Aaron Abrahams - 2005

Mt. Tamalpais Hill Climb
2005-09-17
Result: 1:01:49
Juniors 15-16
Field: 19 in the 15-16's + 5 in the 17-18's = 24 total
Teammates: Peter, Adam, Andy, Julian, Charles, Ye, John

When we started along Highway 1, the pace was fairly fast, but definitely sustainable. The pack had quickly gotten organized and we were riding in three separate pacelines, but the person to my right seemed to be pushing me out into the bumpy dot things in the middle of the road, and I was focusing on dodging them. About 2.5 miles into the race, Daniel Tisdell rode off the front, and I never saw him again.

We eventually made the right turn and began the ascent. Peter and I decided to let the 15-16's go, and then Peter, Adam and I rode with each other for a little while, until Adam dropped off at about 1or so miles into the climb. After that, Peter and I rode together for pretty much the rest of the way. We rode pretty uneventfully, except Peter would occasionally try to stay on the wheel of some passing Cat. 4 rider. He would go a little ways up the road with the rider, and then drop off and come back (I think he was just doing it for fun).

When the finish line came into sight, Peter sprinted, and because I don't have as good a jump as he does, I couldn't stay with him so he ended up finishing about 4-6 seconds ahead of me.

Albany Criterium
2005-07-24
Result: 5th (I am a 12 this year)
Juniors 13-15 (15?!?!)
Field: 9
Teammates: Peter, Lily

This was a strange race. Either some organizer just screwed up on the thing about racing 15's with 13/14's, or they did it on purpose for some dumb reason.

At the rollout, I saw that there was a 15 racing with us, and I later learned from parents of some 13/14 Tieni Duros that they they had seen that 15 had failed the rollout twice. They said that his cranks would turn a little more than three quarters of a revolution in the 26 feet. The guy doing rollout just told him to race anyway. He did race, and he won the race, and every prime, which was quite unfair to the others racing. There was also another 15-looking guy who did not pass rollout and was still allowed to race, but he finished last, so that did not make much of a difference.

During the race, the 15 immediately rode off the front, and got ahead of everyone else. I had just caught a virus a few days ago and had a very sore throat, so I was definitely not feeling that well. I soon got in a line with Peter, Lily, and a Davis kid, but soon I dropped off, so I rode by myself for a while, lapping everyone (except for those who had finished before me) multiple times.

After about 10 or so minutes, I saw that Lily, who was out of shape from being off the bike for a few weeks due to walking pnuemonia, was dropping off of the group that she had formerly been in with Peter and the Davis kid. I could see this because this group had been staying in my sight up until about this point in the race. After that, they had gotten to far ahead and went out of my sight.

After about 2 or 3 laps, I finally got up to Lily, and got on her wheel. After a little, I took my pull, and we started exchanging pulls about once every quarter or third of a lap. At one point I had gone around a corner and then looked back to see that Lily had fallen someways behind me. I was not feeling much like slowing down a bunch, so I just kept on riding, and Lily eventually caught back up to me. This had obviously taken some energy. I am very sorry for that, it was my mistake.

While we were lapping a rider that we had lapped a bunch of times already, some random spectator saw us going by the lapped rider, and said "Work together, work together, now". After we passed the rider, we rode uneventfully for a while except that Lily was pulling me most of the time, since I knew I would fall off her wheel. When we got to the finish line, I did not at all try to sprint, because it would have been quite rude to beat Lily after she had spent so long pulling.

Davis Criterium
2005-07-04
Result: 1st
Juniors 10-12
Field: 10 (plus 8 more 13-14's)
Teammates: none

The race was on a Monday and my legs were very tired from riding too much the day before on the team ride. The 10-12's and 13-14's started together. James LaBerge (Lombardi Sports) decided to attack at the very beginning so he got away. I thought that he probably could not do too much harm alone, but a Davis 10-12 named Ben (Kowta?) was also up ahead with him. That kind of worried me. After a few laps, my legs started not hurting as much so I tried to get up to them, but I realized that I would have to do it by myself because the other 10-12 kids were slow and tiny, and the bigger, stronger guys were the 13-14's who do not care about some 10-12's problems with trying to catch another 10-12 kid.

Eventually, I did catch Ben (who I ended up lapping), and then James. I spent most of the time with James just sitting on his wheel. At one point I tried to get away, but did not go very far. It did get me a Specialized computer though, since they were just handing out primes at random. After I tried, and failed, at getting away, James sat on my wheel for a little while, and then I got back on his.

I knew that I had plenty of energy to get away if I actually needed to, and with about 2 or 3 turns left on the last lap, I went, and gradually got away. By the time I got to the finish line I was a good distance away from James, and was quite relieved because I thought that I would be too tired from the day before to win the race, which is how it seemed during the first 3 or 4 laps.

They did NOT have any medals, but they did give a $10 certificate for a restaurant/bar place that had nice food and refilled my glass of soda a bunch of times (that was especially nice it was so hot out, the bar was nice and cool and air conditioned, though). They let people bring their bikes inside (there was plenty of room) where they were safe. They also had a bunch of TV's all over the place showing the TdF on OLN, so that was cool. Its name was Cantina del Cabo, "Barbecue - Steakhouse - Cantina", at 139 G St.

Pescadero Road Race
2005-06-25
Result: 1st
Juniors 10-12
Field: 4 (9 if you include the 13/14 category)
Teammates: None

They started the 10-12 and 13-14 categories together. From the start some 13-14 Alto Velo kid kept on telling the 13-14 field to sprint (and they did) so the rest of the 10-12's were quickly dropped. So I spent the last 4 laps of the race (my race was 5 laps of 2 miles each) with the 13-14's and had to always be aware of them suddenly sprinting so that I wouldn't get dropped. At the end, I actually finished before one or two 13-14's.

For a podium they had a box that I almost broke when I stepped on it.

Dunlap Time Trial - District Jr Championship
2005-06-05
Result: 1st
Juniors 10-12
Field: 15
Teammates: none

Not much to say about this one. I did have a little trouble getting clicked in at the start (probably because I was so nervous) and had a little trouble at the turn around with some guys on bikes who were not racing getting in the way, and then a truck in the way. Besides that I just pedaled hard and stayed really aero. Coming aroung the right turn that is just after the turn around, I noticed a significant headwind hitting me, but I had been using my energy in a way so that I could deal with the headwind and not really have too much of a problem.

Aaron Abrahams
Copperopolis Road Race
2005-03-26
Result: 7th(?)
Juniors 13-14
Field:about 30
Teammates: Lily, Peter

This was a hard race. Not the climbs, but the pavement. At the very beginning of the race, I slowed down to avoid an obstacle, and noticed that this had caused me to fall off the back of the pack. I then spent a little time just trailing the pack. On the hill at the feed station, which was very early on, I tried to catch back up to everyone else. However, this was not in my best interest as the majority of the 13/14's, including the one girl who Lily had to worry about beating at all, were now falling behind me. This cheered me up a little. Still trying to catch the group which was formerly everyone else (Peter and Lily were still up there), I noticed that a Wolfpak kid (Matt) was struggling along about 20 feet behind me at the same speed that I was going at. I then slowed down to wait for him to catch up, and when he did, the two of us took turns pulling each other along the bumpy roads, hopelessly chasing after the lead pack.

After about 2 or 3 miles of this, Peter& and Lily fell off of the lead group, and fell far behind me as well. At the top of one of the hills, I saw a CVC kid who had fallen off the lead group, and had him join our three person paceline, which seemed to be going along quite well. As the three of us went along, we saw many more 13/14's who had fallen off the lead group also. They were all going too slowly though, so our paceline stayed with three people.

About 7 miles from the finish, we started talking alot, which slowed us down significantly. Soon Peter, Lily, and some other kids had caught us, and were passing us. Then came a long series of really bumpy down hills, and, as I didn't feel like descending as maniacally, nor was I as big and heavy, as some other kids, I was dropped. The Wolfpak kid had stayed with them. Soon, some little kid was passing me, and that made me mad. I waited to the last climb before the finish, and when I saw the 1km sign, I started riding much harder, and faster.

I almost hit some teeny tiny 11/12 kid, because I was going so much faster then him. I swerved and avoided him though. Then I passed the 200 meter sign and I just sprinted as fast as I could. I noticed that the CVC kid I was working with earlier had been ahead of me, but I didn't care because he sure wasn't ahead of me anymore. So I ended up passing about 10 people right in the last kilometer. That made me pretty happy.

A few minutes after I finished, I got to thinking that if I had raced with kids my own age, the 11/12's (I am an 11/12) I probably could have won. But that would have been going all the way to Copperopolis and back juat to race 10 miles. I also got more experience than I would have racing 11/12's, and I got a point for the point series. (Yeah right, as if I ever had any chance of doing well in the point series anyway.)

Snelling Road Race
2005-02-26
Result: ???
Juniors 13-14
Field: big (not really but it did get a lot smaller after all the crashes)
Teammates: Peter, Lily, Nicky, Adam, Alex

We got there at around 7:30am or something like that and went and got our numbers. Peter and I then rode on our trainers for maybe 20 minutes or so. We then went to do the roll out and just did it right before it closed. Then all of Tieni Duro's 13/14s lined up and waited a really long time for it to start. On the first hill, 5 or 6 or 7 people crashed in front of me so I hit the brakes. I came to a full stop, but I couldn't clip my foot out quickly enough so I fell over sideways but I was able to just get up and chase the pack down especially because it was going so incredibly slowly. Then some guy crashed but I saw it so I was able to ride around it but someone fell into Peter and he got his foot stuck in the guy's empty bottle cage and kicked the guy's bike (in the course of freeing his foot; he didn't do it intentionally) so the guy went down even harder and hit some guy who had already (I think) fallen down. Peter fell into some girl but managed to stay up (and so did the girl (I think)) but probably about 8 kids went down because of running into and/or over the kids already lying on the ground. They all had to abandon the race with that crash.

On the next long hill I rode off the front because I was expecting some crashing. And Peter did tell me that Adam crashed and that Alex wasn't with us anymore. At one point there was a pack sprint and some kid's bike just flew out from under him, he spun around a couple of times in mid-air and landed on his knees and his bike just went flying through the air so hard that I didn't even see it land and later some Wolfpak guy told me that he saw the kid lying on the ground and that he wondered if the kid had lost conciousness.

When we passed the neutral feed station some people were holding out bottles and I just took one thinking that they were some sort of prize or something, drank some, emptied the rest of it out and stuck it into my pocket to take home since I couldn't think of anything else to do. The last lap was pretty uneventful and at the final sprint I did pass a few people but I don't think I placed too well though. By the end prabably about 55% or so of the field crashed so hard that they couldn't finish.

I thought that the race was more just like a ride with really cruddy pavement and a whole bunch of crashes to try and avoid. I thought they rode too slowly and later decided that I should've just picked up the pace which probably would have burned off the kids who caused the crashes. I considered exactly 0 of the hills to be steep.

Cherry Pie Criterium
2005-02-06
Result: ???
Juniors 13-14
Field: ???
Teammates: Peter, Alex, Adam