From mtbiker@u.washington.edu Sun Oct 24 10:56:21 1999 Received: from jason05.u.washington.edu (root@jason05.u.washington.edu [140.142.78.6]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id KAA27492 for ; Sun, 24 Oct 1999 10:56:19 -0700 Received: from dante38.u.washington.edu (mtbiker@dante38.u.washington.edu [140.142.15.198]) by jason05.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id KAA25846 for ; Sun, 24 Oct 1999 10:56:19 -0700 Received: from localhost (mtbiker@localhost) by dante38.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id KAA13796 for ; Sun, 24 Oct 1999 10:56:18 -0700 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 10:56:18 -0700 (PDT) From: "T. Erickson" To: uwracing@u.washington.edu Subject: Flack's 'cross journal #3 (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII John Flack is a 'cross racer from Oly and a general all 'round good guy. Here is his take on racing back east. Hope you all had a great weekend. Busto ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 09:15:20 -0700 From: jfreek13 To: "\"'\\\"Butter\\\"'\"" , "\"'\\\"Crash\\\"'\"" , "\"'\\\"Deep Tissue\\\"'\"" , "\"'\\\"Spiney Jr\\\"'\"" , "\"'\\\"Spiney\\\"'\"" , "\"'\\\"Splatman\\\"'\"" , Brent Soderberg , D T Stephenson , Dale Plant , Dave McIntosh , Douglas Mahoney , Eric Anderson , "Hendricks, James M" , Jessee Griswald , John Blincoe , John Flack , Josie Beggs , "JPEPJ@aol.com" , "jstevenson@gtbicycles.com" , Karl , Paul Craig , Scott & Joan McClelland , "Sheckler, Jed" , SRP , Stefanie Brennan , Steve Blick , Sven , Tim Erickson , Todd , Toby Swanson , Troy Critchlow , "velodog@ris.net" , Velo News Subject: Flack's 'cross journal #3 22 October Yesterday after an easy ride with Jed in the morning, we set out for Ossining, just north of "The City" -that is, New York. I've had a great week of training this week with Jed's parents. My training rides ended up being longer than I'd planned each day because I couldn't seem to get the hang of the roads out here and would end up lost without even so much as a phone number to call if it seemed hopeless. Oh well at least the weather held. To get to Ossining, we drove down through the Catskills, the traditional weekend destination for New Yorkers since the early the early twentieth century. Okay, so imagine the amazing fall foliage and every couple of miles on the highway, we pass the coolest looking old-time forties diner. All stainless steel, neon and probably the most supreme jukebox on the planet. I think I could eat a hundred years' worth of breakfasts up and down this strip and never eat at the same place twice. Today on our way out to Long Island I saw the New York skyline for the first time in a dozen years. I still truly believe that it should be required that every American, in an effort to acknowledge its greatness should get on their knees and bow down in the direction of New York City at least once a day. This week we are treated to yet another fine circuit on which to do the thing that hurts so much but we love so well. Because there are so many people crowded into such a mall place, New Yorkers must have to have their parks as huge as possible. Cedar Creek Park is a huge park near the town of Seaford. It's so big there are facilities for just about everything. You wouldn't even know that such a huge urban center is just minutes away. The course has a lot of straight tarmac road sections but mostly centers around three little hills and does a good job of winding back onto itself. But the cool thing about the twists and turns is they don't immediately double back on each other. You can be halfway around he circuit and pass people going the other way who are on the other half of the circuit. I guess this way I'll be able to see Pontoni slowly creeping up on me. Oh yes Daniele Pontoni is still around. The Super Cup people must be paying him a ton of money to stay here. He missed the first round of the Superprestige series last weekend which for a name like his means a pretty good chunk of change just for showing up. But I must say that I hope the amount of interest he's brought to these first couple of races is good for the future of cyclocross in america. Tonight Jed and I went out to dinner for the first time this whole trip. I feel very lucky to have a teammate whose entire extended family likes to make homemade dinners from scratch every night. Eating in restaurants is nice and so is cooking for myself, but having someone make a homemade meal and set it right down in front of me without having to raise a finger is bordering on sublime. At least I tried to reciprocate by doing the dishes. I'm not sure how I'm feeling this weekend. The anticipation of the first race is gone and I'm feeling a little tired still. I'm gonna have to go over my mental preparation in my mind to get myself in an agressive mood to attack the start tomorrow. We'll see. 23 October Today wasn't one of those days where I wake up and wonder how I'm going to make it through. But I thought it was going to ne better than it turned out. My preparation for the race was relaxed. I didn't feel rushed at all. These are the kind of days when my racing tends to go well. Everything seems to fall into place like I have some kind of surplus of good luck that needs to be used or it'll go to waste. I couldn't be more wrong. I got kitted up a couple of hours early and spun around getting in a few more practice laps snd watching what lines people were taking. When my race got called to the line, Jed and Jesse had a place for me in the third row. By the time the leaders were staged and we were all ready to go, I was still miraculously in the third row. When the gun went off I was ready! So much for a surplus of good luck. From the very first pedal stroke, my chain was skipping on the front chainring. I didn't understand, I'd been riding the same bike all week long, yesterday and today as well and NOT ONCE did my chain slip like this. Every time I tried to press hard on the pedals, "Ka-CHINK!" my crank would slip foreward. Undaunted I kept going, because by now I was back where I'd have been if I hadn't had such a good place on the line, and this course is wide enough that there's plenty of room for passing. But I didn't even make a full lap before it got worse. On an uphill section where you really have to apply the power, I was standing up almost all the way to the top when my chain skipped again (it had been skipping continuously the whole time so far) and came off on the outside, jamming between the crankarm and the uter chainring. I pulled and pushed and even stood on the chain while pulling my bike upwards to try to free the chain but it would not come out. I was deflated. I hate, I mean I really hate quitting races. I feel so empty when I'm watching a race that minutes before I was taking part in. To make it worse, I realized I had more emotional investment in this race than I'd known previously. Thinking back now, the last time I'd reacted the same way to quitting a race was at 'cross nationals in 1996 at Sea-Tac. I hate facing people when they ask, "What happened?" Anything I could say would sound like an excuse and that's not how I like to face my racing. So I did the healthiest thing I culd do given the situation. I went back to the car, sat down and cried. It may sound like it's not that big of a deal and I know it's not. It's just racing. But I guess I needed to cry and be done with it so that's what I did. Besides, it wasn't the last race in the world and there's always next week. When I was thinking about what to write for my journal today, I wanted to leave out the disappointment I felt from not finishing. But I believe a journal is about all aspects that make up racing so I decided to leave it in. Soon enough I'll be writing about my next triumph. Jed, my teammate, had a really good race and rode strongly in a pack of about eight riders fighting for seventh place. The group contained Tobias Nestle (Focus) from Germany, and Johs Huseby (Independent Fabrications) who were riding well, perhaps glad they hadn't raced the day before, as they had before last week's Super Cup. Jed put in a good attack with five laps to go, stretching the elastic. The next lap was gruppo compatto. On the next circuit with three laps to go, Amos Brumble, a local New England rider attacked right before one of the course's short steep hills and got a gap. Soon Tobias attacked and quickly bridged up to Brumble. Jed saw the initial attack but was in poor position to respond. The two escapees joined forces, widening the gap. With no organization in the pack behind it looked like Nestle and Brumble had slipped Jed's group for good, leaving just two more spots in the top ten. The gap seemed to get so big so fast that the rest of the group was not willing to work, gambling on their sprint instead. At the final, Jed finished fourteenth, the second espoir behind Damon Kluck, who'd unexpectedly made the trip out from California. As Kluck was not at Boston last week and Tim Johnson, the espoir series leader had left to ride for team VKS in Holland this winter, Jed took over as leader of the espoir competition. Now all Jed has to do is find a way to get to Boulder, Colorado to defend his jersey when the Super Cup picks up for round three on November 7. Tomorrow I spend all day flying back home to Washington to get back to the daily grind, trying to fit in my training between my other commitments at home. My vivit to New England this week-and-a-half has reminded me a lot of driving around Europe a couple of winters ago. Especially looking out the window of the van seeing tons of open hillsides and side roads that would be perfect for a 'cross course. I think the locals know this too, 'cause they sure seem to be able to pick some good locales. Later... .