CO Mt. Bike Hill Climb

Mark Mastoras takes a trip to the Rockies and reports on a tough Mt. Bike Hill Climb.

Race: MTB race (hill climb)
Category: Expert (cat 1) 40+
Field: 16
Finish: 12th
Course: brutal

While in Steamboat Springs I rented a MTB (an excellent Rocky Mt. Altitude) and entered the local town challenge MTB race. This race happened to be a serious hill climb starting at 7000′ and proceeding
up to 9000′ over 4.5 miles. I was nervous and as it turns out rightfully so, I went off with the 40+ experts and for a small town there was a serious amount of fit competition, old mountain men.

At the start they drilled it, and I’m like WTF? Thankfully after about 1000 meters the pace settled down some so maybe the start was for show or adrenaline. I was just trying to stay with the group and
managed to make it about 1/2 way up when the double-tracked turned into single-track switch backs after that it was just finding my own pace.

3/4 the way up a women on a single-speed went by me ! Don’t mess with the locals!

After a seeming eternity (49.21 minutes) it was over and I was treated to 2000′ feet of single-track downhill, yea!

Nevada City Classic – P/1/2

Teammates: Just me (Angelo)
Field: About 150
Place: Don’t ask

Lance beat me.

Actually, he and many others crushed me. It was insane how fast the Nevada City Classic was this year. I’ve done this race previously as a cat 3 and it was super-tough. Upgrade the category and add some of the best riders in the world and it gets a bit tougher…

I didn’t really plan on racing it this year, but when Lance, Levi and Horner announced that they were going to race it I changed my mind. Now I can say that I raced Lance. Even though it was short lived for me, I can still say it. Of ~150 starters, maybe 30-40 finished…most of which were lapped by Armstrong.

Even the neutral lap seemed to be a race to move up. Here’s a shot of me and Lance hammering it out on the climb: (Click on this to enlarge it and see that it really is me – ha!)
He utilized his call up to get great position for the start…the announcer couldn’t pronounce my last name and failed to call me up to the front.

I did get some fame (joke coming up courtesy of my teammate Jan):

“Look at the two guys in the background. The one guy is proud of his picture that he just took of Angelo, the other is texting his 10 friends about how Angelo is doing…”

This must be the part of the race where I was putting the hammer down on Armstrong because I’m in the big ring and climbing the steep pitch (the camera angle doesn’t give it justice.)

Anyway, it was awesome out there this year. The “Lance Factor” created a HUGE crowd that was totally into it. I felt very pro climbing and descending with that many people out watching. I was even asked for my autograph by a young kid before the race started…look for it on Ebay.

1st place: Lance Armstrong
2nd place: Ben Jaques-Maynes
3rd place: Levi Leipheimer

BIG Win the Madison Event in San Diego!!

The “Madison” is a spectacular track event. Beautiful to watch and tough to pull off.

Here’s a cool video that follows one rider around while the cameraman explains what’s happening:

And now…the full report from Javier:

Race: San Diego Velodrome Madison
Teams: 5
Former Pro’s in Race: 1
Number of Former National Champions: 2
Riders with International Racing Experience: 5
Distance: 20k (60 laps) with sprints every 10 laps.
Teammate: Brett Harnish (the other SoCal teammie)
Number of other races we both raced earlier that night: 3

Going into the 4th and final event of the night, Brett stated he was feeling good and had a nice snap to his legs. On the other hand, I was lacking the snap, but was feeling okay to ride a strong pace and put in some attacks. My only concern was the slow leak in my rear tire. It
would lose about 20psi every 10-15 minutes. Not being one that likes borrowing other riders equipment, especially so close to the start of the race, I decided to pump up the tire to 140psi and with luck, it would carry me through to the end of the 30ish minute race.

We start the race and are marking the blue team since they had one the madison held earlier in the season. For some reason they didn’t have their act together tonight and would end up being a non-contender.

First sprint of the night I get thrown in for it and while trying to come around for 2nd place, my rear tire is feeling a little too soft for the speed I was riding at (33+mph) and I just didn’t feel safe to push it. I take 3rd in the sprint and it gives us 2 points.

Next sprint Brett goes in for it and takes 2nd place while in the third sprint I also manage to take 2nd.

We’re half way into the race and my rear tire is feeling way too soft. I go into the infield and it turns out it’s hoovering at around 100psi. Not good. I’m offered a spare wheel but decide it would be faster to pump it back up to 150psi and not leave Brett hanging out with less than 30 to go.

I jump back in the race, and going into the 4th spring, we manage another 2nd place thansk to Brett’s good sprint.

At 17 to go the announcer stated the Silver team is in 1st with 17 points and we are in 2nd with 12. There are two sprints to go and we need to win both and have them place 3rd or lower in at least one of them.

13 laps to go I tell Brett to wait for me in turn 1. I pull for two laps, mostly at the front of the group and with 1 to go, I throw him in pretty hard. The silver team was exchanging about 15 meters ahead of us and Brett was able to close the gap fairly quickly (in Madisons 15 meters difference is significant going into a sprint lap) and come around the Silver team for the win in the sprint.

Score is now Silver team 19, White team (meaning us) 17. The pressure is on for us to take the win and have them place 3rd, ideally 4th.

Five laps to go, Silver team is on my wheel. They are basically sitting on us and would try to come around. I take a two lap pull and throw Brett in with about 2.5 laps to go. At this point I am looking to see were other teams are exchanging and trying to place the Silver team in a position of traffic were we could open a gap and hold it till the end. With 2 to go, Brett throws me in as a red team rider attacks as I was coming down onto Brett. Brett yell’s go and I latch onto the red team. Silver team was making their exchange about 25 meters ahead of were Brett and I were exchanging. I then attack the red team and just power away for the next lap and a half and threw Brett in.

Silver team was caught off guard and unable to close the gap, however the black team was closing in on Brett. If he came around, we would tie for 2nd place, however Brett sprinted through and got 1st on the final sprint, with black team in 2nd and silver team in 3rd. We had
taken the win by 1 point.

By the way, the silver team consisted of Shaun Wallace and Allen Richburg, a former masters national champion.

Felt great to obtain a result especially considering my form is just recently improving, I had a flat and we were able to come from behind to take the win.

Dash for Cash: P/1/2/3

P/1/2/3
Team: Aaron, Angelo, Carmi, Dan, Gabe, Geoff, Jan and Murat (and Dino on the radio)
Course: Office park crit…almost rectangle, with a pretty good wind.
Top Placing: 9th (Carmi)

Being a 1/2/3 race, we had a very strong presence with 8 guys on the line. The Dash for Cash is a “prime-heavy” race…several $40 laps, a $500 gas card on the line and a $250 bonus for the person that could lap the field!

With 75 minutes of racing and all those primes this is typically a fast and competitive criterium. Well, it lived up to that. We played around a bit in some of the breakaway attempts, but nothing really stuck until late in the game. Once the race started to slow down a break of 9 formed and got 20 second on the field. Carmi ended up in a chase group 6 that wittled down to 2 (Carmi and a DBC Rider) bridged up to the break. Joel ended up attacking the break and won it solo and Carmi says, “I had nothing left in the tank and sprinted in for 9th.” Well done!

Jan mixed it up in the field sprint for a great placing as well…just outside of the top 10 due to the breakaway.

Good day of racing for sure. Everyone was working well together and sharing the workload at the front.

Photo Credit: Steven Woo

Rohnert Park Crit – P/1/2: 6th Place

P/1/2
Team: Aaron, Angelo & Jan
Place: 6th (Jan)
Course: Slightly undulating with gusty winds: 1.2 mile office park

The race got under way slowly but ramped up quickly. We had to do 75
min. Because of the wind, length of course and number of turns/curves a breakaway was bound to happen (almost every race before us was won in a break). After several attempts by us and others, one finally stuck and I think it was around 20 min into the race. Prior to that, we were all near the front taking turns going in breaks, but just missed this one that went away. Angelo tried to bridge up but the break was working too well together (Joel, Rand Miller, 2 other guys, one of which eventually got dropped). Angelo recalls, “I tried to bridge and they were almost instantly out of sight, after 2 solo laps I was back in the pack for some recovery.” So we tried with others to try and bring them back but no one was working well together at all. Jan tried several times to bridge and have some people come with him but it all got chased down by the pack. Angelo and Aaron continued covering attacks/bridge attempts. Jan finally made a move that stuck, “Then I (Jan) found myself on the front of the pack and I was like WTF so I attacked ala sprint and took a huge flier. Two guys came with me. So we started rotating well and got a great gap.” The break away had 45sec-1 min on Jan’s chase group, which eventually picked up the guy that was originally in the main breakaway and the 4 of them worked great together. So 3 up the road and Jan’s group of 4 chasing hard. With 40 sec or more on the pack this chase group was looking great. Jan’s group did not catch the main break, so they were racing for 4th. One rider attacked hard, Jan reacted and took 3rd in his group (6th overall).

We raced well today and we had fun. Granted, we should have been in that first group, but we are learning and getting better….

The (not-so) bad news of the day is that Jan’s placing earned us a box of Clif Bars, the winner got a case of beer. Personally, I (Angelo) think Jan should have rode harder and won us some beer.

Photo Credit: Mark Nakamura