Barefoot Biker’s Bike Sebring 2020 Race Report (one hundred miles as a series of sprints):
My goal was to win the century race a third year in a row. My first step was to put myself right on the bleeding edge of technology by experimenting with a futuristic bike design. I consider the bike to be essentially a prototype for future versions of the Cruzbike Vendetta. Made by John Morciglio, Larry called it “Magic” and I called mine “X15 Præstø”.
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After five years at my workplace, you get an award to celebrate the anniversary. You can choose to go skydiving or learn to cook or anything else you might want to do. I asked if they would get me a cycling coach and they did. That became part two of the plan. I chose to go with Steven Perezluha. I’ve trained myself in previous years and been fortunate enough to get coaching from some great riders I’ve met along the way and I’ve done things like trainer road, but I wanted to see - could I get more fit with a coach?
In previous years, I rode smart and followed the right wheels only to sprint at the end. This year, with better fitness I had more options, but having help I still considered a must. Ghost Rider, the absolute best domestique, was not going to be at the race so, no ‘Team Ghost Rider’ this year. Instead, I joined ‘Gulf Coast Velo’ and looked to Mark Schieffer to join. He has an M5 and we rode together only one time on our recumbents before the race, but we’d done quite a few rides together on the uprights so, knew each others strengths. He was nervous about riding the recumbent in the pack and planned to ride his BMC instead until he changed his mind at the last minute (with some convincing).
The bike. In putting the bike together I made a lot of mistakes. The biggest problem I never solved before the race was the braking. I could not get adequate braking power and only after taking it to Pinnacle Wheelworks was it functional enough to ride. The problem, it turns out, is that I was trying to make short-pull Crane Creek time trial levers work with linear-pull TRP brakes. So, of course, the morning of the race, after transport, my front brake was rubbing. This was completely my fault, but thanks to Robert Holler I now understand exactly why it was so difficult to tune and there was nothing to be done about it at the last minute.
The next hurdle I needed to tackle with the bike was water. Morciglio had drawn on the seat a place to drill holes and mount bottle cages. My experience with the Vendetta told me that the race case made the bike faster. So, naturally, I wanted something similar rather than under seat mounting. I decided to design a bottle holder in tinkercad. This design was then 3-d printed in two large pieces in PLA plastic and I took it to Coonhound Customs where they made a mold from that and then created the carbon fiber case from the mold. It turned out great! It matches the look of the bike. It gave me a place to mount my tail light and camera. It has easy to access storage for a spare tire or wallet. It’s easy to get the bottles in and out. It is light yet strong and it did improve the aerodynamics of the bike.
The seat angle on the bike is 15 degrees. It can be changed, but I decided to race in this configuration. My training began on the upright bike. I did a few other races along the way. I finished 3rd in a Masters B field sprint on the Tarmac. I broke a course record on the X15 on an out and back time trial course and I finished 2nd in the JHOP century. When I moved from the upright to the recumbent, I did most of my training on the Vendetta partially because I didn’t have water on the X15 yet and partially because the 1x setup on the X15 didn’t give me all of the gearing I wanted for training - plenty for the race, just not enough for working out. I had some good workouts before the race, but I never closed the gap to the power I was able to produce on the upright. I did get within ten percent though. To make the workouts have the right power targets, I adjusted my power numbers with fake ‘crank length’ settings. In this way, I could make my power capability match my workouts across all bikes. I was able to average over 27mph for an hour on the X15 so, I was feeling quite confident that a sub-four hour solo century was within my reach. I also broke a tooth off of a nearly brand new carbon fiber chain ring the week before the race. With the coach, my aerobic fitness improved at nearly double the rate it had improved the year prior and I exceeded all of my power records for durations beyond three minutes. My sprint power also improved over last year, but not significantly.
I told Mark I would line up on the right side near the front. Unfortunately, I had assumed the course would return to its normal starting direction but this year we again started backwards, same as last. That put me on the left side with Alex and Jesse. The pace was fast on the track, same as every other year, and I was at the front with Alex pressing it right along with him. The pack was still together at mile 20 but Mark had missed the boat. When Alex hit the front for a pull, he put out a pretty large power spike. Jim Parker was behind him and said to me “I’m not going with that. Does he know he’s sprinting every time he gets to the front?” Yes, I am sure he knows. I chased him back. He did this repeatedly and what I noticed was that it was effective at thinning the field. Our group was getting smaller and smaller as each of his accelerations would flick a couple of people off the back. What I also noticed is that Jesse was doing a better job absorbing those accelerations than me and he seemed fully willing to let Alex go. Additionally, Mark was no where to be seen so, I just went with the plan of not letting anyone go. Eventually, it was Alex, Jesse, myself, and Marko Baloh. We could see the second velomobile not far in front of us, but Dave Lewis was long gone in his. Unless Dave had a mechanical, winning the overall would not be possible for the rest of us. Finally, at around mile 35, Mark Schieffer caught us. He did not do any of the surging we’d done to that point, but he had fought a headwind solo to get to us. Obviously, everyone allowed him to sit on for a while.
Just before the turnaround, I ejected a full water bottle onto the road going over a bump on the bridge. I hadn’t even touched that bottle so, it’s possible it had been working itself out before then. I was on the front when it happened so, it rolled through the field. Fortunately, no one hit it. At the turnaround, I discovered a design defect in my case! The plan was to exchange both bottles for two new ones. The empty one came out, but one of the new bottles was put in to the storage compartment instead of into the bottle holder. It turns out, it almost fits. So, now it was wedged into the case sticking up and would not come out. We got it sorted out and I was back on the road. After going around the lake there is a hill. Marko went to the front on the hill, and realizing he’s not in our race, I backed off and let him go. I thought maybe someone else would chase him back, but no one did. That was fine. My next plan was to attack and bridge up to him so, I kept that thought in my head as the four of us remaining kept working against each other. I felt I could get rid of Alex by coming over the top of one of his attacks, but every single time I was in that position, Jesse was right on my wheel so, I knew I would be towing him to the win. Mark was mostly off the back by a few feet, but we all took pulls. Alex pulled short and hard. Jesse pulled low tempo. Mark pulled low tempo but not as often and I pulled at recovery power trying to keep myself fresh.
At one of the intersections we needed to make a left turn onto the highway. Alex got there first and I could see he was going to stop for a semi that was coming from the left. Since my brakes hardly work, I am constantly looking for options. I saw the grass in the ditch as completely viable in that corner and so I took it. I went through the ditch as the truck passed and then came back onto the road with fury. I had dropped everyone and only Jesse was chasing. I went into TT power mode and waited to see what would happen. Both velomobiles were now out of sight because of our games, but bridging to Marko was still in my head. Jesse caught me so, I thought maybe we could rotate away, but he didn’t seem invested in getting away and Mark was starting to close us down. What I learned in that move though was that I wasn’t going to just TT away from Jesse and I decided, despite how much Alex was hurting me, I preferred my chances in a sprint. Alex caught us and we all came back together.
Then we really slowed down for a while. There was quite a lot of frustration. I get it. I wasn’t working with them, but I was also looking back and could see we were in no danger of being caught. Jesse was yelling at Alex something about how I always suck wheel and sprint at the end and that something needed to be done. I didn’t know what the ‘something’ was, but in my head I realized tactically I was probably doomed. Alex started attacking repeatedly with seven miles to go. I responded to his attacks with near sprint power each time always pinning myself to the yellow line on the road as I came back to him to minimize the draft Jesse would get. I decided to chase hard rather than pull him back slowly but I wasn’t sure if that was the best strategy. Finally, Mark came to the front and I said “Hammer it!” with the idea that a good tempo would reduce Alex’s ability to attack and make it easier for me. He took a good pull and rotated to the back. Alex attacked a couple more times and Mark saw his opportunity. He went by and as he did I turned to Jesse and said “I’m not chasing my teammate back!” He responded, “He deserves to win. He worked harder than all of us.” which was true if you consider the first 35 mile chase. I did the math. If I chased Mark, Jesse would sprint over the top of me and undoubtedly win. If I continued at a slow pace, I would have a better chance at getting second and I knew that if I had been the one to get away, Mark would not have pulled me back. It was just the cards we were dealt so, slowing down was the best thing for the ‘team’ and that’s what I did.
Mark had an enormous gap as he went under the gate leading into the track - maybe two minutes. In every year prior, the finish line was straight ahead from there. This year, it was different. No one told me that. It wasn’t in the packet we received. There were some signs but when you’re pacing a breakaway, breathing hard, it’s not easy to understand. Mark got lost. Eventually he found his way and cross the finish line. First recumbent, third overall. Meanwhile, I came under the gate and I saw a sign that said “Bike” something and had a right arrow. I knew that right turn would take us over a bridge to the track infield so, it had to be wrong. I continued straight. Jesse began to sprint. I got on his wheel and he pinned it to the fence on the right side of the road, down wind. This was smart because I was going to have to take on more wind to come around. I started my surge to come around and began to notice someone pointing frantically to my right. The sign had meant to take a chicane to the right side of the fence, not a right turn. I saw that the finish line tent was on the other side of the fence and that Mark was beyond the finish line also on the other side of the fence. I saw a gate or opening in the fence line. I decided to abandon the sprint, duck through to the other side, and finish. I’m pretty sure Jesse was on his way to out-sprinting me. He was definitely stronger this year and his tactics did a number on me. Still I lucked out and finished six seconds behind Mark with Alex a bit behind me and that was the last gap in the fence before the finish so, ‘officially’ Jesse never crossed.
It wasn’t the result I had planned. It was the first time I did this race without crashing. A lot of people were very surprised that I would finish five minutes slower this year on a bike that is faster in a time trial for the same power while I am more fit, but for me, this just shows that in a race the tactics and the teamwork are more important. One of the things about my workplace is that we reward the team. Individuals are not competing against each other but are working as one team with one fight to get the best possible result, and that is exactly how this race finished for me: a Gulf Coast Velo team victory, first and second in the category and first place for both of us in our respective age divisions.
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After that I took my bike ten miles backward onto the course where I met B Girl. She was a mess. She was completely out of water and starving hungry. I gave her a gel and a coke. It was gone before I could clip in. I only had one water bottle at that point but I put it on her bike. She got behind me and we worked on getting her to the finish. After one mile I said, I know you don’t like the taste of ’skratch lemon lime’, but you need to take a drink. She said, “That bottle is already gone!” Wow, she was thirsty! I pulled at 19mph. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t cursing so, it seemed about the right pace. One recumbent went by us. Two uprights were about to pass and I told her to pick up the pace and get on that wheel instead. She did. Then I went back to the front and slowly picked up the pace from there to the finish. She left both uprights and the recumbent behind as the gel and water had finally been absorbed. She was the first female century entrant to finish and she beat her previous years time by thirty-two minutes. She trained for this race for a total of two weeks. Yes, literally, only two weeks. All of it indoors.
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I refilled my bottles, ate a hamburger, and waited for Larry Oslund to come around on the eleven mile loop. I’d told him that I would pull him on a couple of 25mph hot laps with the goal of breaking the 270 mile 12 hour record. Unfortunately, mechanical trouble in the century meant he had to swap bikes and it put the record out of reach, but when he came around he got on my wheel and away we went. I started pedaling at 180 watts and he sat in what little draft the X15 gives. On the second straightaway I felt my rear wheel skip to the right as if I had hit something. I asked, “What was that?” and he calmly replied, “Oh, my pedal hit your bike.” We’d essentially crashed into eachother, but it didn’t phase him. We were going almost 30mph at the time down wind. We finished that loop at 178 watts average for 25.5 mph and I pulled off, rested for one lap and then went out to pull him again. Our second loop, he was struggling and so I backed it down significantly. I also had completely forgotten about the hill on the eleven mile loop. On the Vendetta, I had used the little ring to get up that hill, but the X15 doesn’t have a little ring. My lowest gear was 54x25. To make matters worse, my eTap shifting failed just before that hill so, I was having to make power at a low cadence. I did make it up that hill though. Probably faster than Larry wanted, but I couldn’t risk stalling out. The record will have to wait for another year, maybe next, but it was fun going back to play domestique in both cases and helping in ‘The Battle of the Brands’ to see which recumbent brand could accumulate the most miles in twelve hours. As expected, the Cruzbike tribe crushed it and I was happy to be a part of it!
