The $22 Group Ride - Things to do...

Racing can be funny at times. You always arrive expecting a really hard effort and almost always get that hard effort. Racing in the Cat 3s is typically also that middle ground category where you will also get some team tactics in play, and sometimes it is executed well. In the spring you also expect to battle wind, rain, snow, gravel, and whatever else is left over from the winter.

But today was one of those days where very few of these items applied. I did put in a hard effort and spent some time in one break where my brain was engaged but my legs weren't as engaged, but for the most part today was a group ride. Appeared to be about 60 of us rolling around the Warren County roads do our best impression of a 5 year old soccer team swarming the ball at all times.

The first thing you know in a race like this is that the finish is going to be stressful. All 40+ remaining souls will be riding 30+ mph, grabbing whatever sliver of pavement they can get their tire into, trying to find a way to finish as close to the front as possible. So, to pass the time and get to the end there are a few activities you can do within  the peloton to prevent your brain from thinking about the inevitable mass sprint finish that will complete the day.

Calculate Total Bike Cost

One thing we all know about the Cat 3 group is that there is some cash rolling around. This is not a slam on any of the Cat 3 riders, but with a large number being in their 30's and 40's and having real jobs there is some bling rolling around the course. From the nearly all-white Ridley Noah to the brand new Floyd Landis intended Kuota and everywhere in between. To do this you have to think in retail and MSRP only. you could try to figure out who got a deal and who paid retail, but that is distracting you from the real task - adding up the bling. Today it appeared that there was close to $250,000 worth of bikes in the Cat 3s alone, though wheels are harder to quickly estimate than frames and components. Zipps and Mavics are easy, but the rest becomes more difficult. The best part of this game is that it forces you to move through the pack and learn how to navigate through, building your skills for crit and cyclocross season.

Estimate the Finish

About the fourth lap of the race it was pretty well reasoned that this race would be a sprint finish. There was very little wind, no hills of a substantial nature, and no dominant attacking team tearing things apart. At this point you start to think about who is good in a sprint, who has a team to get them to the sprint, and who you remember getting beaten by in a sprint. The goal is to translate this into identifying the top 3 for the race on the day. Given that I personally am not a sprinter, this is a game I can play without impacting my results. Today I didn't get to play this game, I was busy adding up bike costs. But I fancy this game at the Georgetown race as that seems like an ideal candidate for another $22 Group Ride.

There are more peloton games that can be played in a race such as this or just a group ride. We will discuss those a bit later. I enjoyed today's ride, but these aren't really the races I prefer. I realize, of course, that I only have myself to blame for not being in the condition I need to be to have Cat 3 breakaway speed. As a result a $22 Group Ride is pretty good training for me right now.

Mountain Joy

Hesitation was the word preceeding the first attempt at mountain biking with three of the junior LionHearts. I have been working with them through the winter and talking about doing some mountain biking with them to give them some other experience and some better handling skills.

After a long winter of lots of snow and cold weather we finally got a streak of warm weather and decided to hit the trails. The four of us, myself and three of the LionHearts, hit up East Fork on a beautiful Friday morning.


 The initial trepidation soon turned into a calm interest, then to a bit of excitement, then into all out mountain joy. They had never been on a real mountain bike trail with logs and rock and long stretches of curves, downhills, uphills and fun jumps. After about 20 minutes they were all hooked, but each in their own way.

Zane was initially hesitant to mountain bike. When I talked to him mom about mountain biking she told me that he had said that mountain biking was no fun and there wasn't any reason to ride a mountain bike. Whether it was just because his mom was saying it or some pre-disposition against mountain biking, his tune had started to change. We got his mom's mountain bike set up to fit him and refreshed some of the components to make it more rideable and he gave it a shot.

Within minutes he was almost shrieking with excitement. The kind of excitement that almost makes a young boy drool, but definitely turns them into a non-stop commentary on how something is so cool and that he had no idea why he hadn't done this before and that he had never been on real mountain bike trails before now and it was AWESOME!

Spencer was excited, but in a much different way. He was talkative, which is more of a trait than an occassion, and was sure to let everyone know it was cool. However, his excitement was more of a realization that his years spent on a motocross bike were not left to waste. He had now combined his two favorite sports from the past few years, cyclocross biking and motocross, into a single sport. He got to be the motor in addition to dodging obstacles and ramping himself wildly over log ramps that I know Butch had fun putting together.

Mackenzie was a different sort of excited, an excited that a girl shows and boys (and dad's) have a hard time understanding. She found it a lot more interesting than road riding, but mentally was struggling with obstacle clearance. She hadn't seen these things on a bike before. How was she supposed to riding over roots, stones, and rough terrain, especially downhill, when no one gave her the book to read before hand and understand everything about it. The excitement was certainly there, but more muted as she was waiting for a completed operator's manual before letting it all loose.

We had about a 2 hour ride on the trails at East Fork and every one got muddy. The trails were really in great condition except for a few minor spots where water had pooled up and a few small "puddles" throughout the trail system.

Tonight we headed out again, this time to Landen-Deerfield. The trail system was more torn up and you could tell that riders hadn't respected the trail through the winter and wet months. We rode out to a section that was solid along the creek and found a section we could do over and over, including the creek crossings that were still very much in tact.

Now there was some fun to be had. At East Fork we hadn't gotten into any real good creek crossing, but Deerfield showed us something with both creek section we did showing some good water volume. The kids all shrieked.

Kids: "Do we ride over that?"
Me: "Well, yeah, of course, why not?"
Kids: "Huh? Really?"

So we traversed the creeks, some of us falling in the water and soaking ourselves thoroughly. Much laughter and fun was had by everyone. Towards the end of the ride we were trying to get in a few more laps of our safe course we had found including both creek crossings and within about a 10 minute span we had 3 flats on three different bikes. They were all from hitting the trails with speed and trying new things, to which Zane exclaimed:

"You can tell we had a really good ride because we got flat tires! That is the sign of a great ride!"