I Ride, I Write

Stage 1: I’m 80 percent pleased. But that 20 percent outweighs the 80 percent in many regards. I hung with the pack for about 34 miles, but then got pinched off by a swerving wheel car, two oncoming vehicles and an unexpected merge with the Masters 45/55 fields.

Here’s the 411 from my point of view.

It was typical race for the first 19 miles. At the turnaround, we saw a large group of cyclists approaching. It turns out we reached the point just about 15 seconds ahead of the Masters 45/55 group. We hurried through and because of the approaching group no one was allowed to attack because we didn’t know how the two fields would impact each other. That was good news for me because I was able to stay with the group as the accordion-effect took very little time to work its magic.

After another 10-12 miles of see-sawing back and forth down the road with the 45/55 gang — they passed us but refused to actually pull away from us despite plenty of opportunity to do so — we approached the 10k mark. I was hanging out in the bottom third of the pack playing it safe because there had been no serious attacks to that point. But as we climbed a small hill, the two fields merged again and the wheel cars seemed confused, not knowing where to be. At the same time, a few cars were coming the opposite direction.

That created some chaos with a huge group of cyclists, cars passing them and cars coming at them. The Masters 45/55 wheel car had to do some evasive action and cut right in front of a few cyclists — me included — to avoid a head-on collision with cars in the southbound lane.

I had to hit my brakes hard and actually tapped the bumped of the wheel car. That destroyed my speed, momentum and energy and created a nice 200 meter gap on an uphill — which I had to restart from a near stop — and I never recovered. I pushed hard for a long time and saw the gap shrink to about 200-300 meters. Alas, that gap was on an uphill and by the time I crested the hill, the group had picked up the pace big time and I was dropped for good.

I fought the demons the rest of the way — alternately thinking about the GC seconds I could avoid losing by pushing hard, and being discouraged because the hard work didn’t truly make any difference.

I waffled back and forth like that for the final five miles and crossed the line at about 1 hour, 44 minutes.

I made several moves in the race to get to the front of the pack, say howdy to teammates and show myself I was actually in the race as a true participant rather than just a pretender way in the back. Then the car thing happened and I became a pretender again, but at least I feel it wasn’t entirely because I sucked.

Lesson learned: In the second half of a race, don’t take anthing for granted and stay near the front. Less bad stuff happens there and I’ll be ready to react more easily to any attacks. Baby steps for this newbie bike racer.

Stage 2: After cruising home from Skull Valley, I tried to rest and relax at home, while also attempting to refuel.

I got there and found out the Cat 5 racers wouldn’t be starting for a long time because of the college racers.

I warmed up a little and felt some pretty sharp pain in the right hip flexor. I walked a little more, stretched a little more and hoped for the best.

Fortunately, I felt great during the Time Trial.

I was the first Cat 5 to go. That had an advantage and a disadvantage.

For the advantages, I had plenty of carrots in front of me, but no one in my field to create a big and growing gap. For the disadvantages, I was the carrot and there were 35 or so Cat 5 cyclists trying to catch me.

Good news! I was not passed by anyone. And, although they were just juniors, I managed to erase the three minute headstart they had and caught several of them.

Bad news. While going up one pretty serious hill, I dropped into the small ring. On the downhill, I tried to shift back up to the big ring and the chain came off! I was rolling downhill, but slowing down as I spun wildly trying to remount the chain. I then remembered to slow down, let the teeth grab the chain and I was off again. I think I lost 20-30 seconds because of the loss of speed and momentum.

Still, I motored it home over the final 3k and I think finished with a time of about 19 minutes. I’ll take it.

The helmet and the bike fit worked wonders. I could honestly feel the difference in my power and aerodynamics as I cruised along.

At the finish, I bumped into a few blogger dudes — Faceless Ghost and Piotrek – and then made it home in time to send my wife and daughters off to a showing of “Junior High School Musical.”

Stage 3:DNS. Life, family and more important things kept me from Sunday’s circuit race in TwoWheelA