All posts by nloomis

News, Race Reports, Road

Day 6: Road race and Bob’s feedzone

Dear MIT Cycling,

Today was the road race.  As the automatic doors of the hotel lobby slowly buzzed upon at 7AM this morning, we were greeted with slightly colder temps than expected, and much higher winds.  The weather, and particularly the strong, gusty winds (which lasted all day) made it much more critical to ride with a pack.  The women stayed in their little group until the end, with all four of MIT’s ladies heading into the sprint and finishing in the top 12.  In the men’s race, the wind blew apart the field into smaller groups.  Tim and Jose managed to stay in the largest group, while John decided to strike out on his own to bridge (and pass) smaller groups later in the race.

Semi-official results: Laura, 5th; Martha, 9th; Yuri, 11th; Zuzka, 12th, Tim, 23rd; Jose, 29th; John, 54th

But that’s all boring race stuff.  (The kids can give you updates at some point.)  What you’re here for are the enthralling details of the race atmosphere, in which I give you four of my favorite moments from the day:

1. Race announcer, just at the start of the D2 Men’s race, referring to the gusting winds: “Gentlemen, prepare to get guttered!”

2. The pizza place where we went to dinner, where after parking the car I couldn’t find the other guys.  I saw a table where two guys were sitting with their back to me, talking to a cute girl, and walked right on past… “Our guys wouldn’t talk to a girl, they must be sitting on the other side,” I’m thinking.  It turns out I’ve never seen Coach Nicole without a hat or helmet, even in my dreams.  (Amy, it’s nothing weird, those dreams are always about ice cream.)

3. The feedzone was just a few yards down from The Mercantile, where Bob has reserved parking for himself and his truck.  Steve H from Union asked him if he owned the shop.  Bob’s response: “Son, I *own* this town.”  Yes, we quite possibly fed from Bob’s feedzone.  If we stayed too long, he would have run us out of His Town with an authentic gatling gun.  Even though I’m in the hotel right now, I still fear Bob.

4. The award for the best feed goes to the Air Force Academy (and yes, I saw some great feeds, all of them from MIT except this one).  Imagine if you will: a 3 inch diameter by 12 inch long summer sausage, wrapped in a porno magazine, stuffed down a Gatorade bottle.  “How’s he going to use that feed?” asks a teammate.  “Well, he can find a nice place along the side of the road and just enjoy life.”  John reports that the feed did get “picked up.”

Tomorrow: early morning crit-on-crit action, finalizing the TTT gear, running the final computational fluid dynamics codes to chose the appropriate height for gluing numbers for optimal aero advantage given the TT course and our measured wind patterns (after extrapolating using the National Weather Service’s 22:GMT predictions), and more cookies.  For other teams: we recommend using Javascript for TT-CFD simulation code for easier integration into the NWS server system.  You can then get results pushed to your iPhone without too much work.

Monkeys and cogs, and rambling because I’m tired,

Loomis

Interviews, News, Road

Day 5: almost chamois time at Nats!

Dear MIT Cycling,

This is the last day before the rubber hits the fan and MIT begins their well-conceived Domination of Road Nats 2009.  The kids have been out riding, gone on tactical previews of the road course (they won’t let me release any details, given that all our competition is, of course, reading this blog looking for secret insights*).  There was the standard food shopping, dinner, Tim still talking about food, cookies from Ma Loomis, Tim planning his post-race meal, and last-minute bike prep.  It sounds like we’re going to have to take a hacksaw to Chewie’s rig or else go Gattaca on Michael’s arms to make him super-UCI legal.

*Secret insight number 1 for competitors who have continued reading despite the warning: Martha is going to go fast, starting at Team Point H1.  You’ll be able to see it from the streaming video while you’re sitting back in your hotel room crying because her initial blistering speed melted your tires and you had to go home early.  (If you noted that I mixed tenses, it’s because I’m tired, too.  Mario and I have learned that taking care of princesses can be tiring.  I mean that in a mostly-nice sense.)

The race hotel, where we’re staying, has exploded in its bikiness.  There’s people with truing stands visible through the open doors, other fixing brake pads in the hallways, bikes up and down the elevators all day long, and so much spandex that you’d think it was 1987 again.  The hotel even supplied cleaning rags to every room as a free gift.  There’s two small conventions at the hotel in addition to the Nats crowd, and it’s been entertaining to watch the other hotel guests try to navigate around piles of wheels in the hallways.

*Secret insight number 2: local beers have the appropriate level of oxygen to match the environment in which they were brewed, and thus have no negative effect on your pedal wrenching.  Fat Tire is made in Fort Collins, thus making it the most appropriate and only acceptable beer to be seen handing out at the feed zone tomorrow.  I’d take that feed if I were me… manning the feed zone.

Tomorrow: racing, hot feed zone action, Coach Nicole’s new haircut, and John Rhoden’s argument that lemon lime is the second greatest mis-nomer of Western civilization.

Monkeys and cogs,

Loomis

Interviews, News, Road

Day 4: mid-day report, the chamois less travelled

The first set of road bikes venture out of the van into sunlight after a long New England winter.Dear MIT Cycling,

Today is our last day of driving: Fort Collins is tantalizingly close, so close you can smell it.  It smells like Mountain Fresh fabric softener mixed with a subtle tint of cow patty.  Before heading out, Michael and I took some time to catch up on work, visited the CU campus and their local coffee shop, I scoped the campus sunbathers while The Married Man commented on the unique roof tiles used on all the buildings, and we looked back longingly at the mountains one last time.

The drive up to FC was, thankfully, also as uneventful as every other mile on this trip.  No crashes, no fires, no explosions, no song and dance numbers, not even an election slogan to report.  The best I can do is note that we’ve decided that the van’s steering, which is categorized as “active”, teaches you to do some funny little upper-body safety dance, which at least keeps you marginally awake-er during the drive.  (I’ll show it to you when we get back.)  Actually, it’s more like an anti-safety dance.  (You can dance if you want to.)

Note to DAPER: we’re still being safe.  That’s what we call sarcasm in the business.

Right now, the early flight of kids are out riding around, enjoying the scenery, while I’ve got a nice view of the parking lot and undeveloped ditch behind the hotel from the fifth floor.  I can also see the roof of the hotel ballroom.  For you mechanical engineers out there, know that you’re missing out on some giant air circulators that could be classified as incredible, but only if things like painted metal boxes get your mojo flowing and give you goosebumps on the inside of your frontal cortex.

Note to the ladies: large painted metal boxes do not get my mojo flowing, so please don’t plan on surprising me with one for my birthday, Laura Ralston.

Tomorrow: road course previews, packet pick-ups, chain lube, and last minute details before crushination begins.

Monkeys and cogs,

Loomis

Race Reports, Road

Rutgers Day 2

On Sunday, we awoke to another 60 degree day and made the early morning trek to the circuit race on the Rutgers campus to preride the course. However, when we arrived, the Rutgers team had a surprise for everyone: while the 3 mile loop was unchanged from previous years, it would be run backwards this year. This meant that instead of a long, straight, uphill finish, the finish was on a slight downhill about 250 meters after a left hand turn. As a result, many of the races finished in a relatively large (and high speed) bunch sprint, without the stringing out that typically occurred on the uphill finish. It also led to a number of crashes, as some MIT riders experienced firsthand.

However, we also had another surprise that morning when the tabulated team results were posted: we were in 2nd place, not in Division II but overall, and only slightly behind the juggernaut UVM team (they brought 53 riders to the races). On that note, the races began with the D Men, Kenny and David, who both rode smart races in the lead pack and ended the day in 5th and 6th, respectively. The intro racers were up next. All of them were experiencing their first weekend of collegiate racing, and in the men’s race, Yao, Matt, and Spencer all rode smart races and finished well. Spencer began what was to be another common occurrence among MIT racers, crashing during the race. Although Spencer was fine and finished the race, his jersey didn’t fare as well.

The C men were up next, with only one MIT rider represented in the peloton. Isaac Bleicher rode a tactical race to improve upon the previous day’s performance and finish in the lead pack of the race. Then, the B women were off, with Melissa and Lindsey both riding together with the leaders of the race and coming to the finish in the points. Next, the B men started their 60 minute race, and about 15 minutes into the race, Jose was off the front again. He led for the majority of the race, with myself and Chewie doing our best to block for him, but the UVM team (all 8 of them in the B race) had learned from the previous day when Jose beat two UVM riders in a three man break to the line. This time, UVM burned almost their entire team leading the chase to keep Jose within sight, finally managing to catch him with just over a lap to go. In the future, the B men will be keeping UVM’s plans in mind whenever tactics are concerned.

Fortunately, the A women were able to resume the successful weekend from MIT racers. Yuri and Zuzka both raced in a rather sedate peloton which, according to Yuri, didn’t start racing until the sprint at the last corner. This didn’t seem to bother the MIT racers, who brought home a pair of top 10 finishes. Capping off the day were the A men, who were scheduled for an 80 minute showdown. Tim, again the lone MIT rider, had the misfortune of starting at the very back of the pack, and this proved costly for him. The course is run on narrow roads with the yellow line rule enforced, so it is difficult to move up in the pack. A few laps into his race, Tim fell off the back of the peloton, and decided to pack it in and save it for the next weekend shortly afterwards.

In all, MIT ended the first weekend extremely successfully. We took home multiple wins, introduced a lot of new riders to collegiate cycling, and came away in 2nd place overall, again leading our nearest Division II opponent Army by a wide margin. We’ll be looking to build on our lead next weekend at the Columbia and Stevens races in New York City.

Race Previews, Road

ECCC road season kickoff: Rutgers/Princeton, March 7-8

The 2009 road season kicks off this weekend with the annual Rutgers/Princeton races in Piscataway and Princeton, NJ.  The weekend is traditionally the first the road season, and includes one of the only individual time trials, in addition to a criterium and a Sunday circuit race.  The time trial is the first race on Saturday morning and is very short, only 2.7 miles in length.  The winning time last year was under 6 minutes.  The race is almost perfectly flat, but does involve 2 separate 180 degree turns, giving an advantage to technically sound riders.

The Saturday afternoon criterium is on a new, 4-corner course on the Princeton campus.  The race is advertised as having a steep “wall” that racers will climb every lap, and promises to be fast and spectator-friendly since the whole course is accessible.  Sunday’s circuit race, on the Rutgers campus, looks like it will generally be more mellow, but a very long and moderately uphill finishing straightaway will reward patience and lead to an exciting sprint finish.

Check out Men’s B powerhouse José Soltren’s analysis (and maps) of the courses here.