Memorial Weekend Recap

I did three things this weekend:
- Raced at Frankenmuth
- Fed the Cascades Cycling Team at Leelanau
- Raced at Gaslight

It's been a fun weekend.

Frankenmuth Race Report

Frankenmuth went really well for me. Since the race started at 7:30AM, I had to wake up at 4:30AM and leave by 5:00AM. Standing on the start line, I felt more like taking a nap rather than racing my bike. Once the race got going, I felt better, though.

As usual, a bunch of people launched attacks right from the start. I followed a few attacks, staying on Danny Klein's wheel. A few of us got a gap but the pack brought it back right away. As we re-approached the pack, Kyle Jacobson of ISCorp / UW Milwaukee attacked and passed us. I knew from collegiate season that he had a big engine in him and that he could ride in the wind well, so I yelled at Danny to jump on his wheel. Danny seemed complacent with letting Kyle go (probably because he didn't know Kyle's strength) so I jumped around him and bridged up to Kyle's wheel.

Kyle and I worked together for a while, maintaining a few hundred meter gap on the field. At one point, it looked like the gap was coming down and I felt like sitting up. Kyle kept pulling strong, though, so I stuck with it. The pack must have decided to stop chasing because all of a sudden our gap started widening. After a while, they were out sight. Kyle and I worked together really well. He's a stronger rider in the wind, so I had to work hard to stay with him.

On the third lap, a group of three was getting pretty close to us so Kyle and I sat up to rest so they could catch us and give us more power. Once they caught us, we started riding even faster in a strong rotating paceline. The group consisted of two ISCorp riders, a rider from Raisin Rack, a Torelli rider and me.

On the next lap, Danny Klein and James Bruce bridged up to us (I don't know how - we were absolutely flying with the pack nowhere in sight). They were both pretty spent from their hard efforts.

We continued to work together well. On the last lap, in the final headwind section before the tailwind, an ISCorp guy really nailed the pace. Danny, Bruce, and I couldn't hold it so we ended up dropping. As the three of us turned into the tailwind section we looked to our right to see a small, menacing speck in the distance. We worked together through the tailwind section (catching Kyle), trying to keep that speck away from us, but those red, white, and blue Rite-Aid colors just kept getting closer. As we turned into the last leg, Jake Rytlewski of Rite-Aid was quickly gaining ground on us.

We all rode hard up the final uphill, with James Bruce pulling hard. As we turned the final corner, Kyle nailed the pace around James. I tried to follow but I couldn't close the bike-length between us. As I dug deep, that red, white and blue jersey creeped by me about 200 meters from the finish. He just barely got around Kyle to take fourth place. I ended up sixth for the day. Matthew Busche, of ISCorp, who nailed the pace in the headwind section, took the win.

Leelanau Race Report



Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to ride in Leelanau this year, and I'm thinking that was probably for the better considering almost every strong rider from Michigan didn't finish. Instead, I fed the Cascades Womens' Cycling Team in the feed zones.

Helping out their team was a really fun and interesting experience. They're a great group and I enjoyed helping them, even though I couldn't understand what many of them were saying (they're all from Montreal and many of them only speak a little English). Julie Bellerose (who rode for U of M this season) took the top place on their team, coming in at 13th. Her teammate, Veronique was not far behind in 15th. Considering the strength of the field this year, they all did really well.

For me, the experience of being at a race but not racing was really unusual. It's a different kind of stress trying to help riders rather than racing. There's less pressure, but I still have an important task to do. Getting from the first to the second feed zone was especially stressful because there was very little time to do it. Luckily, I successfully navigated the back roads and made it to the second feed just in time for a parched Julie and Veronique to roll by.

Overall, I'm really grateful that Equipe Cascades gave me the opportunity to help them. Additionally, watching the mens' race has shown me what level I'll need to reach to be able to ride with the big guns if I have the opportunity to race next year.

Gaslight Race Report

Gaslight also provided a good bit of enjoyment this Memorial weekend. The race started with a quick pace, with a lot of small attacks right from the gun. I followed a bunch of them, but none seemed to stick. A few laps into the race, a strong group of around five riders had a good gap on the group. One of my teammates (I think) yelled for me to get up there, so I made my way to the front of the peloton and jumped. I opened a nice little gap and made it about three quarters of the way to the lead group before pulling off to let the rider following me take a turn. I was happy to see my teammate Bruce Rivera right there. He finished the bridge and we made it to the fast group. Both he and I needed to recover, so we sat in for a few seconds. I took an inventory of the group and it looked very similar to the lead group at Frankemuth.

Two ISCorp riders pulled through really hard and the Raisin Rack rider (from Frankenmuth let a gap open up). I was still spent from bridging that I couldn't jump across the gap. In retrospect, I should have at least tried to close the gap, because those riders ended up riding away for the win.

The rest of us just floated back to the pack. I sat in for a while as more attacks went. Another group with Bruce Rivera got up the road, so I went to the front of the peloton and did a little blocking and covering.

By the end of the race, all the money places were up the road, so people seemed less determined. On the last lap, I jumped on a move by John Sammut and Luke. Luke had asked John to get him away from the pack and up to a dangling lead group. John pulled hard but stalled out, leaving the chase up to Luke. Unfortunately, we just ended up dragging a bunch of Jet Fuel guys with us. Luke pulled off and I sat up when my teammate, Terry Palmer, jumped around us. I moved over and let the pack go by me to coast in. Bruce ended up sixth and Ken Vernier got 14th - in the money.

Overall, this has been a great Memorial weekend.

Tour of Kensington Valley Recap

Well, today I raced in the Tour of Kensington Valley. It's probably the longest road race I'll do this year. The flier claimed it was 97 miles, but my teammate measured it at 102 miles.

Given the length of the race, and the fact that it started at 7:15AM, nobody really warmed up for it. This lack of warm-up really played into the race, because the first attack came at around 500 meters. We rolled off the line, and before I knew it, a Bissell guy jumped, followed by Greg Christian of Team Turin. I quickly latched on to them with a few more guys. The pack didn't really seem to think we were serious, considering we still had to ride 100 miles, so they just sat up. A few more guys came across and we started a rotating paceline. I looked around and all the major teams were represented, with the exception of Wolverines. Luckily, Danny Klein bridged up. Now that we had representation from every major team, we could ride away.

We settled into a nice, strong rotating paceline, getting a big gap on the pack. I took a pretty hard pull and decided to go to the back of the group to recover. Some Lathrup Industries guy was back there and he created a gap. He, a Bissell guy, and I looked at eachother, playing the "No, you pull" game. This was a stupid move on my part because we all got dropped from the group. I attacked the two other guys up a hill and got a gap on them. Though now that I look back at it, Bissell must have been using team radios because the Bissell guy was waiting for his teammate to bridge back up so he could leapfrog him into the pack. I jumped on their wheels and they dragged me back to the lead group. The Lathrup Industries guy just disappeared. When I got back to the lead group Danny was like "Dude, where'd you go?" and I said "I was back aways for a little bit." He replied "Don't ever do that again," which cracked me up.

We kept the pace strong, getting a five minute gap at one point, according to Joe Lekovish at the feed zone. A bunch of my teammates and a bunch of Wolverines were worried I didn't have any food, so every time I came through the feed zone I had two or three people offering me bottles and gels. A thanks goes out to all my teammates as well as Maia Orabi and the Dubrishes for offering me bottles.

Anyways, with about 4.5 laps to go, going up the feed zone climb, Danny and Greg nailed the pace and made everyone suffer. They got a good little gap on us. A Bissell guy jumped across the gap and then Greg rode off the front of them. The five of us that remained suffered for a while and then the other Bissell guy jumped across the gap on the next lap's feed zone climb. We now had Pete Schilling of Priority Health, a South Lyon guy, and a Giant guy. The four of us suffered for a while until a group with John Card got up to us.

Once they reached us, the pace slowed quite a bit. Zach McBride of Priority Health went to pull off the front and nobody followed, so he just rode off the front and got away.

Coming in to the final climb and sprint, I tried to stay on the USA National guy's wheel, but I got separated to the other side of the pack. That separation proved unfortunate because he attacked at just that moment. Peter Schilling also attacked going into the final straightaway and got a little gap. John Card sprinted hard to try to get around him which gave me a good lead out. He didn't get around Peter, but I was able to jump around him before the finish line.

I ended up 9th overall, which I'm really happy with given the strength of the field. Greg Christian won the race on his solo breakaway.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Omnium Points Series at the velodrome. It should be interesting, to say the least. I'm still pretty tired from today.

Oh, and also I should mention that the University of Michigan now has a national champion! Julie Bellerose masterfully won the womens' division 1 criterium in Fort Collins, Colorado at collegiate nationals! She's now back in Canada, but she's going to return to Michigan for Leelanau where I'll be providing feed zone support for her Cascades pro cycling team.

My Collegiate Road Nationals Experience (a.k.a. How you Shouldn't Race a Bike)

Where's Brendan?

Well, I hope I don't sound like a crybaby too much. My last two posts have pretty much been me complaining about my road racing and this one's not much different. It's about today's Collegiate Road Nationals race in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The lollipop-style course consisted of a long, steep climb right from the gun, followed by hilly loops at the top, then back down for the finish. Conditions were OK, but not that great for me - temperatures in the 40s and 50s and high wind. As we stood on the starting line, the announcer told us they were going to shorten the course by ten miles because a snowstorm was coming.

The race started out pretty hard with the whole group nailing the pace right from the gun. I slowly drifted back in the pack as the strong winds baked me (any sort of wind pretty much destroys me - I guess that's why I'm not a time trialist). Once we reached the climb with a tailwind I started flying past suffering riders. A gap opened up and I found myself and a bunch of other riders off the back of a 30+ rider group. Not discouraged, I pressed on, passing more and more shelled riders. A group of around ten of us formed not too far behind the peloton and we settled into a chase.

We eventually caught the peloton after the first lap. It felt nice to be relieved from chasing and to sit in a big draft. After five minutes or so of riding with the peloton, we came around a corner and another rider tangled his bars with me. We both went down. Uninjured, I quickly got back up and jumped on my bike. Unfortunately, the peloton had just started an acceleration, so despite the fact that I was 30 seconds back, I just couldn't catch them.

Eventually, another chase group with two of my U of M teammates, Mattison and Kyle, caught me in a headwind section and I jumped in with them.

This second chase group finally caught the peloton in the feed zone after two more laps of chasing. I decided to chill in the back for a while, which turned out to be my biggest mistake of the day. As soon as we exited the loop section of the course, the road turned up and the group started climbing hard. A bunch of gaps opened up ahead of me and I found chase effort futile. I continued to ride hard to the finish, picking up a few riders here and there. I rolled into the finish in 72nd - about mid pack.

Despite all of this complaining, I'm still glad I did this race for several reasons:
1.) I now have experience in a national-caliber road race so I know what to expect in the future.
2.) I learned a good lesson about riding in a pack.
3.) I had fun.

I'll probably post another update after tomorrow's criterium.

(For the photo: I'm in the middle of the field of riders. My head's popping up and you can see my white-rimmed sunglasses)

Cone Azalia Race Report

Well, Cone proved frustrating for yet another year. The start of the race seemed pretty normal - a few attacks here anld there with nothing really sticking. We got through the first dirt section without incident but I flatted on the second dirt section. Since a bunch of other riders had already flatted, I had to ride backward to the follow vehicle to get a wheel. Luckily I got the last available rear wheel in the follow car. Unfortunately by the time I had changed wheels, the pack was three minutes up the road and moving fast.

I started riding again to find my teammate Tim Saari had flatted his front tire. He had just finished switching wheels so I sat up while he re-mounted. We caught another rider and the three of us worked together. For some reason, the other rider either had a flat or got dropped because he was way far back all of a sudden.

Tim and I switched pulls for a while, trying to keep it steady, but still baking ourselves in the wind. After around 20 or 30 miles we sighted the pack about 1-2 minutes up the road (the landscape is wide open so we could see them after a turn). We were pretty happy to finally be getting close to the pack, but of course bad luck had to strike again. When we were about 500 feet from a railroad crossing, the lights started flashing and the gates went down. We had to wait for a long-ass train to go through before starting again. The race seemed hopeless.

Tim and I continued to work together for more miles, picking up and dropping riders along the way. With about two laps to go, we finally sighted a group of 1-2's not too far up the road. The group consisted of Ray Dybowski, John Card (I think), and a few other riders - around six in total. We finally caught them, but they weren't riding very fast. We sat in with them for two laps and listened to them complain. With about three miles to go I had enough so I pulled through hard to get the pace going a little. Nobody followed me and I soon found myself about 20 feet off the front. I figured I would just go with it since Tim and I were the only ones doing work in the group anyway. Tim would be able to sit up and let others pretend to do work, and I would be able to get up the road.

Well, it worked, and I successfully soloed away from the small group to roll in for 14th place. Unfortunately, luck once again failed to be on my side - since the number of total participants was 150, 25 fewer than the 175 needed to guarantee a purse, the promoter only paid out to the top 12 in the 1-2's.

Oh well. I guess bad luck is expected at Cone. Hopefully this spurt of bad luck means I'll have good luck at Collegiate Nationals in Fort Collins, CO.

Frustrated in Pittsburgh

The great part about road racing is how a smart strategy mixed with strong legs can get you a decent finish in almost all circumstances. Well, today was the exception.

Today's race took place outside of Pittsburgh, PA on some hilly rural roads. The course suited me well - it played to my strong climbing abilities and quick power. In addition, the race mixed the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference (MWCCC) with the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (ECCC). For the first few laps, the group rode pretty consistently. A couple riders made it out of sight of the peloton, but we weren't to worried about the gap.

On the first climb of the third lap, a group of really strong riders from the ECCC broke off the front. Derek Laan of Purdue and I quickly latched on and buried ourselves to stay with them. We developed a large gap on the peloton pretty quickly. My group of five riders (an Army guy, a "Super ECCC" guy from Vermont, some green dude, Purdue, and I) descended strong and started our second climb of the "triple header" climbs. One of the guys (I think it was the Army guy) told us that if we rode hard up this climb, we would make it away from the peloton. Well, we certainly rode hard up the climb, but apparently not hard enough for the Army guy. At the top of the climb, Army proceeded to rip our legs off and slingshot himself off the front.

The rest of us worked together well to stay away from the peloton. A chase group of around five riders caught us, giving us more man power. I felt strong. The people around me seemed to be a lot more fatigued than I was. As we began the second climb of the final lap, I switched into my small chainring. Well, despite the hours I spent tuning my bike, the chain dropped to the inside. I couldn't ramp it up by shifting outwards, so I had to get off the bike and put it back on. I can't even describe the frustration I felt watching the group disappear up the road as I struggled to regain my momentum from a dead standstill up a steep climb.

I rode by myself for a while until another group caught me. At the end of the race, I didn't really feel like sprinting, since all the points had already been awarded, so I lead out my teammate, Greg.

I can confidently say that this race was the most frustrating race I've done. Watching the lead group of elite riders from the MWCCC and ECCC disappear up the road really took a toll on me mentally. However, a few positives did come from this experience:

1.) I'm now confident I'm strong enough to ride with the top riders in the MWCCC and ECCC.
2.) I can channel my frustration into tomorrow's criterium in Pittsburgh. I'm ready to rip some legs off.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

First Real MTB Ride Since Last Year

I rode at Pontiac Lake today. It was my first time riding an actual trail since last year. I've been sticking to the road and track all this year, so it was nice to change things up a bit.

I took it relatively easy for the first half of the first lap, letting John and Blaine ride behind me for a while. It took a few miles to get back into the rhythm of mountain biking, but it wasn't like I had forgotten how to ride or anything... I ramped up the pace a bit for the rest of the first lap and felt pretty good going into the second lap. I fell on the first left turn of the downhill after the first major climb, but got back up and dusted myself off, with no real injuries. Now that I think of it, that was probably the first time I've gone down all year.

The second and third laps went by pretty quickly, but I was feeling some pain in my right shoulder by the end of the last lap. I think my shoulder was still sore from the Madison races in the International 3-day. It was bad to a point where I had trouble turning the steering wheel on the drive back, and I could feel a tendon popping in and out of place. It got better, though when I let it rest for a few hours.

After I got back, I went over to Sam's house to film some of his movie, Devil's Night. It was pretty fun, but we didn't get done until 2AM after getting stopped by the cops once and Cranbrook security once for looking really suspicious while we were filming. However, we got all of Evan and Jesse's parts done, so it should be pretty easy to finish up the rest of the movie.

BTR Park Criterium in Kalamazoo

Today was the BTR Park Criterium in good 'ol Kalamazoo. I picked up Luke at his house and we carpooled out to the race. I was surprisingly not very nervous as I thought I would be for my first "fast" race in the Pro-1-2-3 field. When we got there, I ate a bagel and did a quick 20-minute warm up before the start. I regretted eating that bagel soon into the race because I felt like it was going to come back up.

The first four laps of the race were pretty fast, which was a good change from the 3s which seem to have a more relaxed attitude until someone attacks. A few small breaks went, but none got farther than a few seconds up the road before the field reeled them back in. Then a three-man break got about 10 seconds on the field. I didn't think much of it, and I just tried to stay in the top 10 in the field. Rider by rider, however, the break began to grow as small groups and solo riders bridged the gap. The next thing I knew, the breakaway had 13 people in it and 30 seconds on the field. At that time I was pretty much screwed - all the fast people were up the road, and all the major teams were represented in the break. This meant that nobody in the field was willing to do any work. That got really frustrating because a fast race turned into a slow train ride.

I tried doing some work on the front of the pack to pick up the pace, but nothing would stick. We probably didn't have any chance at that point of catching the break, but I wasn't worried - I was just excited that Luke had made the break. He had a good chance of pulling off a win, given the size and dynamic of the break. Unfortunately as we neared the start / finish on one of our laps, Luke came drifting back down the road. Evidently, he wasn't feeling really good and didn't have the desire to ride in the break.

The break did end up making it away, with Rob Dascewaaglidhsajh taking the win, with Danny Klein in second and Tim Finkle in 8th (finally a decent Wolverine finish!).

Overall, it was a good experience to race with a faster group. I finally got a reply from Paul Alman, and unfortunately I'm still a 3 (really frustrating), so that means I'll have to do some more slow races. At least that means I'll be able to gun for a win at Downer's Grove in the 3s.