Stephen Pierce has been racing a lot recently- here is a wrap up of the last month or so of racing from his perspective. -ag

I’m not so hot at writing race reports in a timely manner, so here is a quick rundown of my last month-or-so of racing:

1. I ended up in way-up-north NY state to compete in a few races: the Wilmington-Whiteface Road Race & the Saranac Lake Downtown Criterium. I was primarily up there for the road race, as it finished on a long, steep uphill & that sounded pretty good to me. That race shook itself out like this, if I recall correctly: The circuit was a rolling 17 miles or so, with two major climbs & two major descents, punctuated with an exclamation-mark of a two-mile, 11% climb up Whiteface to the finish. Halfway through the race, just after the backbreaker up to the feed zone, I found myself taking part in a four-man break. We killed ourselves to put some distance into the pack before they made it up said backbreaker, and caught my friend Dan Chabanov of CRCA/Adler, who had soloed off to try to catch an earlier break. He joined us, we dropped a guy, and then we caught that earlier break. They joined in our effort to kill ourselves to keep the distance up & we found ourselves with over two minutes on the pack going into the final climb. That’s about where I exploded, and I had to fight to stay conscious. I took sixth, in the money, and Dan won. The next day I wasn’t as fortunate, and bad positioning caused me to miss the break. The rest of the chase group didn’t seem too interested in working with me to chase it down, so I spent the next hour or so sitting in, bored out of my mind going around in circles.

2. Purgatory Road Race. Again with the awesome climbing. They marked elevation 666. There were a few breaks that came back, then a beast went away and didn’t come back. Carving my way through the thick, thick heat, I ended up taking 6th in the field sprint, 7th overall. Not bad.

3. Housatonic Hills. Oops, I slept in (after paying for a hotel room near the race) and didn’t get to the race until 10 minutes before my start. Nothing to eat. Nothing to drink. Put my base layer on backwards. After the KOM sprint on the first lap I was seeing stars & feeling faint. Note for the future: Set more than one alarm.

4. Amgraph Three Village Tour. Kind of a less-exciting circuit, again finishing in a brief but punchy uphill. I worked too much during the race but was still able to pull 9th in the bunch finish.

5. West Hill MTB race. My first ever, a lot of fun. I killed the uphills & flatted & fixed the flat & killed more uphills. This is fun & I will do it more frequently. Congrats to Aumiller for doing this on a singlespeed & ending up on the podium!

6. Fitchburg. Arrrrgggghhhhhhh… OK, so, I’m not so happy with the time-trial-as-third-stage setup, but with my limited stage race experience, who the fuck am I to complain? I feel that it set a super frantic tone for the first two days, the circuit & road race. I did well enough in both of those to be sitting in 11th place in the GC going into the TT, but then royally blew it. I don’t know if I didn’t warm up correctly, if I was fatigued from the previous two days of racing, or if I had been baking under the sun & our team tent for too many hours on end (as we had to get there early for Lily’s TT), but I did not perform nearly as well as I know I’m capable of. I sank very sharply in the GC, then did well in the crit but… Due to the nature of crits, I wasn’t able to make up very much time at all. Altogether, I took 24th in the GC. Not bad, but it kind of stings when you see folks in the top ten who you did better than in every stage but one. Such is the nature of racing bicycles, and I am well aware that one bad day can have a huge impact, especially when that bad day happens to be the day of a time trial. Big-time congrats are in order to B2C2’s Greg Whitney, 3rd overall, and ex-CBer & current Svelte man Nick Mashburn, 6th overall.

7. Today I was fit for my Igleheart CX frame, and I’m reminded to not stress out too much about road disappointments, because cyclocross is just a few pages of the calendar away.

Race Report about Big Ring Rumpus from Aumiller -ag

EFTA #3 Big Ring Rumpus
Race Report by Matt Aumiller

EFTA wasn’t kidding when they named this race. I entered the open single-speed category, and I was a little apprehensive racing with the expert and elite classes at the same time. It was pretty funny registering and talking to the guy next to me in line, then he goes to register and he says, “Oh, my name’s just before this guy…Aumiller. ‘Anthony…first name, Jesse’” Not that he was in my race, but still, NE racing draws pro-pros…(Dan Vaillancourt won that category btw.)

So for the race, I opted to change my rear cog. I have both a 22 and a 16, and my chain is just the right length to fit both of these in the track dropouts without taking any links out of the chain. So I went with the 36×16; and I made the correct decision.

The course was 4 miles of fire-road with a few washed out turns and one taped-off cyclocross-style section near the finish line. The venue was only a mile away from the Sucker Brook CX race, and the trails were like the back wooded section of said race. The promoters actually ran a cx category earlier in the day that drew decent numbers; but I don’t want to think about that discipline until September.

So my race was slated for 7 laps. I lined up with Ronnie Steers from HUP (on a cx bike) and Graham Dimmock (also of HUP). I took the hole-shot, and was quickly accompanied by Ronnie. He hammered it for about 2 miles, turned around, and saw no one. I guess we had the “right” gear for the race. So for 1.5 hours, Ronnie and I did a TTT, averaging just under 18mph. We made the gentleman’s agreement to race together until a spot about ¼ mile from the finish, then it was every man for himself. At that point, I poured on everything I had knowing that I put too much air in my tires and I would slide out in the “cyclocross” section before the finish. Anyway, I had a small gap on Ronnie, took the last turn a little too wide, then I saw him cutting towards me. “What the hell?” We rubbed shoulders for a few feet, then he went left and I went right. Lesson learned; I was aiming toward the thru-lap part of the course, he correctly aimed for the “finish” section of the course reserved for…you guessed it…the finish. Oh well. 2nd place in an honest-to-goodness mtb sprint! It turns out that Graham took 3rd, also on a 36×16 gear…except he had 26” tires, I had 29”ers.

Finally, I’m really psyched that my finish time put me in the top ¼ of the Expert “geared” categories; that bodes well for the future.

Stephen Pierce took the GC in the cat4s at the Killington Stage Race! Here is his long race report, enjoy!! -ag

Killington Stage Race
Race Report by Stephen Pierce

After a busy Friday of fixing pollen-dusted bikes at work, I came home & packed my bags faster than I’ve ever packed, just in time for Gary to arrive at my door with his car bursting with wheels & bikes & the team tent & trainers, etc. We had five bikes on the roof, and something like six extra wheelsets after we swung by Spaits’ house a quarter mile from mine. The drive up to Quechee, VT was a quick one – Gary is a maniac – and we met our friend who was staying with us, Melissa from Team Kenda, at a faux-upscale Italian/flatbread place near where we were staying. The nerves hadn’t kicked in yet for me – I was still just happy to be up at my parents’ vacation home, to which I hadn’t been in seven or eight years. So we watched some TV show about the internet & went to bed.

STAGE ONE: CIRCUIT RACE.

So, the nerves definitely hit full-force when we drove up the access road of Killington Mountain to register. Pin jersey, kit up, affix number to frame, eat some gel shots, drink some Vita Coco, apply Mad Alchemy mild, tape course notes to top tube… Shit, where did my warm-up time go? I went into this one cold, but my plan was to sit in and not work too hard, anyway. The course profile wasn’t reflective of any major climbs, just a few longer false-flats & some fast descents. There were KOM & sprint checkpoints in each lap, though I didn’t want to burn too many matches in chasing these things down – the GC was my goal. I spent the first couple of miles getting used to my newly glued Edge Composites wheels. I glued them with Challenge Criterium tires & they were ridiculously responsive & light, totally different ride characteristics than my alloy training wheels. Lee Wassilie, who rides with CB for CX season, mounted a few early attacks which I followed & worked to try to separate, but none stuck – the field was huge. After these, I stopped following Lee when he went off the front – which he did a lot! However, I did put in some work with Scott Rosenthal of Hup & another rider whose name I didn’t get at the beginning of the final lap. Drawn back in a matter of minutes, I decided to wait it out until the final fast, downhill sprint.

So Lee goes off the front again during a smaller climb after the KOM, leading up to the downhill finish. All alone, he’s caught, and somehow – as a lighter guy, I’m not historically awesome at downhills – I end up maneuvering correctly and finishing eighth in the bunch sprint. I think the wise thing to do was to get on the Threshold lead-out train. It looked like they were bringing Randall into position, so I fell in line, hoping to use that train to my advantage. I suppose it worked.

So, a respectable eigth place, same time finish as the leader, positioned decently for the GC. Now, let me disclose this much: going into this, I had figured that the final day, the arduous climbing & uphill finish, would be where I had the opportunity to ride away from the field. I hadn’t given much thought to the Circuit race & figured I’d do decently, but had absolutely NO idea what to expect from the Time Trial, having never done one before. Anyway, any and all confidence in my third day game plan dissolved into the sinking pit that my stomach became when Melissa & I, after our Circuit races, drove the final climb on East Mountain Rd. Switchbacks, endless uphill. You couldn’t see the top over the tree line, it just went on & on for five or six miles. At 17%. Fuck…

‘OK, don’t worry about it now,’ I thought, ‘there’s the TT to worry about presently,’ So I worried about that instead.

Spaits & Gary ended up caught up behind a crash in the downhill sprint that I mentioned; Something like half their field went down; Gary did a little CX riding offroad, and thankfully neither of them shredded a kit or needed any tegaderm.

Retreating to my folks’ house, we met up with our friend Christine of Quad Cycles, who was in the area for a MTB race, and went to a pizza/pasta place in nearby strip-mall hell Lebanon, NH, where I ordered a cheeseless pizza with sundried tomato, eggplant, and basil or something like that. Gary ordered something similar – pizza, no cheese, but with tons of meat – and our waitress kinda strongarmed me into eating the whole thing. I, weak of will, went along with it and felt like a doughy, starchy anchor for hours. Later that night, Lily arrived – she wasn’t able to make Saturday due to work, but was up to support & enjoy a break from the city. Thankfully, she brought carbon prep & I affixed some clip-on aerobars to my Tarmac & went to bed.

STAGE TWO: TIME TRIAL.

Prep-time was minimized by having pinned my skinsuit & prepped my bike (aerobars, borrowed deep-profile wheels) the night before. Popped on the trainer, ate some food in gel & bar form, and rode down to the start. This was my first time on aerobars. I had no tactics. My plan was roughly to keep my cadence uniform, keep my heart rate near threshold, and keep in my sights the rider in front of me. This rider ended up being Geoff McIntosh, who finished just behind me the day before & a few spots back at Sunapee… And with whom I was neck-to-neck with at a few CX races at the beginning of the season last year! It was great to see him again & catch up & get to know each other better, but it wasn’t that nice to be staged right behind him – Demoralized from the growing distance between he & myself and by the constant uphill headwinds, I resolved to push my body to the utmost of its capabilities, so that if I ended up with a shitty result, I’ll at least know that I tried my hardest. VT (vomit threshold) was achieved, and I crossed the finish & immediately heaved a Bonk Breaker, coffee & some gel into the bushes. Milled around with some Thresholders, Lee, and Ned Connelly from Cox, who beat me up in some of my early-season crits in Ninigret, RI. Started feeling anxious about my time. Watched Gary & Spaits do their thing, then tried to track down results… My good friend Gerry from Philadelphia found them first, letting me know the good news: I don’t suck at this, I came in third, and the reason I watched Geoff build some distance was because he won the stage.

I missed the podium because I didn’t know that there was one.

Lily & I pre-drove some of the next day’s stage again, and the anxiety built. It’s a strange, foreboding hollow that creeps into your stomach when scouting a brutal climb. My mouth was watering in that nauseous sort of way, and Lily, a flatlander originally from Florida, kept repeating, “what the fuck..”

We tracked down a burrito place in Lebanon, NH, and – for the third night in a row – truly did our best to alienate our server with ridiculous race-crazy rambling conversation.

We got home, I restored my bike to non-spaceship mode, and we went to bed after giving up on getting Sega Genesis to work.

STAGE THREE: ROAD RACE.

Gutted with trepidation. I knew I was sitting pretty going into this race – Third overall in the GC, a scant but troubling 17 seconds back from first. Trouble was, now everyone else knew that I was sitting pretty going into the race, and I saw my race number written, among other leaders’, on peoples’ top tubes. I cursed myself for not having done the same, alongside my course profile notes that were taped on. I think I spent a good hour or so anxiously pacing, waiting for our race to go off.

‘OK, ok, this is going to suck for everyone, it just has to suck a little less for me.’

There were two major climbs – one dead in the middle of the race, and the final backbreaker up to the finish line. My plan was to stick toward the front but not do any work, including on the hills. I was hoping to stick with the pack on the final climb, and to ride away with about 1k left in it, after everyone else’s plate was licked clean. Nothing really ever works out exactly how you plan it, and the people you’re watching out for are sometimes not the ones that make decisive, plan-altering moves.

And that’s what happened during this race.

There were a few early breaks – early as in, before the first climb – that were drawn back. I lost a water bottle over a pothole. Someone went down around a corner. Avoided that one. Lily was in the wheel car, and it was nice to know that she was behind us, with a radio, listening to the gaps as they developed. Ned, in an act of incredible kindness, got me a replacement bottle from the feed zone, and I’m incredibly grateful & incredibly embarrassed to have lost his bottle as well, over another pothole. Anyway, there was about a ten-mile false flat leading up to the final climb, and at some point in this section, a three-man breakaway formed, including the KOM jersey holder, Erik Post. He was something like forty seconds down on the GC, thirty some-odd seconds down on me. At this point, Geoff & I were riding toward the front, neither one of us wanting to do any work, but knowing that this gap absolutely NEEDED to be bridged, or we were both screwed. When, just before the left turn onto East Mountain Rd, the motorcycle came back and told us “fifty second gap”, I knew that I couldn’t just sit in for this six-mile climb & hope that everything just works out.

So I was in the unenviable position of having to make up nearly a minute on a steady 17% climb over the next few miles. I mean, maybe it was a good thing – if this were a flat, I’d maybe have been fucked, but… I mean, I can climb, right? Well, let’s find out.

Jeff Bramhall, a longtime friend & Threshold rider, bade me farewell as I increased the wattage & started riding away. Miraculously, no one followed, or maybe no one was able to follow. I caught one of the guys from the break, then the second. A few miles into the climb, I caught sight of Erik, and he caught sight of me. I stayed calm. My legs were exploding. I tried to keep my breathing uniform & my heart rate stable. Keep the cadence up, stay seated, don’t burn it all too soon. So, with about 1k left, I caught Erik – a 50 second gap bridged. There was absolutely no one behind us. We rode wordlessly side-by-side for the last kicker. I pulled ahead, knowing that everything in me was inside out and spilling out from every pore. I left everything behind me in an attempt to get to the line first, but Erik had just a little bit more at the end. There was no victory salute as I realized crossing the line that I had just taken the GC; I ran to the side of the road and vomited again. Podium. Hugs. A surge of emotion; I mean, I’d won a number of cyclocross races before, but they never felt like this. Nothing has, really.

AFTER IT:

Spaits & Gary headed back to Boston while Lily & I waited around getting sunburnt for the GC Podium at the Grand Lodge. We drove uneventfully back to Somerville, ate Grasshopper Vegetarian, and I went to bed early to get ready for work the next morning. My pink jersey & medal are awkwardly hanging from a doorframe in my room, right next to my framed USGP of CX plaque – In hoping to keep my room from looking like a den of arrogance, I plan on bringing the jersey & medal framed to Cambridge Bicycle, as a thank you for, you know, the title sponsorship & everything.

A painful, fun weekend. This weekend, I am racing in way-north NY State, in a race that finishes in a climb up a ski resort’s access road, funnily enough.

Our cat4 squad had an awesome race at Sunapee two weekends ago- Stephen Pierce got on the podium with a well deserved third place. Here is his report! Enjoy -ag

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Sorry this is a bit late. It’s been a crazy week ramping up to Killington Stage Race.

So, after a raceless weekend, Sunapee was my first race since going down on a slick line in the road at rainy, cold Sterling. Going into it, my fear was that my nerve would be decimated by trepidation about shredding another kit & spending more money on Tegaderm. Thankfully, the weather was just about perfect & my bike felt great while warming up. This put me at relative ease for the roll out.

We had five in this one – Aumiller, Josh, Seth, Billy, and myself. The pack was deep with Back Bay & Threshold buddies. About 2k in, Matt Aumiller soloed away & held about 500m for about a quarter of a lap. He was brought back just in time for the first climb, which shook things up a bit when a rider six or seven wheels back slowly collapsed to the left. Word is that he fainted, and thankfully the crash was relatively without incident.

For me, it remained shook up for a little longer, though: After the following descent, I lost my chain. My first thought was, “shit, my race just ended,” but here is where having incredible teammates comes in handy: Billy saw that I had pulled off to the side, and dropped back from the pack. He waited for me to get the chain back on, then burnt every match he had to pull me back to the race – which had a decently sized gap by that point. He did his best to weave me through the back-of-pack riders, and deposited me at spot in the group from which I could easily move back to Josh & Matt toward the front.

Second lap, Josh attacked a break but was foiled when the 35+ men forced neutralization. All was relatively uneventful from then on- I sat in, didn’t waste any effort in the few rolling hills, and generally held decent position toward the front for the turn onto the main road feeding into the pre-finish rotary.

That highway was where everything started ramping up. Teams were jockeying for position, and speeds were high. I was on the tail of the Josh/Aumiller lead-out train, contesting surges from Threshold & other teams. Josh turned himself inside out at the front, then pulled off for Matt to take the lead. Right before the rotary, Matt pulled off & yelled for me to go, and almost simultaneously, I saw a bike flying perpendicular to the road in my right peripheral vision. Thinking not much of it, and seeing six or seven riders enter the rotary before me, I got into the drops and chased, gutting myself on the uphill finish. Maybe I burned too many matches, as I pulled to the front but was edged out by two wheels in the final miliseconds, taking third.

That’s when I found out that the crash was actually a huge one, and that people were seriously hurt. Not seeing Josh, we booked it back down the hill. Thankfully, in the tangle of 15-20 riders that went down, Josh was relatively unscathed. As in, he didn’t require massive medical assistance or a trip to the hospital – His front wheel was cracked & bent, and he had some road rash on his shoulder & elbow. As his last race in the area before moving to St. Louis, it was sad to see him hurt, but he was happy to know that our plan worked & that he had been a massive part of that plan.

Every last one of my teammates raced their guts out and communicated well in the pack, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud to be part of something.

Gary wrote a race report for Sterling last weekend. It was rainy, cold and tough. Here you go! -ag

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One of the central Massachusetts Spring Classics, this race has historically not gone well for me; in fact, I’ve never actually finished the race. Two seasons ago as a Cat5 I drove out with Tall Erik Peterson, and former ex-messenger co-worker Colin Green. While warming-up the three of us missed the start, tried to chase the neutralized field, made a wrong turn, and missed out. Colin got a flat, so Erik and I rolled up to the finish line, explained the situation, received DNS’s, and rode our own 3 laps. Last season as a Cat4 I raced up and did the Cat3/4 race in support of all the Cat3s. Cambridge Bicycle / Igleheart Frames showed up with something like 16 riders for this race, and continually attacked and counter-attacked until we had someone in a breakaway. About half of us dropped out halfway through the race, but Matt Spaits got into the winning breakaway and Jackson Weber took the field sprint…mission accomplished.

This year I was once again riding for Mr. Spaits, as he targeted the early season hill races for himself. The Cambridge Bicycle / Igleheart Frames Cat3 squad showed up with four riders – myself, Spaits, Jordan Winkler (for who this was his first race of the season), and new-comer David Montes. One the way out the rain was pissing down and it was fairly windy. In the car we received a mass text from R. Michael McKittrick saying that due to some skateboarding (you think you’re Billy Campbell now?!) he was toasted for today and not coming. This presented a problem as RMM can always be counted on to open up an end-of-the-race spring, so plans had to be changed.

When we arrived at the Sterling middle school (front side of the Verge Baystate Cyclocross race course) the rain had let up a bit and we took care of unloaded, signing up, kitting up, etc. We saw the cat4s come back to the school and that Stephen Pierce was pretty banged up, and were warned against riding anywhere near the painted (heated rubber) white lines along rt-12 during the race. Apparently some shit went down during Cat4 race, but since I can’t give a firsthand account, I won’t weigh in on that here. The four of us warmed up on the wet roads and lined up for the start. Having looked at the road-results.com race predictor, and from Turtle Pond I knew which guys had to be marked and made it my plan to do that. The race started neutral with not much happening. Not much continued to happen through the first lap of eight. During the 2nd lap (first ‘race time’ up the hill) some attacks happened but nothing really came of it. I’m sure later in the 2nd lap there was some attacking going on but I can’t quite remember it. On the next lap things heated up: attacks happened before, during, and after the climb, where I saw Spaits join 3 other riders off the front: CCB sandbagger Wilchoski, an Onion River Racer I didn’t know, and the younger guy from Sunapee cycles who was with me during the Turtle Pond break and someone I knew to mark. I figured this was a good break for Spaits to be in, and once it was established and I was upfront attempting to block or control the pace or whathaveyou, Peter Sullivan bridged Corey Lowe up to the front and sent him after the break. I let this go because I wasn’t in a position to match Corey, and because I assumed having an extra man in the break would help, especially if Svelte was helping to block. Corey dangled out there and was joined by Leo D of Threshold and a few others. Again, I assumed Spaits could hold his own if this 8-man breakaway coalesced.

Leo D, Corey, and co eventually fell back into the peloton, and I reckoned the break was gone for good. I was right about that, however during the 4th lap I saw Spaits on the false flat after the climb, and thought shit: Spaits must be spent (the breakaway had about a minute on us now and Spaits said that Wilchoski was just riding everyone off his wheel), and I hadn’t seen Jordan or David since we lined up on the start. Paces were pushed, attacks were matched and countered, hills were climbed, and we were knocking out a pretty solid 30mph+ pace along Rt-12. My biggest issue wasn’t so much the climb, though I didn’t fair too well on that, but the false flat along Rt-12 right before the climb. I just thought ‘fuck, I’m in the pack, in the little ring already, putting out 350Watts, where the fuck am I going to go come the climb?’

On the final lap things stayed together over the climb and the following false flat, but on the descent Leo D just opened it up, as he seems to really like descending. Two other riders joined him but I sat near the front thinking this was sure to come back, as most downhill attacks do. By the time we made the turn onto Rt-12 they had a good gap and I kept feeling like an idiot for not going with them. I then made it a point to match every attack and get in on every other team’s train. On the Rt-12 uphill we ended up catching Leo and his group, and everyone opened it up right on the climb. I held my own, lost a place, gained a place, with about 10meters to go saw Horst-Benidorm power house Gary Aspens and took one extra dig to get in front of him. I took 14th over all, 12th in the field sprint. In the end I’m pleased with my performance but there’s definitely room for improvement. I was bummed that Spaits didn’t stick in the winning break but I hold nothing against him for fading back since I probably would have ended up fading much sooner. In terms of numbers, my average normalized wattage was 289W over 2hours8minutes, with 16minutes41seconds of that time being spent in the ‘zone 7 anaerobic’, so new highs have been set.

Up next: Lake Sunapee.