Only true bike geeks would drive snowy roads to the distant lands of Middlesex for some trainer time, but there we were, John, Nick, Jean and Phil, spinning away in the Man-cave on Thursday night watching the Tour of California. Thanks for hosting, Phil. We all have basement-envy now.
VOS Stage Race – Phoenix, AZ – Feb 13-15 2009
Friday: 13.6 Mile Flat TT - Despite feeling well prepared from many hours on the trainer with plenty of steady state and threshold intervals along with weight training and even some weight-loss, I logged a pretty mediocre TT. I was about 10 seconds shy of my time from last year on the same course in similar conditions, even though the trainer has been indicating I’m definitely stronger than last February. I had borrowed a friend’s TT bike, which was the same as mine but one size smaller and I think I paid the price with much elbow-to-knee conflict and general discomfort. Then one of my elbow pads rotated down and my arm kept sliding off the pad. TTs are so not-fun to begin with, you really don’t need to poked in the eye while riding them. Nevertheless I pulled off a 15th out of the 100 rider field so I was at least in the hunt for an upgrade point or two for the G.C. finish.
Saturday: 73 Mile RR – 4.5 laps on a 16 mile course with 5 trips up a 500 vertical foot, 4% climb on each lap. This was my first Cat III race and with the big field – made up mostly of CA and AZ riders who are well into their season – I was pretty nervous. There were two other riders I was working with, and we were semi-supporting the G.C. Leader who was a friend of a friend from Colorado. The pace was pretty solid, and after the second time up the climb on a KOM lap I was questioning my ability to hang. But, as always, once you crest the hill and get some recovery you always gain back some hope. We had a break of 2 get away while I was surfing the back on the climb and then the chase was on. My legs told me NOT to get up front and work, but my pride overrode them and sure enough I was taking turns with the two other guys and the G.C. leader, along with a few other non-whussy riders, to slowly reel in the break that was 2 minutes down the road – which we eventually did on the fourth time up the climb. Once we got 2 hours into the race I realized that it was my longest ride of the season, and was definitely feeling it in my ass and my quads. Every little surge had me questioning what I had left. But managed to hang on to the last climb to the finish, but couldn’t match the pace of the lead group. Fortunately I had good company and after settling into my own pace managed to reel back riders one by one. As it turns out I am thankful for not being a contender as the finish line was total carnage. I rolled through the finsh about 1 minute back from the leaders and there had been 4 separate wrecks, with the G.C. guy busting his collarbone and another cat looking like he might not even make it. Ugly. Scary. So may ambulances at the finish they had to neutralize the Pro/1 and the 2 fields for their finish. International rules saved my G.C. spot with everyone getting a same time finish due to the crashes.
Sunday: 40 Minute Criterium on a 0.8 mile, 6 turn course – Nervous as hell after seeing the gore at the RR finish. This was the biggest field I’ve ridden a Crit with, so my strategy was either work hard to stay up front, or surf the back, but stay out of the middle. When the whistle blew my inexperience made the decision for me quickly as I spazzed out trying to get into my pedal and was promptly D.F.L. After about 10 minutes of finding my line and seeing some guys popping off the back of the fast paced chain I started to feel a bit stronger, and with another 10 minutes of work managed to get up to top 20-30 and stay there for the rest of the ride. I knew top 10 would be the safest place to ride, but the tight course kept us from bunching and I used as much of my “lank” as possible to secure the outside line as my own so I felt pretty safe. Some great words of advice from my buddy before the start kept the engine burning for the full 40 minutes as he reminded me that mixing it up with 100 guys in this new category is exactly the experience I needed, so when I crossed the line just 50 meters back from the sprinters, securing my place in the top 15 for the G.C. I was pretty freekin’ stoked to have not pussed out on the day.
Summary: Overall I was very impressed with the level of riding that goes on in the 3′s. It’s so easy to sit on your trainer imagining how you might make such-and-such move or go for a KOM or a sprint, but when you actually get out on the road and realize how fast the rest of the riders are it’s definitely humbling. At the same time, it’s also highly motivating and illuminates all of your weaknesses (climbing, surging, sprinting and more for me) so it’s good to have the mental fires stoked up for the season to come, and great to know we’re forming just the right ORS Racing crew to support our endeavors.
I’ll say it again and again…Bike racing is just freekin’ cool.
UPDATE: They just released the final results and it looks like I ended up 12th in the G.C. – And a motivating data-point for the next TT…3 extra seconds of time would have bumped me to 16th putting me out of any upgrade points. Whew!
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Riders, racers, teammates…This is our debut season so let’s make it a good one. Thanks to everyone who has worked hard to get us to this point. The blog-format of this website means that all of you can contribute, so please jump in and do so. If you have any questions on how to post, comment or add content please see chime in.