4/24/98
Last week, at the second Seward Park race, I did pretty well. I was feeling kind of apprehensive about trying to repeat my second decent performance. We were going the other way up the hill, with the longer, gentler slope, which I liked better last year. But the first race, I jammed up the shorter steeper hill standing up, and I felt that was how I did so much better.
We had a great turn out for the race. A lot of the team members were there. I was doing alright. About 2/3 of the way into the race, I was caught behind a small crash at the hairpin turn. I had some difficulty getting around them, and I was quickly about 200 yards behind the pack. I think I could have taken a free lap according to the rules, but I felt like trying to chase the pack down. There was a guy just moping along behind the pack, and he turned around to look at me, and slowed down. He was a Saturn team member on a Softride beam bike. Later I found out that he was just screwing around, and not in that particular race. When I got into the guy's draft, he kicked it in, and in half a lap, I was right back into the pack. That was a high-quality lead out.
Because of the catch-up, I couldn't go for any of the primes like I was thinking. And it was worse since two of the primes were back to back. But on the second to the last lap, I decided to try and position myself for the finish. On the last uphill before the finish, I managed to get a good line on the outside. I think I was as close to the front as 6th or so, but I blew up halfway up the hill, and finished in 25th or so.
From Saturday to Wednesday, I was in San Francisco for a meeting. At the meeting, I met Joel Ernst, a scientist working at UCSF, who noticed my name from the various bicycling newsgroups. He offered me a ride, and after thinking about it for a few hours, I took him up on it. So on the last day of the meeting, I went on a ride with him in San Francisco. He rode his custom Croll bike, and he lent me his rain bike, an older Look carbon fiber bike. Although I had to ride in sneakers and clips and straps, i had a great time. The bike was kind of neat. Kinda flexible feeling, but I rather liked it. And it seemed really light on the hills, although that may have been a bigger cog in the back (but I'm not sure it really was...). Joel took me accross the Golden Gate Bridge, and through Sausalito and to Marin County and back. The weather was a bit cloudy, and very, very, very windy. Besides the wind, I rather liked the weather. The few days before, it had been very warm in San Francisco, but it cooled off in time for the ride. It was great meeting someone working in science and interested in biking. We talked mostly about bikes, and also about science. I had a great time.
Yesterday was the third Seward Park crit. It was raining, and I was feeling a bit sick, so I decided to bag it. I got e-mail from Alan Petrie, and he told me he showed up, but didn't race. Apparently not too many people raced. Not I think I should have gone, and I might have had a decent finish...