The Face of "11" a.k.a. Race Report #5

Today was the 2nd race of the Pilarcitos series. Candlestick Park. Ugh. The two worst venues are out of the way. Candlestick is my least favorite course. I usually hope for an excuse to skip it...baby shower, root canal, almost anything really, but I was jonesing to race the new bike. I've been battling a cold all week and losing, but just couldn't wait another week. Crap course. Crap cold. Crap fitness. Let's race! Truth be told, the course was as good as one could expect thanks to a week of sporadic rain. The dry, bumpy, flat dustbowl, was now a slow bumpy, flat not-so-dustbowl. The rains made for slower laps as the grass had softened considerably. If you weren't pedaling, you weren't moving. There's really not that much exiting to talk about on the course. Lots of grassy turns, a few barriers, and along road section that flew you into the start/finish. whooppee. The 'run-ups' were all big-ringable on all but the first lap of mayhem and the road section had me spun out in my 44-14. It was a good course for Flexus. Ran mine at about 37psi. Could have run 35. My legs actually felt decent for the first time in weeks, I just didn't have the lungs this week to go with it. Ave HR was 166 w/ 25 minutes in Z4 and 28 minutes in Z5. I need to shift that to 15/35. Lost the sprint for something-ith place to TooTallJones. We played Cat-n-Mouse the whole race. He would dump me on the road, I would get him at the first set of barrier. Bell lap. I knew he was going to jump me as soon as we exited the dirt and he did. He got a gap so I played dead, then tried to stealth him w/ about 100 meters to go. Unfortunately, it's nigh impossible to stealth someone w/ Flexus on pavement. Loud enough to wake the dead. He heard my wind up and jumped, holding me off by 1/2 a bike. Next week, TooTall, next week, you single, kidless bastard. It was also a race of several 1sts. First race on Sram, and first race on the vagen. Sram has a few quirks which I'm still getting use to but I can't blame my suckness on missed shifts or anything of the sort. So far so good. As for the vagen, well you'll have to start here. Thanks for the photo Brian!