The Suitcase of Courage

Race Report:Chris Hinds Ninigret Crit

One of my favorite race venues is Ninigret Park in Charlestown, RI.  Even when I lived much further away, I would try and race here any time I could.  The main races happen on three weekends in the spring and the Chris Hinds, Rick Newhouse, and Mystic Velo races have been second only to the Bethel race series as harbingers of the new season.  Now that I live closer, I've even been able to make it to an occasional mid-week training race series held there in the summer.

It's a flat six corner crit, but what it lacks in elevation change, it makes up in windy conditions and always-on speed.  Click here for a more detailed run-down.

I've done well here and there've been races here that I haven't even finished, but no matter the result I always enjoy racing Ninigret.  So it was with some expectation of, if not greatness, at least a good race that I lined up early last Saturday morning.  Since upgrading to Cat3, I've enjoyed racing later in the day but for this race - and even though we live less than an hour away - we had to get up before dawn to get to this race on time.

I lined up with teammate Lance (who, incidentally, had just won the previous race!) and 66 others.  After the usual preliminaries, the whistle blew and we were off.  Immediately, an attack went off the front and a few guys joined up.  For a few laps, there was actually a split and I began wondering if this race would be yet another example of how fit folks got during the mild winter off-season.  We were flying!

But I should know better by now - about five laps in, the race calmed down and while I couldn't move up quite as easily or as often as I thought I should, I could at least hang in fairly easily.

On the other hand, Lance actually made it look easy.  Despite a stiff headwind on the finishing straight, he'd won the previous race in a 3-man break with teammate Aaron (who came in 3rd!) and was clearly warmed up.  But his stamina was pretty impressive.  He kept things together for much of the race, chasing attacks and keeping things stretched out when necessary.

One of Mrs SOC's favorite angles at this race - a huge S curve that she always loves to shoot.  Unless otherwise indicated, race pics on this blog are hers (usually with an inferior camera and, this time, with just her phone).  As you can see, we were pretty stretched out at this point.  But despite the elastic stretching, it seldom broke and we all stayed together.

As is typical with crits, primes were offered throughout the race and - given the vagaries of a field sprint - I thought I'd try to win something.  So when the bell rang with about 10 laps to go, I used most of the lap to try and get up front.  By the time we hit the final corner, I was still about 15 guys back but somebody in front of me started moving up fast on the left side, and I got on his wheel.  Unfortunately, he started to fade after about 50 meters and I came around and hit the headwind sprint as hard as I could.

I'd started my sprint pretty far back, but I had the front 5 guys in my sights and was gaining.  I passed four of them and just nipped the front guy at the line.  I'd won what I thought was a big money cash prime, but I'd actually sprinted for a hat.  It's a nice hat though!

But I'd won a sprint.  And while the final sprint matters most, winning an intermediate sprint feels pretty awesome too.  Now I just had to try and recover and hope I had something left for the end.

With about 5 laps to go, I noticed that Lance had pulled out.  But being the great teammate he is, he took up a position at the sidelines to cheer me on.  If you've had anybody do that for you, you know how great that feels.  And how much you don't want to let them down.

photo by Meg Dineen McMahon

So I started moving up.  Predictably, rest of the pack had the same idea and things got faster.  But I was feeling good - so good in fact that I apparently thought nothing of being on the wrong end of the eventual winner.  In the pic above, I should be on BillYs wheel, not in front of him.

By the bell lap, I was in decent position, but the speed kept going up and when a group of us hit the second-to-last corner too hot, a bunch went right off the track.  But the Ninigret track has no curbs and is surrounded by hard-pack dirt & grass so while we all stayed upright - and I'd narrowly avoided going off the track myself - the necessary correction caused me to lose a bunch of spots.  I regained most of those by the time we hit the final corner and I was suddenly glad that the last corner is so far from the finish - I still had time.

Or so I thought.  From my position, I didn't see that three guys had gotten off the front sometime during the bell lap and I sprinted in the gutter up the right side thinking I could at least get in the top ten.  As I crossed the line, I thought I'd made it.

  

Here's the finshline video.  If you know right where to look, you can see me coming up the left side of the screen during the field sprint.  I'm going pretty fast and nobody's passing me, but I was too far back.  And - given the three guys I didn't see - I didn't make it into the top ten after all.  I had to settle for 12th.

All in all, not a bad result considering the (relatively) large and strong field.  It was a safe, fun race & I got to race with a great teammate.  It was only later, after the results were posted, that I realized that they paid ten deep.  Ah well - 2 places out of the money isn't bad.  And I did win a cool hat.

The final race of the Bethel series is this coming Sunday.  The leaderboard is wide open, so we still have a chance to win the overall.  It's a little bit of a long shot, but that'll just make winning more dramatic and brag-worthy.  The forecast is great, many of our friends will be there, and we have plans with friends afterwards.  So no matter what the result is, it's going to be a fun day.

Why Cycle Wednesday:Morning Ride

Whether you're staring down a late night at work or an afternoon forecast of rain, a morning ride may be just the thing you need to cheat The Man or cheat The Weather.  You can rest assured all the rest of the day that you not only got your ride in but, no matter what happens, you were able to be outside in nature for at least a little while.  It does a soul (not to mention a body) good.  Of course, it doesn't hurt if you can enjoy the incomparable feeling of pedaling your bike past beautiful scenery like this.

It's hard for a decidedly-not-morning-person like me to get up early enough to enjoy such pleasures, but in addition to all the benefits outlined above, I also wanted to test out an experiment.  I've been trying to silence an intermittent "tick tick tick" sound for over a year now and nothing undermines the sheer pleasure of riding a road bike than having some random creak or click disturbing the sound of silence.  On this particular morning, I finally solved the problem.

All I could hear was the sound of my tires on the pavement, the air passing by my ears, and the calm ocean gently lapping the shore.

***

This is the first Why Cycle Wednesday of the season.  Next up - Chris Hinds (Ninigret) Race Report!

Cycling Fun Friday:Blackpoint Beach Loop

While this blog focuses a lot on bike racing, you'll also find a lot of other posts that explore "fun" riding too.  As fun as racing is, like many others I find it just as fun to answer the call of the open road on a beautiful day and do some exploring at a slower pace.  Incidentally, it's good training too.  You sometimes have to go slow to go fast, and the Blackpoint Beach Loop is definitely a ride you want to take your time doing.

All these roads are familiar to me, so there wasn't much in the way of "discovery," but I'd never strung them together in quite this way before.  I think I've put together a pretty cool route though that includes a lot of neat points of interest and wonderful scenery along the way.  There's even a stop at a local bike shop where you can get your bottles refilled, a great used book store (in case you have some extra time and room in your jersey pocket), and - best of all - an out-of-the-way independent coffee shop where you can get a great snack toward the end of the ride.  So follow along on the map and join me for a virtual tour.  I'll point out the best things along the way.

The only way you can get from Old Saybrook across the Connecticut River to Old Lyme is by taking the I-95 highway bridge across  and its the first major feature of the ride.  Fortunately, the Baldwin Bridge has a bike/ped walkway on its north side so you don't have to dodge interstate traffic.

And as you can see, it affords some really nice views of the river valley from over 80 feet up.

Shortly after you cross the bridge, and on your way to Old Lyme, you cross the Lieutenant River.  You'll notice there are plenty of water views during this ride.

Going across the Baldwin Bridge is of course VERY noisy with all the traffic and the road from the end of the bridge to Old Lyme is a wide 4-lane main road.  But right after you cross the Lieutenant River, you take a left (being careful of the traffic) and head into the village of Old Lyme itself.

Old Lyme is the home of the Florence Griswold Museum and the "Home of American Impressionism."  The village hasn't changed much in the last hundred years and retains much of its turn-of-the-(last)century charm.  Certainly worth taking your time to explore.  Of course, the best way is by bike.

You'll enter town alongside this church and take a right.  You're well off the main roads by now and can enjoy the passing scenery without too much fuss (or dealing with traffic).

And there's lots of scenery to enjoy.  It's still relatively rural out this way and small farms dot the landscape.  This is one such farm between Old Lyme and Niantic.

After taking the backroads, you'll end up back on Rt. 156 - a fairly busy road that roughly follows the shore of Long Island Sound.  Fortunately, the road is smooth and the shoulders are wide.  If you don't get shaken by the occasional big oil truck going by (never too close - they're pretty used to cyclists around here), you can enjoy the big, swoopy curves and undulating terrain.

"Undulating" is one way to put it.  The topography in this part of the state is full of short, steep climbs and quick descents.  But there's one HUGE descent going eastbound, just short of Rocky Neck State Park, that if you have the redlight timed right has a nice long run-out and will likely give you your highest speed of the day (thankfully, it's a T-intersection coming from the left, so cross traffic isn't a problem).

You'll pass the entrance to the Park on your right (itself worth exploring if you have the time) and take a right onto Fairhaven Road toward Blackpoint Peninsula.

Just as an aside, one of the joys of writing this blog - especially "travelogues" like this - is that I end up learning more about where I'm riding.  I'd always thought of the Blackpoint section of Niantic as a refuge for well-off folks in old colonial homes - much like the Fenwick section of Old Saybrook.  But as with most things, there's a lot more than meets the eye.  And especially for the history-minded, you don't have to scratch the surface much before you discover something interesting.

In this case, literally.

Apparently, Niantic was named after the Nehantic Indians that used to live is this area and the Blackpoint Peninsula was their last reservation.  According to the best research available Wikipedia:

By 1870, the Nehantics were declared extinct by the state and their 300-acre (1.2 km) reservation, the Black Point peninsula of East Lyme, was sold. In 1886, their burial ground was sold and desecrated, and the Crescent beach community filled over it. As recently as 1988, Nehantic skeletal remains were uncovered by new construction.

Sometimes, learning history can be depressing.  But it certainly gives you a much richer view of the world and every time I ride around Blackpoint in the future, I'll think of what used to be and thereby honor the memory of those that were there.

But those ghosts of the past were nowhere in my mind as I rode the Blackpoint loop this day, especially not with scenes like these cropping up at nearly every bend in the road.

Given how much shoreline property is (over)developed, scenes like this - where the meadow goes right down to the sea - are especially rare.  I wonder how long it'll be before a house will be built here.  I wonder what the construction might unearth...

Just about every house in this area is worth photographing, but if I got to pick one to live in, it'd probably be this one, right at the point.

The (now-infamous, to my mind at least) Crescent Beach area.  A lovely spot, made all the more poignant by its history.  It was hit especially hard by the hurricane/tropical storm last Autumn.  But it looks like it's about ready for the upcoming season.

At the eastern-most point of our map, you'll find Niantic Bay Bicycles - a local shop which caters to the tourist and beach trade (natch), but there's a respectable number of racing bikes in the inventory as well.  It's run by nice folks (& former racers) who know their stuff - and will let you use the facilities and refill your bottles.

Heading back west now, but still in the Niantic section of East Lyme, you'll pass by The Book Barn.  It's actually a collection of four separate buildings and a number of sheds and offers a little bit of just about everything.

Randy, the owner, is a cyclist as well - though this business keeps him too busy to get out to ride as much as he'd like.  As much as I encourage folks to ride when they can, I have to admit I just about always drive here - all the better to haul more books away (at least until I get a bike trailer).

From here you continue to head west on Rt. 156 from Niantic back past the Blackpoint turnoff, but not quite as far as Rocky Neck.  Fortunately, you take a right and head north before having to climb up that great descent you bombed down earlier.

But what goes down eventually has to go up and though it's certainly not as steep, the northbound leg of this trip is a steady ascent.  Fortunately, you're treated to a lot of nice farmland scenes along the way.  (Un?)fortunately, you'll be going slow so you can thoroughly enjoy them.  At least you won't be slowing down many cars - there's little traffic on this segment.

Once you get to Rt. 1 you've hit one of the highest points of the ride - if not the highest.  You'll turn left to head west and will have to deal with trucks and general traffic until you can turn off just past Rogers Lake.  The shoulders are decent, but not as well-maintained as those on Rt. 156.

But being a much older road (the original "Boston Post Road"), you'll get little gems like this along the way.  I've ridden this section at least a dozen times before, but I guess I've either been going too fast - or, more likely, the foliage was too dense - to see this old milepost, marking 10 miles from New London.

Just past the southern end of Rogers Lake, you'll take a right and head northwest on Town Woods Road.  Unsurprisingly, given the name, it's pretty woodsy but the shade is nice and cool in the summer.  But this time of year, you can see more of the farms along the way.  As with all of these pics, you can click for a larger view and if you "embiggen" this one, you'll see the sheep napping in front of the barn.

Ah - finally - Ashlawn Farm, the home of Ashlawn Farm Coffee Roastery & Cafe.  A little over 30 miles into your ride, you're ready for a nice break - and this is one of the best around.

What started out as a working farm has diversified into one of the best little gathering places in the area.  It's especially popular on Saturdays in the summer (they're closed on Sundays), but luckily they're open year-round.  Just make sure you don't need a "natural" break in the off-season.  The portapotties are strictly summer only.

But no matter what time of year you go, you can't possibly beat this view from a table on the patio.  That's Town Woods Road coming in from the distance.  After you finish your coffee and biscotti, you'll head down the road that goes off to the right, past the stone wall.

Once you get back to Rt. 156 you have two choices.  Either take some more backroads by taking a quick left onto Saunders Hollow Road, or just continue south on 156 back to the bridge.  156 is certainly the busier option, but considering it's mostly downhill from here, you'll just about be able to keep up with any traffic.

Once you get back to the bridge's eastern approach, look for a small path leading off to the right.  It'll bring you down to this overlook, complete with many informative plaques.  Again, these will be of most interest to the history buffs (including natural history buffs), but you've probably come to expect that from me by now.

Incidentally, this view (especially if you enlarge the pic) shows how I outfit my racing bike for these more-leisurely jaunts: saddle bag (horrors!), lights (most of my weekday riding is at least partly in the dark), frame pump (in case you run out of CO2, or find a cyclist-in-need along the way), bombproof wheels (Mavic Ksyrium SL2s - which have never needed to be retrued even after literally thousands of miles).

After this shot, I got back on the bike and - eschewing the little path that brought me here - I practiced a little cyclocross, riding up the side of the hill back to the bridge's walkway.

And from there it was a quick 15 minutes back home.  I'd only ridden 37 miles, and was never more than 15 miles from home, but it took me 3 1/2 hours with all the stops.  Like I said at the beginning, it was a beautiful day and perfect for strolling.  And if you have to go slow to go fast, this ride should make me plenty fast for my next race.

The Accidental 9th

(or "How To Win a Field Sprint Without Really "Trying")

Yesterday's Criterium de Bethel was the penultimate race of this year's Bethel Spring Series.  After having won the first of the six races, we haven't had the leader's jersey since.  But the way the series points are weighted toward the end, we're still in the hunt.  Unfortunately, so are a lot of other teams.

We counted on those other teams yesterday, figuring that they would chase anyone that tried to escape and keep things together.  That ended up being a mistake.  Somehow, we all let Bethel's Bill Muzzio (who had come in 2nd in a previous race) get up the road with 7 others.  By the time we (and apparently the rest of the teams) realized how dangerous this was, it was too late.  Lance & Joel did what they could to try and bring things back together and BJ tried to bridge, but the gap had grown too large and they weren't coming back.

With all the points taken by the break, all that was left to race for was honor and, frankly, fun.  It was a safe race , with only one minor, low speed crash, the result of some wheel touching in corner 1.  The guys got right up - almost too quickly given that the rest of the pack was coming by.  If you crash, please don't pick your bike up - and turn it laterally - until all the other racers have passed you.  But that was the only "scary" bit.  Even the forecast rain held off for us.

With the break up the road, it was relatively slow a lot of the time but I was glad to be able to recover from abortive chase attempts in time to have something left at the end and fly the colors.

I wasn't quite sure how best to do that though until turn 2 of the bell lap.  Things had finally strung out a bit and gaps were opening up.  SDC came up on my seven,  tapped me to let me know he was there, and I had my unspoken answer.  I started to edge to through the pack to the right side, knowing that SDC could easily follow any so-called "needle" I could thread, and - as expected - the right opened wide on the backstretch.

Diving into the deep end of the huge opening, I didn't care so much that I was going right into the wind.  I dug in and we passed by the arrowhead that was charging on the left side near the yellow line.

Shortly after we passed the front, I heard SDC yell "GO! GO!" and I dug deeper, committed to the lead out.  We were only racing for 9th at that point, but I was going to do my best to get SDC to the line ahead of everybody that was left.

As I approached the bottom of the hill, I was fading fast and hoping that SDC would be coming around me any second.  Why doesn't he come around??  I peeked to make sure that whatever direction I pulled off on wouldn't interfere with his line, but when I looked behind I saw I had a huge gap on him and the rest of the field.

Wait, WHAT?!  That's not supposed to happen!

That was my first thought, but my second thought was "OH CRAP!  Now I gotta try and hold this to the line!"

Well, as you no doubt guessed (my blogpost titles aren't usually subtle), I held it.  Just barely.  And with a little unwitting help from my friends.

  

What I didn't know was happening behind me I found out about after the race.  They say the most convincing liars are those that actually believe the lie they're telling.  Well, apparently, the corrrollary to that is the best way to fool everybody else is to fool yourself.  *I* thought I was doing a lead out, but everybody else thought I was just going too early and was therefore doomed.  By the time SDC politely mentioned in passing yelled to the guys around him "GO! GO! HE'S LEADING ME OUT!!" (I'd only heard the first part), I'd already gotten a healthy gap.  So my friends in the pack may not have meant to help me, but by sitting up or otherwise not launching as early as I did, I caught them sleeping made it to the line first.

Well, ninth.  Those eight escapees came in a good bit ahead of me, taking all of yesterday's points with them and putting Bethel's Muzzio in the leader's jersey going into the final week.

We have one race left and few cards left to play.  But we're still in the game.  And with the Easter holiday we have two weeks to come up with a strategy that'll put us in yellow when it matters most.  Hopefully there'll be nothing accidental about that.

Full results of yesterday's races here

Garmin data here

Criterium de Bethel 2012:Photos & Data

Until I can write up a report of the day's fun, here's a link to the photos that Mrs. SOC took of the Cat 3/4 race and my Garmin data.

You can also get to the photo album by clicking on the "Criterium de Bethel 2012" link on the left side of this page (under "Photo Albums" natch).  When I post the report, I'll have a finishline video too (also courtesy Mrs. SOC).

Until then, bedtime....