JMU's Reddish Knob Hill Climb and UVA's Jefferson Cup Road Race - Bike race weekend #4, March 24th and 25th

On the morning of Saturday March 24th I picked up another Georgetown graduate student Mary at 7:30 a.m. and took off down to Harrisonburg, Virginia to meet up with the rest of the Georgetown cycling team and participate in James Madison University's Reddish Knob Hill Climb Individual Time Trial. The course was an 11.7 mile climb over which riders gain approximately 2800 feet of elevation to the top of Virginia's tallest peak, Reddish Knob. The course begins on a straight road with a gentle false flat climb. At the 6-mile mark riders pass the dam and the grade increases and remains sustained for the next four miles. The last two miles involve several steeper pitches and one or two short rolling sections as riders roll along the ridge road up to the summit of Reddish Knob at 4400 feet elevation. See the course map above and elevation map below.

Lin Distance: 11.7 mi
Elevation Gain: 2,881.4 ft
Average Grade: 5%

Climb Elevation: 3,196.5 ft
Descent Elevation: 315.1 ft
Max. Elevation: 4,369.4 ft
Min. Elevation: 1,487.8 ft

The first rider of the day was sent off from the start line at 11:30 a.m. and additional riders were sent off the line at 30-second intervals. Men's D went off first and then Men's C. I was the 5th rider out of 30 to go in my category and started around 11:40. The first 6 miles were not too intense at all, and I was chit-chatting with a UNC rider most of the way. But when we hit the 6 mile mark, HOLY SHIT! I had never done anything like this before. I have no idea why it was called a hill climb because it was certainly a mountain that we biked straight up that day. D.C. is totally flat and I just don't get too much training in on hills which was definitely not a good thing come this Saturday. My legs were screaming, several people passed me, and all I could think about was "please god get me to the top" for those last few miles. It wound up taking me 1 hr 10 min 57 sec to reach the summit good for 26th place out of 30 riders. It was ridiculously chilly at the top of the mountain even though it had been a warm but rainy day at the start of the ride and the last thing I wanted to do was go flying back down the mountain in the cold wind. It was an intense but fun ride back down the mountain and I wound up riding the last several miles with a rider from UNC talking about the big game the next night to see who of our teams in the face-to-face battle would win to make the final four. Mike from our team is a monster rider and finshed the climb in 48 min 50 sec, the fastest time on the mountain that day. I am inspired. Next year, next year.

After the hill climb, we all drove up to Charlottesville, Virginia to stay for the night and then participate in the University of Virginia's Jefferson Cup Road Race on Sunday March 25th. "The race is held on a classic loop road couse with plenty of ups and downs and one longer steeper climb to keep you honest. The roads are usually slow (rough) which can make it a job to even sit in on some sections, and the hills are not long but enough to chew you up if you do not ride smartly." Everyone else's race went off early in the day including a USCF Category 1-2-3 race which was awesome to see all the sponsored and semi-pro riders racing. Men's C was the last scheduled race of the day at 2:30 p.m. but it was closer to 3:45 p.m. by the time we started lining up in the parking lot of the elementary school the race was staged at. There was a 2 mile neutral roll out to the start line of the 10 mile loop course we would be riding 3 laps on. It turned out to be a hot hot day (the first of the season) and getting warmed up before the race had not been difficult. The race didn't go too well as I got dropped by the pack only a few miles into the first loop when I just couldn't keep up with everyone on the hills. It was a pretty ride for the hour and half or so I was out there. There were 54 riders who started the race, and I was listed as crossing the finish 7 from the bottom. Ouch. Need to start training harder. "The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins. Period." - Floyd Landis

The President's Crit at University of Maryland - Bike race weekend #3, March 18th

On Sunday March 18th I drove up to the University of Maryland in College Park to ride in the President's Crit. It was a chilly morning somewhere in the 40's as I pulled up around 7:45 a.m. in order to check in and get warmed up before the 9:00 start. This was a lot smaller race than Philly the weekend before as there were 28 of us that lined up to race Men's C. We would be racing for 25 minutes and completing 12 laps on the 0.70 mile course featuring three 90 degree turns, a small climb up to a tight technical chicane around the President's house, and a wide open finish. I started off pretty timidly toward the back of the pack for the first lap getting the feel of the group and the course. At the top of the hill on the 2nd loop there was a wreck in the middle of the pack that a few riders went down in that slowed me down quite a bit and totally spread out the group of riders. After I got by the downed bikers I put my head down and started chugging to catch up with whoever was in front of me. I passed a number of riders but never really found a pack ahead of me and really had no idea where I stood as the laps passed by. I was climbing up the hill behind an American University rider who just turned to the right, puked, and then kept on riding. Hardcore. On my last lap I saw a Maryland rider down over the curb in one of the turns who looked like he was in pretty bad shape. In the end I wound up crossing the finish line in 4th place out of 20 finishers and got our team 15 points. Everyone else did awesome and Georgetown took far more points than any other team at the race. After this 3rd weekend of racing, the Georgetown cycling team is in 1st place in Division 2 of the ACCC ahead (but not by much) of W&M, Appalachian State, and Johns Hopkins. Woohoo!

The 2007 Philly Phlyer - Bike race weekend #2, March 10th & 11th

Julia and I drove up to Philadelphia on Friday March 9th and met up with the 3 undegrad boys at the Best Western in the museum district around midnight and got to sleep pretty shortly thereafter. After grabbing a quick breakfast at Wawa, we drove over to Fairmount Park for the 2007 Philly Phlyer. Hosted by Drexel, UPenn, and Johns Hopkins, the Philly Phlyer is a cross-conference race with teams from both the Atlantic and Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conferences. With more than 500 racers competing, the weekend turned out to be the largest collegiate bike race ever.

I was signed up again this weekend to ride Men's C for Saturday's road race and Sunday's crit. The road race course diagrammed above was a loop approximately 6 miles that Men's C was riding 3 laps on. The first stretch on Lansdowne Dr was a steep downhill onto a sweeping 180 degree turn followed by a straight run along the river. The Strawberry Mansion Bridge loop features a solid climb after a sharp 180 degree turn off the river and a fast, winding descent into a 90 degree turn back onto the river. Black Rd is a moderate climb to the final sequence, which includes an off-camber, hard turn. The Men's C group was so large that it wound up being split into Division 1 and Division 2 races based on the size of the school. I got to see the Men's D, Men's Intro, Women's B, Women's Intro, and a couple USCF races go in the chilly morning before my race. It was about 1:00 p.m. and a lot more warm (maybe about 50 degrees) when we got to line up at the start. There were 71 of us that started the ride and everyone took off at a blazing pace. I was sticking to the back of the pack but keeping up ok until we got to the first hill after the 180 degree turn off the river. I just got ditched. After I eventually made it up and caught my breath, I was able to sprint for a couple minutes and catch back up to the pack only to be ditched again coming up the hill at the end of the first lap and did not catch back up during the race. Though I felt good throughout the ride, there are just no hills to train on in D.C. compared to where some of these guys are from. I wound up crossing the finish line of the 18 mile ride in 60th place out of 61 riders. Fortunately some other Georgetown riders had a much better showing than I did. After Saturday's races were complete, we all made our way back to the hotel and got cleaned up. Then we all walked out as a group and got strombolis for dinner, and I ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art like Rocky Balboa on the way back to the hotel. We all stayed up and watched Georgetown beat Pitt to win the Eastern Conference Championship that would get Georgetown a number 2 seed into the NCAA tournament.

The crit course on Sunday was approximately 0.7 miles long, perfectly flat, and very wide all around. It was designed as a fast course with four 90 degree right turns that is well suited for beginners but requires great pack riding skills and strong legs to excel at, especially with the strong headwinds on Sunday. The Men's C race would be riding for 30 minutes and completing 17 laps of the course, and there were 66 of us that lined up to start the Division 2 race around 1:00 p.m. on a much more pleasant Sunday afternoon. I was a little distraught after Saturday's ride and had some determination that day. It turns out that the crit is much more my style of race as I am able to sprint with those guys despite not being able ride hills with them. We sprinted the straight, slowed in the turn, and sprinted the straight over and over again. I started towards the back of the pack but found myself pushing up towards the front a couple of times. At around lap 8 there was a pretty nasty wreck where several bikers went down in front of me, and the 15 of us or so that got caught behind it and didn't go down were slowed dramatically getting going again. We spent the rest of the ride racing trying to catch up with the pack but never quite made it. I was recorded as finishing in 41st place out of the 50 finishers. Overall, Georgetown faired well on the weekend finishing in 27th place out of 57 teams in the points standing.

Somebody needs to tell me this is bike racing, not a GQ add.

My first bike race - William & Mary's Tidewater Winter Classic on February 25th, 2007

Eight of us met up on campus on the afternoon of Saturday February 24th, got our bikes and gear packed up in three cars, and then set off south down I-95 to Williamsburg, Virginia to compete in the College of William and Mary’s 2nd annual Tidewater Winter Classic. We rolled into Williamsburg around 9 p.m. and got checked into our hotel for the night before walking over to IHOP to fuel up on eggs and pancakes before the morning’s race.

We all got up at 7 a.m. to a frigid morning with freezing rain that continued throughout the day and then drove over to the staging ground for the race at the KOA campground. A.J. had brought a large tent that we set up a couple bike trainers underneath to warm up on. The course for the road race was a 9.38 mile mostly flat loop culminating with a decisive climb and hilltop finish line. There were 10 of us from Georgetown there to ride that Sunday but I was the only one riding in the Men’s C division that was completing 3 laps of the course for a total of 28.1 miles. The Men’s D and the Women’s B divisions went off around 10 a.m. There were riders from so many schools there competing including Duke, UNC, NC State, Appalachian State, Johns Hopkins, WVU, William and Mary, Mary Washington, UMD, George Mason, James Madison, and more. It was exciting to see Julia, Sarah, James, and Tim all finish so well in their races before mine went off.

I am not sure what time everyone from my division started lining up (maybe 11:30ish) but I was pretty nervous and pretty cold. And that was before we started riding. There were 62 riders that started in my division and I stuck to the back of the pack as we took off. I made the terrible mistake of wearing fingerless gloves and not wearing my shoe covers, and my fingers and toes were completely numb within minutes of taking off – so much so that I had to watch my gears change because I couldn’t feel my fingers shifting and braking. The pack (or “peloton” if you’re into the whole biking terminology) wasn’t riding particularly fast at first but keeping up was challenging – when the leaders slow down for any reason like before a turn, the braking gets amplified along the train of riders such that the people at the very back are slowed down so much that they then have to sprint to catch back up, kind of like a slinky or yo-yo or something. I just hadn’t done very much pace-line riding before the race and my confidence at riding up in the middle of the pack (where you need to be to stay up with the leaders due to the effort you save with drafting off the riders in front of you) was not there that Sunday. I stayed up with group for the first two loops around the course as several other riders fell off but got ditched on the third loop. I felt strong riding the last few miles on my own and made my way up the final climb for the 3rd time to the finish line that I crossed in 43rd place out of 53 finishers about a couple minutes after the leaders. See the picture of me freezing at the finish line as my body temperature plummets after stopping working so hard. It took the better part of the afternoon to get warmed back up, especially since we kept running back out in the sleet and cold to cheer on Jeff, Alex, A.J., Mike, and Chris as they completed each lap during their races. Georgetown finished well on the day with 6 riders scoring in the points and 4 top 10 finishers in the first race of the season. Of course no trip to Williamsburg was complete without a trip to The Peanut Shop and Pierce’s BBQ before returning back to D.C. in the pouring sleet and rain.