2014 LA Circuit Race Report

Strava:  http://www.strava.com/activities/129960110

Today's race was just over an hour away and just north of LAX airport.  It was a circuit race where it was essentially a ~4 mile course that runs on both sides of Westchester Parkway with U-turns on both ends.  Shannon and I met at Westchester park just off of Lincoln, and the ride start/finish was about a block and a half away.   Although the race was on a nice stretch of road, I'm not sure the surrounding area would be a good place to leave your bike, or anything else for that matter, unattended.   There was a public restroom at the park, but the local homeless definitely use the facilities often.  It was gross.  The porta-potties set up for the race was definitely the better option.

The weather upon our arrival was cool, but it warmed up enough by the time we jumped on the trainers to prepare for the race.  The wind didn't seem to be a factor in the race too much, and it was hard to tell what direction it was actually going.  The flags by the start/finish seemed to be going different directions, but none blowing too hard.  Overall, the weather was pretty ideal.

We got warmed up and lined up to watch the 60+ class racing on the course simultaneously with a women's class about 10 minutes before our race start.  I thought they weren't going to get us on the course until after both cleared, but they started calling our group out just after the 60+ class finished.  The women's class was on the opposite side of the course, so we all got out safely and it wasn't too long before we were let go with a whistle blow to do our 4 laps.

Shannon being a gentleman

 Shannon and I started together toward the middle of the pack, and I was doing my best to try and stay with him.  However, this was a little harder on this course given we weren't familiar with it and that there were 70 other people out there racing with us.  We started to get split up some but we were both still pretty much in the pack where I could at least keep an eye out for him. 

The Cat 5 masses

 The first lap seemed a little easy with no one making any attempts to break away...or at least no one that did so with any real effort.  There was one team in Orange out there that we thought may get organized and be able to set something up based on their numbers, but they never really did and seemed more interested in making it a group ride than anything else.  It was a pretty fast first lap nonetheless, but seemed pretty easy even on some of the little hills on the course. 

Watch that cone

 As we were going into the 2nd lap, I could see Shannon pushing up on the outside while I was toward the inside.  I had to work my way out to get all the way on the inside free of being blocked off, so by the time I did, I could already see Shannon broken away from the peloton with no one going with him.   I started pushing up on the outside trying not to draw too much attention, and as I got close to the front, I broke wide and started sprinting as I watched the front to see if they would respond and follow.  When I saw that they didn't, I kept going and made my way to the back of Shannon calling out to let him know I was with him. 

We started taking turns while broken away from the group, but we didn't want to blow ourselves out too much and tried to maintain a TT power level hoping that it would be enough to keep the break.  Unfortunately, the peloton caught back up to us some time after making the U-turn at the end where we decided to fall back in and figure out a different strategy.  We did get separated at that point, at least from my perspective given I was closer to the front and I couldn't see or hear Shannon around me.

 On the remainder of the 2nd and 3rd lap, I was mostly trying to figure out what the best line was coming out of the U-turns.  I was testing both to see where I'd want to be for the final one before the run to the finish.  The inside line was okay but you definitely wanted to enter it ahead of most people as one of the turns pinched me out pretty good.  The outside line seemed to allow more corner speed, but there was a lot more distance to cover by doing so given you're pretty pushed out to be able to hold the outside line.  The exit speed was good but you still had to work, so at the end, just being up front toward the last turn was going to be the ideal if it came down to that.

There was some jockeying around for position throughout the last couple laps, and there were definitely some hairy moments.  Fortunately, everyone was able to stay upright with no incidents, but I know I threw out my 2 cents on occasion when people would get squirly.  I also called out how there was a lot of road to share so people didn't have to do stupid stuff that would cause a crash.  The funny thing was on the last turn, someone called me out after I responded to someone inside of me not holding their line.  I just remember someone saying something about Broadcom holding line blah blah blah, but I threw out a "sorry" anyway in the interest of good sportsmanship.

As it came down to that last u-turn, I was in a good position and responded immediately after coming out since there was a group ahead of me that took off.  I chased them down coming out of the turn hitting 1K+ watts again to do so.  At this point, I knew that the race was going to come down to this last section so I wasn't going to hold anything back.  I managed to get beside the group that broke away, but I didn't want to push up too far and then inadvertently give someone a lead out for the finish.  We seemed to have broken away some from what I could gather at that point, so I stayed out in the wind and just waited for a sight line to the finish where I was going to take off once I knew I could hold it.  Then, someone broke the line and started sprinting where I had to respond, but I ended up not being close enough to them where I could latch on. 

I started sprinting immediately after I saw him break, and I ended up passing the group he was with and giving chase.   I knew I was a little worked when I passed, but I wasn't going to stop pedaling and just hoped to get at least the next placing after him.   I started to run out of steam though but kept pedaling nonetheless not knowing what was going on behind me.  Through my peripherals, I could see some guys passing me on both sides where I knew I didn't make the podium.  I really didn't pay attention to who had passed at the time as I was just bummed for missing top 3 for the team.   Lo and behold, it turns out that one of the guys who passed me was Shannon where he actually managed to get the #2 spot by doing so.  He had been able to piggyback from one chase group to another and use their slipstream to close the gap and grab his podium finish.   Woo hoo!   It was cool to know that we were able to show others out there how we had different tactics to get it done.  In the end, a #2 spot for Shannon and my #4 was a great representation for Team Broadcom. 

Going after #1 (didn't realize that many behind us)

Shannon coming on the inside!!!!

Shannon on #2

 The racing is definitely paying off this year and finishing regularly within top 10 seems to be a good indication of better things to come.  That top spot on a mass start race is becoming less elusive, so for 2014 we hopefully won't be denied.  It was a good day of racing today for sure.   Thanks and congrats to Shannon!

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