I have known CJ for MANY, MANY years. We went to UMO together back in the day, I had my first ever white water rafting experience with him and his pop and after a random re-encounter some 6-8 yars ago (after he and I had gone our seperate ways, post College) we have been great friends since.
One of my favorite things in the World is cycling. I have enjoyed the activity since I was very young and have been riding in some way, shape, or form for over 30+ years (BMX, Road bikes, mountain Bikes, back to road bikes).
In my travels through the cycling landscape I have made several aquantainces, but have always wished one of my "old school friends" would have shared my enthusiasm for the sport. Here's where CJ comes in...
While CJ has spent time on the Mt. Bikes, Road biking wasn't really in his arsenal. Somehow I managed to convince him to give it a shot (let's be honest, it was self serving, I wanted a buddy to ride with). He got himself a bike frame, we built it up and voila..I had a victim...errr friend to ride with.
While initially we spent a fair amount of time on the bikes, CJ's other passion (the infernal sport of GOLF) seemed to hold the edge for "activity I would prefer to do on a Sunny day" for CJ. And right when I had gotten him to be all skinny-ish (let's face it, he's big boned, so it's a relative term) he up and moves to FL! Seems like all was lost...
Well, 2 years goes by and CJ and his lovely wife have had enough of 95 degree temps with 100% humidity and drive by shootings and decide to move back to the great state of Maine. I get him back in the fold, but the 2 years off the bike have not been kind to my good friend. I sent him to FL in fighter's form and he came back "Body by Budweiser"...what to do....
The great thing about CJ is that he'll do most anything...pain is not a hurdle that will stop him, so he jumps back into the cycling thing head first. Back to square one he goes..getting in those awful, hurtful, terrible early season base miles in the cold, crappy, wintery Maine weather. Riding with me on days where we would not feel our hands or feet for an hour AFTER the ride. Riding with me on days where we were soaked by a freezing rain mere minutes into a two hour voyage. Riding with me on days where the wind was so strong and so cold that our faces froze and our ears rang...but riding...and riding...and riding....
and all the while he keeps working at it...and he keeps getting stronger...and his "body by budweiser" slowly melts away and is replaced by the "body by bud-light" (again, he's big boned people)...and instead of just hanging on to the rides, he's leading them out....
well, I have spent many a day spinning yarns to CJ about "easy rides, easy courses and easy races". Most were 1/3 truth and 2/3rds knowing that there would be suffering, but knowing also that he could handle it...
and here we are today...3 months into the season and we have put in a ton of miles, climbed innumerable horrible climbs and rode at speeds that hurt and hurt and hurt. CJ has now raced in 7 Crit races, 3 Road Races and 1 TT. He got stronger at each Crit race and helped me to get a good finish each time, he scored his first podium in his second Road race and he survived his TT and beat MANY other racers who were on their fancy special Time trial rigs while huffing and puffing away, too stubborn to slow down. Now he is looking for more races, more miles, more suffering because he has now become a cyclist...he even got himself a fancy new bike and joined up for a real live race team and now I will no longer have to stretch the truth about the severity of a ride/ race and instead can just say..."yeah, it'll be a suffer fest, you in?" (except for maybe Concord).
Chris Jordan, Team Colavita, Cyclist....congrats man!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Off to the Races!
So, here we go...the race season has officially begun. Today was day 1 of the 8 week SIPC series. The weather was actually nice for a change (last year it was freezing rain for this race) and there was a pretty good turn out of racers. Maybe 22 or so in th B group and probably around 35 in the A group.
Woke up feeling marginally better than I have been feeling. The Death Virus I have been hosting in my body for the past 2 weeks seems to be wrapping up it's stay and moving on to greener pastures. Still not 100% as I was having a hard time getting full oxygen, but I'll take it.
Got there in plenty of time, but still somehow managed to fritter away my warm up time. I managed to get in one lap with CJ before they had us lining up to start. After a longish intro by Joe Moreshead the gun sounded and we were off.
This being early season and all, I try to stay as close to the front as possible without getting into the wind too much. I don't like to be in the back of the group if I can avoid it, as it tends to be more sketchy the further back you go. Laps 1-3 were fairly comfortable as everyone got their early morning legs on and the jitters out of their systems. We were cruising around at about 21 mph and no-one seemed to be under any duress as quite a few of us were chatting and catching up on the Winter stories.
Around lap 4 CJ rode up next to me and said his shifter wasn't working. Seems he couldn't shift at all. After a little on the bike elbow grease didn't resolve it, I told him to pit and have the boys fix him up. Meanwhile some of the guys had decided it was time to turn the screws just a bit on the pace as a few different riders made brief attempts to break from the field. The pace picked up to around 22-23 mph, but still completely manageable as we were basically all in a bunch.
I chased a few breaks early on as I wasn't sure who the riders were and didn't want to give anyone too much leash in case they had the legs to actually do some real damage. Fortunately nothing ever went too far up the road.
CJ jumped back in after getting some mechanical assistance in the pits and we were all together again. The pace was still in the low 20's and no one seemed to be struggling as the group was still pretty much intact. There was a little bumping and elbowing here and there form a rider who was way too sketchy for my tastes. I decided that I didn't want to be anywhere around them and moved up to 4th wheel for a lap or two until they settled down.
Finally the last 2 laps were on the offering. Pace picked up again and a few small breaks in the group started to form. I was in decent position until the last lap when on the back stretch I somehow managed to get boxed in on the inside. The front of the field was starting to ramp up the tempo and I was trapped.
Coming around the last corner I watched the field split and knew I had to get through or the race would be gone. I snuck my bike through the right hand side and got to clean air. I saw the leaders were about 100 meters ahead of me with about 700 meters to go, so I stepped on the gas and got the bike moving. I made it past the second cluster of riders and grabbed the tail end of the lead group and managed to pip on of the guys on the line to snag 5th place (was that you David?). I was totally cooked, as I had had to start my sprint from about 600 meters to get back to the front.
I did the warm down lap with my tongue hanging out, but happy that I snuck into the points. CJ pedaled up to me and seemed pleased as punch and mentioned it wasn't as hard a race as he had worried about. I would have punched him, but I was too tired to do so.
Overall the race was 22.5 mph average and I managed to get up to 36.7 mph in the final sprint...not horrible.
It was actually uncharacteristically serene, but I attribute that to people just shaking off a long Winter and getting their legs spinning again. I would guess it'll be a little harder next week. I'll be sure not to get myself boxed in again and may even decide to take a flyer early on to break things up a bit..we'll see. I can always have CJ tow me around until he passes out!
On to next week!
Woke up feeling marginally better than I have been feeling. The Death Virus I have been hosting in my body for the past 2 weeks seems to be wrapping up it's stay and moving on to greener pastures. Still not 100% as I was having a hard time getting full oxygen, but I'll take it.
Got there in plenty of time, but still somehow managed to fritter away my warm up time. I managed to get in one lap with CJ before they had us lining up to start. After a longish intro by Joe Moreshead the gun sounded and we were off.
This being early season and all, I try to stay as close to the front as possible without getting into the wind too much. I don't like to be in the back of the group if I can avoid it, as it tends to be more sketchy the further back you go. Laps 1-3 were fairly comfortable as everyone got their early morning legs on and the jitters out of their systems. We were cruising around at about 21 mph and no-one seemed to be under any duress as quite a few of us were chatting and catching up on the Winter stories.
Around lap 4 CJ rode up next to me and said his shifter wasn't working. Seems he couldn't shift at all. After a little on the bike elbow grease didn't resolve it, I told him to pit and have the boys fix him up. Meanwhile some of the guys had decided it was time to turn the screws just a bit on the pace as a few different riders made brief attempts to break from the field. The pace picked up to around 22-23 mph, but still completely manageable as we were basically all in a bunch.
I chased a few breaks early on as I wasn't sure who the riders were and didn't want to give anyone too much leash in case they had the legs to actually do some real damage. Fortunately nothing ever went too far up the road.
CJ jumped back in after getting some mechanical assistance in the pits and we were all together again. The pace was still in the low 20's and no one seemed to be struggling as the group was still pretty much intact. There was a little bumping and elbowing here and there form a rider who was way too sketchy for my tastes. I decided that I didn't want to be anywhere around them and moved up to 4th wheel for a lap or two until they settled down.
Finally the last 2 laps were on the offering. Pace picked up again and a few small breaks in the group started to form. I was in decent position until the last lap when on the back stretch I somehow managed to get boxed in on the inside. The front of the field was starting to ramp up the tempo and I was trapped.
Coming around the last corner I watched the field split and knew I had to get through or the race would be gone. I snuck my bike through the right hand side and got to clean air. I saw the leaders were about 100 meters ahead of me with about 700 meters to go, so I stepped on the gas and got the bike moving. I made it past the second cluster of riders and grabbed the tail end of the lead group and managed to pip on of the guys on the line to snag 5th place (was that you David?). I was totally cooked, as I had had to start my sprint from about 600 meters to get back to the front.
I did the warm down lap with my tongue hanging out, but happy that I snuck into the points. CJ pedaled up to me and seemed pleased as punch and mentioned it wasn't as hard a race as he had worried about. I would have punched him, but I was too tired to do so.
Overall the race was 22.5 mph average and I managed to get up to 36.7 mph in the final sprint...not horrible.
It was actually uncharacteristically serene, but I attribute that to people just shaking off a long Winter and getting their legs spinning again. I would guess it'll be a little harder next week. I'll be sure not to get myself boxed in again and may even decide to take a flyer early on to break things up a bit..we'll see. I can always have CJ tow me around until he passes out!
On to next week!
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