Aug 3, 03:01 AM by Steve | I Am Better Than You
Posted in Cycling
So my fitness has been progressing very well, but I still can’t translate it into placings in races. Teammates and racer friends keep saying I should be able to win or at least podium in my races, so why aren’t I? I keep telling them I’m not very agressive. In the world according to Carlos, I have to believe I am better than everyone else to have confidence and the aggressiveness will follow naturally from that. So here it goes—this is my attempt to declare to the world that I am better than you; I will crush you. I am the bringer of pain, the destroyer of hills and I will win and make you suffer. At least that’s what I’ll be telling myself. It’s not in my nature to be cocky, so we’ll see how this goes.
I tried it on for size on the Saturday ROCO ride. Even though it’s not a race, it always seems to be treated like one, with attacks, breakaways, chases etc. Just after summerland two riders (Aaron and M-Dub) took off and nobody chased. A bit later 3 additional riders including Peter broke free and dangled up the road a tiny bit. Coming by Toro, I was sitting second wheel being Gary and Seth, and I wanted to see if I could bridge so I asked Gary to let me through. He slid over and I jumped off after them, caught them fairly quickly and sat in for a little bit to recover from the effort. Turning onto 192 after the polo fields, I worked into the rotation and went to the front, pushing the pace a bit higher. We could see Aaron had eased up and caught him in short order, and the field was not in sights, so we all worked together to try to stay away. Some of us thought Matt was still in front, but after the high school Aaron told us he had stopped to take a piss. Aaron and I both wanted to keep the rotations short and the pace high but the others were hurting and the pace would slow whenever we weren’t pulling. Still we managed to hold everyone off all the way to tbe base of the climb, where Matt caught us again.
“Are you alone or did you drag everyone up with you?” I asked. He responded that there were only a few of them. He came to the front and we were blasting up the climb—I was doing 17mph up the 7% grade in my big chainring. It was just me and Matt and a few riders strung out behind us. I could see white jerseys and figured some of the freako climbers were soon upon us. Sure enough Marco and Seth come flying by and Matt and I hop on their wheels. I kept with them for a while but eventually cried uncle and backed off, letting a huge gap form as I took a few seconds to recover. Once I got going again the gap held fairly steady, growing very slowly as we approached the top of the first climb. I could still see them just ahead as they went over the top, and I had a few guys right on my wheels that I was killing myself to hold off. Once I crested the top I eased up and took a drink, and Gary and Zimmermen went blasting by. I cruised the descent and the false flat leading up to the second climb to recover, and then hit it when it pitched up again. I could see Randy nipping at my wheel the whole way up but I held him off and even accelerated away at the end.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, although quite fast. We were shelling people left and right on PCH and the 101 and by the time we reached the top of Bates the group was easily half the size it had been at the lake. At one point on the freeway the rider in front of me started to get gapped and motioned me to come forward, and I had to close the gap at 32mph! Looking at my data, my “attack” lasted for 40 minutes, my average HR was 167 and the average speed was 18.9mph (remember this includes a climb). The return leg from PCH to the top of Bates too 26 minutes, my average HR was 160 and the averaged speed was just over 25mph.
I did some climbing up OSM and Painted Cave after passing back through town. Even though I had stopped to get drinks at a store, I still felt dehydrated and blew up on Painted Cave, unable to keep up with Mark, Seth, and Ed. I had roughly 6 bottles total: started with 2, filled up both with water at the lake, filled up both at the store and took another drink in my pocket. I ended up not using one of the drinks I got because there is only so fast I could drink what I bought, but I would have had it if we had continued down and back up Stagecoach. I was down 5 pounds upon returning home.
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your nuts and are inspiring me to be stronger, go steve go!!
— Derek at Aug 3, 07:56 PM“I am better than you”
No, you’re not :-)
— Tom A. aka TnA at Aug 5, 09:08 AMI know :(
— Steve at Aug 5, 09:39 AMWrong answer.
You’re supposed to say, “Am too!”
We gotta work on that ‘tude some more… ;-)
— Tom A. aka TnA at Aug 5, 10:15 AMI heard that you’re probably doping.
— Dopeless at Aug 19, 07:49 PM