Before the Start of the 250 Meter Time Trial

Out of the Gate in the 250 Meters

Keirin Repechage Finish . . . My Final Ride

Flying 200 Time Trial

Riding the Kilometer

Hitting the Line in the 250

Riding the Kilometer

So What?

Nationals is, in effect, Olympic Trials for the track cycling community. So you could say that, at the end of the day, the upshot of Elite Nationals--or at least one of the main outcomes--is embodied in the press release below.

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Six more athletes added to 2008 USA Cycling Track Talent Pool

Colorado Springs, Colo. (October 18, 2007)—Following this month’s USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships, six additional athletes have qualified for the 2008 USA Cycling Track Talent Pool – the group of athletes eligible to represent the United States at major international competitions throughout the 2007-08 season, including the Olympic Games in Beijing next summer.

In winning an elite national title in the men’s individual pursuit as a junior in his first-ever track race, 17-year-old Taylor Phinney (Boulder, Colo./TIAA-CREF) met the automatic time standard of 4 minutes, 37.01 seconds with a time of 4:35.55 in his qualifying round.

Another newcomer to the discipline of track cycling, Dotsie Bausch (Irvine, Calif./Colavita-Sutter Home-Cooking Light) qualified for the Talent Pool in just her third-career competitive track race. Bausch won a national title in the women’s individual pursuit, clocking a time of 3:44.35 in her qualifying round to eclipse the automatic time standard of 3:49.12.

Joining Phinney in the men’s endurance discipline of the Talent Pool is Bobby Lea (Mertztown, Pa./Toyota-United). Lea gained entry as part of the winning madison team at the national championships. Lea won a national title while paired with Colby Pearce (Boulder, Colo./Cody Racing), who was previously qualified to the Talent Pool.

Adam Duvendeck (Santa Barbara, Calif./Momentum) and Giddeon Massie (Colorado Springs, Colo./T-Town Express) were also named to the Talent Pool as sprinters. Duvendeck met the automatic time standard after qualifying first in the 200-meter heat of the men’s sprint. Duvendeck clocked a time of 10.59 seconds to equal the 10.59-second automatic time standard. Massie was named to the Talent Pool after capturing a national title in the men’s keirin.

After Bausch was the lone addition to the women’s endurance pool, Liz Reap (Jim Thorpe, Pa./T-Town Express) was the sole addition to the sprint pool. Reap clocked a 35.947 on her way to winning a national title in the women’s 500-meter time trial, surpassing the automatic time standard 35.98.

Following the USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships, the following riders have now qualified for the 2008 USA Cycling Track Talent Pool:

Men’s Endurance
Michael Friedman (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Brad Huff (Fair Grove, Mo.)
Bobby Lea (Mertztown, Pa.)
Colby Pearce (Boulder, Colo.)
Taylor Phinney (Boulder, Colo.)

Men’s Sprint
Ben Barczewski (Breinigsville, Pa.)
Michael Blatchford (Cypress, Calif.)
Adam Duvendeck (Santa Barbara, Calif.)
Giddeon Massie (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

Women’s Endurance
Kristin Armstrong (Boise, Idaho)
Sarah Hammer (Temecula, Calif.)
Dotsie Bausch (Irvine, Calif.)
Becky Quinn (Quakertown, Pa.)
Christen King (Huntington Beach, Calif.)
Lauren Franges (Asheville, N.C.)

Women’s Sprint
Jennie Reed (Kirkland, Wash.)
Liz Reap (Jim Thorpe, Pa.)

The final opportunity for athletes to qualify for the Talent Pool, and thus be eligible for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team, is Dec. 11-12 in a USA Cycling Talent Pool Qualifier at the ADT Event Center in Carson, Calif.

The first major international competition of the 2007-08 season is the first round of the UCI Track World Cup in Sydney, Nov. 30-Dec. 2. The U.S. National Team roster for Sydney, as well as the second World Cup and official Olympic Test Event in Beijing, Dec. 7-9, will be announced next week.

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At the Rail III

LSC-GP Team Kit

Kilo Start . . . and Dad in the Stands

At The Rail ii

Rail Picture

About to Stop Smiling

The Track . . . Just Like Home

At the Rail

Some Pix, More to Come

Keirin, and The End

Keirin is a great event—I decided to just have fun and ride aggressively.  One way or the other, it was my last ride at Nationals and likely the fastest I would go on my bike for a very long time.  The event consists of six or seven riders sprinting over 2 ½ laps in a tight bunch—the finishes are usually very close, and as a result there tends to be a lot of crashing.  There were no crashes in the mens keirin this year at Nationals, so all was safe, and fast.

In the first heat, I attacked with two to go, and everyone accelerated at that point; I got 5^th out of 7, but it was all together, and looking at the video after the fact, I picked up Gideon Massie’s wheel pretty effectively as he came by, and I generally felt like I had ridden well.  With that placing, my next ride was the repechage, so the best I could do was top-12.

In the repechage, again I rode pretty well, but got third or fourth; you need to win the repechage to advance to the final, so that was the end of my racing this year.  My top speeds in the keirin events were around 40 mph in both rides—65.5kph in one, 65.1kph in the other.  Massie won the event in the end overall, and I’m guessing he was hitting 67 or so.

I’m glad I rode the Keirin.  It felt terrible to have ridden a poor team sprint, and it made me feel better to just get out there and ride hard a couple more times.

On the sprint events, I had gotten 15^th or 16^th in everything.  And in the Keirin, although they don’t give placings lower than 12, it’s probably fair to surmise that I got something like 16^th.

And that was that for me.  The most disappointing event of the day was actually the Madison—we were so excited to root for Brian Crosby, University of Minnesota Gopher-wearing phenom, but his teammate was crashed out of the race on the first lap, and you can’t very well ride a 120 lap Madison against pro’s without a teammate.  So that was the end of it for him—far more disappointing than going a little slower than hoped.  He handled it like a pro, and when I talked with him later I was amazed at how much morale he had.  He’s off to Ontario to race in the London velodrome soon.

As for me, my track bike is already hoisted into the rafters of the garage, and I’m going for a run tomorrow.

Team Sprint, Almost

Saturday, the first event was the Team Sprint.  At State, we had turned a 49.64, and we knew that time was good for a top-five finish if we could do it again.  Our start and technique were good, but we rode a 51.1.  That’s a lot slower; it’s just an enormous difference.  That put us sixth, just out of the podium placings—but we felt that we had done a good ride.  Just not up to potential, and it’s tough to walk away from Nationals having ridden anything other than a PR.  In any event, that’s what happened—I’m pretty sure my third lap just wasn’t that strong; my legs and lungs felt pretty bad through the second lap and the whole third lap it didn’t feel like I was getting on top of the gear.

Next up, Keirin . . .

Saturday, October 6th

So, this is the last day. Two events today: Team Sprint, and the Keirin.

The Team Sprint is three laps, 750 meters. Three riders, each of whom takes the lead for a lap. On our team, Ted rides the first lap, Taylor rides the second, and I ride the third. It was a good combination for us--at national qualifiers, we broke the district record and rode a 49.6. If we repeat that, we could get top-5 today or better. So we're excited about that; more later after the first round. We'll ride right at 2pm today.

The Keirin is later, and that takes longer to explain, but suffice it to say that there are six riders on the track at a time, and it's a short sprinter's race. I think I have some chance in the Keirin, so we'll see how that goes. That's later in the afternoon, after the Team Sprint.

Full Coverage of Elite National Championships

http://www.cyclingnews.com/track.php?id=track/2007/oct07/USAnationals07/default

Lungs

So, I'm a life-long asthmatic.  The only reason I can breathe at all is because someone at Glaxo invented inhaled albuterol in the 1960's.  By the time I was born it was state-of-the-art, and it still is.  As a kid, I spent plenty of time in the hospital hooked up to an i.v., and early on in hockey, I figured I'd better just be a goalie.

Later, I changed my mind and started to do something that would push my lungs as far as they could go, and that was the beginning of bike racing for me.  I have always raced with an inhaler in a special pocket sewn into my skinsuit by my mom.

So, in sprint events, it's not remarkable that I am able to compete on terms with the best riders in the country, because lungs aren't needed.  But when it comes down to it, the only reason I'm riding at all is because of the people at Glaxo.  

Nevertheless, I don't have top-level aerobic talent.  That's always a disappointment to me--and yesterday's scratch race was an example.  I DNF'd the race; there's no worse feeling.  40 laps, and I just didn't have the lungs for it.

So for today's points heat, I had to finish it.  60 laps, all aerobic, average speed well in excess of 33mph.  And I finished.

The thing about track racing is there's no 'honorable finish'. If you drop back more than 250 meters from the field, an official literally blows the whistle on you and pulls you off the track.  It's not like a marathon, straggling across the line eventually.  In order to finish, you need to hang with the leaders the whole way.

So, I didn't take top-8 in the heat.  And I wasn't close.  But for a long race, I did as well as I could have hoped, I suppose.  Thanks to the guy at Glaxo who invented albuterol.

Tomorrow, the Team Sprint.  We have a good team, and we believe we're capable of going top-5.  Total race distance: 750 meters.  No lungs required.

Extensive Nationals Coverage . . .

. . . and some amusing pictures at:

http://tenacious-t.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=50

Scratch

The scratch heats were, of course, difficult.  It's Nationals.  The second heat--my heat--was particularly fast, everyone seemed to agree.  And I didn't have the legs, which is disappointing, but not that surprising.  Sometimes you feel great, and most of the time you feel less than great.  I still feel so comfortable on the track, and I basically feel good, but the pace was just too hot about 20 laps in, and I got popped off the back.  That was it.

As a frame of reference, racing speeds are typically in the 30-33mph range, with a final acceleration up to 37 or 38.  Today, when attacks started going in my scratch heat, I clocked us at a consistent pace above 37--that wasn't at the finish, that was just when the attacks were going in the middle of the 40-lap race.  The field blew apart in my heat, and a lot of guys didn't finish.  I'm sorry to say I was among them.

60 lap points race tomorrow, then team sprint and Keirin on Saturday.  More crashes in the womens Keirin today, but everyone was OK by all accounts.  Saturday may really end with a bang . . .

16th

So, it turns out I'm 16th.  Got 16th in the Kilo, 15th or 16th in the 250m, and 16th in the 200m TT.  The top 12 advanced to the sprint rounds, so I didn't advance to the match sprints, but Taylor did. 

He rode against Ryan Nellman, one of the nation's top riders, and lost to him.  Taylor went to the three-rider repechage, where the winner would advance to the quarter-finals, but didn't win--so that's it for match sprint for Team Minnesota.

Basically, you need to ride faster at Nationals than you did at the Nationals qualifiers, and we're all turning the same times we turned at the qualifiers.  I think my 200 time was my PR by perhaps a few hundredths of a second, but basically it was the same.

Taylor Qualified

My 11.846 didn't hold up--but Taylor rode a 11.4, and he made the top 12.  He'll advance to the final.

Womens keirin now, and the first crash of the series.  Stretcher has been activated . . .

200m: 5th So Far . . .

I rode fourth of 30 riders, and posted what is currently the 5th-best time of 11.846.  You need top-12 to make the medal round, and there are plenty of guys here who are going to go sub-11.  So we'll see how it goes, but that's the update for now.  The fastest riders (pro's, national team) go last.

Day 2, Thursday, October 4th

Today's races are the 4000 meter pursuit, 200 meter match sprint, womens' keirin, and scratch race.  I'll be doing the match sprint and scratch.

MATCH SPRINT

The match sprint starts with a qualifying round to pick the 12 fastest guys in the country.  They do that by having everyone ride a 200 meter flying time trial--"flying" because you get to take a running start at it.  It's not from a standing start.  The fastest 12 times advance to the sprint tournament, which is a single-elimination tournament of one-on-one races over three laps.

So the issue for me, Ted, Chris, and Taylor is whether we can get top-12 in the 200m time trial.  At the nationals qualifying races, Taylor was fastest with an average speed of around 40mph over 200 meters--11.4 seconds.  Chris and Ted rode comparable times, about two-tenths of a second slower than Taylor, and I rode another two-tenths slower than them.

The flying 200 has a lot to do with technique.  You are negotiating two corners at 40mph (the track is 250 meters), so the more tightly you cut the corners the sooner you hit the line.  You can build up a head of steam however you want as you approach the 200 meter-to-go line, so the main strategy is to ride up as high as you can on the track's banking, using the altitude (about two stories in the air from the pole line) to store energy, dropping down the banking of the track leading into the timed 200 meters.  The top riders will hit the timing tape going 43mph or so, and hold it to the line.  I'll hope to hit the tape at 40mph and hold it.  If I can do that, I could make the top 12.  But our hopes are really riding on Taylor here--we'll be screaming our heads off for him.

When we get to the match sprint tournament--the top 12 riders--I'll write more about how tht works, and how it goes.

SCRATCH RACE

The scratch race is the easiest race to understand.  20 or 30 riders on the track all together, whoever hits the line first wins.  The heats will be 30 laps, and the final will be, I think, 60 laps.

There will be three scratch heats today to see who makes the medal round.  The top 8 from each heat advance to the final.  There are about 25 guys in each heat.  I feel very good about the scratch, and the goal naturally is to make the final.  In theory, 8th place in the heat is the ideal result--just good enough to make the final, without wasting too much energy.  I can do it, so it's just a matter of whether I will.  I'm one of the relatively few riders riding both the sprint and endurance events--for better or worse, I have moderate talents in both areas, which makes it hard to excel in sprinting, but for the longer mass start races--especially scratch--I can do well if I can avoid using too much energy early on.  The goal in today's scratch race is to hide in the field for the first 28 laps, and then pin it for the last two.  If I can do that, I will make the final--I've got more of a sprint than the long-event riders, whose strategy will be to make it hard for guys like me to 'hang in' and rest in the field before the final two laps.

The Kilo

Well, I rode one second slower than my PR, and had hoped to ride one second faster.  1:11.124, 16th place.

My legs felt good during the event, but really heavy afterwards.  It was the usual sort of hypoxic experience, and you never finish a kilo feeling like you left anything on the track.  It was 100%.  I just didn't get the time I was looking for.

Tomorrow is match sprint and scratch.  I feel great, love the track, and I'm going to drill it like there's no tomorrow.

250m TT

The 250 meter TT isn't an internationally recognized event, but they run it at Nationals to help select the first-lap rider for the Olympic Team Sprint, which is a rather important Olympic event.  It's very simple--one lap on the track from a standing start, as fast as you can.

The one thing that's different from Blaine is the starting gate.  Imagine a sort of aparatus that holds your bike rigidly until the clock ticks down to 0, then it let's go.  If you go too early, you'll get held back and start choppy--and slow.  If you start too late, well, you give up whatever fraction of a second you give up by starting too late.  Fractions of a second are the margins of victory. 

The only reason I'm riding the 250 is to get used to the start gate.  I've never used it before, and I wanted to use it once before the Kilo later today.

So, I rode in the second heat.  I covered 250m in 20.213 seconds, an average speed of 44.526 kph.  By the end of it, I was 16th.  (You wait for everyone to go before you know who has won--imagine downhill ski racing, or luge--it's like that.). My max speed was 59.9. 

Ted rode a 20.374, with a max of 62.1kph.  That was good for 19th.  Taylor rode a 20.263, and his max was 62.7 kph.  He got 18th.  They were disappointed, as both of them are capable of low-19s.  But it wasn't to be for them today, and they've got tomorrow's racing to prepare for now.  As you cana see from their max speeds--higher than mine--they lost it on the acceleration out of the gate.  Track racing is a power sport.

For my part, I'm pretty happy with 16th in an event that I wasn't planning to do well in, middle of the field almost exactly.  31 riders started the event.  It was won by Michael Blatchford in 18.470, an averge speed of 48.729 kph.  I suspect his max speed was around 65kph--roughly 40mph.  He's a pro, and now he's the presumptive starter for Team USA in Beijing. 

Just Like Home

Warming up this morning, I felt like I was back home.  The velodrome feels identical to the track in Minnesota--but indoors, which means perfect conditions, and the surface is newer.  Better than home.  I couldn't be more comfortable.  Most of the riders won't feel this way--the steep banking of a short track (a 50% gradient in the corners) is flat-out scary to anyone not accustomed to it, and most riders ride tracks with much shallower bankings.

To me, this track feels more comfortable than Blaine, because at Blaine, when you ride up to the rail, you're looking down over the rail at a 15 meter drop, which just scares me enough that I don't ride right to the rail.  Here, when you ride the rail, you're just next to the stands, and it feels very safe.

The infield has a few million dollars' worth of bikes in it, a small but dense thicket of carbon fiber frames and wheels.  You can easily see the Minnesota Pit from the stands; we hung a big gold Gustavus towel on the partition next to us.

So, we're all right at home and ready to race.  Taylor and Ted (my Team Sprint teammates) are racing the Standing 250m TT today, and Chris Ferris is riding the Kilometer.  Brian Crosby is just here today to warm up for tomorrow's longer events.

We'll start with the 250m TT soon.  I'm in the second heat.

In The Velodrome

The place is packed with about 200 riders, and if you look closely, some of them are intimidating.  But of course, as far as they know, so am I.  The 5-rider Minnesota contingent has staked out its infield patch, and we're getting the bikes ready. 

Another Needle Threaded

Got into D.C. late last night, equipment (rollers, clothes) in tow.  Rode this morning on the D.C. bike--I'm always a little surprised it hasn't been stolen from its hiding place there at 2000 Penn.  I've got my Livestrong bracelet for this week's racing. 

Landing at O'Hare now.  One presentation, a ride on the stationary bike at the hotel, and in less than 48 hours I'll be in the starting gate for the Kilo.