The Heckle Report
- Thread starter The Heckler
- Start date
-
- Tags
- beard cyclocross recap
The Heckler
You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
LOL
If I'm remembering this day right I flatted 10 minutes in on new tires and broke my chain not long after.
The Heckler
You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
My buddy got married on Saturday. NO KMC FOR ME.
Also wasn't about to take Friday off.
Something like that...Ikon's If memory serves and your spare tube was flat.
Pearl
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
I think I was on this ride?
The Heckler
You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
The Heckler
You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
CHARM CITY WEEKEND PREVIEW
WELL, I'm making my first trip to Baltimore since 2014. I have a feeling this year will play out much worse than 2014 where I scooped 6th and 10th in the 2/3/4 race.
.
.
.
.
.
.
That's the end. There's no one else behind me.
Which means no pressure.
Which means no stress other than not being eaten by a UCI wolf in the holeshot.
In other news the temp looks like 84 and sunny, AND there is a massive staired flyover which makes me wonder how I will manage shouldering with a bottle cage.
Tune in next week where I talk about things like:
"Racing in the heat without a water bottle"
or
"Shouldering with a bottlecage"
or
"I got mugged in Baltimore!!!"
WELL, I'm making my first trip to Baltimore since 2014. I have a feeling this year will play out much worse than 2014 where I scooped 6th and 10th in the 2/3/4 race.
.
.
.
.
.
.
That's the end. There's no one else behind me.
Which means no pressure.
Which means no stress other than not being eaten by a UCI wolf in the holeshot.
In other news the temp looks like 84 and sunny, AND there is a massive staired flyover which makes me wonder how I will manage shouldering with a bottle cage.
Tune in next week where I talk about things like:
"Racing in the heat without a water bottle"
or
"Shouldering with a bottlecage"
or
"I got mugged in Baltimore!!!"
seat tube... not down tube. least sucky option, IMO.
Good luck
Your boy Tyler predicted top step at Caffeinated...
hotsauce
Well-Known Member
Mountain Bike Mike
Well-Known Member
Good luck kiddo!!! Remember - your dream was to race in that class.... LOL
The Heckler
You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
2017 Charm City CX - UCI Elite
It's been a few years since I made the trek down to Baltimore. 2014 to be exact.
Man, those C3 guys really have that event dialed in. Team row, course crossing flow, reg, sand, course layout, all of the plastic potties, food vendors, great local people. It was really a pleasure to be back.
FRIDAY!
Friday night was Indian food date night with Moe down in Edison. First trip to Edison, 10/10 will return. Place was killer! I had a mean Korma, which may or may not be real Indian, but I don't care, I LIKE KORMA.
After dinner we took a walk down the main drag grabbed a chai and a box of Indian desserts and stopped into a grocery. That whole main strip is a riot. Every store front is lit up like Vegas and the interior lighting is the brightest most sterile while light I've ever seen. Upon walking into the dessert store one of the gentlemen working saw our overwhelmed look and gave up the full tour of our options. We settled on a box of 6 different small items which we split in the car on the drive home. Each item varied in sweetness from mildly sweet medium sweet with only one "cavity sweet." The real charmer was the amazing textures. We chose descriptors such as pasty, silty, sandy, and clifbar-y. None of which really sound good reading them back, but as a texture guy I was in heaven. My favorite was very mildly sweet, sopping wet, and had a silty texture.
Sopping wet, seriously.
SATURDAY!
6:45 alarm, packed and out the door at 8:10. A stop at Bagels 4U for a bagel and small smiley face cookie, a return trip home across town to grab my toobies (DOH) and We're off around 8:40. Three pee stops, and mostly clear traffic got me to Druid Hill right before noon. I broke out the stand and did the wheel shuffle/race day tune (since indian d8 was priority the day before) changed and wandered around, grabbed my number and waited for the course to open up.
#56, staged by number good for the last full row with only a couple dudes behind me. USAC said there were 33 ranked riders in the grid. WHAT? FOUR whole rows. Damn you C1 racing / Sho Air and your giant $10 series.
Yo, but check this thing out. I'm sure you heard/saw the media hype.
20 Steps up of varying height. Shit was so steep I could have probably used a belay. First preride lap I came at it as JPow was checking it out. He turned around to take another approach and I joked "No Jeremy, you're supposed to go up the stairs!" which warranted a chuckle. Captured by the series sponsor.
The course included the features I remember in slightly different ways. They really had the layout dialed with sections of brutal efforts, recovery and again, more pain.
I sat on the back side of the stage watching the barriers at 1:00 and ate my Wawa turkey sub. There is something magical about riding around with a 12" sub in your jersey pocket. I chatted with some scrub zone buddies that raced the 2/3/4 and dropped my pocket sandwich knowledge on them. The secret to scrub zone success.
I rolled down solo this weekend which meant no LDBCX bros which is sad for numerous reasons including having to pin myself which is an excruciating process when you have to deal with shoulder numbers. I did a lot of wandering around bouncing from familiar face to familiar where I could find them and even met a few new ones along the way.
STAGING!
Like I said, last full row. OH, and this was my first C1 start. lol. great.
GO!!!!
Holy hell, that hole shot was SO EFFING LONG. The pavement went on forever. FOREVER! No, I didn't move up. We exited the tarmac to the gras and immediately were sent up the mansion climb to the worse bottleneck ever. The back half of the field came to a dismounted standing stop and I rolled in DFL, actually, and came out one spot ahead.
Nice!
TIME TO BOOGIE!!!
I raced up the whole time, making passes consistently every lap. The crowds were out in masses and it seemed the tape was lined for half the course which introduces amazing energy into the experience.
A few laps in I started to feel some fatigue in my lower back. The tight turns, stairs flyover, big steps, quick uphill sprints, barriers, planter box and sandpit run was taking their tole. Wow, 5 dismounts per lap. Damn.
I had worked the sand a lot preriding. I got a great line from JPow which was ride 1, dismount corner, remount mid 2 in harderpack sand, ride 3, run 4. Totally great line which fell apart late in the day when leg 2 of 4 started to get blown out. I moved to ride 1, swing the corner stake, run 2/3, swing the corner stake, run 4. My second lap I heard a dude say "Damn that dude was flying!" Which I'm going to just play off as me.
Photo cred Chris Pino
Somewhere in there I made a sprint effort double pass on leg 4 which was a huge move that broke me from my group and sent my FLYING towards the next. I was racing every lap like it was my last giving it everything and was closing on a group of 3. I shaved 10 seconds on them the previous lap and while exhausted knew I had a couple more in me. Unfortunately I was pulled -2 before I had the chance.
The pain. My back was seized up, burning, totally shredded. It was an agonizing pain I've never felt racing before. Thanks C3.
I cooled down a little meandered, changed and waited to see results. I needed to know how far I worked up.
36/53
Damn. That's a result I think I can be proud of for the day.
Lap times:
5:36
7:36
7:44
7:49
7:53
7:47
pulled before the line
The leaders were turning just sub 7 minute laps. yikes. 15th for the last UCI point was turning ~7:25 laps. Top 20 demanded about 7:30.
Day 2 i counted 27 seconds from the time the Elite woman's leader passed the kink on the hill to when DFL funneled through. I have to imagine it was over 30 for our larger field. On day 1.
power stance made me chuckle.
It's been a few years since I made the trek down to Baltimore. 2014 to be exact.
Man, those C3 guys really have that event dialed in. Team row, course crossing flow, reg, sand, course layout, all of the plastic potties, food vendors, great local people. It was really a pleasure to be back.
FRIDAY!
Friday night was Indian food date night with Moe down in Edison. First trip to Edison, 10/10 will return. Place was killer! I had a mean Korma, which may or may not be real Indian, but I don't care, I LIKE KORMA.
After dinner we took a walk down the main drag grabbed a chai and a box of Indian desserts and stopped into a grocery. That whole main strip is a riot. Every store front is lit up like Vegas and the interior lighting is the brightest most sterile while light I've ever seen. Upon walking into the dessert store one of the gentlemen working saw our overwhelmed look and gave up the full tour of our options. We settled on a box of 6 different small items which we split in the car on the drive home. Each item varied in sweetness from mildly sweet medium sweet with only one "cavity sweet." The real charmer was the amazing textures. We chose descriptors such as pasty, silty, sandy, and clifbar-y. None of which really sound good reading them back, but as a texture guy I was in heaven. My favorite was very mildly sweet, sopping wet, and had a silty texture.
Sopping wet, seriously.
SATURDAY!
6:45 alarm, packed and out the door at 8:10. A stop at Bagels 4U for a bagel and small smiley face cookie, a return trip home across town to grab my toobies (DOH) and We're off around 8:40. Three pee stops, and mostly clear traffic got me to Druid Hill right before noon. I broke out the stand and did the wheel shuffle/race day tune (since indian d8 was priority the day before) changed and wandered around, grabbed my number and waited for the course to open up.
#56, staged by number good for the last full row with only a couple dudes behind me. USAC said there were 33 ranked riders in the grid. WHAT? FOUR whole rows. Damn you C1 racing / Sho Air and your giant $10 series.
Yo, but check this thing out. I'm sure you heard/saw the media hype.
20 Steps up of varying height. Shit was so steep I could have probably used a belay. First preride lap I came at it as JPow was checking it out. He turned around to take another approach and I joked "No Jeremy, you're supposed to go up the stairs!" which warranted a chuckle. Captured by the series sponsor.
The course included the features I remember in slightly different ways. They really had the layout dialed with sections of brutal efforts, recovery and again, more pain.
I sat on the back side of the stage watching the barriers at 1:00 and ate my Wawa turkey sub. There is something magical about riding around with a 12" sub in your jersey pocket. I chatted with some scrub zone buddies that raced the 2/3/4 and dropped my pocket sandwich knowledge on them. The secret to scrub zone success.
I rolled down solo this weekend which meant no LDBCX bros which is sad for numerous reasons including having to pin myself which is an excruciating process when you have to deal with shoulder numbers. I did a lot of wandering around bouncing from familiar face to familiar where I could find them and even met a few new ones along the way.
STAGING!
Like I said, last full row. OH, and this was my first C1 start. lol. great.
GO!!!!
Holy hell, that hole shot was SO EFFING LONG. The pavement went on forever. FOREVER! No, I didn't move up. We exited the tarmac to the gras and immediately were sent up the mansion climb to the worse bottleneck ever. The back half of the field came to a dismounted standing stop and I rolled in DFL, actually, and came out one spot ahead.
Nice!
TIME TO BOOGIE!!!
I raced up the whole time, making passes consistently every lap. The crowds were out in masses and it seemed the tape was lined for half the course which introduces amazing energy into the experience.
A few laps in I started to feel some fatigue in my lower back. The tight turns, stairs flyover, big steps, quick uphill sprints, barriers, planter box and sandpit run was taking their tole. Wow, 5 dismounts per lap. Damn.
I had worked the sand a lot preriding. I got a great line from JPow which was ride 1, dismount corner, remount mid 2 in harderpack sand, ride 3, run 4. Totally great line which fell apart late in the day when leg 2 of 4 started to get blown out. I moved to ride 1, swing the corner stake, run 2/3, swing the corner stake, run 4. My second lap I heard a dude say "Damn that dude was flying!" Which I'm going to just play off as me.
Photo cred Chris Pino
Somewhere in there I made a sprint effort double pass on leg 4 which was a huge move that broke me from my group and sent my FLYING towards the next. I was racing every lap like it was my last giving it everything and was closing on a group of 3. I shaved 10 seconds on them the previous lap and while exhausted knew I had a couple more in me. Unfortunately I was pulled -2 before I had the chance.
The pain. My back was seized up, burning, totally shredded. It was an agonizing pain I've never felt racing before. Thanks C3.
I cooled down a little meandered, changed and waited to see results. I needed to know how far I worked up.
36/53
Damn. That's a result I think I can be proud of for the day.
Lap times:
5:36
7:36
7:44
7:49
7:53
7:47
pulled before the line
The leaders were turning just sub 7 minute laps. yikes. 15th for the last UCI point was turning ~7:25 laps. Top 20 demanded about 7:30.
Day 2 i counted 27 seconds from the time the Elite woman's leader passed the kink on the hill to when DFL funneled through. I have to imagine it was over 30 for our larger field. On day 1.
power stance made me chuckle.
The Squirrel
Well-Known Member
That's my old 'hood! Well before the migration, when that street had a working movie house and a hundred year old hardware store. Ah...the good ole days.
The Squirrel
Well-Known Member
BTW, Outstanding effort. Great report.
Lol, was wondering the same thing.
Pearl
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
like by the mall and stuff.