Getting up to Speed

So the cycling season was starting off pretty good...I was riding well, for myself, in the early season. I'm usually slow compared to my contemporaries for a month or two - the skiing fitness translates, but not immediately. I was racing well though; got 2nd to Adam Myserson at a training series race, and then 11th at the Marblehead Circuit race the next day.

The next weekend I was down in Northampton, MA for some family Easter festivities and I decided to head down on Saturday morning to a crit at Ninigret Park in RI. Long story short, it was raining and in the low-40's and just over halfway in someone crashed hard right in front of me - so I fell off my bike as well. I really try to avoid falling off my bike, because I don't like it. I'm not sure if its possible for me to like it any less than anyone else...but I really really don't like it. I got some good scrapes and some bruising on my right knee.

The reason I was racing was because the Tour of the Battenkill was the weekend following (this past weekend) and I wanted to get one more race in before hand. Well, that turned out to be a bad idea. I ended up limping around all week and riding just a little bit. I hoped for the best and headed down to the race on Sunday morning. 124 miles on a pretty hard course with a pretty competitive field.

Empire had a crack-squad of aces for this race. Margarita, Geronimo, Big-Show, DZ, Mathis, E-Rock, MJ, Minturn, and myself. DZ ended up being the best rider for the team on the day, and in retrospect we should have been doing more to help him. For me the race went into survival mode pretty quick - as guys were getting flats, crashing, and getting dropped right from the gun. With my right knee being a little funny, I could tell I wasn't pedaling quite right, but it was ok enough to get through some tough spots and even engage in some race aggression as we entered the race's 2nd of 2 laps.

In the end, the team road well, loosing just 2 riders (to flats, not getting dropped or pulling out) so we finished 7 out of 9 riders, in a field of about 160, that only saw 61 finish. That said, our top rider was only 25th of so. It is a start, and we will continue to do better, until we're winning these things. Personally, I came apart at about 100 miles and started to cramp - and I think the Advil I'd taken before the race started to wear off, because I could feel the "funniness" in my right knee. I road it in, and finished about 26 minutes down on the winner. I must say, Scott Nydam, who won the race, was off the front the entire day...with one other rider, and then by himself. That's some riding.

Also, a wild jackalope stole all of my race food out of my jersey pockets, my brakes were rubbing the whole time, I'd only gotten 45 minutes of sleep the night before, I was accidentally riding Will Dugan's cyclocross bike, and I was carrying a big photographers camera around my neck because I was shooting a photo special for Men's Journal.

Here's a picture from the race. The picture's full descipition should read "Tom Zirbel (Team Bissell) had a flat at the worse possible time - while in the middle of an Empire sandwich." I know what you're thinking; technically it'd be a Zirbel sandwich on Empire bread...but just go with it.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=/photos/2009/apr09/battenkill09/battenkill092/17