the delft blues

Aah Delft, home of the famous blue pottery, johannes vermeer and delft technical university, organisers of this weeks race. Straight to the race then :-P Its funny how 1 lap can change your whole image of a race. Almost 30 guys turned up for A-klasse this week despite (or perhaps for the excuse to play in) the snow and thanks to seeding, I was able to get a good start position. The start was pretty fast, if you had the racing line like me, but plenty of people went exploring the deeper snow off the racing line and some even succeeded in picking up speed. I entered the first singletrack around 12th place I guess but soon got restless. There was some slipping and sliding and some people even unashamedly made snow angels close to the icy parts of the track. With a bit of luck, some pushing and shoving, and some annoying beeping from my heart rate monitor, which seemed to think i was operating at 102% of my max, I made it into 6th place by the end of the 1st lap.



I was lucky enough at this point to be tucked neatly in the wheel of the number 1 ranked rider in the championship, who had had a bad start and was working his way to the sharp end of the race. It didnt take us long to catch the 3rd place rider, who we both passed, and then I decided I was bored of watching Kees' back wheel and I let him ride away from me. So there I was, 4th place, pretty happy with myself, everything working fine, until I got overtaken, and then overtaken again. At this point, even tho I was in 6th place, it felt like I was having a pretty average race, with the great unwashed about to trample me as they came passed. Even the stairs became challenging...



But thanks to the encouragement of the canadian avenger, clearly feeling at home in her natural habitat (snow), and the fact that everyone was feeling the pace a little, the great unwashed never caught me. And then that 1 Lap I was referring to earlier happened. The mud and snow decided to annoy other people and I was free to clip in to my pedals first time after each of the 3 sections where running was well, erm, faster. The guys in 5th place hardly noticed me go by he was trying so hard to clip in, and then suddenly, I was right behind the guy in 4th place, who later told me he had already all but given up trying to clip in at this point. All that was left was some hard pedalling, a daring overtaking maneuver on the last corner, and voila, 4th place!



anyway, this puts me in a 3 way tie for 7th place overall, 2 points behind 6th place, 3 points ahead of 10th. and it looks like the snow might just hang around until boxing day in leiden.

delft cx race heart rate monitor stats:
duration 57:25
heart rate max 194 (this is getting a bit silly now)
heart rate average 182
1038KCal 15% fat
(Changed wheels and forgot to move the magnet for the speed sensor so no speed this week. I would however estimate the speed to be: not very fast, and the distance to be: not very far, this is cyclocross remember)

nice mud

dordrecht cx race heart rate monitor stats:
duration 56.20
heart rate max 193
heart rate average 183
1045KCal 15% fat
16.4km, 34.3max, 17.4avg (speed sensor was this weeks' bike upgrade)



aah dordrecht, the oldest city in zuid holland, population 120000 density, 1500 people per square kilometer. and just on the outskirts of town, cycling club drc de mol found the space to set out a great cyclocross course with plenty of nice winding singletrack, a bit of elevation gain and loss and mud, glorious mud. around 20 guys arrived for the A-Klasse, including some pretty fast guys meaning that 1st and 2nd place in the championship came in at 6th and 7th respectively. and I came in 8th :-)



last week in the snow it seemed like every time I pedaled hard I ended up sliding off the course, well that was my excuse at least for the average result, and hardly being tired after the race. dordrecht mud however seemed to be what my skinny hutchinson tires were designed for, I felt good, pedaled hard and was really really tired after the race. things are getting interesting in the overall points standings, and while this 8th place brought a decent number of valuable points with it, I stay in 11th place overall. 4 more races to go. until Saturday in delft...

snow racing

that's me in the background wearing every piece of winter cycling clothing i have. it was pretty cold, even when we got going, but somehow manageable. and while it wasn't the coldest (see previous blog post), it definitely was the snowiest day of riding ever for me. at least half of the course was racing on packed down snow, while the other half was churned up mush of snow, ice, sand and grass. good times :-)



i think this one was taken during the warm-up. we normally get about 20mins on the course after the masters' and ladies' races finish. it was more of an -up tho, cos i cant say i managed to get warm... the result of my slipping and sliding and occasional face-planting? 15th out of 20. slipping down to 11th place overall. not fantastic as i struggled to find a rhythm for the first half of the race. the second half of the race was better, as i found that rhythm, overtook some people, stayed on the racing line, mostly, and on the bike, mostly. in a few short wintery days we get to do it all over again in dordrecht.

aerodynamic upgrading

yesterday was my coldest messenger shift on a bike to date. thank goodness for army surplus stores where I found some awesome gloves the day before for 6euros! I also finally found a use for the dorky scarf type things I bought for my first snow experience 7 years ago but never really used. face-covering-dork-scarf-things are the new beard. and after a days riding and heavy breathing through them, im pretty sure they'd repel almost all insects, and most humans.



the hard working titanium bike got some aerodynamic fake titatium upgrades for the day too. the pretty shapes got me thinking, and there's plenty of time for thinking while delivering packages, about aerodynamics. mostly because the shapes the fake titanium formed, over and over no matter how many times I tried to shake it off by hopping over imaginary obstacles hidden by all the fake titanium on the ground. these new shapes however were familiar, look at just about any over priced and engineered time trial bike and you'll see them. but they were formed by the air leaving the bike, mostly just air leaving the wheels, not by the air approaching the bike. now I had heard that a lot of aerodynamic design was about helping the air leave the object smoothly, but it was interesting to see it in practice. or maybe my brain was just a little cold...




anyway, I couldn't let the work bike get all the upgrades this week. I spent some hard earned money on some new brakes for the cyclocross race bike. I've read mixed reviews about the frogglegs brakes, but because the spooky origionals are pretty hard to come by, and around double the price, in the name of losing weight and increasing mud clearance, I decided to give them a try anyway. they even got a koolstop pad upgrade before the test ride. i hear these pads are the best in the business, so i look forward to testing them out in rijswijk at tomorrow's race