Saturday, July 28, 2012

My Chicago Velodrome Odyssey, July 23-27, 2012

With St Louis in a multi-week heat wave with unceasing highs above 105F, I decided to take the family to Chicago for a break from the heat.  Unbeknownst to them, my secret agenda was to hit the velodrome circuit around Chicago-Kenosha.  They would be able to sit at the beach and enjoy the cool waters of Lake Michigan, and get some good jet-flown fresh seafood.  The plan was to get a decent hotel in Evanston, home of Northwestern Univ, 10 miles north of downtown, strategically located 10 miles south of the Northbrook Velodrome.  One hour north to the Washington Park Bowl in Kenosha, and even cooler weather, I reasoned.  Then only 30 miles across town to the little 160m Chicago Velocampus in South Chicago.  Perusing all the online schedules, it looked like I could get track time and racing five consecutive nights: Monday night clinic at Northbrook, Tue night racing in Kenosha, Wed night clinic at Chicago Velodrome, Thu back at Northbrook, and possibly the Fri night Cat 4/5 races at Northbrook, hosted by the Garner Bicycle shop. 

Monday: Northbrook clinic
Ten 27 Bicycles (formerly Turin) is located smack dab downtown Evanston, so I called ahead and reserved a track bike for Billy (my 14 year old), who had never ridden the track.  They have a loaner program where they charge your credit card $500, but if you return the bike in good condition, there is no charge, so basically a free rental program to encourage racing at Northbrook.  Chris the owner has been running the clinics and race nights at Northbrook for the past 30 years.  About a 20 min drive from Evanston, through Skokie and Wilmette, with a little jaunt north on I-94, we found the Northbrook track situated in a nice residential neighborhood with a Whole Foods market and aquatic center next door.  The racing here is USA Cycling sanctioned so a license is required.  Showed up at 6:30 and a good sized crowd of 20 were there in various stages of warmup. Kevin Perez, a seasoned elite rider, led the clinic, which was a structured workout for the weekly crowd of citizen racers as well as a smattering of categorized riders up to Cat 2.  The night was also designed for first-timers, which split off on their own group, led by masters racer Harold, also associated with Ten-27 (Turin).  There was one other first-time racer, a young women road rider, so Billy basically had a private track lesson with Harold.  As a parent, you sometimes learn, that your child will take instruction better from total strangers, rather than his own mom and dad, so I let Harold do the instruction and I followed in our little group of four.  My secret plan was for him to have his first track experience on a nice smooth track, fearing that our own Mr Bumply would be too jarring of a first experience.  By the end of the night, after about 1.5 hours of instruction and practice, and a lot of encouragement and compliments from Kevin and Harold, who from the glowing comments, pegged him as a young track phenom, Billy said he really liked riding the track and could see how Dad was “really into it”.  So fingers crossed that I could get him to raced on Thu. 

In the big group, Kevin explained his philosphy of track training was to keep intensity out of the “dead zone”, which is the 75-85% intensity, which is also where most people tend to train.  At about 7:30, he started the main group with a 30-lap super slow pace line, just to get the new riders used to riding in a paceline, followed by a 3 lap all out sprint.  Then some rest and more instruction about how to pull up on the bars and push down on the pedals like a dead lift, and not rock the bike in the sprint.  The next set was a jump exercise, where they laid out orange cones to designate the line for the jump at the 200m line.  Compared to other tracks, Northbrook is flat as a pancake so there is only a tiny downhill to jump from off Turn 2, but we nevertheless did the drill.  Kevin split the big group into smaller groups of four of similar ability, with the pure beginners forming our own group.  The set consisted of two seated jumps and two standing.  They taught the best line was from the very top of Turn 2 down to the black line in Turn 3, and made sure each jumping group did a cooldown lap under the cones and blue ribbon while other groups were jumping, so in this manner they were able to accomodate four or five groups of four doing continuous jumps and cooldowns, a well-run group workout. 
The next exercise was to practice the skill of coming over the top of a large pack and slotting down on the front of the  the large pack of 30 racers.  They suggested forming groups of two or three racers to come over the top and slot on the front, then slow down so the pack would not continuously speed up and make it too difficult for slower riders to complete the exercise.  Then after everyone had a chance to rotate to the front a couple times, they would finish with an all out sprint for the last two laps.  The passing exercise went well so I decided to follow some of the faster guys for the sprint.  Five upper level riders went off the front and had their own sprint, while I followed some superfast 14 year old juniors, who I only managed to pass in Turn 3 because they had spun out their junior gears!  Doh.  I was running a 47x14 which is about 90 inches. 

This took us to about 8:30 and I could tell Billy was getting a little burned out so we decided to head out, and also to save my legs for the next day of real racing up at Kenosha.  So we thanked our instructors all around and said our goodbyes.  Kevin said the session would last till 9:30 and when we left, they were practice a two man match sprint drill where one rider practiced whipping around his partner.  All in all, a great way to start the night.  (Sorry no pics, left the camera in the car and didn’t want to waste time retrieving it). 
Tuesday: Kenosha

We headed up the 94 to Kenosha, about an hour drive from Evanston, arrived early and after asking around a bit, figured out the nearest beach with sand was in Racine, another 15 miles up the Lake Michigan shoreline.  Finally found North Beach and Zoo Beach.  Unfortunately, North Beach was closed due to high levels of E Coli from the massive storm that passed through the night before and caused some of the storm drains with stagnant water to dump into the beach area.  Zoo Beach was just a quarter mile north so we were able to enjoy some nice cool Lake Michigan water with air temps in the mid-90’s which felt like spring compared to the 105 sauna that is St Louis. 
Arrived at the track about 6:30pm for 7pm race start so everyone was warming up, but I managed to get a couple laps and a sprint before the program started.  This track is sanctioned by ATRA but I told the registration officials my experience and they were fine with me racing Cat 4.  Turned out only four Cat 4 and a couple Cat 5 beginners signed up so they combined the categories and a few fast juniors jumped in to make a good race.  The Cat 3 was the most popular race with about 15 racers, and an equal number in the P12 races.  To my eye, the Cat 3 at Kenosha looked about as fast as the A race at Penrose, except the Kenosha racers were all old, but superfast, forming a nice tight pack in the 3 lap scratch. 

The feature race was the Mayors Cup, a massive 75 lap points race on the 333m banked track.  The pack featured the pro Chad Hartley racing for Kenda, formerly of Jittery Joes, and two fast XXX racers, Liam Donahue and Johnny Moyer.  Moyer and Donahue took turns working over Hartley, but mid-race the three had formed a breakaway group that blew apart the field into small groups of 2, 3, and 4 racers, so split up that the officials announced there was “no field” just a lead group of 3 racers.  Donahue ended up with the win, Hartley second, followed by Moyer. 
The first race was titled “Sprints”, which was basically a 3 lap scratch race with fields of about eight.  Lots of junior racers such that each age group of two years (11-12, 13-14, 15-18) had 8 to 10 riders.  There were so many Cat 3, they had two heats of eight, then a final.  The Cat 3s looked as fast as the Penrose A racers, except they were all old, silver-haired, and chunkey, if not downright fat.  But those old mothers could race, roaring around the track in their tricked out carbon framed, deep-dish Zipp wheeled machines. 

The Cat 4 race was no joke either, as fast or more fast then Penrose B race.  Some young fast dudes in this race.  I was able to follow the moves in the first two laps.  With two to go, the pace had paused for a moment, stacking the field across the track.  I had to decide whether to go low behind two guys or stay high with a chance of passing in the final.  Coming around for the bell, the pace went up a couple notches, and I was still on the back.  The inside guys took off, and by Turn 3 I was still stacked high on the track as the sprint started in earnest.  With no chance of reaching the front, I shut it down and enjoyed the front row seat from the track. 
Next up was a miss-n-out.  Some of the guys had checked out but some juniors jumped in so we had a nice little group of six.  I lined up at the back, and at the rollout, one of the juniors looked over his shoulder to assess the field and promptly ran into the guy in front of him, unclipped, and nearly went down.  I decided to get in front of this kid.  This was shaping up to be a short fast race with the six of us echeloned across the track with me in the top back position.  At the start bell, the fast fit dude shot off the front, no one reacted, then “POP-POP”, two shots from the starting gun.  I initially thought the official was restarting the race for some reason, but then the rain started to fall and they announced an end to the nights racing.  So a little disappointed to drive all that way for a shortened night of racing, but that is part of racing too.  That track would have been super-slick in the rain.  Have to tell myself “there’s always another race”. 

Wednesday: Chicago Velodrome Campus (CVC)
I was really excited to check out the little 160m high banked wood track in South Chicago, founded by businessman Emanuelle Bianchi.  I posted on their facebook page, asking about certification, and they said to show up around 3:30pm to get before the 6pm clinic.  My GPS took me from Evanston straight down Lake Shore Drive (Hwy 41) to South Chicago and into a pretty dicey looking neighborhood, lots of run down buildings, abandoned lots, then all of a sudden . . . a velodrome appeared out of the weeds on an abandoned lot.  I later learned that US Steel leased the land to Bianchi for $1 per year. 

Met Joel in the trailer, who also works as a bicycle delivery rider with Jimmy Johns, who got me registered, $10 certification and $15 clinic fee for the night.  Headed out to the track and watched him do some laps.  The track is visually very intimidating because of the nearly vertical-looking turns.  Most tracks are scary going fast.  This track, it is scary going slow because it feels like you might just drop off the track onto the asphalt infield.  So the experienced riders can go as slow as 12 mph but novice riders tend to go too fast, burn out and have to pull off after a few laps. 
Certification started out with learning how to get on the track, basically riding the blue plywood ribbon, which is joined to the sprinters lane by a sharp, nearly 70 degree white taped joint.  The thin plywood is very dipping so can’t go to fast on it.  So you ride the blue plywood, then go up track and get up to speed pretty fast on the short straight before Turn 1.  The first task is just to ride the red line for six laps, which is no easy task since your momentum pushes you above the line in the apex of the turns.  The trick, which really works, is to look well through the turn as you enter, so you are constantly craning your neck up and to the left, peering under the top of your helmet.  It really feels like an amusement park ride, due to the Gs experienced in the turns, and the sense of danger, waiting to fall off the track at any moment to certain death or serious injury.  Several guys that night recognized my kit and knew about Kevin and Tylers visit several weeks earlier.  However, no one spoke of the events of their visit and I did not care to bring it up. 

Next up was riding the blue line, which looked about six feet higher than the red line, towering above the infield.  The only concern was the wind off Lake Michigan, picking up in the late afternoon and sending the flags lining the top of the track straight out.  Coming out of Turn 2, you get a blast of wind in the face on the straight that is lower than the high banked turns.  By that time, I was building confidence and Joel seemed to have faith in me so I entered the track, did a couple quick laps on the red line, then stood up to get some speed to climb the wall up to the blue line, much easier than it seemed from the infield.  I was able to control the bike keeping a line just below the blue line, just above the blue line, and took it all the way up to the white dashed line about a foot from the top of the track, then swooped back down to the red for a couple laps to slow and exit the track on the dippy blue plywood.  I actually preferred riding up near the blue line because the turns were slightly more gradual, and not as nervous riding in the sprinters lane just inches from the sharp angled joint onto the plywood. 
Final test was the flying lap.  By that time, Emanuelle showed up to certify another first time rider so I wanted to ride well with the big dog in attendance.  Also in attendance, his son Samuelle Bianchi, 14-year old junior racer, who had competed at junior track nationals and recently won the Illinois state RR at OFallon several weeks early.  Sam is a big strapping boy nearly six feet tall and shoe size already at Euro 45.  We learned his shoe size because he was selling his “old” Vittoria shoes (free from sponsorship) because he had outgrown them while they were being shipped.  !  Sam had a couple of his junior friends, first time track riders, doing laps inbetween me and Joel. 

Joel demonstrated the flying lap by gradually winding up to the top of the track with two slow laps, then actually standing in Turn 3 through 4 and swooping down to the sprinter lane in Turn 1, made it look easy.  Well, it wasn't that easy.  I entered the track, grinded the pedals up to speed, up track, up, up, up to the dashed white line.  I told Joel beforehand I probably didn't feel comfortable standing on the banking but gave it a little go and swooped down across the line into Turn 1, compressed into my saddle by the G force, then immediately flew well out of the lane at the apex of the turn, swerving back into the lane at Turn 2, terrible!  Stood on the backstretch to keep my speed, then again flew several feet out of the lane in the turn.  It would take me several more runs to get my balance right so I could control the bike at near top speed, again practicing looking through the entire turn, and starting at half, 75%, 80%, 90%, laps, not trying to gun it as fast as possible the first time through.  It really had the sensation of a roller coaster, when they go down the hill and into those tight turns, pressing your body into the seat.  Fun and a little scary!  Emanuelle later deadpanned in his Italian accent, "looks like you went a little high in the turn".  Haha.  But they passed me anyway, saying that everyone swerves out their first time.  That's why they have a certification and don't throw you into a race right away. 

Took a break to get a sandwich before the clinic.  Just head down 87th, left on Commercial, then find the Subway at 91st.  This was the first Subway Sandwich shop I've every seen with one inch bullet proof glass between the servers and the order line, though I felt perfectly safe here, having experience in other inner cities like South-Central LA. 

Back at the clinic, perhaps 15 guys had trickled in, a mixture of first timers, curious citizen racers, some citizen riders trying to get good enough to race on Sundays, and a smatter of 3s and 4s.  Some elite XXX guys led the clinic, the second guy was Liam Donahue, who had won the Mayors Cup the night before up in Kenosha.  They split us into groups of four, and had us practice pacelines, then a bridging exercise with six riders, three going off the front and lapping the group, practicing integration into the lapped riders, then the lapped riders go off the front and gain the lap back.  The idea was to get a good workout and teach track skills as well.  And most importantly allow everyone to get comfortable with this challenging track.  They are working toward a Madison so have been practicing Madison skills like exchanges and one-handed drills.  Several of us agreed a Madison would be chaos on this track!  The mix of riders this night was too novice to do actual exchanges so we broke into two groups and practiced one-handed drills, which was no easy skill.  Liam lead the group slowly around the track and held one hand on the top of the handlebar with the other hand off the bar in various positions, right elbow bent, right arm straight out, right arm straight up, then repeat on the left, with everyone else playing copycat.  Then finished off the night with a practice scratch race, no crashes! 

Thursday: Northbrook Race Night
Thursday night at Northbrook put the spotlight on the juniors with the second annual 30 lap points race, featuring a national champion (Brad Coke?) and the winner of last years inaugural race in a two man break, but with plenty of primes to keep the field of 20 junior racers interested, notably water bottles filled with a $20 dollar bill is enough to make a 15 year old sprint.  The top two were tied in points coming into the last lap, but Coke took the sprint and the trophy. 

The Pro/1/2 field was stacked with a pair of pro Columbian racers who were in town for a big week of crit racing; one of the pair had participated in the 2008 Olympics.  They were up against a strong field, including the pair of XXX racers, Liam Donahue and Johnny Moyer, who had cleaned up at Kenosha two days earlier.  The 30 lap points race turned into a strategic race of the two Columbians vs the two fast XXX guys.  The Columbians were racing on borrowed old Schwinn steel bikes, while the XXX had fast carbon machines.  Donahue took a mid-race flyer with Camillo marking the move.  The two worked together with a third rider bridging up, while the field sat up, Moyer and Perez, the other Columbian, setting a false tempo on the front.  The three worked together for several laps until Donahue darted off the front and took about a couple laps to bridge to the slowing field, taking 20 points on the field.  The pattern repeated itself in the 20 lap scratch at the end of the night, except that Donahue integrated into the field with two trailing riders.  At that moment, the two trailing riders became the leaders of the race and laps counted according to their position on the track, to the confusion of several racers in the field who gestured to the official that the lap counter was incorrect.  Fortunately, the PA announcer kept the spectators, about 100 in number, apprised of the situation on the track, adding to the enjoyment and excitement of the racing. 
The 4/5 race was pretty fast, perhaps a little better field than the Penrose B race, also stacked with some fast junior racers.  If it’s one thing I learned this week, juniors are force to be reckoned with on the track.  They don’t have the endurance to race with older guys on the road, but the short format races on the track play to their strength: speed!  14 and 15 year olds are fast enough to dust old guys like me in the sprint, and that is exactly what happened.  Our race started with a miss-n-out.  13 racers, six eliminations, then a three lap sprint for places.  I found myself on the top back of the pack coming around for the first elimination so a couple quick strokes of the pedal and scooted across to catch someone else out.  Fast pace but the same exact thing worked for the next four eliminations.  But I was getting tired standing and sprinting each lap at the line.  Final elimination lap.  I was on the back, tailing 14-year junior phenom Sam Bianchi (and son of CVC founder Emanuelle Bianchi), with a guy boxed on his inside.  Coming into Turn 3, the guy gestured to Sam to let him out, Sam slowed just enough to let him slip up track so I knew I had to step on the gas, with the pack spread out ahead it was a two man sprint to the line with Bianchi nipping me at the line.  Even if I had made the elimination, I was gassed and would have dropped out.  There was no slowing down the final three and the fast guys showed their speed in the sprint. 

The night wore on with the long points races for five groups of riders, juniors, P12, 3s, 4/5, and women with a special masters tempo race thrown in for good measure.  Cat 4/5 did a 20 lap points race, and I was happy to sit in and follow wheels.  Temps dropped to the mid-70s, which felt great, but with all the humidity in the air, everything was wet with a layer of dew, so had to wipe off the tires before racing.  With the time headed past 10:30pm, they had to shorten the last few races.  The final race of the night, a planned 15 lap scratch was shortened to 5 laps, which was fine by me.  I jumped with the pink suited Cutting Crew dude to lead out the first lap, and again was able to follow wheels, but too gassed to make the sprint.  Jason, former Penrose racer in the Wheelfast jersey, now racing in pink for the Cutting Crew, had a good showing for the night, as well as all the fast junior racers who sat in and did well in the Cat 4/5 race, including some Fraley disciples like Mark Ryan, identifiable by their Serenity bikes.  Met lots of guys and had a great time.   
Friday: Northbrook Garner Cat 4/5/citizen racing

Decided to get one last night of racing in at Northbrook before leaving Sat morning.  I had met a few of the Garner guys at the Thu night race so decided to check out the racing on Friday under the lights.  I arrived at 8pm just as the junior races were finishing, and these were the “little tyke” juniors, age 6-12, on all sorts of bikes, doing one and two lap races.  The adult racing starts at 8:20 and goes till about 10pm, depending on who shows up.  The night was advertised as Cat 4/5 and citizen level races, with separate races for those with track bikes and road bikes.  About 8-10 guys showed up with track bikes, all the way from newbie juniors to out-of-shape masters, with quite a few first time track riders, including two college racers from Indiana Univ who had just done the Little Indy and wanted to try out the local track. 
Racing started with a 15 lap scratch race.  This was a much more dicey race than Thu, slower, more chaotic paceline with guys coming out of their pedals and wandering up track.  There was no instruction for the first-timers other than “pass on the right” and “don’t look around, keep your eyes front”, not sure I agreed with that!  After four straights nights of riding clinics, practice races, and all-out real races, I was pretty cooked but thought I had a chance to do well in this group that felt much like the Penrose C race.  Wrong!  Some of the first-time roadies and the Little Indy guys had good legs, just hung onto the tail end of the sprint.  Since no one brought road bikes and the announcers were itchy to get back to the Olympic opening ceremony, they gave us a short 5 minute break and moved on to a 10 lap tempo race for track bikes (thankfully, they don't race road and track bikes together).  Great!  Same group of four guys got off the front and I paced around in the second group with the guy from Albertos.  10 minute break for the final race of the night, a 20 lap points race.  I decided to just try to sit in this race, which turned out to be fairly easy because the pace slowed down to a crawl between sprints so I was able to eke out a couple points and finish fourth in the final sprint.   All in all, it was worth the $15 to race on a smooth track for the last time this summer, before heading back to Mr. Bumpy. 

For pics of the certification and clinic at the CVC . . .

http://thebillhgenericracepicsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-chicago-velodrome-odyssey-july-23-27.html

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