Copperopolis Road Race

Copperopolis RR. E4. Woke up a 4am. Drank coffee. Drove two hours out to the race start.

This is a storied NorCal road race. Rough patched pavement, pot holes, flat road with wind and a bit of climbing.

Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/464493

First lap, had no problem hanging with the group on the main climb. Half way through the lap though, cut my rear tire and flatted. Fortunately, I had decided to run my clincher training wheels rather then my tubulars. Fixed it and rode the rest of the race mostly solo. 3 laps, 64 miles.


(photo by Allan Armstrong)

Guess I should have opted for GP4000s over the lighter Conti Force rear tire. When I was riding with the pack, was forced to blast through a lot of potholes, broken asphalt and shit like that. Guess you can't really do much other then follow the person in front of you.

At least it was a nice day and a good training effort. That and I wasn't DFL out of the people that actually finished. Lot of DNPs. Ended up 30/46.

In other news, my new race transportation worked out well:



Mazda MX-5 w/ Hard Dog hitch and Kuat Sherpa bike rack.

2011 Chico Stage Race

2011 Chico Stage Race was an awesome weekend of racing. Perfect weather. Had a nice solid little Elite 4 group of 28.

Stage 1, Saturday, Paskenta Road Race:
http://app.strava.com/rides/436821
45 miles. First 20 were pretty calm and flat. Then came some good rollers. Then 4 miles of nasty gravel on a rolling road which blew the pack apart. This was not hard packed dirt. Rear wheel was all over the place. Then another few miles with more rollers. Hooked up with another guy for the last section. Worked together to minimize our losses. Ended up 13th out of 28.





Stage 2, Sunday, Steve Harrison Downtown Crit:
http://app.strava.com/rides/442530
Really fun course. Each lap was 6 turns in 0.6 miles. Stayed up near the front for a good portion of the race. Went for two primes. Had the legs for it but couldn't position myself correctly. It's all good though. Had some family and friends out, since I grew up in the area, and they enjoyed it. Didn't contest the finish. Got Same Time.



Stage 3, Sunday, Aguas Frias Time Trial:
http://app.strava.com/rides/442527
This sucked. I'd never done a non-hill climb TT before. For all the times I've killed myself on the local climbs, my body wasn't at all used to putting out threshold effort in an aero position for this long. Arms hurt and by the end, I could tell I was using some different muscles then usual. Good headwind on the way out, tailwind on the way back.

On top of this, I started out the TT very poorly. Slipped clipping in and smacked my shin with the pedal. Hard. Good job noob. Very helpfully, my wife captured a photo of it. Guess what word I'm saying!



Needless to say, I lost a ton of time on GC with the TT. Dropped me from 13th to 20th out of 28.



Take away: buy aero gear and practice with it. Learn how to use clipless pedals.