Local Racing and The Diamondback

It's been a while since I've been home, not on call, and not having to travel to a race. Last weekend was pretty sweet with the Town Mountain Hillclimb, and this weekend was the Mountain Sports Festival at Carrier Park in Asheville. It was pretty sweet to be able to race just 1.5mi from my house Friday night, and to ride to the Wheel Ride for Food yesterday!

Friday night was basically a version of the Ring of Fire races at Carrier Park, where instead of a points race format over 60 laps, it was a 50 lap scratch race or 'winner takes all'. Team ACE was out under threatening skies with 4 teammates - Andy Applegate (coming off a strong finish in the mountain bike race just an hour earlier!), Andrew Erskine, Chris Emory, and myself. The goal was to attack from the gun and get a move up the road with at least 2 riders in it. After Andy set a strong pace for several laps, Chris Emory and I started to exchange attacks which led to a break forming as the field began to shred. The move consolidated as Andrew Erskine bridged across and provided us with a couple of 'worker bees' and a fresh rider to sit in for the sprint. By about the 20 lap mark we lapped the field which put us in position to begin attacking again after Andy set pace for several laps. The danger man was Josh Whitmore from Globalbike who is a powerful rider from Sylva. After I softened the field with an attack, Chris, Andrew and Andy all countered and made it up the road again! I followed wheels until getting into a chase group. With about 10 laps to go we lapped the field as well, which put 3 of us +2 laps! After several strong laps behind Andy (did I mention that he's a time trial machine?) I unleashed the leadout for Chris Emory and Andrew 2 laps out. Josh chased and gave Chris and Andrew a free ride to the finish as Andrew overtook Josh and then Chris as well for 1, 2, and 4th (myself) on the night!

Saturday wasn't a race, but a charity ride benefiting Asheville's Meals on Wheels. Thanks to friends and family I hit my goal of raising $250. Andy Applegate, with his wife Cara (on the tandem!) and I set of at 8:30AM for almost 70 miles through some beautiful roads north of Asheville. About 3.5hrs later we rolled across the line, tired and happy! While is wasn't a race it was a fun event for a great cause.

Thanks to all of my supporters for the event, as well as our sponsors!

Sunday was a little bit of family time, and a ride that I've been looking forward to for a while now called "The Diamondback": 226A from Marion to Little Switzerland, NC:I rode up, and Jess drove and she and Ethan met me at the top for lunch. The awesome thing about living in Asheville is that you have a lot of rides like this up to the Parkway that let you climb for miles, much like you lived out West, but with more roads! The road surface is excellent, the weather mild, and traffic is low - I saw maybe 6 cars and about 20 motorcycles in the hour climb. As you can see, the reward was worth the climb:
I hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend and thank you to all those who have devoted themselves to service to our country over the years.

Priorities and PRs

Last night marked the 2010 Town Mountain Hillclimb in Asheville. I first did this event 2 years ago, and missed it last year when I went to McMinnville to race. Ever since the TT up Wintergreen a few weeks ago, I have not been my best. Lots of travel, a trip to Philly, some long days at work, and the race last weekend has really taken it out of me. While my family comes first in life, my career is a close 2nd since this enables our family to live the life we do and enables the 3rd priority in my life - cycling - to feature as it does! Unfortunately I missed the time trial on Thursday night due to a late case, and my schedule has now precluded me attending the Assault on Mount Mitchell on Monday . . . c'est la vie.
The great thing about being on a solid team is that you don't have to be at your best every race to have great results. So even with a "bad" couple of weeks for me, we still pulled out 3 wins in 2 weeks! Yesterday culminated this as Andy Applegate won his 2nd race in less than a week!
Personally I had a solid ride after a challenging week outside of racing. I was a little nervous that I would even make the event, since I had a 1PM surgery and thought it might run a bit late. Fortunately the stars aligned and I was able to get home, warm up and make it to the start around 6PM. I pulled my mental focus together and decided to focus on keeping a steady, conservative pace to start the first steep section. My plan was to then maintain my heart rate until I hit the last section and start to punch it again. I felt good and drove my heart rate up steadily from 175bpm to eventually 187 at the finish. I looked down and saw 19:45 - not great, then I remembered that I started my timer 30s early . . . sweet! I took 35s off my PR! While I didn't win, Andy did, I set a PR, and the rain held off long enough for me to get back to the car.

Full results are here: http://www.ashevillewomenscycling.com/TMHC/2010TMHCResults.html

Check out Christopher Graphics: http://paulchristopher.smugmug.com/Sports/Bicycle

And a big thank you to all of our sponsors!

RACE REPORT: High Country Tour du Life

The weekend brought a race that I've been looking forward to for a while - the High Country Tour du Life. Andrew Stackhouse is a promoter that moved from Texas to Boone and has started to put on some great events in that area. This race has awesome courses (http://tourdulife.com/courses), with a TT up Beech Mountain, a hilly road race west of Boone, and a criterium in downtown Newland to finish it all on Sunday. I decided to make a weekend out of it with the family, team and friends, and rented a condo on top of Beech Mountain with our friends the Hamblens. It was a full 'house' with 2 kids, dog, and 1 pregnant lady! Also there was a case of Highland beer to fit in there!

The weekend started out with Chris Emory and myself making the trip up to Beech Mountain for the TT Friday night. The course went up the 'easy' side of the mountain, and the course looked good, steady, and the weather was perfect in the low 70s. I was the 2nd to start and after a solid warm-up I started conservatively in an effort not to repeat my performance of 2 weeks ago where I went out too hard during the Wintergreen Hill climb in Charlottesville. My pacing was almost perfect, but with a quicker climb than expected I actually took it out too easy. This in addition to the altitude pushed my effort into a 15th place - good enough for some overall points for the Omnium, but not a great result. Chris had a similar ride (in more ways than one) and came in just a few second behind in 16th. Results: http://tourdulife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Beech-TT1.pdf We joined our friends for a dinner on top of the mountain at over 5000ft!

After a nice evening Saturday greeted us with great weather and a very hilly course, with narrow, twisty roads. The course was one of the best I've ever done, unfortunately my performance wasn't! However this is when it's good to have a team. Chris Emory and I were joined by Andy Applegate, Andrew Erskine, and Jason Spouse. We agreed that since we didn't have anyone very high up in the overall we would let the other teams control the race and try to get riders in the moves throughout the day. While we missed a move by a solitary rider, the rest of the team maintained our positions in the field early on and Andrew Erskine helping to control the field early on. Andy went on some early attacks, but ultimately headed back to the field to let the course separate the men from the boys so to speak. With the overall contenders watching each other after the first hilly loop, Andy Applegate launched an attack on the flat, back portion of the course. He quickly gained time and increased his lead to over 2 minutes! While he was chased by a single rider the field couldn't get organized and left Andy to consolidate his lead. With 90 seconds going into the final climb he easily hung on for the win - the team's biggest of the year! Chris Emory had a superb finish for 8th while I faded after a chase effort and finished at the tail of the main field. The team now had Chris in 9th overall and an impressive win that took down some of the regions biggest teams!

Sunday the goal was to advance Chris up the overall and try to get a solid placing on the day as well. The weather was in the 70s, with a good chance of rain (which fortunately never materialized!). The course started flat, had 3 corners, and a large sweeping turn into a fast downhill that was preceded by a sharp 50 meter climb. The raced started fast with John Hamblen of Mountain Khakis, Sean Weddell of Team Metro, and John Patterson of Carolina Masters going from the gun. Chris and I stayed near the front of the field and followed moves while trying to conserve energy up the climb. With about 5 laps remaining in the 25 lap race, I sensed an opportunity as Chris Harkey of the Subaru-Gary Fisher team attacked up the climb. 2 laps later Chris Emory attacked as I let a gap open up the climb. Chris gave an awesome effort to bridge and ultimately stay away for 5th on the day. His placing moved him up to 7th overall, while I ended up with a safe field finish. Our goal for the day was accomplished, but of course it would have been nice to have a slightly higher overall placing.

So 1st in the road race, 5th in the crit, 8th in the road race, and 7th overall. Not bad for a little team from Asheville sponsored by a local beer company! Speaking of which, the beer from Highland made for popular prime prizes during the crit on Sunday, and it was made known that the local Lowes Foods carried it as well. Trek got another win on their bikes, and we heard a lot of great comments about our Swiftwick socks. Thanks as always to all of our sponsors who make it possible:

Highland Brewing, Trek & Bontrager, Liberty Bikes, Rudy Project, PML Pathology, Mosaic Realty, Honey Stinger, Swiftwick, Carmichael Training Systems, Dr. Steve Miller DDS, Crossfit Brevard, Joe Lilly Photography, and Affordable Home Inspections.

USA Crit series, speedweek-Spartanburg

From Andrew Erskine:

I headed to Spartanburg to race the Pro,1 criterium as part of the USA crit Speeweek series. When I arrived I managed to catch the end of both the Masters and the cat 2/3 race. Thomas Smith had managed to lap the field in the Masters race along with one other rider, and took a dominant 2^nd place. Chris Emory made a great move in the final lap of the 2/3 race to move from about 30^th place to a 6^th place overall,l in one lap, how I don’t know, but I need to figure out his secret!!!

After the pro women, the sun began to set and the Pro men feild took the line for the start of 70 fun laps. I got to the line and had a mid pack start, not bad, not great!! The way speedweek had unfolded there was a battle being played out between United Healthcare, and Bahati Foundation, with Team Type 1 also in the mix with Mountain kahkis. This made the race hard and fast from the gun. The first few laps brought the inevitable screach of brakes and that crashing metal sound as the barriers came into play, once the field was strung out the race began in earnest. I felt good, legs were good, but given the dynamic of the race, moving up or around in the field was a challenge. United Healthcare and Bahati took turns in attacking and the others chasing, which pretty much meant the race was constantly an attack and counter attack and kept the speed consistently high, this was pretty much the story of the evening. After a few more crashes and few close calls for me, the field had thinned down to those that would finish the evenings race. I sat comfortably in mid pack until about the last 15 laps. As the pace picked up, no breaks had stuck and everyone started to organize for a fast finish, I decided to make one big move to try to get a little closer to the front to contest, I managed to get up there pretty well but as I did a big attack from Asheville local Jonny Clarke was made to disrupt the Bahati train, and I was engulfed while trying to recover. I tucked in for the final laps, stayed safe and finished with the main field, with United Healthcare taking the evening and spoiling the Bahati plans.

All in all a fun and fast evening, I enjoy these crits, they are blazing fast from the gun, and lend themselves to my style of riding, a lucky break or well timed move could have gotten me closer for the finale, but I was happy to feel good, ride well and represent. Good to see some of our local pros making an impact on the week, with Luca Damiani consistently placing all week. The guys at Globalbike also having a good presence. Feeling good for the Festival of Speed Keirin this weekend in Atlanata, hopefully some good results to come.

Thanks to all of our great sponsors for making it possible.

Andrew Erskine