Racing begins

Biking season has started, and I'm sad to say I am not really in the best shape of my life. I intend to get there though by summer. Nonetheless I've had some really good results. I've really improved my bike handling skills and I'm substantially more assertive in the pack. If this sounds like gobbly gook to you, imagine 80 riders on a one lane road all vying for position at the front of the pack, but not at the very front (the ideal position is about 5 riders back). Why all this nonsense you say? Well aerodynamic drag forces are the major retarding force in road cycling, and getting right behind another rider saves a tremendous amount of energy. So the plan is get someone else to do all the work until the end when you sprint for the win. Of course strategies get more complex, and riders take turns going into the wind and end up going way faster than they could alone. Ultimately you need to be smart, lucky, skillful, and strong to do well on a consistent basis. As you can imagine there's lots of bumping in such a pack, especially as we go round corners and such. I've really improved my ability since last year to take and give out bumps at high speeds through corners, and I'm pretty excited for the rest of our season. Also, the amount of g forces I can handle while cornering has increased, meaning that I can go a bit faster through corners, though it helps to have seen and tried them first.

So while my legs are not as strong as they could be, I'm working on the tactical side of cycling, which has some hidden benefits. If my legs were a bit better I'd be forced to race A's and the leader of the A team is like a spoiled child. He really doesn't know how to have fun racing the bike and is always yelling and throwing little fits. I could tell a countless number of astounding stories regarding his amazing lack of character, but suffice to say it's more fun not to race with him than to race with him. I suppose if I didn't have to leave my bike in college park over winter break I could have come back strong enough to be the leader of the A team, but that's not how it went, plus I'd have to be way stronger since I have way less experience and skills. I'm just going to work on skills and tactics, and my fitness should be good by summer. Then I can pick and choose my team mates, and hopefully race really hard with some deserving team mates.

In addition racing b's is quite a bit of fun, everyone is more laid back and easy going, though I'd rather be doing the A's kicking but there. Nonetheless, when you consider that biking is my recreation, I think the B category is the best one for me for that purpose. While I probably have the fitness and skill to get away with racing A right now, I think that would create more stress than the added prestige and pride would be worth. I'm already a bit close to a mandatory upgrade though and next weekend may be my last B weekend.

I've included some some links pictures to somewhat express what bicycle racing is like, though it really can't express the white knuckled frustration of being in a huge 80 man deep pack on a narrow one lane country road zipping for corners and vying for position.

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jonesmd/PresidentsCriterium2005/
Mike Jones, renaissance man.

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~neilg/cyclingearlyseason2005/index.html
all taken by me, so none of me, also some pretty bad ones.

http://www.wvu.edu/~bike/navy_pics.html
has a sweet video of me off the front coming out of a 180 degree downhill turn(b race).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/niels_olson/
not too much good stuff

http://community.webshots.com/user/rando31337
plenty of good stuff

random others worth looking at:
http://www.woofdesigns.com/WDsomething.htm

C men only(not me):
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=6wi23q.7imrbamb&x=0&y=-b6zriy

all pics of my race:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=6wi23q.2msq25oj&x=0&y=-u7dqft

Note, our three girls are doing an amazing job and took first second and thrid in their first race. I'm looking forward to the point where they start racing women's A and really challenge themselves. I think they're still a bit hesitant to move up, but a few more sweeps and hopefully they'll look for the challenge of the A feild. No chance they'll sweep that this year though, not as long as a certain UVA girl shows up. She was competeing in the men's B feild in a hard road race with plenty of hard climbing which ended up dropping all but 17 men and her. Though to be fair, she did cheat by using the oncoming traffic lane to advance, and should have been disqualified right then and there as the oncoming traffic lane is not blocked off. I think they'll still see plenty of good finishes in the a's though.

Also of note, we have two c riders who look like they will be quite good as well. One won the road race, another got third in the criterium this weekend. Looks to be a good season.