MASS Finale

September 21st was the last Mass race of the season and it was worth double points. I decided it was worth taking a day off to try and get on the overall podium. We had all four of us in the Expert field and we all had a chance to move up in the standings.

Bear Creek is a tough course. It's one of those courses where you go up faster than you descent and I was starting with a head cold looming. The gun went off. I took the hole shot and was feeling pretty good. I love the uphill starts. They suit me well. About halfway up the first climb I looked back and saw Joel about 40-50 yards back in second. "Did I start off too fast?" I thought to myself. I was still feeling good but I decided to back off a hair. Joel, TJ, and Shawn quickly caught up to me in the singletrack. I've been having lots of problems in singletrack this year. I've been picking bad lines, pressing too hard, or just losing focus at the wrong times. Bear Creek was no exception. I bobbled and Joel got around. I quickly got on his wheel and we flew up the hill trying to break TJ (US National Expert Champion). It was not to be as I bobble in a technical rocky section and Joel, TJ, and Shawn hammered on. I put it in full pursuit mode trying to keep in contact with them only to see them getting farther and farther away. I backed off as I felt my lungs starting to get a burning, wheezy feeling. Tim Collins caught me on a climb. He's a super rider and does really well at solo endurance races.

After he passed me I was completely out of it. My lungs were fried. My head was out of it and my butt was, well, raw. I told you Bear Creek was rough. I pulled out after one lap and spent the remaining laps handing water bottle to those guys and tripping the other riders (just kidding).

Final results...1st TJ (duh) 2nd one Mr. Tim Collins and 3rd (drum roll please) Tom Fenush of Allied Milk Cycling. His previous best finish of the season was 10th. Nice ride Tom. Joel 5th, and Shawn 6th.

That put Tom in 7th (9 points from 6th), Me in 5th (99 points from 4th), Shawn in 4th (15 points from 3rd) and Joel in 3rd (21 points from 2nd) for the season in the Senior I Expert field. The team was 7th overall (223 points away from 6th) but not too bad since we only have 6 riders on the MASS roster and one did 3 races while the other did one.

Our sponsors will be back for next season and we are looking for a few more riders. The mountain team will max out at 10 riders so e-mail me if you are interested. The road team is looking for 3 or 4 riders as well (prefer cat. 3 or 4's so we can race in the same field). If you can do both mountain and road, cha-ching.

Next...'Cross is boss...

Back to the Races...

Chad had a road race a few weeks ago but since I was inside a 36" pipe I didn't have time to post it. Now I have all the time in the world. Here's what he had to say...

Saturday was my local bike race (Milton Bike Race). It is a 28 mile race with 3 climbs in it. Within the first 2 miles, there's a grade up to 21% that is over a mile long and one with less then a mile to go that has a grade at the top of about 22%. Over these 3 climbs the field will dwindle to about 10 to 20 riders. The last half mile is through the streets of Milton with 4 turns right be for the finish. I was not hoping for that good of a finish, just because it is flat at the end and I wrecked in a training ride on Tuesday which I was still sore from. I did not ride since that day to tried and recover. As I was waiting at the start line, I am informed that there are 2 or 3 pros that are doing this race this year. But that's not all -- they are wearing different jerseys and they all help each other. Not that promising for a Cat 3 racer. At the start, one pro attacks within the first half mile and stays until about mile 13. After we go over the mile climb, I am sitting in 3rd place with a buddy of mine and a good rider. There are a few other riders and of course the 3 pros. As we are riding, they do all the pulling. Hey, if you have 3 pros in a citizens race that are all on the same team, you are going to make them do all the work. So we all did. Since my buddy and I were the strongest in the group other then the pros and we wanted to try and win this, we worked together and took turns covering the attacks that the pros threw at us. We formed a breakaway of about 15 riders, a little bigger than what we were hoping for. Up the last climb, the strongest riders took off to narrow down the field. As we were going through the corners, I was trying to move up but I could not since the corners are so close together. As we were getting ready for the spring, the pros pushed the sprint and led each other out. The pros got 1st and 2nd and my buddy got 3rd with me coming in at 5th. Not bad for what we went through. After the race, I looked at our average speed and it was an amazing 25mph. Next weekend I'll be heading to Smethport for a 53 mile race.

Good job Mr. Chad.

Tick Tock

It's been a few weeks since I last updated. Hey, I've been busy as these photos show. Working an outage at a nuclear power plant can be fun...annoying...frustrating...and fun again. There are several reasons for the range of emotions that you go through.

First the annoying. There are many different personalities you come across in an outage. You have your "I don't care" people, your "What are we waiting for?" people, your "find any excuse I can not to work people" and people like me the "please don't make me sick" type. Which ultimately happens anyway. To be honest I fall in all of the other categories too.

Next is frustrating. It seems that everyday there is mass confusion for everyone. It seems when you are ready to go, the plant stops you for one reason or another. When they want you to get something done, you want to take a lunch break. Or when you are dressed out (anti-contamination clothing) with all your safety gear on it many times seems unsafe. Your anti-c's are way too big (so they come off easier) and then you top it off with an air sampler, a safety harness, gloves that are the equivalent of boxing gloves and so on. You get the idea. Safety to the utmost. Not to mention the 7 days a week, 12 hours a day part.

Then there is the fun. There a ton of different things to do in a nuke. There is ISI which basically we remove paint (this can also be frustrating/annoying) from pipe and welds so they can ultrasound the pipe to get an accurate pipe wall thickness. Pretty easy stuff. Then there is the super technical pipefitting. This year we did 3" schedule 160 (.499" wall thickness) and a 36" weld repair inside the pipe. This is what the pictures are from. I hope you enjoy as I cut this short since this is suppose to be about Allied Milk Cycling.

2nd, 2nd, 2nd...

Chad's been racing hard in the last 5 or 6 weeks of the season. Here's what he did this weekend.

Last week I headed up to Meadville for Tour de Tamarack for a 30 mile road race. This was 3 loop race with 3 climbing primes. For those who don't know what primes are, it means who ever goes across the line first at the top of the climb gets $10. Same thing as KOM. Anyway this race had an uphill finish which is great for me. The peloton stayed together for the most part, and with the first KOM coming up I attacked. With only one person to hanging on my wheel. Unlike Kinzua I made sure that I attacked again so I would go across the line first. After the line I just spun out waiting for the group to catch up. There is no way I was going to stay away for another 20 miles by myself. As we approached the 2nd climb (1 mile with an average grade of close to 20%) I thought I would attack again and see who could keep up this time, to my surprise no one could. Two down one to go. For the next 4-5 miles I road my pace and the peloton was not catching up to me. I lost track of laps and I thought maybe I can win this. Silly me, there was still one more lap to go. As we approached the start/finish line the group caught back up. My legs felt shot. I was not even thinking about winning the last KOM which was a quarter of a mile away. As we climbed I just did my pace. When I looked behind me, no one was there. I got all 3 KOM. This last climb destroyed the main field and it came down to 6 riders in a break away. I was not looking to win to be honest because I just won $30 and my legs where shot. We stayed away all the way to the finish, and as we started climbing too the finish someone attacked with only me and another rider able to counter attack. As we go across the finish I was able to hold on to 2nd place by 4 sec. The season is starting to slow down, but I still have 3 major races and one fun one. Next week will be my home town Milton Bike Race that is 28 miles, with the weekend after that a 53 mile race in Smethport PA, and the 2nd week in October a 7 mile uphill TT in Clearfield called King of the Mountain.

If you hadn't noticed...

Blog entries are slowing down. That's because races are getting fewer and farther in between. What was left of the road series is over and only one MASS XC at Bear Creek on the 21st remains. There's still a few good races but the energy behind them is fading. Promoters, spectators, and riders are getting worn down. I'm fine with that because 'cross season is flying towards us.

There will only be a few of us racing CX but I think we will do well. Check out the Mid-Atlantic 'Cross site for a relatively complete calender of the '08 season. This weekend will be the first in the PACX series and on the 21st Van Dessel will be putting on the Hole Shot race. Last year they gave away a brand new Van Dessel Hole Shot frame to the rider who took the hole shot (leader at the start of the race) in the C race. I believe this year will be the same. Unfortunately for us we are not C's and we will be at Bear Creek trying to hang on to our overall placements in MASS anyway.

Race Ave.

Saturday Shawn and I took the long trek (maybe a mile) to the Race Ave Crit. It was a very standard 4 corner, .7 mile rectangle course. Basically, you went 2 blocks, turned right for one block, turned right...

Shawn did pretty well in his race. He finished in the top 10 (6th if I counted correctly). He looked strong too. Getting late in the season that can be hard to do.

As for me, it was a struggle to hang on to the group. My legs just never felt powerful. I knew a sprint finish was a bad thing for me so with about three to go I put in the most feeble attempt at a breakaway (like I said I had no power). I made it to the front only to be immediately caught and spit out the back. I tried to hang on but I couldn't close the 10 feet of gap in front of me. Eventually I was all alone so I nailed it for the last two laps just trying to not get lapped. I even caught up to some other riders that fell off the back after me. The end result was still not very good. I didn't stick around to see the official results but I'm guessing between 15th-20th. It was hard to tell because so many riders were dropped earlier and I don't know how many were in the peloton when I fell out.

Ben was there lending support. He also snapped a few shots. Here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21124578@N08/.

Next weekend there are two races I'd like to do but there probably won't happen.

There's the Laurel Mountain Classic in Wellsboro and a new road race called the Cheyney Challenge in the West Chester area.

The grand finale for MASS is coming up. 9-21 at Bear Creek a double points XC race (they also hand out season awards which a few Allied Milk riders should get). This course is probably the hardest of any race in the series. One year it was a 4.5 miles lap that took about 40-50 minutes to go around (do that three times). Compare that with something like Sewell where we went 22 miles in about 1:30-1:45. I've heard they changed the course this year to take some of the abuse out of it but the singletrack there is about the hardest I've ever ridden. Should be fun...

Chad's version of events

Last Saturday was Sunbury bike race. It is a 26 mile races with all hills. Dan drove up from Lancaster to support me. The weather for the day was not bad at all, not in the 90's how it is every other year, but in the 80's. Dan and I decided to try and have me win this race, since the race is all hills and i am peaking for this race. The gun went off and Dan took the lead with me on his wheel, his plain was for the first 1 mile climb to weed out most of the weaker riders, which he did a great job of doing. We were climbing the hill at about 15-17 mph with no letting up any time soon. towards the top of the hill a rider from VisitPA flew past us. I grabbed his wheel and followed him. Dan I found out later blew a tire with in the 5 mile marker. Through the whole race we kept the pace high, dwindling down the field till we had a break away. With only one last climb to do, (a one mile climb with a ave. 18% grade and top at 20%) this is where the race is decided, It was down to me and Ray Adams (VisitPA) We worked together on the decent down to the finish, with one rider catching up to us to help build our lead. With the finish line in sight Adams started sprinting and i was right on his wheel. I started coming around him but did not have enough time to pass him be for the line. With the results in I got 2nd with less then a second between me and Adams. I was disappointed that i did not get first until Dan informed me that he is semi-pro in mountain and Cat. 2 in road. After the race i packed up to head to Kinzua for another race, this one was a 30 mile with lots of hills and a 1 mile up hill finish. The race started as any one does, staying in the front in the best place to be, so you can cover attacks and stay out of trouble. With us starting the climb to the finish we had a group of 5-6 riders. We were keeping the pace high, until we had a quarter mile to go. At that time i attacked with with no one responding except for one rider. I tried to shake him off my wheel, but he was glued to it. I knew at that time that he was saving all his energy and it would be very hard to beat him at the line. As I predicted he got me at the line. Another 2nd place in the same weekend with over 55 miles of racing. Next race for me is this weekend in Lewisburg. It is a Triathlon that i am only doing the biking for a 3 person relay (I don't do running or swimming) This will be the first time i will be using my TT bike, and hoping to be the best time. Pictures coming soon.