Holy Moly, Friday Night Racing at Marymoor!

picture from Wheels In Focus -
that's me in last week's successful solo break in the Win N Out

Here's what I sent out to the team:
That was one hell of a night! Despite fairly low turnout, and frigid temps, we still had a sufficient field of 21 in the 3's, and the 1,2's field looked like around a dozen. Even the women's field had about 10 riders, and would have had more, but a couple raced in the men's 3's instead.

The first race for the Cat 3's was a 10 lap scratch, that was somewhat uneventful, but Jason managed to get 2nd and I got 5th. John took home a swank $30 prime and almost held his solo break to the finish, only to get caught in the homestretch. So far, John has netted better results in the 3s than in many of his 4's races, so John, I guess you just needed to upgrade!

The 1,2's also had a scratch race. I recall seeing Chris do well, but maybe he can remind us of his placing.

Next up for the 1,2's and the 3's was the Keirin. There were three heats for the 3's. Mark was the lone tomato in the first heat, and got a bit stuck out in the wind, but still managed to get 3rd and make it to the consolation round. Second heat had Jason and John, and this time it was John who was stuck up in the wind, but he soldiered on, and it sounds like it helped Jason get a good launch so that he made it to the finals. Third heat was me and Jerry. Jerry was the poor soul in the wind, with me on his wheel. Luckily, I knew Jerry can impersonate a motorcycle pretty easily, and he paced the two of us up until the bike pulled off. The riders behind surged forward around us, and I caught on, making it into the consolation final.

Chris had a solid Keirin heat, taking third, and so onto consolation for him as well.

Speaking of consolation round, Mark and I were a nice team of two, and when Mark accelerated shortly after the motor pulled off, I grabbed his wheel and rode it to the finish, where we took 7th and 8th overall. Our finish, thanks to Mark's sweet jump, put us over two bike lengths ahead of any chasers.

Jason managed a nice 2nd in the Keirin finals, putting him in good stead for the omnium so far.

I didn't catch Chris's consolation finish position, but I'm sure it was awesome, since I gave him a strong throw. Or maybe it was my throw that put him high on the track, looking for a wheel to grab :-)

Last races of the night were 6x5 for 3's and 8x5 for 1,2's. I asked J-dub if he'd like to try and lap the field, and he was game, so our plan was to attack right after the first sprint. Conveniently, Mark went on a flier and took the first sprint for 5 points, and then it was our turn. We were kinda hoping someone would join us, but when we attacked, it ended up just the two of us. We traded one lap pulls, with Jason getting the 5 points, me 3 points, and at this point we had about 100 m gap. Jason was doing a fine job ripping my legs off, and at least to me it became clear he might be better off solo and I could go back and block. So, on the lap before the 3rd points sprint, I told him to keep rolling it and slowly fell back. I still had enough gap to get the 3 points, so now we had Jason with 10, me with 6, Mark with 5. Bilko was going on and on about how awesome we Cucina Fresca riders are! I went to the back for a couple of laps, and then went back to the front to relieve Jerry who was doing some great blocking. The field let me sit up there for 3.5 laps before the next sprint (at one point I was "pulling" at 19.5 mph - fools!). I didn't have anything left for much of a sprint, but luckily Mark was still firing and got some more points. Jason was continuing to make solid progress and Bilko began to talk about him lapping the field! I was hoping it would happen, but at this point it was not necessary since he had the race sewn up on points. Still, Bilko talks about $50 for a rider who laps the field, so it's worth trying, for sure. The most active non-CF rider was Jen Triplett, so I was trying to watch for her to steal a few more points and help ensure Mark's 2nd place. He didn't need me though... On the 2nd to last lap, where Jason was so close that they rung the bell for him while we were passing the start/finish, the pace heated up a bit. I waited until turn 4 and then attempted to take off solo, but there was nothing doing. I was passed by about 5 riders just before the finish. But, in the end, Jason easily won (and got in a fine interval workout), Mark got 2nd, and I got 5th.

Final race of the night was a joy to watch. Chris was firing on all cylinders, and managed to score points in several sprints, as well as being part of the key breakaway. We sure love watching Chris try and out sprint Kenny! He was up there flying until the very last lap, when the elastic broke, but I'm sure he knows that was one of his best races at the track this season.

I only know the final omnium for the 3's down to 6th - Jason topped the list, Mark got 3rd, and I got 6th (amazing that two 5th places got me 6th for the night). Jason probably can eek out one more night in the 3's before he'll be obligated to upgrade. Mark is also darn close to the magic 25 points. I'm sure Chris will appreciate their presence next year.

Final note - there's a Madison clinic next Thursday. It costs $40, and will be taught by the very experienced Adrian Hegyvary. I signed up, as did Jerry. However, upon discussion with Kenny, there will be an alternative (and free) Madison clinic Tuesday night that Jason, Chris (maybe) and I will attend. I may then skip out on the Thursday class to save the legs for Friday night racing. Jerry and John, I hope you can make it to one of those nights. Next year they plan to have Madison nights for the 3's as well as the 1,2's, so we gotta learn sometime.

That's all for tonight. See some of you on Monday for the cross season opener!

Also from Wheels In Focus - Here's Emy from last week
in her Pee Wee Pedalers Graduation race.

How do I pass these kids? They are all over the place!

Friday Night Racing! Emy's Graduation!

Friday was a good night, and my first racing after a forced rest week off. Emy had her Pee Wee Pedalers graduation. She looked awesome, but was not happy with her not winning - of course, the reason she didn't win was due to safety - she was unwilling to try and pass riders in front of her who were weaving all over the place. I tried to stress to her that it is better to ride safe, than to try and win and have a bad crash. I don't know if it helped. But, as is wonderful with kids, she's over it now! And, she's planning on being on team Vanderkitten, just like Tela Crane, the instructor for the youth classes at Marymoor.

Here's what I sent out to the team about the racing:

It's so nice to have grown our team as much as we have this season. Even though the Cat 3's were split (something like 32-33 Cat 3's showed up, some of whom were the stronger women and a contingent from Canada), we still had two Cucina 3's in the A group (Niels and Jason) and four in the B group (freshly-minted John, recently minted-Jerry, Mark and me). Poor Jason and Niels had the sandbagging Ryan Miller in their group, and ours was pretty much a mixed bag. Chris Hill was representing the elite Cucina's, as usual.

First race for the 3's was a 12-lap Win n' Out, which is usually run with the 1st place winner taking the 9th lap, 2nd on the 10th, etc, until the 4th-whatever on the last lap. However, tonight they went crazy and made the 4th place finisher the winner of the 3rd lap, 3rd place on the 6th lap, etc. to 1st place on the 12th lap, with the 2nd place rider on the 12th lap being 5th place and down. It was confusing the first time they explained it, but I guess it works. It was weird to strategize, as one could simply be content to get 4th and go for it on the 3rd lap. Jerry and I both agreed that we weren't interested in 4th, but maybe 3rd would be OK? We would see...

In the A group, J-dub did a fine job biding his time, but a little too long, in the end, as Ryan Miller took the 1st place win. In the B group, with the advantage of numbers, when John chased the 4th place attack, he ended up out in front, and Jerry and I (mostly Jerry) managed to do some solid blocking to keep John out there long enough to score 3rd in his first race in the Cat 3's! Big bonus - he takes home cash for the first time this season, right John? Jerry and I were both being patient - Mark had an unfortunate mechanical with his new Pista Concept (go Celeste!) and was not in the race. When there was a sprint attack for the 2nd place lap, and the attackers sat up about 4-5 bike lengths off the front, I made the split decision to go long for the win. I did my best not to overcook the jump, knowing there were still 2.5 laps to go, and luckily managed a decent kilo to take the win.

Chris's 1,2's group had a 12 lap tempo that was just insanely fast. It splintered all over the place, and he looked plenty knackered at the finish. It reminded me how glad I am not to be a 2 yet :-)

Next race for the 3's was a Miss n' Out, which is one of my favorite events, Niels's too. Jason had some revenge to take after having been pulled prematurely a week ago. In the A's, both of our speedy Cucinas made the final 5, with Jason taking the win (whew!) and Niels hot on his wheel. It was pretty sweet to watch the two of them flying past a similar duo down in the sprinter's lane. Of note in their group was that Ryan Miller was the first rider pulled, meaning J-dub was looking darn good for omnium.

In the B group, Mark was the first to feel the yank, getting stuck a bit down low. Earlier, he had attacked on the first lap, which made the overall pace of the miss n out the fastest I've been in. Jerry was riding well up near the front, and I was riding stupid near the back. Every lap I had to surge to the front, not get pulled, and then was too tired to commit to making it all the way to the front, so I would return to the back and repeat. My wife was losing her mind watching me do this stunt over and over! Jerry was out with about 8 riders left, and John made it to the final 6 before getting pulled. Somehow my surging kept me alive to the final five, but I knew I was not going to have a sprint. I was pretty happy to manage 4th (and lucky, given my foolish positioning during the race). I can still hear voices from the infield yelling "over the top, Ted, over the top!"

So, in my group, I was now barely in 1st for omnium, as was Jason.

Chris had a Miss n Out as well, and made it to about halfway through the group, give or take, which seemed pretty decent from where I was sitting. I think he said it was crazy fast.

Last race for the 3's was a 30-lap scratch race. Short story for the A's was that Jason took it cleanly, with a hella sprint at the end. I believe he won the A's omnium with no trouble, and I think Niels said he was 5th in the omnium.

B group 30-lap scratch was pretty laid back, actually, at least for the first 10 laps or so. I had promised myself I would wait for the end, since chasing the omnium seemed like the best strategy, rather than trying for a breakaway that might or might not work. But, I broke my promise, as usual, on about 17 laps to go and got in a break with a women from Canada and Nick Brown. The two of them would pull at 25 mph, and I would pull at 28.5 mph, and so I knew it just wasn't going to work. We were caught, so i resigned myself to trying to wait. With about 5 to go, I was near Mark and politely asked him if he would go with 2 laps to go, knowing if I could hold his wheel it would be a stellar lead out. Unfortunately, as he pulled us both up toward the front with 3 to go, he moved left in front of the 2nd line of riders, forgetting I was on his wheel, and leaving me in the wind. I tried to hang out, hoping things would work out anyway, but there was a surge from up track, and when I tried to move forward and attack as well (which concidentally would have put me back on Mark's wheel), a Canadian lad thought the 20 cm in front of my wheel was actually a bike length and nearly took me out. I yelled profusely, which made him move up track, only to try it again. Since this forced me to slow down, I was suddenly behind the surge, and totally out of position right as the bell was ringing. I tried to find space, but there was none, and while I started moving up the outside in turn four I was still screwed. Oh well - at least I don't have any new road rash. Mark did manage to place 5th in the final sprint, so it wasn't a complete loss for the Cucinas in Group B. I think Jerry was inside the top 10.

Last race of the night was a 50-lap scratch for the 1,2's. Chris initally was looking in trouble after getting blown trying to chase a solo move by Jamie Stangland, but then later got in a sweet break that was convincingly chasing a break with Kenny, Grant, and Stangland. Unfortunately, his break companions did not seem as motivated as he was, and later he pulled himself, possibly more out of frustration than tiredness (only Chris can tell us for sure).

So, Cucina did well. No idea what my final omnium placing was, but probably 4th or 5th, so hopefully with that plus Jason & Niels, we still boost ourselves over, or at least closer to Broadmark in the team's ranking. Jason has to be careful - he enjoyed winning $50 for the final race, plus his $20 for the 2nd race - don't want to become a Cat 2 too quickly :-) But then, I hear it is a trend for him to move from Cat 5 to Cat 2 in a season...

Until next week. See some of you at Wednesday's Sprint Mania! Oh also, sounds like there will be a Madison clinic on the 4th (Thursday). Mark and I are in, Jason sounds interested, and hopefully Chris too. They are going to have at least one more madison night for the 1,2's this season, and next year there should be several for the 3's, if we can get enough skilled riders.

Updated the Results List and added Cross Races

My results are up to date now at the right...

I've got twelve cross races planned on the schedule. Should be fun!

Cross Fun, July Totals, Recent Cat 3 Track Racing

Cross Fun
I love my cross bike. I'm really pleased with the Redline Conquest Pro, and it took about 10 seconds to get used to SRAM Rival shifting (double-tap) via a single shift lever on each brake lever versus Shimano's two per side. I like it better already, and I presume I will change over the road bike during the offseason (the road bike's parts are nearing their end of life anyway).

My first cross ride was with a team mate I didn't previously know, but Brad raced cross last year, so he's more expert than I! We did a nice 1.5 hour trail ride, and practiced a few dismounts (he showed me the step-through dismount, which was way easier than I thought it would be), remounts (I'm still slow) and hopped over a contruction pipe a few times for practice. I was definitely loving riding on dirt again after about 7 years away from trail riding of any kind.

Thursday some of my team mates are running a cross practice workout. I hope to start refining my technique and practice the step behind dismount a bit more, as well as carrying the bike properly.

The first cross race of the season is Labor Day. I'll update the race listings and results on the right side of the blog soon.

July Totals
My crash earlier in the month derailed my training and racing a bit this month, but it all ended up with reasonable numbers. I didn't manage to get in the 40 km test for July, so I'll have to make sure I get one in soon for August.

Bike
Distance: 548.9 miles
Time: 30:17:00
Longest Ride: 48.4 miles, 2:55:00 (Zoo Hill repeats)

Run
Time: 1:01:00
Distance: 8 miles

Going to be stepping up the running now that 'cross season is imminent. Today I did a trail run with 8 hill sprints. It was hard, but felt good.

Recent Cat 3 Track Racing
I'm finally scoring some points and placing regularly. It's good to feel like I am progressing toward cat 2, probably not this season, but hopefully early next year.

On Aug 1st, I won the first race, a points race, by winning the 3 points on the last lap, tying with my team mate Travis on points, but since I finished higher on the last lap I get 1st and he gets 2nd. In the second race, which was a scratch race, I got off in a break of four total, three sprinters, and me. I accidentally dropped them by pulling too hard, and eventually slowed up until they caught me, since I wasn't planning on going solo for the remaining 7 laps. Once we were together, my team mate Travis, whco was having a great night, attacked the pack and bridged across to our break, nearly a full half-lap ahead of the pack. When I saw him getting close, I dropped off the back a couple fo bike lengths and pulled him to the group. This also conveniently placed him on my wheel, which was perfect since he's a great sprinter. In fact, it worked like a charm since I was on the front for the last lap, and led him out where he took a convincing sprint win. And, since I stayed in contact with the break, I got 5th. The last race was a 6x5 progressive points race, which means there is a sprint every 5 laps, and the points you get for winning the lap increase and go deeper in placing. The first lap is just worth 1 point to the winner, but the last lap is worth 9 points to the winner and goes 9-7-5-4-3-2-1 points with finishing order. Early on in the race, Travis joined "the break" which not only stayed away, but they lapped the field. This hardly ever happens at Marymoor since our track is 400 meters long, but is more common on 250 meter and 200 meter tracks. Anyway, each of the four members of the break get an extra 20 points for lapping the field, which was helped along by some great blocking by my team mate Niels and some from me. Our job was slowing the pack when we could, by getting to the front and riding easy, then hopping on the wheel of anyone who tries to attack. They give up when they realize we aren't going to help, and after a while, lapping the field was a foregone conclusion. What's great is that once they lap the field, the sprints are re-set, which means there was one sprint left, the last one, and the winner would get 9 points. A few riders attacked (many were getting tired, since 30 laps is long for a cat 3 track race), and I sat on, then sprinted around the last leading rider (a cat 1 woman who is super strong) to get the 9 points. This put me in 5th place, beind the breakaway riders. And, it means I got 3rd for the night. Plus, I finally won some $.

On August 8th, we just had Niels and me in he Cat 3's for my team, and we had some many cat 3's that they split us into two groups! Naturally, we were in different groups, which means no team work. I managed to get 2nd in the first race, a 12 lap snowball, by taking the 8 and 10 point laps, again winning some $! The next race was a keirin heat of 7 riders - this is the race where we are paced up to speed for 4.5 laps by drafting a motorcycle, reaching 30 mph before the motor pulls off. Then, it's 1.5 laps to the finish. Our group slowed up in turn 4, and so I attacked with everything I had. I didn't win the heat, but since I finished 3rd, it meant I would be in the finals! My best keirin result this season. The next race was a 20 lap scratch rac, and though I tried four times to get a break to work, even with two laps to go, it all came to naught, and I got something like 8th place. In retrospect, since I had done well in the first two races, I probably should have played it conservative, but I was feeling spunky. Oh well. Then we finally got to the keirin final. It was pretty stacked by the Broadmark team, since they had three of their top three cat 3 sprinters in it, and they all drew positions 1-2-3 behind the bike, which made things even easier for them, and harder for people to get around. In the end, I managed to get 6th out of 7, and was feeling pretty beat, but hey, it was a decent result, and put me in 5th overall for the night.

I am now over 1/4 of the way to having enough points to upgrade to Cat 2. And two of the stronger riders in the cat 3's who have been beating me just upgraded, which should make things a little easier. Even better, three more Cucina Fresca riders just upgraded - Jason, Jerry and John. Hmm, I guess there's something to a name starting with J!

Tomorrow night Bree makes her big debut in the Wednesday night women's field. I'll try to get some pictures. I'm taking this week off so I can get in some sort of mental and physical break before the next 3 month of cyclocross racing.