Positive Spin

It's a difficult thing to try to find the upside to things, to put a positive spin on all that happens in life and it's even harder when you decide to take up the sport of bike racing, which is so much more unfair than life.  Maybe that's a good thing (ah ha, the concept arises straight away!)...maybe the fact that you have to deal with the unfair nature of bike racing helps you to better deal with the unfair nature of life.

Like the young, innocent Dave Stoller in "the" cycling film Breaking Away, competitive cyclists learn early on that "everyone cheats."  OK,  lots of folks are generally honest, play by the rules and confine their cheating to simple things that are acceptable in our culture, like exceeding the posted speed limit while driving their cars, not correcting a small error made by a clerk or a computer that gives them a small discount on something.  But in business and in competition, there are many who cut corners and break the rules (whether written or unwritten) on a regular basis. Whether it's pros who dope (in virtually all sports)  to gain advantage or amateurs who sit out a lap but accept a place in the results anyway.  In such cases, the only positive spin you can find is to know that you raced honestly, that you didn't feel any need to cheat.

The unfairness of the sport is simpler than that.  Crashes are part of our sport.  You try to avoid being involved or causing any, but they happen.  So your race can be over because of someone else's f-up. Perhaps the most unfair aspect of this is in our criterium rules - which allow persons who get tangled up in a crash to rejoin the race with no penalty.  But if you manage to avoid hitting the pavement or landing on top of another rider and are simply delayed by a crash, you are left to attempt to catch those who were ahead of the crash or suffer off the back for the rest of the race.  And in the true spirit of competition, those ahead of the crash will often speed up when they hear the clatter of bikes behind them.  What could be more unfair?

So you accept that the sport is unfair and move on because there's an upside to it, a positive spin:  You love to go fast on your bicycle.  You love the challenge of competition.  You love bicycle racing.

The Hop

This is actually going to be a timely race report.  Yesterday was the race formerly known as the Bunny Hop.  They went cutesy and flipped it to the Hunny Bop, but it just doesn't sound right, so "The Hop" is my take on it.  It's only about 5 miles from my house so I actually get to ride to the race.

Hot and humid and generally nasty is how to best describe the weather.  Unlike Saturday, where the humidity was a little lower, Sunday brought a hazy blue-grey sky.  Oh well, what do you expect in mid-July here in the swampland??  I'd gone ahead and registered for two fields, even before I knew for sure that I wouldn't have to set aside my racing to fill in as Chief Judge.  Happily Caitlyn stepped up to do that, so I got to race.

Lisa took care of all the support stuff - number pinning, setting up the canopy, etc.  I seldom bother with the canopy when I don't have her along as support... too much hassle for too little return.

First up was the women's 40+.  There was an immediate crisis in that somehow the BikeReg page information got entered wrong and there was a 30-minute discrepancy in the start time for the race.  In the end the officials were nice enough to recognize that most of us don't download the official flyer, we rely on the data entered into BikeReg and honored the later start time.  That gave us 30 minutes of warm up on the course.  I couldn't tell how I was going to feel in the race.  The warm up felt crappy - which is how it's supposed to feel...get all that crappy feeling out before the race.  I decided to race the Cane Creeks, though I'm still not totally happy with the behavior of the front wheel so far as airing it up goes, it seemed to air up pretty well.  They're great wheels and it's good to use them for more than TTs.

I raced hard in this race.  I wasn't worried about saving anything for the next race.  I did my best to help chase down early break attempts, throw a scare or two into the field, and, of course, recover in between.  It was a fairly fast race.  Cat and CK were racing as well, but we didn't have any sort of team strategy planned.  Cat took 2nd in a 2-place prime.  CK finally got away in a small break between the leaders and the field.  I moved up to the front to disrupt the chase at that point.  Cheryl Osborne did her best to be helpful by calling out to me as I made the move up the outside of the field that I had a teammate in the break.  I knew that, but nice of her to let me know in case I hadn't known. Sometimes you can miss important stuff like that and inadvertently chase down a teammate.  CW was doing most of the chasing so I did my best to discourage that activity.   Once the message got across, I eased up a bit.  No one bothered to take over or chase any more.  Gabanski decided to attack into the first turn on the bell lap.  Well, I couldn't let that go - a matter of personal pride - so I dragged the field around the backside to catch her going into the final turn.  It cost me a place or two in the field sprint, but it was worth it to turn up the tempo one last time.  I'm fine with having finished 9th, and really happy that CK took 4th.

There were some squirrels in that field though.  One woman, wearing BBC colors, didn't even know enough to have her inside pedal up when taking a turn.  So I had to teach her that before she crashed herself (and maybe others) out of the race.  Dana needs to learn how to hold her line....she was all over the place.  In Linh's case I think she's just too small to be able to have good control over the bike.  

I could go cliche here and suggest that they both need stronger cores, but "core" has gotten to be sooo annoyingly cliche...suddenly a "stronger core" the answer to every athlete's woes.  Ain't no doubt, you need a strong core to race a bike well because the core is how you isolate the leg power and translate it fully....upper body motion is wasted energy.  But I'll argue that you need some arm strength too - we're not talking bodybuilding here, just enough arm strength to control the front end and to bunny hop a bottle or other hazard as need be.  So do your crunches and get some dumbells and do some bicep and tricep work.

Post-race, I didn't waste any time getting back to the car and sitting down in the shade.  I downed a bottle of water right away, then started trying to dry off a bit while I took in my recovery bottle (Recoverite with Endure added in).  In the shade with the breeze, it was halfway nice.  Lisa's car took some bumps and bruises though as the canopy had gotten blown into it during the race.  She'd set up the trainer, but I never did use it.  I had the on course warm up (plus the ride over) to prep for the first race and I was thinking that for the 2nd race,  rest and recovery were paramount.  Not like my muscles were going to get physically cold in 95+ degree air.

I had thought the second race was a Women's 1/2/3...but it turned out to be a 1/2/3/4 with the 3s racing for a separate prize list.  I wasn't thrilled about racing with 4s.  And of course the younger racers would have fresh legs so it would undoubtedly be a challenging race experience.  What the hell... I could always pull out if it seemed too sketchy.  I had no clue how I would feel.  Two warm up laps and let's get it on.  I hung on for dear life for two thirds of the race.  I had enough to hang on but nothing more.  Not sure what happened with Eva, it seemed as if she got curbed by Marni - that is, it looked like they'd both ended up going really wide on the second turn and Eva just ended up hitting the curb and getting dumped into the grass.  Didn't look serious but I told Matt there was a rider down when I went through start/finish.  A lap or two latter, Marni & Jen Maxwell almost took each other out.  And then there was some movement farther up in the field - sideways movement that almost took some folks out.  I think it was a combination of heat and fatigue causing these near misses rather than aggressive racing.  I popped when there was a surge for a prime lap.  Matt gave me a couple of laps to try to chase back on then said I was done with my "noble effort" as he called it.  I was ready to be done, I had nothing left.   I wasn't the first to get pulled, and I know several folks simply abandoned the race long before the pulling started.  End result - 22nd overall, 9th among the Cat 3s.  The race was a little more than 1mph faster than the 40+ race had been.  And the average temp was 101!

Overall it was a good race day....not a bad way to finish up with crit racing for the season as there are no more crits in MABRA and I think I'll go do the TT in VA on Sunday instead of driving to PA to do crits.  The TT will be better relative to Church Creek.

Decided to add some extra fun to Church Creek by hooking up with Tania and Amy to create a 3-woman team for the TTT competition.  And then, if I'm feeling really crazy, I'll drive down the Chesapeake for the final PLT TT.  Be a hard weekend but also the last of my racing until Turkey Day so what the hell?

End of the Week

Still rambling because it's been one of those weeks.... work has gotten to be very annoying. But I'm not going to spend a lot of time bitching about it, won't change anything.  Let's just say that it's time for my boss to retire....she's never been totally connected to the real world and the disconnect is getting greater with each passing year.  And she's showing signs of aging illness - she doesn't remember stuff and that means she has a tendency to be annoying to someone like me, who has a really good memory - I don't need her to nag me about stuff, I know my job, I know what needs to get done when.  She's always been a micromanager but its getting worse and worse.  I've tried to get it through to her that the constant "have you done this, what about that" conveys a sense of distrust but she has no self discipline, no ability to stop herself from doing it.  'nuff said.

Trained at Hains Point Tuesday.  That was fun.  Liked the efforts and Chicken and Goat were good for my mental state as they both reminded me that I'm plenty strong enough to stick in any race.  Goat kept raving about what a steady wheel I am.  They sat on my wheel for a couple of my efforts.  Goat sprinted at the endof one,  professing that she couldn't waste a lead out like that.  I cited old school... It was a Giovanni Lombardi effort on my part.

Officiated Greenbelt on Wednesday.  The C race was the biggest they've ever had with 39 starters.  The B and A races where challenging in that once the A race passed the B race, they didn't open up much of a gap.  In the end we had to prime them a couple of times in a row just to open enough space for the Bs to have a finish sprint that wouldn't run them into the back of the As.  Never could prime the Bs because of their proximity to the As.  Like having Sarnacki as my 2nd official there - he's a nice guy and relaxed about it all, which is as it should be at Greenbelt.

Thursday it was back to post-work training.  An unexpected rain storm delayed that ... I spent more than 30 minutes sitting in the car waiting for it to clear up.  Met a guy named Rick from NCVC who had flatted on his way over from Arlington, eventually gave him my spare tube as his patch didn't seem to be holding.  The efforts didn't work out quite as planned but I got some good work in.  Then I caught up with Diane who was doing essentially big gear spinups.  So I did a couple of those with her.  First one I did on 53x13 and second I did 53x12.  It was fun.

Bunny Hop should be fun on Sunday.  I haven't raced it in a couple of years because Mahler in Philadelphia takes priority.  But this year no conflicts so I'll race twice and see if I can manage to have at least one decent race.  Still debating about the long drive and expense (hotel!) of PLT #2...maybe, we'll see...probably would be good for me to do it as it's a couple weeks before Church Creek and if I don't it will have been over a month since I've done a competitive TT.  

I want to cast around and see if I can find 2 women who are somewhat close to me in power and TTing skill to team up and do the 3 person team time trial at Church Creek.  I think it would be fun to do.  Of course I'll be tired from doing the ITT but so what...it'll only be 1/3 of the work for the ITT, right?

Ramblings

Mid-summer, mid-race season, whatever you want to call it... strange time of the year in a lot of ways.

Things are quiet at work, which is good.  Gives me a chance to catch up on some things and also the chance to maybe get ahead on a few things for the fall.

My boss has this odd concept that getting emails from people who have already bought tickets will sell more tickets... I don't agree, it's another case of preaching to the choir.  What we need to do is get new people in the door.  Once you have them, it's a different ballgame.  Sure, emailing folks about concerts won't be a bad thing, but mostly it'll just be a reminder to them to do something they had planned on doing anyway.  People who like the Christmas concert or the jazz concert are not going to suddenly turn in to string quartet fans, so emailing them isn't going to do anything in that regard.  But she doesn't seem to have a good sense of how people look at things...she's stuck in her own little world that isn't totally connected to reality.  But enough about work....

I wasn't going to race last weekend.  I was still feeling fried both mentally and physically from Nationals... but eventually I decided why not.  I got to the race way early...early enough to see Brandon win the Cat 3 race. After the kids races, I jumped on the course and did about 20 minutes of warm up. I wasn't feeling the race and my legs were not happy. It would pass, I told myself.

A lot of the 1/2 team showed up, so my initial plan of more BAR points by racing the smaller field went out the window. Hell, Sarah Caravella showed up. I knew it would be fast, so I made sure I got some efforts in my warm up, but still the legs felt like sand. And it was friggin hot! Seems strange not to be acclimated to the heat by mid-July but it's been cool. Only one race weekend in June was hot. Even in Kentucky the weather was relatively cooperative to my physiology. Gotta get used to the heat so I'm ready for Church Creek in a month.

So they cranked up the speed and I got shelled... didn't take long. And I debated about continuing, but I hoped that maybe when I got lapped I could jump back on. I fought my way forward, passing others who'd gotten shelled after me until I got up to Eva. The two of us worked together until she flatted. Then I was on my own. Later Eva & I hooked up again, a team mate gave her a wheel to swap out for the flatted one.

I definitely wasn't feeling great, but had a few good laps. I went into TT mode in the finish line stretch against the wind. Most frustrating when I was turning 25 into the wind on my own but couldn't close on the field when they were in sight.  Then again I had turned faster than that on Thursday into the wind at HP...maybe I shouldn't have put out such efforts on Thursday....

I stopped sweating on 6 to go, but rationalized continuing because I figured I'd not actually do 6 laps..they'd catch me again. Hefler was driving the tempo with a little gap off the front. But it's not a course for a solo break. A break with 4-6 might work but not solo. Turn 2 was such that if I'd had any doubts about my ability to take it, I'd have withdrawn from the race. But as long as I felt in control, I continued....and at 6 to go, not even 6 miles...not a problem to finish.

Cheryl had a damn good race but popped at 3 to go, so she and Eva and I continued together. We collected up Sheila as well for the bell lap. We urged Eva to cross the line first. I had opted to race 1/2/3 rather than 3 so it didn't matter to me. Only Tracy and I had the guts to register for the 1/2/3...all the other 3s did the 3. I figured it didn't really matter. Of course I could have picked up some BAR points if I'd done the 3. But what the hell, I don't actually care about BAR points or any of that stuff. I just want to go out and race to the best of my ability on any given day.  And on Saturday, that wasn't very good.  I was officially last in the 1/2/3 field, but not last in the full order of finish.  When we picked up Sheila, we were all lapping her.  But I could have been 10th among the 3s instead of 17th in the 1/2/3.

Now the Road Race for this coming Saturday has been canceled.  I was sort of looking forward to it just to get a break from racing with the 1s & 2s, even though I don't like road races.  I've offered to help officiate on a new date in September rather than race it.

I'm hoping the guys doing the TT down in Richmond on Saturday can swing 2 start times for me to make it worth the long drive - it's only a 24km tt.  Otherwise, maybe it's time to go ride on Skyline Drive.  Probably not the best thing the day before the race formerly known as the bunny hop, but maybe it would be a good thing relative to Church Creek.

Nationals Crit

Last race of the week. On the roads in the infield of Churchill Downs. Interesting location...sort of cool, but at the same time not. You can't even see the roads we were racing on from the "real" race course. But a nice closed course, wide roads and easy turns made for a tactical course rather than a technical one. Of course, with 9 of us and only 1 team with 2 members in the field, tactics weren't quite the order of the day either.

When we arrived at the parking area, things were a bit confusing but we sorted it all out. The bad part was getting there just as they were taking someone from the 35-39 field out by ambulance....never the sort of thing you want to see at a race. Rode to the infield to check out the situation and found Robin, Leslie J & Wendy. Leslie J had gotten taken down at the finish by the women sent off to hospital. Leslie was banged up with ice on hip, hand, elbow and a bloody nose. Bike not so good - busted zipp 404, busted front brake (caliper was no longer attached to the head tube), busted saddle, and given the situation with the brake, a suspect fork.... Hard to enjoy the silver medal after that.

We had nine signed up for ours. Small fields can be problematic. Generally you don't have to sweat safety as much, but they can be hard. We did 40 laps, even though the original info said we were to do 39. What's one more lap?

Michelle Scharf, Peachtree Bikes out of Atlanta, went practically from the whistle, getting a gap right away. After a couple of laps, I decided I'd try for the solo bridge. No trouble getting a gap on the field but I just couldn't get enough out of my legs to get up to her, so I sat up. I knew I'd pay for that early effort, even with a warm up, my body tends to prefer such efforts much later in the race. I was racing with some fools though, they responded when Tracy Tolson looked around and said "who's going to chase that down?" by chasing after Michelle. My answer would have been: "You want to keep the stars-and-stripes jersey, you go get it."

Michelle got reeled in and the race went on relatively quietly for a bit. Then Tracy, who'd spent no energy thus far, made her move with Tamara Bessette joining in. I was still recovering at the back of the field and the responding surge left me behind the chase. I didn't panic. I rode hard and waited to see what developed.

Ended up with a mostly useless rider on my wheel, she tried to help but every time she went to the front the pace dropped off a good bit. I only did it when I was really feeling the need to catch a little recovery. I could hear the commentary and knew that soon Tracy and Tamara would be coming up on us...it definitely sounded like they would eventually lap the entire field so I made my plan to get back to where I belonged....with the primary field.

The moto came around us and I got ready. T & T came along, warning which side they were passing on and I jumped on quickly. No problem sticking with them. I told them that I would work if they wanted me to, otherwise, I'd just stay out of their way. No response. I think that they couldn't believe that I was able to stay with them. Guess they've never had their race legs arrive a few laps into the race before....

My plan worked and we arrived at the primary field. Now I at least had a fair chance at a bronze medal. The catch was made coming into the finishing stretch and we hadn't even made it to turn one when suddenly disaster struck. I saw a bike a couple in front of me waver...no reason why that I could see. That bike caught Tamara's front wheel...down she went. I was on her wheel, but moved right, swerving around her while the rider who'd been to my left (Webcor) slammed into her and went down.

Tracy had been ahead of the crash so she took advantage of the situation, gapping the rest of us again. I tried to get to her, but just didn't have enough, neither did Michelle. The two of us worked hard anyway, trying to close the gap. The officials botched it when they returned the crashed riders to the field, returning them to Tracy's wheel instead of the back of the main group.

Personally no issue with Tamara being put in up with Tracy, she had the silver medal at least but deserved a shot at the gold. But no one else should have gotten that. And to be precise about it, neither should have Tamara, but like I said, I got no issue with that.

By the time it all shook out, some Wells Fargo woman ended up between T & T and me & Michelle. Don't know how that happened as so far as I know she was in the group T, T & I caught before the crash and she certainly didn't bridge up to Tracy, she'd have had to come around me & Michelle and I know we wouldn't have missed that happening. Maybe she got tangled up in the crash and got put back in with Tamara and the woman from Webcor.

So in the end Michelle and I were working hard for the other two medals. I botched the finish, responding a hair too late when Michelle jumped going into the final pair of turns (almost a single 180 but not quite). I came damn close to closing the gap but couldn't quite catch her before we got to the line. Close enough to be assigned the same time. :-)

The officials said that our race was the fastest of the day. We had a dry course, which was not true for the earlier races (some of whom raced in the rain) but got a lot of Kentucky wind in our race. Somehow I didn't expect it to be windy here, but it sure is.

Nationals RR

After the TT, we ate at the buffet at the host casino, Ceasar's Horseshoe. Decent buffet for a decent price. By the time we're done, Kay & Jeff are just packing up the tandem. They've managed to repeat their bronze medal...beating those who beat them last year but new competition snuck in ahead of them. Still a good job!

After chilling for a bit, we drive over to check out the road race course. It doesn't look good for me at all. The car is down-shifting on the hills....bad sign for a non-climber whose just buried herself in a TT. Oh well, do it anyway. The park is beautiful and the course is in decent condition for the most part.

Get there with lots of time but can't get focused. Don't want to get on the trainer. Walk over to Wendy who should be on the course but isn't. She decided to be a DNF instead of DFL. The opposite mentality of mine. I can't bring myself to quit, no matter how badly I'm doing. She can't stay in if she's not in contention. So we know ourselves and act accordingly.

Eventually I roll around some, but not a lot. I ride to the start line when there aren't any racers coming through and wait around to see how it goes. Leslie Jennings finishes 2nd in her race. They send the 40-44s off and call us to the line. Then have us stand around for 7 minutes while they get confused about whether or not we're all on the line. Tracy (Huber) Tolson shows up with fresh legs. We look at each other and know who is going to win the race.

I make it through the first lap without getting totally kicked, but that's about it. The climbs are for climbers, not for sprinters...and my legs are too damn tired to push the big ring up them to keep up. Oh well. Maybe fresh legged I would have done better. Still I finish, riding with two other women who both ride away from me on the climbs on the final lap. Such is life. No surprise Tracy did indeed win it.

Hopefully the crit will be good.... but I'm finishing this up on crit morning and it's raining. Rained a lot overnight but the radar picture looks to be clearing so should be done raining and well into drying up by my 12:15 race.

Nationals TT

Ok, so this is a few days late, but hey, it's been a busy week already. The drive out to Louisville was nice. A peaceful umpteen hours mostly on cruise control through the hills of Western Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to get to River City (aka Louisville). Only downcheck for the drive was dinner. Visited a regional chain called O'Charley's cause it's something we don't have back home and it was handy off the Interstate and it was getting late. Probably would have been good except the food arrived at the table room temperature. I ordered a baked pasta dish and got a plate of tossed pasta that was room temperature with a handful (literally) of still warm shrimp. No baked pasta at all... and I had ordered it in part because I thought that a baked pasta would have to arrive hot by the nature of its preparation. Someone needs to learn how to cook what's on the menu there....which reminds me, I think I should visit their website and log a complaint. The manager didn't charge us for anything but the appetizer, which had been served hot and was quite tasty.

On Sunday, we took at easy, no rush to get out the door. I checked in with Jeff and Kay. They were headed over at about 9am. I was looking at more like an 11 am time frame. Ended up pre-riding the course with Wendy and Robin. Nice course. Windy out there though. In fact it's been windy every day here. After the pre-ride, we head in to town to do the packet pick up thing. Need to eat sends us to a restaurant in the hotel for a late lunch. Good food and it turns out that Tom Vinson (USAC) and the Chief Ref are sitting at the next table. After we're done eating I stop to introduce myself and we chat for a bit.

Packet pickup goes without a hitch. I notice that USAC has decided not to enforce the rule about the height of the turned up ends of TT bars as I see plenty of folks with those tips sitting above their saddles being told their bikes are fine. Bad news, they want frame numbers on the TT bikes. But they won't fine us if they're on the seat tube.

Race morning goes just fine. Up and out to the course reasonably on time. Daniel and Rhonda arrived just before us. We set up the canopy for both of us to use and leave it for Jeff and Kay to use for their warm up as well. The warm up does its usually job of getting the crappy feeling of the first few shots into Z4 out of the way. I debate about the disc wheel because it's so windy, but decide to go for it anyway. Maybe I should have used the deep rim.... I'll never know.

In the chute, bike check no problem up course. I chat with the official briefly. These folks all know Jim Patton. Into the start house and wait for my hold. Hold started out seeming ok, but by 10 seconds to go, it was feeling unstable and leaning to my right and the short steep ramp is making me very nervous. I almost bail out of the hold but suck it up. We hit zero and I start to pedal but something doesn't feel right and I just hang there for a second and then I'm on this steep ramp with no momentum, no real motion at all, and thus no balance. Off center from the lean of the hold, I go down the ramp at an angle, come off it before the end into large loose gravel. I go down...cursing as it happens. Instinctively, I roll so that I take the fall on the back of my left hip. I feel the gravel as it scrapes my left calf. I get up in a rage, cursing and knowing that this error has cost me a medal. I'm off and flying as fast as possible.

Not surprisingly, Lorraine passes me fairly quickly, as most of the 30 seconds between her and me was used up in the mishap. She shouts encouragement as she goes by. Later she would tell me that from her perspective in the start house, my mishap was "horrific." I struggle to shut out the pain in my calf, which is bleeding, and my hip and find my rhythm. Gotta settle in. Gotta calm down, focus and settle in.

The road has lots of bends in it and little rises here and there but for the most part I keep Lorraine in sight. And then the positive stuff starts happening. There are other riders in sight, riders to catch and pass. I botch the turn around, too narrow, should have spent a lot of time practicing the U-turn, but mostly I think I was hesitant because of the mishap at the start. But Lorraine is not that far ahead. I keep going hard. Sometimes the wind gusts from the side, pushing me toward the center line. Maybe the disc was a mistake...too late now. Finally I don't feel the pain in my calf any more. I continue to drive the pedals. Good rhythm, good steady effort.

By the time I reach the finish line, I've managed to close the gap on Lorraine some, but of course I can't get back the time lost at the start. I roll around for a bit then return to the tent. I talk myself into spinning out for a bit but the pain has now returned so that doesn't last too long. I wash off my calf. Time to change and pack up. 6th... f'ing 6th. Ok, not bad given the situation, but I definitely would have been on the podium had the start gone smoothly.

I don't get why they had such a sucky ramp. Last year's ramp was awesome. The year before's was horrible. You'd think they could get some consistency going. To be honest, why do they bother with a ramp? Most of us don't see a ramp for a TT outside of Nationals...why not skip the ramp? This will certainly be my recommendation. Go ahead, use a ramp for the Elites...they probably see a lot of ramps in stage races and stuff. Let us poor old masters just start on the pavement like we do the rest of the time.

The woman who won my age group is a TTer...doesn't do anything else to speak of. So that's cool...sort of. I accept that there are those who simply don't want to do pack racing, but really, you aren't a true road racer if you don't pack race. I could probably do better at TTs if that was all I did, but I'll stick with the whole package. I'll keep suffering through Road Races and enjoying Crits as well as doing TTs.

The big question now is can I have a higher training peak for Church Creek in August?