Nice job Adam and co!

I was in the NYVelocity guy's inability-to-adjust-the-limit-screws-on-his-derailleur flop, sending his chain into the spokes and cascading riders over to the side I was on.  Todd was able to ride through the dirt and stay up but I got banged into.  Tried to get up and chase......chain off. Durrr.  Fix it, but the field is pretty gone at that point.

Got to within maybe 20 seconds on the highway climb, but with 4 guys trying to catch 25 or so, it was over once they crested the second kicker.  I dropped everyone else in the chase in a last desperate attempt, but when Norm informed me that I was over a minute down, I considered the fact I'd been chasing for 10 miles and I was alone.....and it was towel time.  Nice to see Condon and Patrick ride up for a nice hard training ride on the rollers though!

Thanks to Laura and Norm for the feed, and of course, Jules, who made it all possible by letting a maniac like me borrow his family truckster.

At least I broke my "crash in a race" cherry.  But I dunno if it counts if you're going around 10mph...uphill...

Kudos to the Cat 3 guys that brought it today. It was no joke. Part of me is really glad the the State Championship was for real. The other part of me wants to die.

We went screaming up the the first climb and I got dropped about 3/4 of the way up, even after putting out 407W for the first 5 minutes... ouch. The chase was futile, although we had a nice group and we kept racing. I'll spare you the rest. I'll let one of the skinny bros chime in for that.

The field was shattered. People dropped out left and right. We went swimming. I need to lose like 300lbs.

http://tpks.ws/OJs8

Jesus Vlad, that's savage.  And for what it's worth, the NormP number is even more impressive (and relevant, depending on who you ask)

the 3's went FAST up those climbs today - lot's of big names dropped or quit, so don't feel bad if you were among them.

Yeah, I had a lot of fun today. 

Ed Nolan - 2nd Place - NYS Champs RR. Sweet.

NICE!

OK - So here is a brief report.

This is one hard race. But I really like it. I will be back next year to take my cracks at it again, ideally 10 lbs lighter between the body and the bike.

It started nice and mellow, but boy was it fucking hot. The shade at the start felt manageable, but once we were in the open sun I had the summer jersey unzipped with no base layer and I was still overheating.

Things were tight on the rollers, but I managed to wiggle my way towards the front for the first big climb. People slammed on the gas. I am still a bit in shock at how aggressively we rode that climb, of course it mellowed out over the top as people were gassed...

30 sec: 508 watts
1 min: 457
2 min: 440
5 min: 376
10 min: 346

so basically those were my power peaks for the day starting from the bottom of the climb to heading over the top. OUCH.

Anyway, I chugged my fat ass close to the front for the start, and proceeded to strategically drift back. About midway up the climb, someone says to me "back!" Holly shit, 1/2 the field is already gone and I'm at the back a lot quicker than I would have liked. No worries, latched on and rested on the descent. Only a few folks (5-10) managed to catch back on during the descent, but they were quickly re-shed from the group.

The highway climb was hard, until I realized I was in my big ring. OOPS. Got out of that and spun up it.

The steep climb was really hard, and a gap started forming. Dave V was behind the gap with about 6 other riders, and heading to the feed zone I knew we would catch back on quickly so I decided to let the other riders close the gap.

Only managed 1 bottle in the feed zone, which proved to be pretty critical. I finished that bottle within 5 mile of leaving the feed zone and then I was out of water. Uh ohhh. A little ways up the big climb I got shot out the back. Just couldn't turn the pedals. In retrospect, I always wonder how much harder I could have gone but I'm pretty sure I was toast on this one.

I road for almost 10 minutes before any other Cat 3s caught me. Wow. Front group was moving. Some guy was handing out ice cold poland spring bottles on the climb, which I'm pretty sure was the only thing standing between me and heat stroke. Thank you guy!

I got in this little group and sat on just to get home quicker. There were some guys doing a serious chase but I didn't have the heart to tell them how far behind they were.

On the really steep hill to the finish the masters field was catching me so I pulled off the road to let them by. Here I saw Al B. We chatted and traded excuses, but damn does it feel good knowing Al, Warren, Nick and a host of other studs DNF'd as well.

As Al and I rolled in he asked if I wanted to sprint (1 lap down) to confuse Alan and the officials. I said, let's sprint for the feed zone crowd as well. So we did. True to my predictions about form, I set new power highs for everything under 9 seconds. 1079 watts for 10 seconds with a peak at 1402. Errr, if I could only get over the hills.

BTW. Ryan and William had incredible performances today. Vlad and Dave made me feel like a wimp for not finishing, great job finishing what you started.

Thanks Joe, Sterns, Papa DC, Aly, and everyone else who helped feed and take care of us.

Next year Pawling, next year!

First of all, hats off to Adam and Tito for their very strong placings.....Tito, def understand the "funk" but dude....to finish anywhere near top 10 over that course and with that heat is damn impressive.  

Results, bros

http://fastalracing.com/PMRR12Results.pdf

Sounds like an Epic day.  Huge props to the lot of you!
I spent the day sweltering in the NYC subway trying to get myself, stroller & a toddler to the finish line of the NYC Triathlon in time to see mamma bear cross the line.  Fail! 
Took me 90 minutes to get from the slope to west side of the park & 72nd street.
Looking forward to this leg smasher next year.

Funny part from yesterday.  So, we were dropped and would form random chase groups and guys would blow here and there, the usual.  One guy that was with me since my crash was Percy from East End.  Super nice guy.  I pulled him a decent amount of the way and would drop him on the steep sections, but he's strong and did a fair amount of work, just to get finished ASAP!

But then his teammate, Chris Schenker I suppose, caught on and proceeded to "conspire" against me!  You 4's might recognize him as the bow-legged and bow-armed rider who has a crab-stance (a bit older fella, all veiny too) and who's also super sketch in park races, especially going uphill (it was crazy how so many riders in our field were all over the place swinging their bikes when the road turned up. More skittish handling than at any other time in the race).  Anyway, the last time up the highway incline, he's telling Percy, "Make him do all the work.  Let him drag us around.  He's going hard and we'll be able to attack him and come around at the end".  I dunno if he thought I couldn't hear him, but I just said, "Dude, you guys can do whatever you want, I'm just riding this one in.  We got dropped an hour ago".  Chris is like "Oh, are we not racing anymore? You guys don't wanna sprint?".  Uhhhhhh....We're like 10 minutes down dude!

I dropped them on the kickers, picked up an ARC guy, they all got back on and then those two out-"sprinted" me for 35th and 36th.  Congrats.  But Percy and I shook hands across the line and he even made fun of his teammate. 

Ah, I love the randomness of bike racing.  See you guys at Pawling next year!

WDC:  I've cramped so hard I've had face-cramps.  Srsly.

Face cramps?

not much to report on my end.
Came up the first big hill in the lead group, passed jeff w. who i heard say to jeff c. 'what do you need?' after his front wheel flatted. I thought to myself: jeez that must suck! and admired his generosity. Moments later- while descending and very pleased with the fact that we were about 10 riders at the front clear of the rest of the field- I almost lost control of my bike; I looked down to my front tire and all my hopes for doing well at this race crumbled.
I waited and waited, saw grupettos chasing, for about a minute or two, enough for me to completely catch my breath from that brutal climb. I got another front wheel from the service car and was told 'good luck'...that said it all. I knew I was never gonna see that field again. I chased and chased, passing many riders, I was dead last. Once or twice I would get caught on the downhills but then would take off on the flats and bridge to more riders when the gradients smiled at me.
Its a fun course, well organized and close to the city.
I'll be back with a vengeance...in the meantime I'm gonna sharpen my legs at floyd.
Tour of the Hilltowns is next!

I will scribe a description of yesterday's race.  I'll start with the last climb on the final lap, as most of the previous stuff has been described aptly: it was hard.

post-Pawling, pack of perverts pose w/ assorted papusas

Why hasn't White posted the pic of the matterhorn of meat that he and Norm consumed post-race?

post-Pawling, pack of perverts pose w/ assorted papusas

There are 0 lies in this sentence. My post race eating also helps explain my during race difficulty with hills.

Old forum allowed me to highlight and "quote" selections from a post...new forum, "quotes" the whole passage regardless where I highlight. Grrrr---fuhnoying.

"it was one of those moments where you say "okay, I can bury myself and
stay on but that might ruin me for good. Or I can back off a little and
try to come back on the descent." Chose the latter. Never got back. And
really, I was cooked, so I think it was the right choice."

Ryan, I'm going to say that 90% of the time, you are going to want to bury yourself to stay on and not back off the way you did. There are always exceptions to this, but it's almost always going to be harder to chase back than suffer for a few minutes more with your tongue licking asphalt. It's a few minutes of high intensity effort, versus a much longer period of almost as high effort that is just going to dull and tire your legs like rudely slapping a Japanese chef's knife against a bamboo cutting board. If you suffer for a few more VO2/Supramax minutes, you'll be in the bunch, and have more time of actual recover. Instead, you force yourself into chase mode, which is going to last 3 or 4 times whatever gap you've let go when you start chasing.

^ i think we all know this to be true, but the 3rd Paradox of Bike Racing is that it will be false while you are suffering.

That is one shady looking bunch of dudes.

@Marc Yeah, you make good points. And I definitely had those "maybe I wussed out; I could've gone harder" thoughts afterwards. But then again, I always have those! 

I think the trick is to type a bit before the quote and then delete what you don't need like this

Old forum allowed me to highlight and "quote" selections from a post...new forum, "quotes" the whole passage regardless where I highlight. Grrrr---fuhnoying.

Although I only figured this out today...

.

.

Having some trouble there, Tito?

I think Ed Nolan is too shy to post his race report, so I'm taking the liberty of copying the email he sent me earlier today. I hope he will forgive me:

Yes David it is true.

In case you have never done Pawling Mountain, it is brutal.  It was my
first time.  I decided on this race over the New Britain Crit (another
60+ event) since it was closer and I got a chance to sleep in.  Just
before the race I bumped into William Doyle, who warned me to drink
lots of fluid.  It started out fine with a nice warmup of 29 some
riders  consisting of six 60+, 19, 55+, and 4 juniors 17-18.  As we
got under way along the rolling preliminary 6 miles, one of the
juniors who thought we were going way too slow asked: "are we being
neutralized?"   Most everyone knew that in about a mile the suffering
would begin.  I had studied the profile and knew when it would become
vertical.  I was ok and sitting comfortable in the peleton until half
way up the climb.  I lost momentum and eventually was dropped.  Not
much relief in the 3 miles of climbing.  Once that was  tackled I
caught back on with a junior that was also dropped and rode strongly
until the 12% gradient on the last climb of the first lap.  I was
pretty knackered by then, but rode hard on the downhill until I caught
my junior friend.  I was thinking of dropping out, but I just kept
moving the pedals and tackled the 2nd lap with much less enthusiasm.
Now, I just wanted to finish no matter what.  With the 95 degree heat,
I drank all my fluid I had on board and was glad there was a neutral
water zone that I shower down and drank.  I finished strong and did
better on the steep 12% grade the second time around.  I had no idea
what place I came in.  I was surprised to learn that I finished 4th in
my field and 2nd for the NYS championship.  I was a case of just keep
moving the pedals until the end. I saw other Kissena guys that all
were suffering from the heat.

Frist time on the podium for me.  Our presenter was awed with the
elder racers and said:  "You guys are so inspiriing".

so that was my day.

Ed

@Jeffrey White

Congrats Ed!

^amazing, Adam.

The sad thing is that I watched the WHOLE THING.