The poor old OA Westy gets a tow, and I get stranded in Merced.  Full report from the weekend coming soon...

This weekend the OA team entered our first National Racing Calendar (NRC) event, the Merco Cycling Classic, in Merced, CA.  It went down like this...

Emily, Ben, Justin, Akira, and I represented the OA team in our respective races.  Emily raced the Pro/1/2 women's field, Ben in the Cat. 2s, and Akira, Justin, and in the Pro/1.  On this beautiful day, full fields of 100+ riders lined up for each of these races.


Emily raced strong, showing the green and orange at the front of the field on several occassions. 


On the flat, fast course, no one could escape the field, and in the end a bunch gallop decided the race.


Though the official results don't show it, Emily finished around 25th-30th to my count.

Next up, Ben looked motivated for a good result in the men's category 2 race.


I didn't get to watch much of Ben's race, as I was warming up, but he looked sharp.  At the line, Ben finished 30th.

For the final race of the day, Akira, Justin, and I lined up with the best racers and team in the country for 50 laps of high-speed action. 


Akira and Justin looked great.  I was especially proud of Justin for hanging in there till 5 or 6 laps to go.  As for me, it was not such a good day.  I got caught behind a crash just over halfway, and I didn't have the speed to catch back on.   I think my throttle cable broke, and the OA van and I must be synched because after the race, its throttle cable broke too.


We were able to cram everything into Akira's and Justin's vehicle, so we made it to the road race the next day without a hitch.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the road race, nor is there really all that much to report.  Emily doubled flatted when the wheel truck was stuck behind with a crash.  From what I hear, Ben raced well and put himself in the moves again.  Akira, Justin, and I finished the 120 mile road race towards the back.   The first 2 laps (of 5) were fast.  Laps 3 and 4 were a Sunday stroll, and lap 5 was pretty fast again. 

Everyone was pleased with the weekend's racing.  We didn't have any incredible results, but no one is playing their A-game yet.  Most importantly though, we're gelling as a team.  This is, by far, the best team I've ever ridden for. 

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This weekend I was supposed to be in Anaheim, CA for the Expo West.  But thanks to OA volunteers Diana Harrelson and Amanda Severson, I was able to save myself the trip.

While the rest of the team traveled to Fresno for  the Central Valley Classic, I had not registered in time, so I decided to hang out at home.  Much to my delight, someone reminded me on Friday that the Chileno Valley Grasshopper was on Saturday.  I was a little tired from solid week of training, but I'm always up for a bike race on my home turf. 

The grasshopper rides are a series of unsanctioned "races" organized by the Gianni cycling club that start and finish in Occidental, CA.  They are legendary in Sonoma County, and this was my first time doing one.

I rolled up Graton Road Saturday morning feeling rather chipper to be racing on my favorite roads.  To my delight at the start, several local OAers were out as well.  Akita Wong rolled up from San Fran.  Andy Bunnell and Brian Bauer came up from Graton. 

With a rumored 160 riders rolling out of Occidental, it was sketch out to Valley Ford, then the racing started.   Up and over to Dillon Beach, John Staroba (Eastside Cycles) poured on the pressure, and the racing began.  By the time we hit Tomales, we had shed over half the field.  Over the Marshall Wall, John, a Squadra Ovest rider, and another Eastside rider, initiated a break.  At some point the Eastside guy dropped off, and some dude who was just out training started working with us.  He was an absolute hammer up Wilson Hill.  We lasted for probably 15 miles, until we got caught by a pack of ~25 riders on Chileno Valley Road. 

I felt fine, thinking that the race would come down to the famed Burnside Burn.  Instead a break of 4 rolled off over the top of Carmody Rd that would stay away to the finish.  Going up Bloomfield to make the left turn on Burnside, I thought my day was finished.  It hurt.  But I hung on while John Staroba and Akita exchanged attacks up Burnside. 

By Freestone, our group had dwindled to 9 or 10 riders.  Akita attacked before the Bohemian Highway climb and would finish 5th.  I came in with the next group to round out the top ten.  I have no clue who won.  I don't know the riders around here very well yet, as I haven't done much racing in California.  When I moved to Cali in 2003, I stopped racing.

Meanwhile, in the Central Valley, Emily, Justin and Ben got hammered at the NRC race there.  I've only spoken with Justin thusfar, but as I understand everyone suffered in Friday's road race, rode well in Saturday's TT, and came back strong in Sunday's criterium.  I look forward to talking to everyone to get a complete report.

[Side note:  Steve Cozza of Petaluma finished 7th overall in the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen, a UCI 2.1 race in Belgium.  Steve and I lapped the field in the Apple Pie Criterium a month ago.  Go Steve!]

I'll start this report with the way home.  I've driven by Harris Ranch too many times that I want to remember.  If the I-5 drive wasn't depressing enough, the stench and sight of California's largest beef producer can sink you into utter despair.  I've managed to avoid stopping at this exit on previous travels, but on our way back from the San Dimas Stage Race we made the mistake of taking a bathroom stop here.

The copy on the back of a Harris Ranch coffee mug proudly explains that they "process" 700 heads of cattle per day or 132 million pounds of beef per year.  It's grim news that makes me proud to represent OrganicAthlete and TeamVegan. 

Thursday evening, Justin, Ben, Akira, and I headed south from the Bay Area towards San Dimas, which is east of Pasadena.  The race consists of a uphill time trial on Friday, a road race on Saturday, and a criterium on Sunday.  Because of the uphill time trial, I think we were hoping for good results in this race.

The time trial climbs 3.7 miles up a beautiful road that heads north from Claremont into the San Gabriel mountains.  Many of the best climbers in the country came out to test their legs on this course.


For most of the OA team we proved not to be some of the best climbers in the country.  David Glick (aka Davide Glicko), our new teammate from Tucson, however, proved to be the real deal.  In the Pro/1 race, Justin, Akira, and I finished 74th, 75th, and 76th, respectively (you'd think we'd train together all the time!), and Dave posted the 21st fastest time at a blistering 14:08 pace.  In the category 2 race, Ben finished 72nd.




That night, we made our requisite visit to the local vegetarian restaurant, the Veggie and Tea House. This eatery claims to grow their own food at their own farm, but I have to say it was a strange place.  Maybe it was the service, but when I asked what vegetables came from the farm, the response was "everything."  I queried back, "Even the rice?" and just got a dumb look.  Then they served a salad dressing made with dairy with a dish they called vegan.  The waitress didn't even seem to know what vegan meant when we asked about some suspcious-looking wontons.  We were happy to eat in the hotel room the next night.

Saturday's road race wound around a resevoir with a 7 mile rolling curcuit.  The route included one short, but substantial hill.  Davide Glicko once again showed his class by finishing with the main pack.  Justin and yours truly got shelled early in the race.  I finished, but according to the initial results, I missed the time cut, so I was not able to start Sunday's race.  [In looking at the results now, the officials did show me as finishing, which means that I could have started.  Bummer.]  Akira showed signs of form coming around by finishing the road race in 62nd place.  In the Cat. 2 race, Ben struggled with the hill and pulled out of the race. 

Sunday's criterium was fun to watch at least.  Jittery Joe's had missed out in the break the day before, so they were ready to put the hammer down.  Cesar Grejales led a break of 12 off early in the race.  With 2 laps to go and the gap between the break and the field rapidly dwindling, Cesar made a solo bid and won the race.  Davide rode at the back the entire race to finish 20th overall for the weekend.  Akira looked great in the crit, but he pulled out with a few laps remaining.  It was also cool to see another vegan athlete and OA pro-activist Adam Myerson finish 3rd on the stage.

We were all excited by David's showing in this race.  It was a fine performance indeed, and we're looking forward to doing more racing with Davide as the season progresses.


For more pictures from this race, click here.

Patrick recently became a member of OrganicAthlete.  Check out this video about his fundraising trip across the US for animal sanctuaries.

There's nothing more frustrating than making the winning break and not winning.   In today's Corporate Criterium, I did just that. 

The OA team of Dan Hopley, Eric Wright, and I strategized before the start of today's race.  This was Hopley's first race of the year.  Eric hadn't ridden much the past couple of weeks, and he was riding a borrowed bike.  So we figured that I should be in any significant move, and Hopley and Eric would cover what they could.


At 90 minutes, this was a fairly long crit, but the big break of the day went early.  In the opening laps, Eric covered the front of the field like he owned the race.  With around 20 minutes expired, the big break of the day formed.  About 7 riders (including Eric) had a decent gap.  I bridged across when Eric was fading off the back of that group.  Over the next few laps, the break would swell to 15 riders. 


Given that the break was so large and that we weren't working together too well, I was surprised that we stayed away.  I made some turns at the front, but for the most part, I tried to conserve energy.  After just over an hour's racing, we could see the back of the field.  I didn't want the break of 15 to lap the field, as that would be chaos to deal with. 


With the field maybe 20 seconds away, I made a couple of moves to test the waters.  I could tell the break wasn't as frisky as it had been, so finally I made a big push to either lap the field solo or take a smaller group with me.  For two laps I pushed the pace by myself.  Glancing back, I could see a couple of riders trying to bridge across. 

Glen Fant, Craig Roemer, and One Plus rider joined me to make the bridge to the field.  With 6 or 7 laps remaining in the race, we connected, and all of us quickly made our way to the front. 

To this point in the race, I did everything right.  The race was now down to 4 people in contention for the win.  With 2 laps remaining, I made two critical errors.  First, I had Eric leadout for penultimate lap.  I could tell he was burying himself, but I should've had Eric throttle down so he could last longer.  Even at this point in this race, sometimes you really don't need to go that hard to maintain control of the front.  Coming into the last lap, Eric peeled off.  Immediately, a friend of Craig's started a leadout for him.  Unfortunately, they got a little gap, and I made another mistake.  I tried to close the gap. It was taking me way too long, and I completely blew up.  Poof!

I finished 4th on the day.  While I was disappointed with my finish, I was very pleased with how the team rode in the race.  It was fun to see Eric and Hopley out there.  I look forward to the Tuesday night race series this year.  We should have a lot of fun.