter, not harder). I got through the W without any trouble, still running it every time. I got passed by a rider or two somewhere around there, maybe just before the drop-off. I gained a spot or two through the next six laps . . . I don't remember much about the race, other than that I rode really, really hard. Erin, from Sticky Fingers, was right in front of me, and she's usually well ahead of me. I would have loved to catch her, but she put the hammer down on the last lap and totally gapped me. The 1/2/3 winner passed me within sight of the finish line; I was so close to not getting lapped this time. I ended up doing 6 laps total.

I did crash on the first lap, when I tried to ride through the sand pit. I was right about running being faster! I fully fell over off the course and into the ditch. At least I didn't go into one of the ponds, though; I heard that someone did that. Everything else was smooth and clean. I didn't drop my chain (I don't think).

I finished in 10th place--top ten in the 3/4 race! That's top 10 out of 30+ riders, too; it's not like I was 10th out of 11. I think I'm prouder of my performance in the 3/4 race than my win in the 4s. It was tougher, it was faster, it was longer; I rode hard and I rode smart, and I got my best result in a 3/4 field to date! I think it may have been my best race ever!

So to sum up, a first place and a top ten. I had a really good weekend!