Mikezagorski.com

Wow, I guess the last time I did an update, Denver was cold (snow), and I was living in Denver. Fast forward a few months and I’ve moved down to Parker, it’s definitely not cold (Frequently reaches temps above 90F), and I’ve done a bit of racing among other things.

I went to Texas in mid May with non-race-ready legs to race the Matrix Cup at the Superdrome in Frisco. It was cool to go back there as that’s where I won my first two national champion medals/jerseys at Master nationals in 2010 (before the UCI decided to scrap the 30-34 age group). While my results weren’t anything worth writing about, it was good to get stuck into some racing, and come away from the weekend with lessons learned and all my skin intact. There were definitely a few close shaves and plenty potential for crashing.

Last weekend I headed down to Colorado Springs to race the US Grand Prix of Colorado. This year it was a UCI Class 1 event so I wanted to use it to bag as many UCI points as possible. The first event on Friday morning was the scratch rate and the field was plenty stacked… Tim Veldt (Silver medalist at track worlds earlier this year), various other riders with World Cup track racing experience, and some of the best riders in the US. The race went from good to bad pretty quick as I couldn’t breathe… I got lapped once, fought as hard as I could, but could only manage 16th out of 17 riders. Not great. I didn’t have any asthma medication with me so I ended up getting medical attention which was bloody nice. The medic was pretty shocked when she listened to my lungs with a stethoscope… After that I got my bike ready for the individual pursuit – an event I’ve been training pretty specifically for since last year. The first heat was Andrew Herzfeld, but he decided to scratch when the official deemed his extensions about an inch too long. So, instead of having 5mins to wrap up my prep, get my helmet and aeroshoes on etc., the officials decided it would be cool to start yelling at me to get to the start line. I had a mad scramble to get ready and was told I didn’t have time to put on my aero shoes. Jeez, thanks asshole! The same official that fucked my pursuit at nationals last year was playing the same BS. I chose to just ignore his stupidity and get to the line. I rode a 54×14 which was definitely adventurous, but managed to cover the 4km in 4min 56sec. Not blistering fast, but 10+ seconds faster than I’ve ever gone at COS. I’ll take it! That result got my 9th in the IP and put me in about 12th overall in the omnium. Again, not great, but that’s a good chunk of UCI points to hold onto!

After a long afternoon break, I was back at the track at 7pm for the evening session (Elimination Race). I lined up on the black line, and after a crappy push from my holder, scrambled to get onto the wheel of Tim Veldt. Seemed like a good wheel to follow! Lap after lap passed and I felt pretty good for once with rider after rider getting eliminated. Man, I might have finally got this elimination race figured out! Not so fast… I see my official buddy on the back straight pointing at the bunch calling a rider out. I pointed at myself and shouted “me”? to which I got a nod in response. I wasn’t aware of where I’d been eliminated, but dropped down the track a little baffled. After packing up my gear, the head official came over to me and told me that I was disqualified due to continuing for 3 laps after I was told to get off the track. Evidently there was a display of some sort track side with eliminated rider numbers on it… During the race I was trying to hold my position while a Trinidad rider was doing his best to push me down onto the apron so wasn’t exactly focusing on anything left of the track surface. After walking around and explaining what went down to my wife, I went back to talk to the official to make sure there was no problem with me racing the remaining events. That was not to be, I was told that it was a “harsh decision”, but my weekend of racing was over. I tried my best to explain myself to the official (Andy McCord) but he didn’t care to hear anything I had to say. Nice, great way to promote the sport. Weekend officially ruined along with a nice stack of UCI points gone along with it. Fuck. I should have gone to Japan to race like I originally planned.

Before the weekend of racing I taught myself Autodesk Illustrator so that I could design a rail mount for my SRM. I’ve seen all sorts of creative methods of attaching powercontrols to saddles etc. but none of them looked that great. Fast forward a week or so and I had a mount designed and the 3d print of the prototype arrived the day before the race in Colorado Springs. I got to test it out for a few events and it worked perfectly. After COS, I made some more refinements to the design and have revision 2 ordered. There’s been some solid interest in it from a few riders I know along with a 2x Olypian, so hopefully it’ll be whizzing around on the bikes of some fast folks before too long.

Compared to the weather forecast in Hawaii (80F with a +/- fluctuation in temp of about 5 degrees), Colorado’s weather is definitely more of a rollercoaster! It teases you with 70F temps and a cool breeze (perfect for training) on day, the follow that up with arctic conditions more suitable for huskies and a sled! Fortunately, the weather seems to have been playing ball around my training schedule (crap on Wed when I have an OFF day, and great on the weekends when I have longer rides.