Harry,
Incredible race report, grand chapeau!!

Hey Harry! Congratulations. Sounds like you road a smart race. When it comes down to a 2-man sprint like that, sometimes you are going to win, sometimes you are going to lose, you did your best in the situation, don't beat yourself up about missing the top step. (hugging your opponent and telling him you love him however...that's another story).

Posted By: normanzo

Posted By: Jeffrey WhiteI saw him before the race, actually. We chatted for a bit; he said his aspirations were tempered by the fact that he\'d only been training for a few weeks, but he was just looking to start the season off with a bang. I told him he was nuts. Hope to see him more before \'cross season!

Yep --and I thought I was a bit mad for making BTK my 1st race, even with 4 months training.

It was indeed a bit mad but I had a blast nonetheless. My second road race, ever, and the first one was a number of years ago in Oregon.

I picked up my beautiful Van Dessel Rivet about a month ago (Edwin is a real class act and we are super lucky to have them for a sponsor). I was mostly off the bike through the winter but I was putting quite a few running miles in; my engine was feeling strong. So - on the new bike in earnest to try to punish my legs into shape with three weeks to go before Battenkill.

I showed up, kitted up, pinned up. Chatted with Whitey. I dropped my extra wheels off at the wheel return area. About five minutes before the race I was returning from my warmup and saw them still sitting there. I figured out what I had done and hustled my wheels to the line with about 2 minutes to go - I won\'t make that mistake again!

Lined up next to Caesar and chatted for a minute. The 5/U35 pink field started off super slow. A guy next to me bobbled messing with his bike or something and almost took me out about 2km in - scary. I think it was the same guy who was crossing wheels all the way to the bridge. I got as far away from him as I could.

Rode with Caesar a bit. We were both in good position near the front for the turn to the covered bridge - I lost him there for the rest of the race. Turns out he shaved a ridiculous amount of time (almost an hour?) off his performance last year - awesome.

I did what I could but I just didn\'t have the leg strength to stay with the group at the second hard climb and got dropped. So did a lot of other folks. I managed to bridge back twice and then realized I just wasn\'t going to be strong enough to stay at the front of the race. I was determined to ride hard to the end though. So I looked for people to work with. Unfortunately I didn\'t have much luck in the 5s - guys seemed to either gave me a puzzled look, were too shattered to work, or preferred to ride solo (?). A couple of the Tomhannock guys were on the same page as me, though, and we put in some good miles together. But I put in most of the last 75 km by myself.

Fast forward to 90km, I hadn\'t eaten enough, I was wishing I had eaten about 10 extra enduralyte pills, and I was almost out of water. I started cramping right at the 90 km marker which was at the bottom of one of the last few climbs. I dialed it back, drank what I had left, recovered, and started pushing again. I caught out a couple of other pinks who were really hurting on the last couple little climbs.

Got aero and rode the last 4km or so really hard even though there was nobody in sight. It felt good.

Looking at the results I came in 16 out of 41 starters. 3:26. It looks like the group totally disintegrated - I don\'t know how far in that happened but it made me feel slightly better.

Next year I\'ll look forward to doing this race in the 4s. And... training for it.

Very pretty part of the world, well organized (except for wheel pickup/dropoff clarity), friendly faces, and chocolate milk. Good times.

D.

P.s. - congrats to Jules and Harry and everyone else on the day. JP and Patrick - speedy recovery.

P.p.s. - I had at least three people I didn't know give me a thumbs up and say something nice to me just because I was in Kissena kit. I was feeling the love.

P.p.p.s. - I'm giving up on the image rotation. It seems to be broken?

Embroooooo! The glove brings back such memories. Must have seemed incongruous on such a nice day. Not like teeth chattering Delaware.

well done Derek&JoshC's monster improvement!...if you don't give-up you may be surprised where you end-up!;>
there are (7) of the best 'hill climb series' of you Derek on 'SmugMugPro' this one and (6) before it:

http://www.ksjphoto.com/Sports/Cycling/Tour-of-the-Battenkill-2012/i-4sMbsjg/0/S/20120414TourOfTheBattenkillD90-S.jpg

-h

My Battenkill Cat 5 U35 experience, 2012.

(pre-race)

I trained hard all winter for well...racing..but specifically ..THIS. Rode in 5 degree weather to get Perlberg famously telling JP and I we were nuts, etc . In ?Feb?, JP and Ragot started giving me specific advice, and I felt myself improving. First couple of park races were encouraging, but I knew I had a lot to go. Then life in the past few weeks mentally psyched me out (finish one job, move home 9 years of stuff, fly to AZ for a wedding, fly home to check my dad into a hospital for surgery, religious holidays including 12 hours of food prep, start my new job, check my dad out of said hospital and help with his rehab, BATTENKILL).

Had almost mentally pulled out before the race, phone call with fiance went like this:

Joshua: Arghhh, I only rode twice last week for 5 hours total, I wanted to ride HARD for battenkill race prep. I should relax and stay home.
Alice: Did you expect to win ?
Joshua: No, but I want to do well...
Alice: Get your a$s out there, you have improved drastically, you'll be great, etc etc. How many races do you get to race and come out BETTER. You will be smarter and stronger after racing Battenkill again.
Joshua: Ok....thanks honey

She is so smart. Worked Friday (from "home" at my folks place), left Queens at 4:30, on highway at well...4:31, and AWAY WE GO. With 3.5 hours of driving to Clifton Park (and I did this drive a million times in college) - I just had to drive calmly, get to the hotel and check in, and sleep. Stopped for some roadside diner baked lasagna dinner! Nice, I was able to keep my day before dinner the same as last year's meal at the Rattlesnake cafe - at least this would be one constant variable. Got some pains in my right knee (I think from driving) that didn't want to go away, and some pain in my right calf that with some massage stick usage went right down. Good, time for sleep.

Made it to the Cambridge parking lot around 9:30 am, got waved into a "full" row to take one open spot, and run into Harry parking. Ends up he and Patrick are two spots over. Harry moves his bags into my car for the ride home, we start the various pre race rituals. We go see the Cat 4 race off (kinda sad that that was the only chance we got to see you guys race) - back to the car for pinning on my #, grab my bottles, and get some warmup in.

Lined up, and where's Derek ? Got worried for a second but he showed, got to line up with my CX buddy. Talk to some Boston kids next to me , they are 16 and 17, and "not racing Juniors since they don't want to get smashed by "lifers" who are on their way to bigger things".. So they are gonna womp my 33 year old butt ? Great..... I can hear Ragot screaming at me now about my mental game.

Anyways, turned to Derek, told him my goal (finish, hang for as long as possible) - but offer up my services if at any point I can do something for him. Derek has the same goals. OK, time to do this thing.

(CONTINUED)

My Battenkill Cat 5 U35 experience, 2012.

(race start)

So I knew my first goal was to be up front approaching the turn into the covered bridge. I road calmly mid pack for a while - watched the guy almost take out Derek, I want to say within the first 1K, still in the neutral portion! AS we went forwards, we went from full lane width blob form, into a two and three wide pack. One of the juniors next to me is taking the left most line, and has no one on his right, and I am in the wind. I asked him to move over to let me in, and got a reluctant ok. We got hit with some cross winds, and folks thinned into a pointy line, and I found myself outside of it again. OK, can't "break in", so now is the time to move up front. So I take the left side, and move up to an open slot maybe 4th or 5th wheel. I am looking for a moment to recover, and BAM, everyone speeds up (please tell me I didn't do that).

As we get to the turn, I am over to the right, there is no space to pass me on the right. So I hear "CAESAR!, coming up on your right, can I slot in?" . Nice, here comes Derek. Let him in and into the bridge we go. Excited to have done something for the team, as little as it is. Yelled out stuff like "keep your head up, dont slam your brakes, etc" as we went through the bridge. Thankfully the field was a little less nervous lemmings here than last years group was.

Currently I am away for work, I realize this is just a smattering of a report - rest to come later today, including hopefully some uploaded pics of Harry's finish and podium. As I am sure you can all imagine, Harry was on cloud nine all the way home.

Full results:

https://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2012-71

High fives harry, well done~!

Joshua, do you have power data to compare from this year to last? I would think, especially with your huge improvement, it would be interesting to look at both files.

Woot!

3rd Places for all our men!

Kissena gets 3rd in Team Placing (nice work boys)

Wasn't Mancebo recently upgraded to 3rd place in the 2005 Tour? Funny how only certain people involved in Puerto really got investigated...

A few glimpses of Kissenas cat4s at BTK --a nice one of Jules here:

http://rockon.smugmug.com/Cycling/2012/Battenkill-April-14-2012/22446260_NtG8Gh#!i=1794508146&k=6CvKQtr&lb=1&s=A

Thanks Norm! Made my day.

I'm glad we made that FGX guy work for his muffin money. The faces of pain/despair in the guys behind are awesome.

@jules Burning a hole in your garmin with your eyes as the watts rise

cat 4 white video for your viewing pleasure......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wU_KO6dDYQ

So is Bierkraft happening tomorrow?

Guys I have to postpone the Muffin-Beer Feast at Bierkraft tomorrow.
Apologies.

New photos up. Cat 4 White start around picture 0692


http://edcollierphotography.exposuremanager.com/g/2012_tour_of_the_battenkillstage_road_1230_130#l_1230_1330_btnkl_0761_2_2_3

Lantern rouge, Cat 4 White rolling up Stage Road!!

You could easily be in a two man break with that look of determination! Chapeau!

cat5 45+ pink
2step climb @stage road...reeled david back-in @crest final crest. (9)image sequence.

http://edcollierphotography.exposuremanager.com/p/2012_tour_of_the_battenkillstage_road_330_430/1530_1630_btnkl_0464_2_2_6

-h;!

I'm planning on signing up tomorrow. Anyone else?

not being able to race this again in 2013 is a real bite in the ass......but i will definitely try to join for recon rides, and will plan to head up that weekend to help in the feed zones....

I will be there, seeking revenge for the Yellow Bike Incident.

Just over 22hrs 30mins remaining til reg time! I'll be in Oregon come race time, but rooting for you fellas!

josephmueller said:

I'm planning on signing up tomorrow. Anyone else?

you need to ask?