Dunnigan Hills Road Race 2008

There were 6 of us in the Masters 35+ 4/5 C group. We tried to ask the officials to let us tag onto the back of the B group or get into the Cat 5A group, but both groups were too full. So they sent us off as 6. We all agreed to work together for a while. Once in the headwinds and cross winds it was sort of a cluster-F. I just did my pulls and tried to stay as protected as possible. Once in a while we would get a decent pace line going, but then it would fall apart. After a while it was clear that one rider was doing very little work. Either he didn't have any gas in the tank or he was purposely not doing any work. Finally as we approached I-5 heading east one guy put in a nice attack, I quickly jumped on his wheel and so did another rider. So 3 of us had a small gap. It came back together, then I put in a nice attack over the overpass before the right turn. That did a little more damage but it came back together again. As we turned downwind the original attack guy put in another hard dig, two of us followed. Another small gap opened but it came back together again. Then finally I put in one last hard effort and we finally dropped Mr. No Pull guy. So 4 of us were left blazing downwind to the finish line. Then one unattached rider said to me "you guys can have the sprint, I'm just trying to keep my bike upright." As we got near the right turn to head over the overpass I made sure to be 2nd wheel. They put in a decent effort up the overpass, and I just stayed on their wheels. One guy started to fade early with about 300 to go, then I notice the other guy who said he wasn't interested in the sprint go shooting by on my left, yeah nice try buddy. I was 3 back at this point, so I shifted into my hardest gear and then with 200 to go came around him and sprinted to the line for my first win! It was a great experience and I'm super stoked, even if there was only 6 of us in our field! I got my first Velo Promo t-shirt and $20!

Here's a photo of me blasting across the line!

2008 Zamora Bariani Road Race

2008 Zamora Bariani Road Race
Originally uploaded by jmdgolfman

On Sunday I raced in the Zamora (Bariani) Road Race out near Woodland. I entered in the Masters 35+ 5 category. The weather was forecast to be clear with strong north winds. They nailed that forecast for sure! It was blowing steady 20-25mph with gusts up to 30. This race is 3 laps of a nice 10 mile loop. The profile is mostly flat, with a few rollers and one significant climb. The wind was obviously the huge factor today. The race starts downwind for about 500 yards, then a right hand turn into the nasty cross wind. Another 1/2 mile up and you turn due north and ride a frontage road which parallels Highway 505. Everyone was jockeying for position to stay out of the wind. This meant riding in the gutter at times, but you'd rather ride the gutter than have your face in the wind yesterday. The gutter was more of a shoulder with some randome grass & weeds growing through the cracks in the pavement. The pack mostly stayed together until we turned right onto County Rd 13, then a small break of about 10 got away on the rollers. I noticed I had 3 of my Rio Strada team mates up in that group, so I was content to stay in the 2nd group for a bit. I didn't want to put in too much of an effort on the 1st lap to try and bridge up to them. So the beauty of having team mates in the lead group is that I didn't have to do any work at the front of my group for the remainder of the race. I just sat in, and tried to remain as sheltered from the wind as possible. When we hit the first climb I felt good so gave it a little extra gas and our group then broke up into two smaller groups of about 10. It pretty much stayed this way for the next two laps. On the final climb on the final lap two guys jumped and I tried to chase them down but wasn't able to quite catch them. In doing so however I dropped the rest of my group and was now riding solo for the last stretch of the course which was a nasty cross wind. I could see those two guys just ahead of me like a dangling carrot, but riding alone it would have been nearly impossible for me to catch them. I looked back and saw that I had about a 500 yard gap on the remnants of the group. So I just put my head down and gave it all I had left. It was so windy I dared not take my hands of the bars. Then I had to do a no-handed snot rocket which isn't all that fun... I finally made the last left hand turn into the finishing stretch which thankfully was DOWN WIND!!!! Yeah! I just put it in my hardest gear and mashed it all the way to the line. Ended up in 15th place out of 50. Very stoked and happy with my results. I also did this race last year and got dropped on the first lap, so much improvement for me!

Land Park Criterium 2008

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Originally uploaded by rodneycox68

On Saturday I raced in the Land Park Criterium in Sacramento. I entered in the Elite 5 category, same as last year. Criteriums are not really my thing, but this course it one of the safer ones around and I wanted to redeem myself from last year. It's a big wide 1 mile loop around the Land Park Golf Course on closed roads. There is a tricky S-type chicane turn section and a couple of other higher speed corners. My goal was to just stay up near the front, top 15 or so though most of the course, then move up to the top 5 through the corners. This race was 35 minutes. It started out with a neutral lap just to we could see what it was like to ride the course with 50 other riders. Elite 5 is the beginner category so there's obviusly some nervous and squirrely riding going on. As the first real lap kicked in the speed was fairly mellow in the low 20s. Into the frist set of turns some yo yo clipped his pedal into one of the corners. Not sure if it was the same guy, but I heard the pedal clipping again, and again and again. You think he would have learned maybe the first or second tome to not pedal thought that sharp corner? There was some bumping and sudden braking, someone skidded up on my rear wheel, and I had to do a couple of quick evasive maneuvers throughout the race. The group would always seem to come back together on the straight sections, then get broken up in the corners. The key was to stay as close to the front as possible so after the corners you didn't have to do too much work to get back to the front. I was hanging in there pretty comfortably and in the final lap somehow drifted back to about mid pack going into the corners. Someone went down on my left (perhaps the guy who kept clipping his pedals), then someone plowed into him and went over the bars. I saw it out the corner of my eye so it freaked my out a bit. When I looked ahead I had lost about 10 bike lengths to the main pack. So I cranked it up and gave it everything I had. I finally caught on to the tail end of the main group passing a few on the run into the line and finished 22nd out of 50. I think I would have finished a bit higher were it not for that crash. I'm just stoked to have finished the race this year as last year I got dropped and pulled off the course with about 2 laps to go.

This was the best photo I could find of myself in the race. Thanks to rodneycox68 on Flickr! That's me in the blue, orange and white Rio Strada kit.