Philly Phlyer Race Weekend, Collegiate Men's A - Peter Chiu - 3-29-09
Before I tell everyone about the races in a brutally long-winded race weekend report that could only be written by a History major turned medical student on spring break, I have to retract an earlier statement about looking/feeling pro using Vicks VapoRub on the legs. It’s nothing like using real embrocation. The sensory experience of the pepperminty smell and the burn in your legs of embrocation is akin to a thousand little elves poking at your legs with pointy sticks. While that description sounds like it would feel terrible, I assure you that it’s great. In fact, I’m on spring break, it’s just after 8 in the morning
(I’m taking a lot of time to write this), I probably won’t ride for 7 hours, but I’ve already lathered my legs in the stuff. The capsaicin activates the bare nerve endings that subserve temperature sense in the anterolateral system to trick your body into thinking that it’s overheating. These receptors, TRPV1, are activated at temperatures above 43C (109F), aka “noxious heat,” and a bunch of stuff is set off to get your body ready to throw down the mad hurt: modulation of arousal, peripheral vasodilation, endorphin release, positive chronotropic/dromotropic effect, insert clever science term here. On top of that, the feeling of having legs that are awesomely shiny and smell great is something else.
Onto the racing, though. Saturday’s Circuit Race had all the elements of a good TV drama: twists, turns, cloudy skies, a moment of lucidity, a hooker, and explosions of one sort or another. If I hadn’t put on the embrocation, I might’ve thought it was an episode of Law and Order. We took off on the 6-mile loop ready to do battle with the big teams. My job was – again – to go with the dangerous moves if the opportunity presented itself but mostly to save it for the sprint if it all came back together, and my teammate Tony Hall (Luzzo’s/Columbia) was to go with the breaks. On only the second time up the course’s “climb” (it’s not really a climb until I’m dropped), we had the first explosion of the day. There was a 180 degree turn directly into the base of the climb, and my cables had stretched considerably since I had redone the derailleur cables 3 weeks before. As a result, my chain skipped as I jumped out of the saddle and my knee whacked the handlebars hard as both my feet popped out of the pedals. Skating uphill in the middle of a 52-person field is a feeling that I hope none of you ever have to experience. On the plus side, I did get a few compliments on keeping it upright from guys flying by me. Jumping back in the field at the tail end of the pack, I tried to move up as quickly as possible to patrol the front for breaks, but I didn’t get there early enough to see the break go with one of my teammates in it. The UVM guys were blocking pretty hardcore, and I think one of them might’ve tried to hook me. It’s somewhat unclear. The guy who did it is a bit of a hooker in general, and I don’t mean in the cycling sense.
After the break swelled to about 12 riders, Nick Bennette (MetLife/Princeton) made a hard attack to get up there. I followed for about 15 seconds. At that point, the response I was getting from the legs was not what I wanted, and I didn’t have confidence in his ability to make it across. I was climbing well, but for absolutely no reason I lacked confidence in my strength. I chalk it up to the 6 exams I had over the course of the previous 8 days inducing residual fatigue and chronic stress. Here’s the learning point: bridging to a break never feels good. If you’re not vomiting, you might want to get yourself tested for EPO cough Frank Vandenbroucke: 1999 Liege climbing La Redoute in the big ring
Sunday’s Team Time Trial. I’m sure nobody actually wants to hear about this since TTT’s are so uncommon in the club scene. You pretty much just have to ride hard, take shortish pulls (unless there’s a massive strength gap), and pile on the watts on the hill if there is one.
That afternoon, we hit the criterium, which was flat and fast (we averaged 30.3mph according to my teammate’s SRM) with 5 corners (2 of them were nice and sweeping). Same deal. Tony goes with the breaks, I hold out for the sprint. When Tony infiltrated the break of 7 that went, I slid to the front and started blocking. Here’s the thing. I want to block, but I don’t want to be a jerk about it. It’s a complicated situation, because you want to slow the chase for your teammate, but you don’t want to bring about the ire of other teams. On top of that, I fear the Army riders. They have tanks, humvees, and a women’s team that could kick the crap out of me in a fistfight. One of the Army ladies likes my hair, and I fear that she’s going to put me in a submission hold then make me clean her room and starch her uniform in a Chippendale’s outfit. This nightmare led to my waking my hotel-mates in the middle of the night with screams of terror. I wish I were kidding.
I kept moving to about 3rd or 4th wheel giving the illusion that I was working in order to prevent other people from wanting to work. Army started to bring the break back, but it wasn’t until Nick Frey (Legacy Energy/Princeton) got to the front and started piling on the power that the gap came down from 28 seconds to 8 seconds… in a mere 2k. Remarkable. The break splintered as riders tried last ditch efforts to keep the break going, but we finally swept up my teammate Tony and the final two riders with 3 laps to go, and I slotted myself in about 4th wheel. In retrospect, I was probably at the front way too early, because the counterattack came from Josh Lipka (Bikereg-Cannondale/UNH) and the disarray it caused reshuffled the front. Immediately, Lipka got
6 or 7 seconds on the pack, and both UVM and Princeton piled to the front to bring him back pushing me back into 12th position. It got a little physical, and I backed down. That’s where another few lessons were learned. When UVM moved up on the right side of the road to make my section of peloton (~8th wheel at that point) double-file, I should have guessed that there would be a move on the left and moved up to prevent getting boxed in. Furthermore, these high-speed field sprints are tough to figure out, and aggression and bumping is required to maintain your piece of road. Rubbing is racing. It takes skillz and tenacity to maintain your position in a physical and fast bunch gallop to the line. You learn those skillz and develop the appropriate level of aggression by practicing.
In the end, I sprinted to maintain 12th position. Sprinting through traffic is always very dangerous, and this was made even more dangerous as a Pitt rider inexplicably sprinted diagonally across the road causing more than a few people to curse him out.
Thanks for reading!