Pescadero Road Race Report

Pescadero Road Race is a NorCal classic and it's Alto Velo's annual race. As such, most of the guys were working to help pull it off instead racing. Bo and our latest addition to the team, Fabrice Dubost, were out there to represent W/AV. Fabrice is recently relocated from the Normandy region of France. He's an accomplished road racer and we're glad to have him on the squad. Below is Bo's accounting of the events.

Official Results

Photos courtesy of Kieren Sherlock
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Pescadero RR
14 June 2008
P 1/2
103 miles
7600 elevation gain
Start List 84 riders
Webcor AV: Fabrice 12th, Bo Hebenstreit 20th

Course: Too Long. Too fast.

Due to most to the team being involved in volunteer work (Amy and I did pre-race volunteer tasks) Fabrice and I were the only two 1/2 Webcor/Alto Velo's in the 80? person field.

I remember when I was a CAT 3 we quite often used to pass the P 1/2's as they gently rolled along with barely a hint of exertion. I was looking forward to this 'perk' when I upgraded. Unfortunately, what I didn't fully appreciate as a CAT 3's was that the 'kicking back' I had observed was balanced out by short, extremely painful, bouts of ridiculously fast racing. Saturday's 'taking it easy' was 103 miles, 8,000 feet of climbing and an average speed of 22.8 miles an hour.

Today got exciting as soon as soon as we went out of town and an eight person break escaped up the road. I decided not to be part of the action as I calculated any break this early in the race wouldn't last the hundred+ miles to the finish. I was somewhat right when 1 mile later we caught a flatted escapee, and on the descent from Haskins, another rider was off the road removing large chunks of grass from his wheels.

Well, to cut a long story short this race hurt like I couldn't have possibly imagined. Every time up Haskins I fantasized about downgrading to the CAT 5's or jumping out of the race and into my car. But, fortunately, or unfortunately, the descent down to the town was long enough for me to forget the pain and I kept rolling along. Also, Jesse/Andy doing a wild leg shaking episode as his crank fell off his bike was helpful in keeping my spirits up.

In a true Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin moment the remaining six in the break were caught with 3K to go. I would love to tell you that I launched myself from the pack and blasted up Haskins to take the win. Sadly not. I gave it all I had and got 20th. Z team won, James M. 2nd and Adam Rock Racing 3rd. Fabrice looked like he was doing an easy paced B-ride and ended up 12th.

Bo

The MTB Files: Aroussen Scores a W

Aroussen couldn't resist a local MTB race. He went down to Fort Ord and scored 1st place in the PRO category. Right on!

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Date: 6/15/08
CCCX Mountain Bike series
Fort Ord (Monterey), California USA, June 15, 2008

Rider: Aroussen Laflamme
Cat: Pro
Finishing Position: 1st
Course: 5 laps of a 6 miles
Weather: Windy as usual near the coast, mix of clouds and sun

Fort Ord is well known for its infinite miles of dirt trails which are hard packed and at the same time slippery. It's also a great venue for cyclocross racing. But today it host the 8th race of the
Central coast series on a course that I can say will suited me very well. No long climb, 5 to 6 short moderately steep uphill, twisty and challenging course is on the menu today.

After my relatively successful strategy adopted during my last mountain bike race, I thought it would be a good idea to stick to it: start slowly and be patient. I succeed in the former but not the later strategy.

My expectation we're not so high considering the amount of training I've done lately, especially on Saturday after the Pesky race. A bad start (difficulties clipping) allowed me to gage my competitors and to start slowly indeed. The pack just rolled quite easily during the first minutes of the start loop. I stayed in the back, protected from the wind. When things have started to move a bit, I progressively made my way to the front. I had to sprint a bit to enter the single-
track first and decided to stretch the group. I pulled hard until the first climb. Two guys passed me and I took their wheels. At this time, we were three of us in the front; the stretching had been more of a break.

So we decided to work together to increase or advantage. That was a good idea considering the stiff head wind on the first half of the course. One of us would never takes pulls and did create many gaps. By the end of the first lap, two guys catched us while the guy in front of me was fading progressively. Feeling good, not patient enough and not willing to bring fading or not working racers with me, I attacked in the first third of the second lap. My goal was to bring
some other guys with me but nobody did follow. I kind of wait to see if my move would stick and it did. My gap was of 30 second after the second lap and of 45 second after the third, so I was in control.

My main concern was that the group was still working together behind me, which was a big advantage considering the wind. So I decided to ease up during the fourth lap to get ready to answer any potential attack from behind. But any would come. At the end of this lap, my gap was of more than a minute. This is when the group has decided to attacked each others, riding the final lap solo instead of working together to bring me back.

Even with some braking problem during the last descent (maybe no more brake is good after all), I managed to conserve quite a good gap to win this race somewhat easily, at least undisputed. The gold medal is a good father's day gift!

Thanks to my sponsors Webcor-Alto Velo and Kona endurance.
Thanks to my family, Jérémy and Madeleine for their support.
Thanks for reading,
Aroussen

Sattley District Time Trial Championships

Below is Rand's report from the District Championship TT, which is held up near Truckee at altitude. Rand and Jeff both scored top 10's in the Open class, on what was a record settingly fast day. In the Masters categories, Matt Beebe scored 2nd place in the 30-39 open class and Peter Cazalet scored 7th place in the 35-39 open class.

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District Championship ITT
Sattley, CA 6/8/08
Conditions: Cool, very slight headwind on outbound leg
Category: Elite Men Open
Teammates: Jeff Williams
Finish: 7th

After last weekend's Dunlap ITT (31k), I felt pretty good all week andfelt prepared for the 40k District Championship. Showed up at thecourse at 7:00am, and it was beautiful. Very little wind, not too cold, and very clear. Started my warmup, and to my dismay my legs felt pretty dead at the high end. Not really sure why. Headed to the start line for 25 miles of pain, hoping for a time in the 52 minute mark or so.

For those who have never done the Sattley ITT course, it is one of the most featureless time-trial courses I have ever seen--somehow they managed to find a completely straight piece of road way out in the mountains near Tahoe. It is somewhat surreal, because the only memorable part of the course is a gentle left-right bend before the turnaround. There is nothing to distract the mind, no corners to take at speed...just straight road.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to distract me from the fact that my legs were pretty dead. I was able to push a big gear and keep my speed up, but I couldnt get my HR to adequate levels and I felt no quickness in my legs whatsoever. That was a bit sad for me, as I really wanted
to run a good time.

The outbound leg is slightly uphill, and I think my average speed over that half of the race was about 27mph. Coming back from the turnaround, I spent most of my time at 31 or 32 mph. A while after the turnaround, Roman (the race winner) came by me at probably 34mph. He started something like 2.5 minutes behind me.

I managed to struggle to the line with a 52:53. By comparison, Roman set the new course record at 49:29. I came in 7th, as a few other guys also had some really fast times. Jeff rode solidly in his first 40k, and ran a 54:12 for 10th place.

After the TT, I spun down for about 10 minutes, switched pedals, brake pads and wheels over to my road bike, and drove like a maniac to Santa Rosa for the 3:45pm start of the 2-Wheel Crit that afternoon. Overall, it was a fun day, and I had a couple decent races. No more time trials
for a while...

Rand

2-Wheel Crit (Santa Rosa) Race Report

James and the team scored a great result up in Santa Rosa. Below is James' report.

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Race: 2 Wheel Criterium (aka Santa Rosa Corporate Crit)
Category: Men's Pro 1/2
Teammates: Rand Miller, Tore Nauta, Chris Crawford, Scott Rodamaker
Placing: 3rd of 60

This is the same course as always, a corporate business park, wide turns, lots of bot dots and plenty of wind. Some of the teams were better represented than AV on this day, Lombardi, BPG, McGuire, & Cliff Bar all had decent teams there.

The race started out fast and stayed fast for the entire duration. There were lots of attacks. About mid way through the race Tore got into a break of about 8 riders. The break was motoring along and increasing the gap by a few seconds per lap when we came upon a few riders who had crashed out of the break. I never saw Tore among the carnage but from what was left of the break ahead I could visibly see it did not include Tore. At that point I assumed he had crashed. Without Tore and Joel Robertson (who had also crashed out of the break) the break came back in a short amount of time.

Rand did a great job attacking and following attacks, pretty amazing given he did the Sattley TT that same morning, drove all the way to SR in time for the 3:45pm start and still had some legs left to put the hurt on people. I maintained a position of mid to top 1/3 of the pack the entire race. There were 11 primes for beer, wine, flaming toilet seats, and a stereo system. I didn't go for any of them. When I saw 10 laps to go on the lap cards I started slowly moving toward the front. With 2 laps to go I was about 8th wheel when Rand attacked, perfect move, this allowed me to slot into a great position as people were chasing, Rand was caught just before we got to the bell lap. I was 5th wheel behind 3 Cal Giant riders and Kevin Klein (Rock Racing). Pat Briggs(Cal Giant) attacked into the last corner and got a small gap. I tried to go inside of Kevin Klein on the last straight but he took me to the curb, I slowed a little and tried to come around him on the other side when he proceeded to move from the curb toward the middle of the road. I arrived at the line just behind Kevin for 3rd place.

This was a great race for me as my top end finishing speed is starting to improve again. Rand rode a great tactical race. After the race I found that Tore did indeed crash because his tubular tire rolled in a corner. He was OK, suffering only scrapes and bruises.

Thanks for reading

--
James

Dash for Cash and Dunlap TT

The guys raced at Dash for Cash and Dunlap ITT last weekend.

The Dash for Cash sounded totally nuts as usual. The team did well to grab several primes and be active the entire race. Despite solid teamwork, the end was insanity and the team didn't luck out with all the reshuffling. Below is Rand's Report.

At Dunlap, one of the strongest groups of local TT'ers in recent memory assembled to test themselves against the clock. Rand scored a top ten for W/AV while Health Net Pro Roman Kilun ripped off fastest time of the day on a fixed gear TT rig. Insane. Following the crit report is a TT report from Beebe.

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2008 ICCC Dash for Cash
May 31, 2008
P/1/2/3
Teammates: Lots. Aroussen, James, Tore, Neil, Bo, Chris, Graham, Elliot, Bob
Finish: 14th out of 130 riders (Official Results)

This was a well-played race by our whole squad, with everyone working well and keeping the pace fast. The race played out as it has pretty much every year I have done it: fast, with the crosswind and crazy cones/medians on the backstretch leading to a gutterfest every lap. For the first 20 minutes or so I was on the attack trying to stay out of trouble. There were 8 $40 primes available, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some of those as well, while still keeping some in the gas tank for the finish. Aroussen did a great job of nabbing two primes, while I made a solo move to nab another. Throughout the race, we had a solid presence at the front of the race, and all our riders were quite active. Crawford hit 90% of the cones on the backstretch and kept it upright. Aroussen went for a break with about 5 laps to go and got a decent gap, but was reeled in. Heading into the last few laps, we tried to get something of a leadout going, but the front of the race was chaotic. James got caught up on some bad wheels, and was boxed out of position. In the meantime, Tore was on the front drilling it for an entire lap. It was epic. After I couldnt find James with 1 lap to go, I tried to get into position for the sprint, got knocked around a bit with one corner to go, and sprinted for a mediocre 14th. The end of this race was really really nutso, with no order whatsoever and a lot of yelling and pushing and shoving. Awesome.

Overall, we had a great race, and everyone did what they needed to do. It was a really hard race to control, and unfortunately the cards did not fall in our favor. However, with a little luck in our next race I think we can execute.

Rand

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Race: Dunlap Memorial Individual Time Trial
Date: June 1, 2008
Course: 31K, loop with several turns
Category: P/1/2
Top Placing: Rand Miller in 7th of 31 (Official Results: Still waiting...)

The Elite Team made a showing at the Dunlap TT in Davis on Sunday. Rand Miller, Peter Cazalet, Jeff Williams and myself (Matthew Beebe) made the trip to see how we would measure up against a very strong NorCal TT field. Following on last week's Beat The Clock, this would be the last test before the District TT in Sattley this coming weekend.

The short and sweet version from Rand our top finisher on the day:
2 hours on trainer, 41:18 minutes on course, hurt really bad, didnt go fast enough to win, but didnt go too slow. Finished 7th out of 31 guys. Jeff made the solid observation that Disc Wheels sound really cool unless they are passing you. Jeff, Peter and Matt rode solid, looked sexy, and we all posed for the cameras. I think we looked good enough for the next GQ issue.

Extended remix from Beebe's perspective:
We all arrived in plenty of time to register, set-up the trainers and pin the numbers to the skinsuits and get a solid warm-up in. The sun was warm, but heat wasn't an issue so early in the morning. There was wind, but I for one found the direction somewhat difficult to determine and felt it wasn't so strong a wind that it would be a real deciding factor. Additionally, the course had several turns which would complicate things when trying to gauge efforts by predicting headwind sections. I did spend several minutes staring at the course map hoping to internalize it in order to use the turns to gauge my effort from a distance perspective.

I was happy to have a rabbit - someone starting before me (which often I don't get when they do alphabetical start lists). I arrived at the line with 5 minutes to spare. With several known very strong TT riders starting not far behind me, I focused on keeping my head focused on my ride and not worrying about the big guns behind me.

I started hard, but not too hard. I slowly ramped up the effort over the first 5-10 minutes. I came up out of the aero bars in the turns - with no chance to pre-ride the course I took the cautious route with the thinking that wiping out in some gravel would hurt my time (and hurt me!) much more than the aero dynamics hit of coming out of the bars for a couple seconds.

About 20 minutes into the ride my 30 second man caught me. I wasn't gaining on my rabbit, but he wasn't gaining too much on me either. For the rest of the ride my rate of perceived exertion remained steady, although I definitely struggled in one section of headwind (maybe I could have predicted that better?). While my RPE was steady and very hard, I didn't quite have the speed in my legs that I have had on my best TTs. I was fighting too big of a gear most of the ride for some reason I can' t really explain. I was caught by one more rider with maybe 5 minutes to go.

After the last turn I was able to ramp it up significantly. I knew from the course map that there wasn't much left so I really tried to throw down. Signs indicated how far I had COVERED, but not how much REMAINED... This was frustrating because 1) I'm not good at math even under the best of conditions and 2) I wasn't sure if this was a 30K TT or a 31K TT... I guess I didn't study the map that well after all!

I crossed the line cross-eyed and slobbering (always a good sign) and promptly forgot to stop my clock. I cooled down as my team mates rolled in. Everyone was asking each other why we continue to do TTs!

The results were posted after a short while and Rand was the team's highest place. I think Rand placed 7th. We all got served by Roman Kilun who supposedly raced with his fixed gear track disk. He had a sub 40min time. Jeff Williams was next for the Green Team with a time at 42:09 - good enough for 14th. I didn't get my own time (place 21) or Peter's (not sure what his place was either...).

Next up for the TT guys - District Championships! Here's hoping other people hear our disc wheels and we don't hear anyone else's!!!

Mount Hamilton Race Report

Recent Cat 2 upgrades Jeff Williams and Bo Hebenstreit recently tackled a monument of NorCal cycling: Mt. Hamilton RR. This is probably the only point to point race in the district and climbs up and over the highest peak in all of the Bay Area. Bo and Jeff finished in the top half, which is a major accomplishment. Good job guys. Below is Jeff's report

Official Results
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Mt. Hamilton RR, P1/2
5/25/2008
21st of 59
Teammates: Bo H. 28th

I wasn't too excited about doing this race. I haven't been doing too much climbing lately, and this was going to be my second road race in the P1/2 field. Plus it didn't help that my legs were still tired from the Beat the Clock time trial the day before.

There was no real team plan. The climb was going to dictate the tactics. Our goal was to try and stay with the main group over the top and go from there.

The race started off a lot slower than I expected. I thought we were going to be going hard from the beginning of the climb, but that wasn't the case. The first 30 minutes of climbing was totally doable, it was hard, but doable. The hardest part was moving up. The road is so narrow that you have to be really aggressive to move up. I wasn't too aggressive when trying to move up because I kind of feel like I'm the new kid on the block. Not being more aggressive was a big mistake, because once we hit the third part of the climb things started to pick up a bit.

This is when a Cal-Giant rider went to the front and slowly ramped up the pace. A lot of gaps started to happen on and I was constantly going around and trying to close the gaps. Plus it didn't help there were a lot more sharp steep turns the closer you got to the top. Being towards the back going into these turns meant you had to accelerate hard out of the turn just to catch back on. This along with the gap closing took a toll on my legs. Looking back on the switchbacks I could see our main group had dwindled to about 20 or so riders.

With less than three miles to the top I lost contact with the main group. I tried to catch back on, but my legs were spent and I knew there was still a lot of racing on the backside of the mountain. So I continued on at a steady-hard pace. I ended up towing three other dropped riders up to the top.

Just before the top I caught five more riders. One of the riders we picked up was a Cal Giant rider, and on the descent he was going especially slow. I'm pretty sure he was the rider who set the pace all the way up the climb. One of the other riders was Kevin Klein of Rock Racing.
After fast, and sketchy, descent we picked up some a few more riders just after Isabel Creek. Oh yeah, that little climb coming out of Isabel Creek KILLED my legs. I guess my legs went into sleep mode on the descent.

Our group, now about 15 guys, started working together in a paceline. Kevin Klein of Rock Racing was just sitting in on the back because his Teammate Adam Switters was up the road in the main group. We actually caught a glimpse of the lead group on a long straight away. They were probably over 45secs up the road. Seeing the main group got us a little more motivated, but then our paceline started to become disorganized with too many people sitting out pulls.
Going into the hill after the feed zone I told myself I had to keep contact with our chase group. So when two riders started to pick-up the pace a little I jumped on their wheels. One of the riders, Sierra-Pacific Racing, was pushing the pace with a Specialized jr. rider glued to his wheel. Meanwhile I was struggling to hang on. My legs were hurting. When I looked back to see how many people had come with us I was surprised to see the three of us had a sizeable gap. We continued at a hard pace to the top of the climb and quickly started trading pulls once we were at the top.

The Sierra-Pacific rider was super strong and would continually gap myself and the Specialized rider. I told him to not pull through so hard, but I guess he had extra energy to burn. We continued to work together. I was a struggling to maintain the pace. My legs were burning, but I kept pushing myself. We kept looking over our shoulders to see if the pack was gaining on us, but the road was too twisty to see. The Specialized rider started to fade causing our pace to slow. Luckily we were on the descent into the valley. I started to think we might stay away because we were only about 4 miles from the finish. Then I looked back and saw Kevin Klein and about 5 other riders bombing down towards us.

After they caught us there were a few attacks but nothing stayed off. I thought about attacking on one of the small inclines, but didn't think my legs had enough juice left to get me to the finish line by myself.

We hit the 1km sign and somehow I ended up at the front. I was pedaling easy waiting for some to take control or jump. I slowly started to pick up the pace 500m out, then a Lombardi rider jumped. This got everyone going. Just as I went to stand up my quads cramped up. They were super close to locking up. I managed to push through and pass a few people, but in no way did I sprint. I guess I should have taken in more fluids.

Looking back on the race I should have been more aggressive with moving up on the second part of the main climb. This could have aloud me to stay with the main group longer, or maybe even over the summit. I also should have taken in more fuel during our break attempt. Lastly, I should have attacked on one of the last inclines before you hit the bridge. Who knows I could have gotten, and stayed, away. I'm still learning a lot about racing. As long as I can learn from my mistakes I will become a better racer.

Thanks for reading.
Jeff Williams

Memorial Day Crit Report

James' report from Memorial Day is below

Memorial Day Criterium (Morgan Hill)
Men's Category 1/2
Teamates: Tore, Bo, Rand, Jeff, Neil, Chris, Graham, Jono, Aroussen, Peter C., Bob Parker
Placing: ~17th of 90ish

This was the first race I have done with this many teamates. In total their were 12 of us in the Green at the the pre race meeting. There were many other teams with large numbers as well including, Lombardi, BPG, Z team, and others. In addition Rock Racing had two riders show up and Daniel Holloway and Eric Wohlberg were there.

The course is flat with 3 corners and a long sweeping straightaway on the backside, wide road, moderate pavement (some cracks and some bot dots)

Our team plan was to 1) make sure no break went off without a green rider in it. 2) Ride aggressive and try to start our own breakaway if possible. 3) If it comes down to a sprint finish try to organize a leadout train for the sprinters.

The race started out fast and stayed fast the entire 75 minutes. There were some brief times during the race where people swarmed and it slowed but this never lasted long. The avg. speed for the day was 28mph. With the flat course and large field, the race didn't feel exceptionally hard in my opinion. For the entire race there were multiple attacks going off, with all of the riders from Webcor/Alto Velo contributing to the effort of establishing and/or chasing breaks as needed. There were some primmes that tempted me to sprint, but I decided to not go for any. In short, the Webcor/Alto Velo team rode the race perfectly all the way up to the point of 3-4 laps to go. Rand and I were sitting at the front waiting for the leadout train or some sort of support and nothing ever materialized. During the last lap on the backside of the course I thought I caught a lucky break and found myself 4th wheel behind 3 BPG riders, (Perfect positioning given the circumstances). My luck ran out when the BPG rider on the front started soft pedaling going into the last corner, by the time I figured out what was going on I checked over both shoulders really quick and we were already getting swarmed. I was forced to hold my line and watch the soon to be podium finishers ride right by me. I coasted into the final turn, got out of the saddle on the final straight and held onto something like 17th place.

In summary, I was happy that so many guys showed up to race. We executed our plan perfectly throughout the race and showed that we were a dominant team. With this many guys I would have liked to see more organization in the final laps. There is still a lot of racing left in the season and I hope that the team can learn from the experiences and continue to improve. Congrats to the recently upgraded Cat 2's on finishing a tough race.

--
James