Bikes and Bunnies Crit and A New Bike.....WOW

This past weekend was crazy awesome. First I GOT A NEW BIKE. I love the Cannondale that I bought from Maurice, but due to its vintage status I was having a hard time finding replacement parts. It really came down to a new wheel set and the fact that I could not get a new one because the space between the wheel drop outs on the Cannondale are 126mm and all of the new stuff is 130mm. It just so happened that same day I was doing my normal browsing on Craig's list and found this...........

A Lemond Versailles. It is an all carbon frame with a shimano ultegra drive train and about 500 miles on it, which is pretty much brand new. They guy I bought it from is buying some land in Peru to retire on and become an organic farmer. If you really what to know more about it go here http://www.lemondbikes.com/bike_archive/2007/road_racing/triomphe_carbon/versailles.php.

The Criterium (Crit)


Crit racing is like racing cars on a tight road course. Lots of bumping, grinding and crashing. The field was 75 riders deep and included category 3, 4 and 5 guys all racing together. Being my first race I was in the beginner category (5). The course was 1Km long with a couple of sweeping turns and just a little bit of a up hill after the start/finish line. The 1st couple of laps were very fast hitting speeds of 35+mph, I think. I was so focused on what I was doing that I only had a chance to look at my speedometer twice and my watch once. Just after we crossed the start/finish line on our 2nd or 3rd lap somebody crashed somewhere ahead so everybody slammed on their brakes. It was the first time I had locked up my rear wheel on a road bike. All of those power slides when I was a kid really paid off. So many people were locking up their brakes you could smell burning rubber. Another couple of laps went by when in just about the same spot I heard some commotion behind me and just out of the corner of my eye I saw a guy hit the curb and get launched into the air with his bike still attached to his feet. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful until the last lap. With about half a lap left everybody was hammering it and a guy was passing on the inside and clipped his handle bar on a bush and went down hard. After the race we took a cool down lap and he was still on the ground not moving. Hopefully he was ok. My first crit was pretty amazing. It took me a good 24 hours to process the 45mins worth of information. Here are some pics.

Here is the mass start, you can not really see me but I am just left of the satellite dish with a light grey helmet, sunglasses and a light blue jersey.

Crossing the starting line. I think I am the only one wearing leg warmers but no arm warmers.

I am on the right side of the picture on the far side of the road.

Below are a couple of videos that Cory took. You really can not see me, but I am in there.

I will be doing my second crit this weekend at the Colorado School of Mines. I will let you know how it goes.

Happy Trails,

Kelsey

Time Trials

On March 8th Cory and I did our first indivdual time trial (ITT). It was located at Bear Creek Lake Park just south of our house. It was a nice sunny day but a little chilly with temps in the 40's. A time trail is a race where you race against the clock with racers starting every 30 seconds. If you have ever seen the guys with big long tear drop shaped helmets and disc wheel they are probably doing a TT. The course was about 10 miles long with a pretty good hill up to the top of a dam and then back down. Cory race catagory 4, the lowest cat for women, and I raced cat 5, the lowest cat for men.

My start time was 1:05:30pm. It is diffcult to go as hard as you can with nobody around to really race against, but that is part of the fun in a TT. I felt pretty good for most of the race with my heart rate at 88% to 90% of my maxium heart rate. There was a little hill right at the end of the course which I completly wasted myself on. It took me a good 3 or 4 mintues to get my breath back down to a point where I did not think I would throw up. They say that you do not feel like you are just about to throw up you are not going hard enough. The offcials grouped the cat 3, 4 and 5 guys together and I placed 38th out of 50 with a time of 0:25:04. I was pretty happy with that place considering it was my 1st TT and the cat 3 guys were included in my group.

Cory started at 12:43:00. This TT was a good practice. She is going to do a 7 week Wednesday evening TT series in April and May at Cherry Creek State Park. For her 1st TT she really looked like she knew what she was doing but did not full warmed up until Mile 7. Good lesson to learn to warm up more before the next race. Cory came 6th out of 9, but two of the women should have been racing cat 3 (their times were good enough to get 1st and 2nd in the cat 3).

Here are a couple of pics of me at the start.

Here I am about at mile 3 or 4.

Here is Cory just after the finish. I think she is still recovering.

Cory, me, Megan, Megan's dog Phoenix, and RaNae (who is an animal in the hills) getting ready before the race. Megan is the owner/founder of DFT.

On Sunday, March 9th we went down to City Park downtown Denver to watch a Crit (Criterium) and some other DFT members race. A Crit is a race where a field of 30 to 100 racers ride a .5 mile to 2 or 3 mile course for a certain amount of time, usally 45 to 60 mins. When there is about 10 mins left race offical start to countdown laps. When the lap count get to zero who ever crosses the line first wins. Racers try to stay in a tight pack, or peloton, to try and stay near the front. The course usally have a lot tight corners and crashes are typically specatular with a whole bunch of riders going down at once. TTs are like rally car racing and crits are more like formula 1 car racing. I am going to do my 1st one tomorrow, but more about that later.

70 Degrees on March 1st

Cory and I lead a second DFT ride today. Our plan was to do a fairly flat and moderately paced ride. I have got a minor case of tendonitis in my knee that I am trying to fix before it becomes a problem, so I did not want to over work it. Our route went from Green Mountain Sports to Morrison, up hwy 40, through downtown Golden, up a side road towards White Ranch Open Space, east on 56th street (right by where Neil and Cindy use to live), around the east side of North Table Top Mountain, down some back roads to 20th street to Garrison, south on Garrison to Morrison, through Bear Creek Lake Park, and back to Green Mountain Sports. We road just over 40 miles with an average speed of 15MPH and did about 2300 feet of climbing. Yes, 2300 vertical feet is a flat ride out here.

Hillary and Kent from DFT joined us on the ride. It was a most beautiful day with temps in the 70's and the sun shinning. We will be thinking about days like today when it is pushing 100 July.

Kent, Hillary, and Cory. Hillary and Cory look like they are dying. In the next pic, which was taken about 5 seconds later, they have big smiles on there faces.

Good picture of Cory and Hillary on the top of the dam at Bear Creek Lake Park.

Just in case you do not believe me that is was sunny today, here is some proof.

Our Route

Happy Trails