Sursee Report

The bridge + turning mannequin

The terrace thing:

…and its layout:

We skated the last 2km or so into finish a few times.  There was a pretty sizable downhill going into a very narrow right 90°turn with about 800m to go.  It was potentially hazardous, and I said to myself (aloud) “make sure you’re on the inside of that one”.  From there, we would go through a roundabout into a narrow slight downhill into a slight uphill straight finish approach. Things would surely get congested in the last 150m as the road narrowed into the finish line.

With time to spare after the light skate, I started to get the essentials ready for the race.  I was fueling up, hydrating, and putting my numbers on, but I found myself a little anxious before this race.  There just seemed to be very little room to get ready, people everywhere, and things just seemed really busy and cramped.  I wanted to buy a gatorade (or other sports drink) but all the stores were closed.  I was more than a little frustrated.  I tried my best to relax and I re-prioritized, which calmed me down.  I put on a brand new set of yellow Matters, my new favourite road wheel (thanks Matter) right before this race.  I love peeling the cellophane off the wheels slapping some bearings in them, throwing them on, and going for a skate.  The Yellows roll great, and have a surprising amount of grip considering they are a bit harder than what I’ve skated on in the past trying to get a little more grip out of my setup.  Anyway, they felt so good.  They just felt perfect.  I was rolling around getting to a decent stretch of road to warm up and actually saying to myself; “damn, these feel awesome!”  Man, I am such a dork.

A bit of a warm up and talk with my teammates, and we began to gather at the start.  The women would start 3mins ahead of the men, so we would be catching them somewhere around halfway through the first lap.  Surely we would be passing stragglers of that peleton long before that.  I went in front of the men to give my skates a last minute tie.  The women started, and the men then rolled up to the line.  I was maybe about three lines back.  It was only then that I noticed the helicopter flying overhead, filming our race.  How cool was that??  Damn cool.  I pointed, and others noticed, some like it was ‘no big thing’…  well it was for me.  I thought that was pretty cool.

They gave us a few warnings about the first 1km being dangerous, and I thought to myself; “Hey, if its dangerous from a standing start, what is it going to be like on the second lap at 45km/hr?”  We started, and to my surprise it was really calm.  We made our way through a series of 90°turns, through narrow village roads, and over small narrow bridges, got out of the city, and onto the open roads, and the race began to really open up.  I love racing.  It is spectacular here.  It is insanely fast, but man; do I love it.  I’ve found that I am much more comfortable skating at these speeds.  I just couldn’t seem to hold my technique together for that long at these speeds before, and now that I can things are easier.

So, along the open roads, the pack had complete freedom.  The surface was fast and grippy, and we had both lanes which we covered easily with the skaters.  Good ones too.  From this point on, there is so much movement in the pack, I can’t even begin to explain it, or pull out specific occurrences.  There really isn’t a ‘paceline’.  There isn’t a ‘leader’ and ‘guys following’.  There is not much that is seemingly systematic about the movement of the pack.  It is, by any definition, a peleton.  But that’s really the only word you can use to describe it.  To those new to it, it is complete chaos.  You are constantly surrounded by skaters moving different speeds than you.  Sometimes they are slower, sometimes faster.  Sometimes you are moving towards the front, and sometimes moving back.  A lot of this, is beyond your control.

There is certainly etiquette.  The guys know what is safe and unsafe, and if you do the wrong thing, you will quickly know about it.  The best guys can move from line to line easily, and when you have that kind of skill and confidence, you can ‘get in’.  Some of that freedom comes with your skinsuit.  The bigger teams get a lot more liberty with that kind of stuff.  If you are an independent, well, not so much.  The smaller pro teams find themselves somewhere in the middle.  The same goes for your technique.  If you come up the side with garbage technique, noone (not even your mom), will let you in.  If you are known to leave gaps, it will be tough going.  There is something of a system to it, and (forgive the phrasing, I just can’t help it) you’ve got to fight for your right to party.  While it may seem that it is some sort of ‘boys club’ in the peleton, who gets in, who you let in and so on, but much of that it is correlated with real factors, and serves to keep the good guys from having bad traffic in front of them.

So along the open roads we go, and things are fast.  Remember, we averaged ~42km/hr, and with uphills, a start, and twice through the start village, the fast parts of the race were just that; fast.  I had some help getting in with J-Rock, Wayne, Dario, and Marco. Things were fast, but I found myself becoming more and more relaxed.  With the speed becoming more constant, even though we were for extended periods pushing 50km/hr, it gets easy.  We hit this left turn, under a bridge into a right turn part that was interesting, and another 90° left into a really fast section.  And another village where we went through a really narrow gate thing.  [Apparently, Tristan Loy broke his collar bone there last year.]  We climbed a bit of a hill that split some skaters off the back.  Then we came to the last few kms of the course that I recognized, and thought to myself; “That’s it?  That was 21km?”  These were really the only things that jumped out at me on the first lap, and we would go through them again on the second.
I was feeling good.  It was really the first time I could say that during a race.

The second lap was not ‘uneventful’ to say the least.  As I mentioned there is just so much going on in the movement in the pack that things are hard to explain.  At one point we had Giovanni in an attack, with Wayne and I at the front disorganizing the chase.  We made it through the first bridge, into the ‘90° left into a really fast section’.  That’s where Joey crashed.  I didn’t see what exactly caused it, but I saw him slide out, and roll into the curb and grass on the outside of the course.  I think everyone knew it was him.  Things actually settled down here.  It seemed that we were waiting up for him.  Noone attacked.  I saw Athleticum at the front. I got behind big Roger (Athleticum) for a bit, and though his stride is tough to match, the draft is tremendous.  Reyon (Athleticum) eventually bumped me off his wheel.  Joey made his way back, and went right to the front.  I got behind Pascal (Powerslide) and sat behind him for a bit.  This was different all together.  He was just so relaxed.  He does an incredible job of using his speed.  When he was moving back, he didn’t panic.  He just waited for a good spot that was open or someone would give him, and he never seemed to need to rush his acceleration.  When he would move up, he would stay in the draft until the last second, and just keep moving up, skating between the lines if he had to, until he really got jammed up.  His efficiency was enough to make me say to myself: “Jesus, this is WAY easier than what I’ve been doing.”  I lost his wheel at some point where nearly the entire pack was yelling at Stefano Galliazzo (Alessi) for being dangerous. We climbed that hill again, this time I was skating around guys as I was making my way to the front up the hill, trying to use the speed I had as best I could.

Towards the front I got behind DJ (Spirotiger) for a bit.  I had to laugh a bit because I said hi, and he had this big grin on his face.  He was moving up, and when we got to the front, he accelerated, and went off the front for a bit.  I saw an opening pretty close to the front, and hopped in it.  DJ didn’t make it too far. 

Another small climb, and I was near the front with less than 3km to go.  It was the best position I had been in this late in a WIC race.  That’s when a line of guys came by me.  It was long, and the guys in it were good.  The teams were together in this line.  The big teams were at the front of it.  Two guys (one of them Alexis Contin (Powerslide)) attacked, and were dangling of the front.  Zepto to my surprise was at the front of the line.  I was looking for a spot as the line came by me, but I wasn’t getting in, especially with the speed difference.  Somewhere around 2km to go, and I was moving back fast. I didn’t see any of my team yet, and not feeling patient, I moved out and started moving up on my own.  Still, no spots were going to be ‘available’.  I tried to get between two teams, but those spots weren’t any easier.  With the speed I had, I went to the front.  Ha!  In the lead in the last 2km?  What the hell am I doing?  The two were still off the front, but were coming back rather quickly, even with me in the lead.  It wasn’t long before two lines, both on my right started moving up around me.  The one closest to me came by so close, and so close in speed that I thought I could grab the first spot as it came by… Joey’s wheel.  Yeah right, Massi wasn’t about to give up that wheel, and certainly wasn’t going to let Aaron Arndt in front of him, and he basically shoved me backwards.  The rest of hyper did pretty much the same thing to me, and Matter behind them.

Again, I found myself trying to get a spot, with the difference in speed getting bigger and bigger.  This time the protection was really aggressive.  I was getting fought off of every wheel.  …Then TNT.  A few from Alessi…  Each pushing me from getting in.  Finally, I spotted Wayne.  Sweet!  I moved in and had his wheel, but was quickly “axed” off my own teammate’s wheel by Ben Alchin (Spirotiger).  With Ben pulling, then pushing me backwards, and Wayne grabbing my wrist to try and hold the spot, it was something of a ‘tug-of-war” with my outstretched arm , skinsuit, and hips.  Ben let out a “No Fucking way, Double A!!!” as he gave me a last good shove backwards.  Thanks a lot Ben.  Really.  I owe you.  Moving backwards, I finally found a spot where there was a bit of a gap.  Down the hill leading into the final turn, things bunched up towards the front, and I moved up slowly on the inside with my right foot on the curb. 

Through the corner, I heard crash behind me.  This acceleration was immense. I was actually getting jammed up a bit with the traffic spreading over the road.  Dario was moving up on my left, and I let him in front of me. Finally a decent draft.  We hit the roundabout, and things split up even more.  I lost Dario’s wheel when the guys on my left bunched in from the outside of the roundabout.  I again wasn’t getting much of a draft, but was moving up. There wasn’t a line, and still 300m to go.  I put my head down and opened up with as much as I had.  I passed a bunch of guys.  The road narrowed in the last 100m or so, and from there I had to pretty much stand and wait to cross the line.  I wish it was wide enough to actually skate that part out, I was moving up in the sprint rather well. 

So that is my perspective in the race.  I am rushing the end of the report.  Sue me.  Who is Slim?  Slim, stand up and tell me who you are. 

Tank was 5^th in the Women’s race.  I drove there, so I waited at awards.  It is quite the show.  There was a live band, replay from the helicopter footage on the big screen, people dancing, beer being served, and lots of people.  The awards were given, and the crowd quickly dispersed.  I drove the 1.5 hours back to Kreuzlingen, and since, it has been a busy week.  With the world’s fastest marathon course this weekend in Engadin, I moved back up to 110’s and have been skating on them all this week, even on the track.  I didn’t like them on the track, but suffered through it to get used to them.  DJ, Finster, J-Rock and I did some hill training on Tuesday.  They felt good at speed, though I am a little afraid of getting tired on them.  We’ll see how it goes.  I leave tomorrow.  I have a clinic to teach today at 6:30pm.  It is a “speed skating course”. 

Peace out, sorry for the quick ending.
             Double A.