Webcor/Alto Velo Bridge Team

A couple of weeks ago, I got an invitation to join the Webcor/Alto Velo Bridge Team, which is a developmentally focused team for young women who want to bridge the gap between local races and national-level races. After due consideration, I decided that this sounded like a good idea to me. The other members of the team are close to my age, they're all focused on racing a lot and doing well, and they have the benefit of mentor/director sportif Dan Smith to help them along. I'm really excited to be joining the Bridge team, and extra so because my teammate Emily Foxman is joining the Bridge team at the same time so we'll continue to race together. My first race as a Bridge team rider (new kit - mostly green and black!) will be the Davis 4th of July crit this coming weekend. Nationals was my last race for LGBRC, though I will continue to be a proud club member. I'm excited for the rest of the season - I've still got a couple of months of racing ahead of me.

Nationals Road Race 6/27/2010

Category: Elite/U23 Women
Field Size: 62 +17 U23
Distance: 113km (~70 miles)
Place: DNF
Teammate: Emily (?)

The course was somewhat rolling with a couple of longer climbs. It was four laps, each with about 1000 ft of climbing. The first longer climb was right before the feed zone, which was on a lesser incline. Then there was a descent, and a couple of miles later there was a much steeper climb, though the steepest portion was relatively short. Emily and I arrived nice and early and got in a nice easy warmup. The morning was a bit chilly, but by the time the race started it was warm enough to take off the arm warmers.

We started off and the whole first lap was a relatively easy pace. Much of the time I was sheltered enough in the pack to not have to work much except on the rolling hills. I dropped back a bit on the climbs, but I stayed with the pack. On the second lap, near the beginning there was a small crash, but it was off to the side and I stayed with the pack. Going into the pre-feed zone climb wasn't too bad, but then I think a couple of people near the front made a move (I believe there were three people up the road at the time) on the hill. I wasn't able to hold the faster pace up the hill, and I got dropped, along with a couple of other people. I chased hard through the feed zone to catch onto a group, and we got five of us together. In that group was me, Emily, two other U23s, and an elite rider. We worked together and tried to catch another small group that had been dropped from the main pack, but we didn't make much progress. I may have expended too much energy trying to chase, because I lost contact at the top of the last steep hill. I wasn't far behind on the descent, and at the end of the second lap I wasn't far back at all. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to chase and stay with that group, my back had other ideas. My lower back had been aching all week, perhaps due to spending 7.5 hours in a car on Wednesday, and it had only been feeling worse. Then, all of the climbing threw it over the edge, from a dull ache to an extremely painful tight feeling. When I was chasing, I felt it pulling and hurting with every pedal stroke, and from experience I knew it would only get worse. At that point I decided that it wasn't worth it to finish. After my experience at Panoche, I knew that even if I was able to hang on for a 3rd lap, I wouldn't be able to do the 4th, and after the 3rd I would be in really excruciating pain, which doesn't sound too appetizing when I was looking at a 9.5 hour drive home that afternoon.

This was the first race that I've really made a conscious choice to pull out of, but I think I made the right choice. I'm glad that I started the race (I had thought about not registering for it), and it was good experience, but I wouldn't have gained almost anything by continuing with little hope of finishing. Now I know my biggest weakness and I will work through the rest of this season and winter to strengthen my back so that this doesn't happen next year.

Anyway, congratulations to Emily for finishing, especially despite having an unhappy derailleur that wouldn't keep her in the correct gear. She likes hills, and I have to learn to like hills.

Nationals Criterium 6/25/2010

Category: Elite/U23 Women
Field Size: 17 U23 + 54 Elite
Distance: 50km (39 laps)
Place: 52nd

I got the chance to preview the course that morning, before everything was setup. It was a pretty standard rectangular course, five blocks long and one block wide. Road quality was pretty good, but you had to watch out for the curb because the road got wider for parking spaces, but then the curb would abruptly narrow the course again. The short side between turn 3 and turn 4 was also a bit of a bottleneck, since there was a slight rise going into turn 3, then a narrower road, followed by a slightly off-camber turn going slightly downhill into the finishing stretch.

I got in a good warmup, and I was feeling fairly good at the start. I didn't get a great position on the line, so I started near the back and soon lost position and was all the way in the back. It started out quite fast, and I wasn't quite up to cutting off corner-divers, so naturally I got pushed back. Unfortunately, with such a large field, this meant that every turn I had to slow down rather a lot then sprint out of each turn to stay with the pack. The constant reaccelerating combined with the rather fast average speed really wore me down. I think I stayed with the pack for about 8 laps, then spent maybe 3-4 laps chasing on then losing contact again. I was so close to staying with the pack, but they were just going too fast. Me and another lady were dropped at the same time, so for a couple more laps we were chasing together. At that point I decided to keep going as hard as I could until I got pulled, just in case the pack ever slowed down and I'd have a chance to get back on. I think I rode about 5 laps by myself before they finally pulled me. In a way, those laps were easier because I could take the corners closer to full speed, so I could save energy that way. However, I couldn't go as fast as the pack by myself. It was the first race that I've ever been pulled from, but considering who I was up against, I think I did all right.

Nationals Time Trial 6/24/2010

Category: Elite/U23 Women
Field Size: 12 U23, 36 Elite
Distance: 35km
Place: 6th in U23, 35th overall
Teammate: Emily (2nd)

Emily and I drove up to Bend, OR on Wednesday (the 23rd), and we went for a ride to spin out our legs and preview the TT course. The course was pretty simple - after a couple of turns out of the start, the course heads up a moderate grade for 12km, gaining about 800 feet. At 12km, there's a turnaround and it goes back down the hill to near the start, where it turns off into an extra 11km loop. The loop is rolling, with a couple of moderately steep parts. Finally, there's the finish line.

We got to the course about 75 minutes before our start and started warming up. With 45 minutes to start, I went to the start corral to get my bike checked to see if it met regulations. I almost had a panic attack when they measured it and told me that both my saddle and handlebars were outside the limits. One exception is fine, but two isn't legal. I knew about the saddle, and I qualify for the morphological exception, but I didn't know that my aero bar extensions were too long. I hadn't measured them before because I thought my bike was pretty small, and Jose had used the same setup before. What we forgot to take into account was that he qualified for the aero bar exception and needed it for bars that long. I don't need the bars that long, and I don't even hold them at the ends, but I would have had to take a hacksaw to them to make the bike legal. Since that obviously wouldn't work, I needed to move my saddle back. However, my saddle was already all the way back. Thankfully, I had help. Dan and Andi were there supporting Maura for the TT, and they had a solution for me. They had packed Andi's TT bike as a spare, and her Adamo saddle had more adjustability. Also, since it was a spiffy TT saddle, its nose was designed to facilitate a more forward position, so even though the front of the nose was now far enough back to be legal, my position wasn't much different. And, I found out that I actually like the saddle - not the best way to try out a new saddle, but I was so thankful that I could still ride.

Anyway, we got my bike sorted out and I got in a little more warmup, then it was off to the start corral for good. My bike passed (I knew it would, I'd had it checked again after the saddle swap), then I got to wait for about 10 minutes for my start time. Finally, I was in the start house, ready to go. The holder wasn't great, and I got a bit of a crooked start, but at least I made it down the ramp without falling off of it, and I was off. The beginning of the course actually included a number of turns through a road by the school, and none of that was on the course map in the race bible, so that was a little disorienting. Afterwards I heard other people commenting on that, so I was glad that it wasn't just me who was confused. I had accidentally left my Edge 305 at home, so my bike had no telemetry, but during the race that didn't matter at all, since the course had enough landmarks that I could tell where I was, and I shouldn't be staring at my computer anyway. Once I got onto the straight part, could see my 30-second person up the road. For a couple of miles, I was holding steady behind her, but eventually she started to gain on me. Also I got passed by two people well before the turnaround, which I think was a real blow mentally. Right after they passed me I went harder, but I think I let it get to me too much and I think I lost my focus a little bit. Finally I made it to the turnaround, and I was getting pretty tired by this point from all of the uphill. Shortly after the turnaround, Maura passed me. However, I was still accelerating on the downhill, so I passed her right back. Unfortunately, this went on back and forth for a little while because the course rolled a bit, so on the downhill I would pass her, but she would catch me again on the uphill bits. I was ahead of her for most of the descent, but she passed me as we neared the turnoff to the loop.

That last loop portion of the course was extremely difficult for me. Each little uphill section was pure torture, my legs were so tired. There were a couple of people spectating around the loop, and they cheered me on. I kept going as hard as I could, even though I was feeling awful, and finally made it across the finish line. Once I was done, I was breathing hard for a while, because I was so tired. So even though I didn't do that well in comparison to the other riders, I think I did close to my best effort. I was certainly tired enough at the end. It'll be interesting to see how I do next year, since next year I intend to actually train for races and perhaps specifically the TT. This year's training has been kind of a joke and I knew it.

Emily, on the other hand, had a great TT and got 2nd in the U23's. Obviously she's come a long way from where she was at Madera earlier this year, where I beat her in the TT by a fair margin. So, congratulations Emily, you put in a lot of hard work and it really paid off.

Rant: Bad Drivers

So normally I'm a very mild person, aside from my competitive side, and Jose has even gone so far as to call me docile in the past. But today I'm angry, and I've got a lot of hatred for a certain group of people: bad drivers. I don't have much of a problem with people driving cars (heck, I have to drive occasionally), but I don't think there's anything I hate more than a bad driver. Yesterday, a number of things happened to make me particularly hate bad drivers. First, my new friend Haley got hit by a truck and now has a broken collarbone and a concussion. Apparently she was riding along and a car coming the other direction turned left into her going pretty fast. Apparently they didn't see her, and she said she didn't even see the car before it hit her.

Second, I saw a number of idiot drivers while I was riding home. The first was at the intersection of Marine Parkway and Oracle Parkway/Shoreway Rd. I was heading South onto Shoreway, and here's what I saw. There are three lanes heading south: one left turn/straight lane, and two right turn only lanes. There were two cars in front of me in the left/straight lane, and the one in front had it's wheels turned right. The moment I saw it, I knew what it was going to do, and I've seen it before. They turned right when the light turned green. Luckily, there are a lot of lanes heading West right there, so they didn't cause an accident, but seriously, who thinks it's ok to turn right from the far left lane?!

Several miles later, a similar incident happened, but this one was much closer to causing an accident right in front of me. It was at the Brewster light on Winslow. It's one of those lights that gives each of the four directions it's own green light (with a protected left). There was a car waiting in the left turn lane across from me, and they got their green. Just as they start moving, another car comes around them and cuts them off, turning left in front of them from the middle lane (the one that's supposed to be straight only). I just sort of sat there in shock at the sheer idiocy of what I'd seen. If the second car would have waited 3 seconds, they could have gotten behind the car and still turned left on the green light.

And third, about a mile from home, I almost got hit by a car. I was on El Camino heading south, and I was going probably 15-18mph (I wasn't in a huge hurry or anything). I was thinking about how many bad drivers I'd seen that day and how awful it would be if I got hit by a car. I came to an intersection (apparently it's called Alejandra Ave, and it's just the one road on the right) and I saw as I approached it that there was a Jeep that was waiting to turn right (which would bring it to the direction I was traveling). I saw that they saw me, but since they were pulled forward pretty far, I checked behind me and moved fully into the right lane to avoid the front of the car. What I didn't see was that a car coming the other direction decided to turn left into Alejandra Ave at close to full speed. They had obviously seen (as I had) that there were no cars coming, so they thought that they could take the turn pretty fast. However, they missed the part where I was in the road. I don't even know if they had a turn signal on, though I suspect they didn't. I saw them when they heading straight for me (or where I would be in a moment) about 2-3 meters away. I didn't even have time to scream or yell, I just made a sort of spluttering noise. Luckily, the driver did see me at that point, since I was practically right in front of them, and they braked enough that they were about a meter from me as I finished crossing the intersection, still going about the same speed. After I made it through, I just sort of sat on my bike in shock, coasting for a while. I don't know for sure that they would have hit me if they hadn't have braked (I might have been going fast enough, and my perception of their speed and position could have been off), but it was definitely a near thing and it freaked me out. I didn't know it at the time, but it was almost exactly what happened to Haley.

So basically, I hate bad drivers. And the problem is that as far as I have observed, there are a lot of bad drivers out there. Most of them, in fact. Some are far worse than others, obviously, but there are enough that it's scary out there. There are so many things that people do wrong. For example, the simple action of using a turn signal. Turn signals are meant to be used for every lane change and every turn, and you're supposed to start signaling at least 100 feet before the turn or lane change. At highway speeds, you're supposed to signal for 5 seconds before changing lanes. From my observations (and I see a lot of cars every day) only about 25% of drivers use their turn signals at all. Many of the signals that I do see used are turned on about half a second before the turn begins. Frankly, I am astonished that there aren't more car accidents because of this, but I suppose that most of the time not signaling a turn will not cause another car any trouble, and at least people only change lanes when there's an opening to do so. However, a car that doesn't signal a turn, particularly a right turn, can be very dangerous to cyclists. It is very common for a cyclist to ride all the way up to the white line at a red light, since there is usually either a bike lane, a shoulder, or enough room in the lane to do so. Since cars can pass bikes in lane, bikes can pass cars in lane. However, it is sometimes the case that a light turns green while a cyclist is passing a line of stopped cars. When this happens, most of the time everything is fine. However, sometimes cars in that line want to turn right and neglect to signal, and subsequently collide with the bike that is passing them as they turn. This is also why the driver handbook says that cars should merge into the bike lane 200 ft before turning so as to not cut off any bikes. If the car merges as far right as they can, then they are turning from the right lane and there is no way for a bike to come by on their right. I don't see cars in the bike lane very often, and about half the time that a car looks like it's merged into the bike lane in order to turn, it's really just some jerk who doesn't know what they're doing and they end up going straight anyway. Luckily for me, most cars who are turning right give off turning vibes, which consist of usually being positioned in the right portion of the lane and possibly with their wheels turned a bit, depending on where they are. There a lot of subtle hints that I've learned to recognize as predictors of what a car is going to do, so I'm almost always able to stay out of any dangerous situations. Unfortunately, the too-fast-turning oncoming cars are the hardest to predict, since they're coming the other way at speed so there's a very small window of time in which you can see them and try to predict if they'll see you or not.

Anyway, this rant is winding down now. I know that I'm probably preaching to the choir anyway, but it felt good to get it out. And if anyone reading happens to drive a car at all, this is my personal plea to be a good driver, not a bad one.