Thursday Nighter

I haven’t gotten dropped on the Thursday Nighter in a long time. It was about half way up Welders – it felt familar, but not any better. I crusied real slow for a while, then went back to medium tempo and joined up with another rider that was tired and hasn’t been training. We went over Briggs, which is always great. Just a little before we turned off Briggs, the T-nighter crew flew by. My comrade caught them, I did not. Nick S. won. Good for him. I rolled back in and chatted with Nick some. Then the best thing ever happened:

I BEAT NICK TO THE STOP AHEAD SIGN coming back into Eugene. YESSSSS.

We weren’t really racing, and in fact I just jumped him with 10m to go, but still. Me. Woo…

My PowerTap is really, really, really broken for real. I’m probably going to take up Saris up on their upgrade plan for broken PowerTaps. The rep said I can get a new wired hub for $325 if I send in my old one- wow! I just have to unlace and relace the hub, which is fine.

Even better than that, though, is the totally screamin’ deal I got on some Ritchey 58mm carbon tubulars. They’ll be here… sometime. Apparently wheelbuilds are “like herding cats.” Quote from the sales rep at Ritchey. Anyway. They’ll be rollin’ at Celebration, which I think I’m doing, even though I’ll probably be pretty freakin’ slow. But the Colnago’ll look pretty nice, which maybe counts for a bit.

Hiatus

Well, I haven’t posted in a long, long time. Oops. School was real busy, then my laptop died for a bit, then I was down in California on a field campaign from June 12 to August 1. Now I’m back, though I’m currently in Waldport to celebrate my mom’s birthday. But I’m in Oregon at least, and I’m riding my bike.

To get things going, here’s a few minutes from the 2009 NWCCC Conference Championships Criterium. In the latter half of the race, Matt (University of Idaho) and a few other guys got off the front and stuck. Matt won the race and I won the field sprint for 5th.

Click here for the video. (WordPress wont’ let me embed SmugMug video, so this is a link to it)

I went on a crazy 45min ride yesterday a little east of Waldport on Bayview Rd. Here’re a couple photos:

Bay on the right.

The road turned into gravel. There was a nasty little climb. It was great!

CWU

Before I launch in CWU, a quick WWU/UW recap: WWU was cold. I got dropped on lap 3. I rode a lap by myself, then I dropped out with one to go because I was slow, cold, wet, and really cold (ie I’m a wimp). The UW crit at Seward Park was fun. I rode pretty smart, staying in the top 10 for almost all the race. When everybody went on the last time up the hill, I went about 30% slower than them and slid from 4th wheel to last. Ouch. The helmet cam video is hilarious. I have yet to edit it down.

CWU! Ellensburg, Washington. Good times. The drive was alright (~6 hrs). We checked into our four rooms at Super 8 around 6:30. As nice as it is to get host housing (ie free housing), staying in a hotel is pretty sweet. Some number pinning and blogging (new big photo blog: http://www.ivarvong.com/blog/2009/04/drive-up-to-cwu/), it was sleepy time. I don’t think anyone cares about my logistical adventures, so I will omit them. But they occurred. Hard and in full force. Anyway.

Central Washington Road Race. The winds goin’ pretty good. I was nervous.

I think this is funny: when we’re staging, if I squeeze into a spot at the front I don’t really deserve, the guys will move to let me in. I don’t know exactly why I get this respect (though I suspect it’s the helmet cam), but it’s pretty rad.

Rollout. Slow. Hill 1, kinda hard. A little move went off. Everyone jumped on it right away. I’ve gotten much better at reading this kind of thing in the past year, which makes life exponentially easier. The pace goes up as we get onto the flatish roads. Everyone’s spread out across the road, but I knew exactly who I wanted to be next to: Matt from UI, or Scott from Willamette. They’re both big, and they nearly always make the lead group. I fight for their wheels. Most of the guys are not so fortunate.

There were a couple short steepish climbs in the next half an hour. We made a right turn and instantly confronted one of the meanest winds… ever. Seriously. Everyone was thinking the same thing, and the pack slowed to a crawl. I again fought like crazy to get on Matt or Scott’s wheel and crumpled myself into a ball. Someone whined from further back about how much sitting in I was doing, so I kindly put everyone in the gutter for five minutes. The group was down to 10 from 30 at this point. We FINALLY turn off the killer headwind and cruise with the tailwind to the beginning of lap 2. After some strong moves, it’s down to 8 guys: 3 UI, 2 Whitman, 2 Willamette, and me. Bad news. They’re working me over really bad, and I know that I am going to get the crap kicked out of me if this keeps on. So I attack out of a corner at 80%, sit a few second off the front for a mile or two, then start to sit up as they catch me. As I’m about to get caught, a fast Whitman guy jumps across the 20m gap and I jump really, really, really hard. We got a huge gap right away and I’m pretty convinced everyone’s going to give up and I’m going to go to the line with Whitman guy. We made a huge effort. It felt like 15 minutes, but it might’ve been a lot less. We finally got pulled back, but by that point it was 3 UI, 2 Whitman, Scott (Willamette) and I. Seven guys.

We went slow. Sometimes really slow. Then really insanely gut wrenchingly hard. Then slow. Over and over. OWW.

I made a few moves (attacking out of corners, up the little hills), but no one would go with me and I knew I didn’t have the pop for 15 miles of stiff crosswind/headwind, especially considering the horsepower left in the group.

With ~1.5k to go, UI was sitting on the front, three wide and the rest of us were hanging out in the back. Brian, UI, made a HUGE attack. I couldn’t get through, so I prepped for the reaction. There was no reaction. I waited a little longer, but it was way too late. He was gone. Oops. Really gutsy move, perfect timing, and that kid’s got the legs to do it. Huge props.

Matt went at 250m (won the crit last week, also UI), so I went for it. Surprisingly (to me), I started catching him… then I caught him around 150m. Whitman guy almost on my wheel. I dropped down one more cog and did it. Second. Yeah!

Courtesy Amelia Martin (Willamette)

PSU

I was hired as a Staff Photographer to the Daily Emerald last week. Needless to say, it’s amazing. I love the people I work with. The time commitment isn’t too big either, and they’re willing to work around my schedule (ie collegiate bike racing).

Let’s take the time machine backwards: Friday, April 3rd.

Paperwork, phone calls, logistical puzzles, and navigating the other little things that are oh-so-critical to a successful trip. We make it on I-5 around 4pm and head up to Will’s house for dinner. Will’s house is superior to all host housing ever for the following reasons:
1) his dad, Mark, is hilarious
2) Mark makes
good food and lots of it
3) BLUEBERRY PANCAKES on Sunday morning!!!!

Okay, so maybe I’m a little food-centric, but can you blame me? Anyway, we got up 5:45am on Saturday morning to head out to Hagg Lake for the PSU Road Race (aka Banana Belt 4). Our caravan-ing wasn’t so great, but hey, we got there.

The first lap was slow. I made a couple moves in the second lap, then I started coughing up stuff. (I was sick all week, but was getting a little better). I sat up and rolled back. Galen and I rode two more laps a couple hours later- average power 110W. We got back to Will’s house and BBQ’d it up. Party! Bed time.

Sunday morning was fantastic- late wakeup (7am), short drive, sunny, flat crit. My plan was to sit in real good and try not to cough too much. Galen let me borrow his fancy deep section carbon wheels. After freezing the previous in Bellingham, riding in summer gear was weird and very much appreciated.

I sneak up to the front. Three other riders were in the B’s with me- David Montes (newly upgraded), Ty Mangum (also newly upgraded) and Azul Eckman. Andrew Neill had to stay home and take care of some work. We’ll have a five-man team this weekend! We’re lectured about racing, and we’re off. I heard we did 30-32mph for the first few laps. It was fast, but not too bad. I stayed neatly in the pack and avoided all possible work. The prime laps were faster, and WSU guy got a bunch of them (sandbagger).

I attacked after a prime with six laps to go. They watched me go, and after the initial pop I dialed it into ~370W. On a good day, I can do that for 4-5min. With a small gap on a windy course and not a lot of training, I didn’t want to get dropped in the near-certainty I got caught, but on the other hand, breaks have been sticking in the B’s, so I didn’t know. I passed the line and Bill held out the lap card. Being alone, off the front for the next five laps sounded really hard, but I put faith in the 404’s and the pack’s laziness.

I got caught half a lap later and rejoined the disorganization. Someone made a really strong move as soon as I got back in, and covering it hurt a lot, but I was hanging on. Whitman guy snuck off after that. Two to go, and I got up to fourth wheel or so. At ~500m to go, I’m on super-strong WSU guy’s wheel and Whitman guy is dangling off the front. WSU pulls off to get in a better spot the sprint.

Shoot. I’m at the front of the race way too early, and there’s a guy OTF. I figure I have two options:

1) Pull off and try to get back into front of the pack. This is super risky and sketchy, and it nearly guanrentees Whitman’s gutsy move will get him the W. That’s no fun.
2) Gun it, catch Whitman, and hold off the entire field by sprinting off the front. Seemed doubtful.

I went for number two. I jumped super hard (albeit it off the front of the field, with ~400m to go) and strung the crap out of everyone. Whitman guy OTF was coming back pretty fast. We scream through the corner, and I realize I can probably catch him. With ~100m to go, I get him. I’m thinking,

“Oh my god. I’m going to win this race. COME ON LEGS!”

And I look to the left. Matt from UI comes screaming past me with what felt like 10m to the line. He got his wheels clean of mine. I hung on to 2nd by a wheel to strong WSU guy (take that!). Second! Sweet!

UO/OSU Omnium

(Just want cool stuff? Here’s the helmet cam video from the OSU Crit.)

Friday: Pick up the van packets from motor pool. Driving, blah. CWU guys show up at ~10pm. We have some fun, eat some cookies, go to bed.

Saturday: UO Road Race

Jaime and I get up 5:45, eat, load the car and we’re off to Elmira. I’m a little late. I have the liability waivers. I run around, help out. Brian from Whitman breaks his collarbone and wrist. Ouch. I eat some more, drink some more, and as it’s almost time for the race, it starts raining. Oh well. Now it’s race time, and it’s stopped raining mostly. We roll out. I’m all smiles. The field jokes about the collective lack of training and how slow some of us are. The field feels good, the group feels good, my bike feels good. I feel good. The lead car pulls away and I’m rolling at ~150W at the front. Nobody goes for the reins, so I chat with Scott from Willamette at the front. I attack to stretch my legs out before the first climb and the super tall WWU guy (Ben?) comes along. I ask, “are you into this, or are you just stretching your legs like me?” He smiles and we get caught the first time up the hill. It was nice. Yay bikes!

We round the first corner. Jaime’s the marshal. I wave. WWU guy attacks. I remember saying, “Wow. That is the most ridiculous sprint I have ever seen.” Turns out, that guy was fast. No one chased, and he got about a minute pretty fast. A lap later, he was still away and it’d gone up to 2 minutes. I’m not totally clear on what happened, but eventually 4 more guys went up the road, and the original WWU guy flatted out. The pace was not very fast (hence the huge time gaps to the break) and with two laps to go, I decided I want to make the race hard. Going up the finishing climb, I went to the front and dialed it in at 350-370W. This was enough to get a good gap up the climb with two other guys. We got a minute, I think, before we got to the first climb of the new lap and I got dropped. Hard. Ouch. Bad. The pack looked pretty close when I finally dragged myself over the top. I tucked and went down the hill. I couldn’t see them anymore. Crap. I had to actually do some work now. I settled in at ~240-280W and held a small gap for half a lap, then I got caught at the bottom of the finishing climb with one lap to go. I didn’t get dropped up it because everyone was going slow. Andrew and Azul, my two teammates, were chilling. I was broken. There were four guys up the road. Almost everyone was represented. The pace was slow. The next lap was pretty calm. We came to the base of the finishing climb for the last time and no one attacked. We rolled up the climb easy-like… probably gearing up for the 200m sprint. Well, I thought, “There’s no way I’ll take a 200m uphill sprint. I’m just going to make it really hard.”

So I did. With ~500m to go, I ramped it up and went for broke. It strung out real fast- good. Pain. I was ready to fall off my bike, but the finish line was really, really, really far away. Two guys were solidly on my wheel- not a good sign. I clicked one more cog down and stood up- only to quickly sit back down. Ouch. Now the line seemed even farther away. How is that possible? The two guys on my wheel pop around me and fight for 5th and 6th. I notice Azul near me now. I can’t let it slip! I do. Rats. Now UI guy is closing, but I hold him off for 8th. So tired. I say Hi to my parents and brother, watch the silly crash at the end of the Men’s A finish and go back to the staging area. I chamois-out and eat. TTT in a bit.

And it starts raining. It rains just completely stupidly hard. It’s INSANE. Stuff blows over. Scrambling. Then it stops. My mental capacity for racing is… well… low, to say the least. And my 3 hrs/wk of training is really going to bat for the two-events-in-a-day thing. Not. But we race, I’m slow, and we get dead last and a couple points. Was it worth putting my plastic rain jacket on first because everything else was sopping wet? Sigh, I guess so.

Sunday: OSU Criterium

Wake up at 4am. Pack, eat. Get picked up by Derek at 5am. Drive to motorpool. Put bike racks in the van, load up bikes, drive to Club Sports, pick up the rest of the team and their bikes. We’re on the road by 6am- awesome! Driving on I-5 in the dark, pouring rain in a huge, white van is not fun. But we make it, Will takes the wrong exit, but we make it. I blow the registration stuff. Eva and I get coffee. Other nonsense happens. It’s time to race! I kit up, ride around a bit, and get a healthy amount of teasing about my helmet cam. My favorite, by far, was from Rick: “Do you know that you’ve got a camera on your head?”

The start was not fast, which took me off guard. So I attacked. I stayed away for a lap or so, then got pulled back and sat in the top 5. There was a big acceleration, I followed, but then everyone stopped. So I attacked. Clever? Absolutely not. I get caught again very quickly, so I sit in. Then I get really really really tired and get dropped. Three guys go down, one breaks his carbon handlebars in half. Only minor injuries. I finish 11th, behind one guy solo OTF and the main group of 9. The guy that won? Same guy that won solo on Saturday. Sandbagger!

Okay, now what everyone really wants: HELMET CAM VIDEO!

Sublime Sublimity Photos

This post may take a while to load because I was too lazy to make seperate thumbnails. Sorry. The upside is… the pictures are big? I don’t know.

Please consider putting an “Ivar Vong Photography” line, and/or a link (http://www.ivarvong.com/) if you take one of these photos. Please? Thanks.

I hope you enjoy them! I hope to put a bunch more on SmugMug later. I shot over 400 frames, so I need to whittle it down a little.

Becka, before the W 1/2/3 start.

K-MAN!

PowerTap abuse.

The scenery was majestic.

Becka drives the break.

Rollers were one of the main dishes on the menu today.

The early 4-person break in the W 1/2/3 field.

Cole Hilton rolls comfortably in the 4/5’s.

Heidi is rockin’ it.

Adam gets dropped from the pack as the Men’s 4/5 field gets ready for the final climb of the day.

And there they go!

David and Boon at the finish line.

Pacific Power – Blue Sky charges up the finishing climb.

The W 1/2/3 field heads for the finish.

Hanging out with Kenji as the women get ready for “Flypaper Hill.”

Jen rockets up the vertical finish.

Win!

Becka finished 3rd on the day, after working hard in the break all day long.

Kenji chats with Jen. Jen is tired.

Kenji makes faces.

Kenji oversees all of OBRA-land.

The winner!

Heidi, coming up to the finish line…

…and crossing.

Kristen’s rim failed. She kept it upright, though- props!

Sublime?

K-MAN!

So many possibilities…

I woke up to my alarm at 5am yesterday… then slept on accident until 6am. I had to be at Lisa’s 15 minutes later, so I scrambled up out of bed and eventually got out the door. I was kinda late. The drive up to Sublimity was fine. Dum dum dum.

It was a cold morning. I saw Big Nick at registration. He said, “I heard a rumor about you.”
I paused. “Oh really? What’s that?”
Nick said, “I can’t tell you. Then it wouldn’t be a rumor.”
Things degenerated and I finally pulled out the end-all-be-all: “Nick, I’m taller than you.”
Lisa almost died laughing, I think

BURN! ARE YOU LOL-ING AT ME NOW?! THAT’S RIGHT!

It turns out that I’m a sprinter, just like Big Nick. Except for the ‘Big’ part.

And on that note… Nick got dropped in his race. OUCH. Sorry, that was kind of mean.

Cool stuff I did yesterday
- Lots of photos (428, to be exact). I will put them in the next post.
- Hanging out with Kenji during the afternoon sessions.
- Telling the 1/2/3 women they were doing one less lap. (Becka was MAD!)
- Getting a flat in the parking lot (not during the race).
- Explaining where the finish line was at least fifty times.
- Getting dropped like a (something-much-bigger-than-a-rock) up the first climb.

This post is not as epic as it was in my head. Hmm.

Sublime

I’m heading up to Sublimity in a few hours (6, actually). First Cat 3 race. Next to no training. (13 hrs/mo. for the last two months). Excuses aside (which I have many of), I’m racing tomorrow. Hopefully over the first climb too…

Blog un-dead! Hopefully more soon to come.

Disjointed entry… over.

Car

I woke up this morning at 4am to a very, very loud CRASH. I was really freaked out, obviously. It sounded like a car had just hit the house. I got dressed, went upstairs and found Cody. A couple people knocked on our door and we went outside. A car had indeed smashed into the shed- woah.

Nobody was hurt, thankfully.

Helmets

Helmets are good. Please wear one. Please.