FYI

-----Original Message-----
From: Alden Tanaka [mailto:atanaka@...]
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 11:15 PM
To: NCCAConfDirs@...
Subject: FW: [CalCycling] Race Report: track conferences

Here's the second report.

Photos from the event can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/6z9q9

Results are here: http://ucsdcycling.org/WCCC_results.html

-Alden

------ Forwarded Message
Subject: [CalCycling] Race Report: track conferences


*2004 WCCC Track Championships-San Diego, CA*

The relatively new conference director, Alden Tanaka, has been kicking
our butts and those of other Nor Cal schools to start getting back into
the track thing and taking advantage of the velodrome in San Jose. I say
"getting back" meaning Cal had a pretty strong track squad back in the
80's and 90's, but somewhere along the way in the last 10 years the
enthusiasm by some Cal Cyclists for brakes and derailleurs overwhelmed
the Cal "trackie contingent" and the Cal track movement died out.

Anyway, in the normal spirit of Cal Cycling's embrace of a challenge
when one us put to us, we accepted proudly and coughed up an army of
three to represent down in San Diego this weekend for the WCCC track
conference championships. Dan Adkins, with 3 track clinics and 2 Weds
night category
4/5 races worth of experience, was the clear captain of the golden bear
squad which fit nicely in a green VW Jetta with room to spare for bikes,
sleeping bags, and two tubs of homemade blueberry muffins. Though not
technically out of our "category 6" status on the track, Emily Dale and
I have a combined amount of experience to qualify us to race mass start
events (as long as no one looked too closely.)

We left for a rendezvous with the legendary Gabe Moy in Santa Monica on
Friday night. With the high-speed driving confidence that only a
top-of-the-line radar detector can provide, we made it to Gabe's a
little before 2 AM stopping only for gas, caffeine, and split-pea soup.

The events didn't start until 5 pm on Saturday. So Gabe, Emily, and I
met up with another Cal Cycling legend Audrey Maher for a nice spin
through Malibu on Saturday morning (Dan, unfortunately, only had a track
bike so he couldn't tag along.) I quickly discovered one of the typical
features of LA-area cycling when we latched on to one of the omnipresent
herds of overweight middle-aged men on really expensive bikes trying to
hammer on each other despite bad pavement, narrow road shoulders, and
congested car traffic. Thankful for the lack of a decent bike that kept
me safely removed from that demographic, I obliged the urge to hammer
back. I chose a sufficiently stupid, yet hopefully demoralizingly large
gear to fly past them going up a short climb by Pepperdine University.
About halfway up, I became acquainted with another nuance of LA bike
riding: my lungs and legs ached and burned like I had just taken a few
bong hits off of the exhaust pipe of a UPS truck. Yuck, smog! I managed
to finish off the hill (barely) and keep the old farts at bay spinning
at about 30 rpms by the top.

We all spun back to Gabe's. I overindulged in his generosity swiping a
water bottle and a clean jersey to race with as I was unprepared as
usual--just like old times! Thanks again, Gabe. We hit the road around
noon for San Diego, got lost, and were sitting in endless
bumper-to-bumper traffic by 1 pm--right on schedule!

We refueled and debladdered somewhere around Irvine attempting to take
half the gas pump assembly along as a souvenir. Apparently trading Emily
(who wasn't yet in the car) for the gas pump nozzle (which was) didn't
fly with the attendant and he came running out to stop the getaway. We
should've sweetened the deal by throwing in some of the blueberry
muffins she made.

By the time the embarrassment subsided a few hours later we were rolling
up to the velodrome in San Diego. We had almost 45 minutes to get
reg'ed, chammied, and pinned--the standard Cal Cycling time cushion.
Although somewhere in there, Emily and I had to find bikes to ride, get
them set up, and remember how to ride them. That was definitely a new
twist to the routine.

There were plenty of non-collegiate riders, but it was only UCSD that
stood between us and another conference championship. Cal Cycling
legends, Storky and Rob Yeh, came out to watch. Tona Rodriguez and Chris
Nekarda, now having been racing for the Tritons for a few years, also
are Cal legends although they've been seduced by the Dark Side and were
going to try to stop the Berkeley invasion.

The events for that day were the individual time-trials. Dan and I
"warmed up" for the 3km and kilo. Emily had the 2km and 500m TTs to
prepare for. The UCSD squad, in preparation for Nationals in 3 weeks,
was all tricked out with disc wheels, aerobars, and sleek helmets. I had
only the nifty reflector left on the front wheel of my rental to reduce
my drag. Emily made off better by borrowing Alden's pimp-ass LOOK track
bike.

In the era of 9 and 10 speed drivetrains, little thought is paid by road
racers to what gears you use. On the track, it's crucial. Every trackie
worth his salt knows what gear ratio (FYI, the gear ratio is the number
of teeth on the chain ring divided by the number of teeth on rear cog,
multiplied by 27 inches) he or she will use for each event. My rental
had a very gentle 81" gear. Not quite the big meat I prefer on the road.

We had one trainer among us and no other way to warm up except a small
circle of sidewalk in the infield. Emily took off first for the 2km
which is
6 laps of the San Diego Velodrome landing 3rd place--very nice for her
first standing start TT on a fixed gear. Several riders and events
later, Dan went up first for Cal in the 3km TT. His breakfast went up
second for Cal--always the mark of a sufficient effort in a TT. Despite
being 10 times shorter in duration than I'd like and getting about the
same negligible warm-up as Dan and Emily, this was probably going to be
my best event for the weekend so I had to make it count. I felt fine for
the first lap which is about how long it took me to get from 0 to 115
rpms or so and faded quickly thereafter. If you don't count the
non-collegiate guys or Dan's vomit, I ended up 3rd although only beating
1-2 UCSD riders.

Another feature of track racing seems to be a lot of waiting between
events just to make sure any warming-up you did was out of your system
before the next event--unless you bring rollers or a trainer like
everyone else did.
Dan and I stank up the kilo finishing very near the bottom. Emily faired
better in the 500m to land the bronze for Cal. With less than 8 minutes
of actual racing time a piece, we were pooped from our first full day of
track racing and hit the showers back at Rob's.

Sunday promised to be a better day for me by locating a Peet's coffee
franchise on the way to the velodrome upon leaving Rob's in the morning.
It wasn't going to get much better, I thought, with the day's events
kicking off with 200 meter sprints--my worse possible event imaginable
as many of you know. They started seeding the match sprints by having us
do so-called flying 200 meter TTs. Instead of starting from a
standstill, you wind it up for a lap and half going high up the bank and
coming down the slope at maximum speed for the official distance. I was
spun out well before I even hit my 200m to go line and landed 6th.
Unfortunately that seeded me to race against the fastest guy and the
slowest guy so that at least one of us could be afforded a quick and
painless elimination. The match sprint was really fun. The three of us
rode for a lap or so real slow eyeing each other.
Somewhere in there I apparently blinked and the fast dude was 10 meters
in front of me before I even reacted. The other guy didn't do anything
so I was able to beat him and advance.

In between rounds of the match sprint was the team pursuit. Dan, Emily,
and I faced off against Jared, Tona, and Nekarda. After a little
smack-talking, we clipped in and braced for another standing start. We
were pretty smooth immediately and made good time--no doubt from all
that team time-trial practice in the past year or so. The pursuit is a
lot of fun too---the rider in front just peels up the banking and drops
right back into position at the end--like buttah! I think they only
lapped us 2-3 times, but they had all that aero gear... We'll get `em
next time when we're better prepared. So that's 2nd in the collegiate
team pursuit, if only by default.

The next round of match sprints was perhaps the highlight of the trip
for Emily and perhaps others for it's sheer entertainment value: Dan and
I in a 2-up sprint. I jumped first with about 250 meters to go, gapping
him off and giving reason for me to think I had it in the bag. I closed
in on the line spinning the hell out of that gear when Dan comes flying
by, shouting, and throwing his fists in the air. Geez, Dan, we're on the
same team! Go Bears, I guess. Although a little sore at being eliminated
from the event by my own teamate, I was happy to see him punk some UCSD
dude in the next round and finish second overall. Emily beat Ashley
Medin once but was nipped in the rematch landing her third place
overall.

Next came the scratch races. Dan, Emily, and I were all lumped into the
same 4/5+women category. Apparently it's like a crit on the track but no
primes so winner of the last lap takes all. I decided to try my usual
crit strategy against a small field and attack frequently to break
things up using my road fitness to counter their superior sprint. I
found out that only works when I
*have* road fitness (and even then, not really...) I'd get boxed in on
the rail and squirm free and attack. Twenty meters later, I was spinning
out and dying from trying to sustain that leg speed. They'd drop down
the banking and get right on my wheel every time just moments later.
Position relative to the banking is key here and it cost me. After 3-4
attempts, I was toasted. Dan worked in a few counterattacks, but it
seems in this scratch race we should have both conserved energy for the
end. The race wasn't long enough for anyone to get really worn down
faster than I did without time to recover. Oh well, I didn't contest the
sprint but Dan was up there somewhere.

The final event was the points race. Dan opted to do the 1/2/3
collegiate event and I stuck with the 4/5+women. This is similar to a
scratch race but with sprints every 5 laps with a decreasing number of
points awarded for each sprint depending on relative order across the
line. The last lap sprint was worth no more than any other. They
shortened it down to 25 laps from 50 much to my annoyance so it looked
like I was in trouble. I was however able to get a bigger gear on my
bike before the race to give me more of the resistance I was used to. I
didn't contest the first sprint which broke things up quite a bit but I
stayed on for 4th. It whittled down to just three of us contesting the
2nd sprint so I backed off and let the other two dudes scrap it out for
that one and attacked right afterward. I went into TT mode and held them
off for the next 15 laps or so. After 4 years of racing, including a
full year as a cat 2 road racer and 4 stars and stripes jerseys in my
closet, I finally got my first official win in a mass start event
(although with only 7 of us racing it wasn't that massive of a start!)
Emily took another bronze for the ladies.

Dan displayed some of usual penchant for suffering at the end of a long
race in the 1/2/3/collegiate points race. Just when he'd get pummelled
and dropped, he claw his way back on and contest the next sprint.
Eventually he lost a lap to the leaders but still would sprint his heart
out for more points--more than we can say for Chris Nekarda. While Chris
claims he can't keep the ladies away from his shapely sprinting legs,
his sissy limp-noodle legs sure kept him away from getting many points.
He finished a few hundred points in the red, as I understand. Dan ended
up taking 3rd and all Nekarda ended up taking was a cold lonely shower.

We stuck around for a quick medals ceremony and accepted our defeat at
the hands of UCSD. I guess second isn't bad in that glass-is-half-full
kinda way. We loaded up all our stuff, fired up the Jetta, and headed
out for I-5 back to Berkeley.