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SEA OTTER CLASSIC TRIP REPORT by Brent Strecker The Plan TRAILER
Heading South The pre-ride Road Race Day of FUN AND relaxation MTB Race We drove to the race and were forced to park with the amateur racers. This was okay because it was a nice day and there was a Port-O-Let that did not have a line. The tension started to build as we unloaded our bikes. I had to yell at Bill for wasting an air cartridge and he returned the yell right back. There was even a professional photographer there taking our pictures. She must have noticed how cool we looked and decided to do a biography on us. You can see the biography at Kennewick Schwinn. Anyway, I did not let a little stardom get in the way of my pre-race strategy. From previous experience I knew I needed to get good and warm, hot even. Dan and I rode around a portion of the raceway waiting until the last minutes before the start. They had us Sports staged in categories with about a 200 yard sprint uphill on pavement to a single track. First to go would be Andy Vosberg (junior expert). A couple of groups back were Dan, Craig and I, behind us was Bill and Robert, then Mike Henry Jr., and somewhere way in the back was Dick Beightol. Randy Vosberg was there to take any last minute things and give lots of encouragement and enthusiasm. This was great, you could feel the electricity in the air. We were looking good and ready to race. We moved to the line, our class 200 riders deep. Dan, Craig and I were in about the middle of our group on the start. The gun sounded, a gap opened up and I managed to move up significantly before wedging into the single track. Riders everywhere were jockeying back and forth through mud bogs and tight single track. What a rush. I was doing well, hammering hard, passing people and not letting anyone by. Then at the bottom of the first real hill Dan says "hey". He must have been hammering good to. We went over the hill and headed down some fast double track. Dan went by and we jockeyed back and forth with some other riders before hitting some really cool, tree covered, technical single track. We passed some more riders here. It leveled off as we passed the water station. Then we headed up some more where we started hitting lots of slower traffic and somewhere along the way I lost Dan. The course came back into Laguna Seca onto the Dirt Crit coarse (complete with a double jump) then onto the raceway for 3/4's of a lap. My legs never let me down and I felt good and raced hard the entire race. What more could a guy ask for? Robert did manage to break his chain but was able to fix it and continue the race. Other than his chain we had no other mechanical problems and everyone had a fun race. The trip home I'd like to thank our sponsors Kennewick Schwinn, Leo's Auto Express, Sigma, State Transmission, Paint and Equipment, Arnette, and most importantly my wife Karen for letting me go. Ride on! [View the Sea Otter Team Results] COACHES CORNER by Randy Coleman Log Book: I am sure that we have all recorded in our logbooks the important races of the year and when we plan to peak. Log book you say? Yea, that's where we record how many hours we ride each day/week/training cycle, the intensity zone of each ride, structured intervals completed, our success's or failures after each race, and the training periods that we plan to peak. A good logbook will be the best coach that you have ever hired. When you look back through your log at successes and failures you'll be able to connect them to the weeks of training that preceded them. Take into account 3 to 4 weeks of training prior to the event for a complete picture. Next month - Bike Fit Records OVERWEIGHT & OVERBRAKED (The Chubby Reports) #1 by Captain Parachute I'll be the first to admit that over the winter I quickly became an honorary member of the "Old Men Who Get Fat In Winter" racing team. I want to do the Inland Empire Century this year so I figured I'd better put in some saddle time. I thought that the best way to do that would be to show up at the Court Club Rides. After all - it's not quite as much fun to ride by yourself. Anyway, Friday (4/16) [Okay, Okay, I'm waaaay late as usual] I showed up on my multi-talented? mountain bike outfitted with some 1.4 slicks and put in some miles. It's been two weeks since I've done any kind of riding to speak of and I can really tell that I'm not used to this at all! Even with the slicks, I'm not able to hang with the Bullett Boys for more than 1.75 picoseconds. Ah, well. At least with the spreading waistline I ought to provide a pretty good windshadow for someone to slingshot around me. Still riding by myself but at least I start off with the group. Need to do more of these suckers. Stay tuned for the further adventures of "Captain Parachute"! WALLA WALLA ROAD RACE REPORT Masters B by Phil Smith Well, Brent and I led out the Kennewick Schwinn Racing convoy after forming up at Starbucks for some coffee and storytelling. The road was a touch bumpy in spots, thought maybe the bikes would go flying off the rack after a few of the big bumps. About half way to Walla Walla, we noticed the wind had picked up somewhat. I figured this might prove important later. Sign-in went pretty smoothly, noticed that a few of the guys were using a kilt to change, it sure seemed to draw the women's attention. For warm-up purposes, Dick Beightol, John Snell, Craig Fortner, a few other fellows and myself decided an impromptu parking lot crit was in order. This worked pretty well, I kept trying to initiate Craig's sweet new Cannondale R2000 by brushing his rear tire with my front, but Craig is a wily (and wise) fellow and avoided this maneuver. Got ready to stage for the start, and realized I had forgotten my lucky sweatband/bandanna, so I raced back and got it, hustled beck to the start in time to hear the seemingly endless warning about crossing the centerline. Well, at long last, we're off and rolling. Road race starts are sure different than mountain bike race starts. For one thing, you don't go off in a dead sprint, also, everybody seems so happy and relaxed (probably bored to a stupor by the race officials and their pompous warnings and edicts). At any rate, things started out a lot like a Court Club ride, minus having to feel bad for breaking so many traffic laws. After a while I couldn't stand it any longer and buzzed Brent's rear tire. Brent is pretty accustomed to this sort of odd behavior by me (we ride together at lunchtime) and didn't seem too uptight. I really should have called it quits on tire buzzing at that point, but I am slow on the uptake at times, and learned the reason this is a bad thing to do about 3 miles down the road. We were headed up a roller and I was behind this guy that looked like a 55-year-old version of Marco Pantani. Well, Pantani senior stood up to go over the roller, his bike comes back about the time I am making a spastic lunge forward, and I buzzed his tire so hard I almost went down, and my handlebars were knocked about 15-20 degrees off center. Well, this was kind of an annoying development, but the bars didn't seem loose, only tweaked north-by-northeast, so onward we went. The first lap went pretty smoothly, Big Dan the Schwinn Man (Dan Tolley) picked up the points for the 1st lap hot spot, with Brent "stop buzzing my tire" Strecker 3rd. At the second lap feed zone, somebody handed me a bottle, which I promptly dropped. Fortunately, another kind soul pressed a bottle into my hand and away we went. I was kind of lounging around in the tail end of the lead group and was amazed at the antics Randy Coleman put on. When someone took off on a break, Randy motored up to them and before long we were all one group again. Quite the tactical fellow. About ¾ of the way through the 2nd lap, Randy and a few other fellows took of as though they were handing out money up ahead, I had to put my head down and mash those pedals to get back on the group. Fortunately for me, about the time I was running out of gas someone up front decided to back it down a bit so I got a nice chance to recover. Now, I have not had much road racing experience, but I learned that the 1km line is not the same as the 200m line (where by official edict, the whole road was usable and that blasted centerline rule was waived until just past the start/finish line). Ted Hohl, of Tri-City Chinook fame, was kind enough to inform me that crossing the centerline at the 1km line in front of the official car was not a very good tactic. This meant I had to drop back in to my spot in the rear and watch Brent do a nice job winning the 2nd lap hot spot. The 3rd lap was kind of an interesting lap, a fellow was able to get several hundred yards ahead of the group and stay there for some time. After talking this over with Ted Hohl and a couple of other fellows, I decide to go up a ways and see what would happen. Well, some fellow I didn't know came up with me, and we reeled in the guy up ahead. I then found out that another fellow was just up ahead so away we went. By this time we had about a 7-8 person group up ahead of the main pack. One great big guy was pulling like a locomotive up front, so we all stayed on the train and tried to keep the gap on the main pack. I didn't quite realize that they were actually running a sort of paceline (the big fellow and his teammate mainly) and expected me to take a pull, but pull I did. As I started running out of gas, these rascals decided I had been with them too long, and away they went. I figured, if these characters get away I'm pretty well screwed, so I put my head down and went like hell. Once again, about the time I was nearly all used up, the group slowed up and I was able to get back in the draft and sit on a wheel. By this time we were only a couple of miles from the finish, and I again got a nice little recovery period on the tail end of the group. I had the 1km and 200m thing figured out, so when the great big guy took off at the last turn before the 200m mark I got on his wheel and stayed stuck there like a tick. As we hit the 200m line I pulled even with my new best friend and spun it up. Apparently he cramped up, Ted Hohl was behind a fellow who cramped and this guy nearly took Ted out right there. Anyway, the big guy disappeared from my peripheral vision and I thought, "Holy smokes, I have a shot at this thing". About that time another fellow appeared on the right so I went for my tallest cog and pounded away like the IRS was after me. Turned out that was good enough. What a great feeling, winning the race. I have to take this opportunity to thank Dan Tolley and Tony Tran for keeping me in good tires and other miscellaneous but vital parts (thanks for the pre-race tune-up Dr. Tony!), Randy Coleman, for controlling the field and letting me sit-in, Ted Hohl, for keeping me from getting DQ'd for flagrant and heinous centerline violations, and Brent Strecker for patiently towing me around at some very vital spots. Also, thanks to my wife and children for tolerating my obsession with all things bike-related.
Check out back issues of the Mudnews newsletter in the Mudnews Archives. See you all out in the mud! - GrrRiz
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