If you're bored by long descriptions of Cat 6 race antics, you might want to move on...
One race, one win. Too bad it was against a bunch of frat boys.
Actually, it was a neat experience:
The local university does an annual criterium, and I decided to drop by and try it out. they had
three categories: recreational, competitive, and elite. This was supposed to be uncategorized
riders, Cat 5-3, and Cat 1-2. There was also a scheduled fat-tire race that was cancelled.
Well, I'm no dummy, and I've never even done a club ride before, despite a lot of commuting.
Recreational it is!
Turned out the recreational race was the site of some sort of wacky intramural competition between
two fraternities. Most of the riders were on mountain bikes, some wearing hockey helmets (!), and
one on a fs!
Besides me on my fendered Pinarello, there was one guy with a semi-serious looking older road bike,
and one guy with a pretty decent late-model road bike. STI, the real deal. Hm. Maybe some
competition.
So we raced. pack starts out, the three of us lose everyone on an MTB within about 50 metres. The
guy on the semi serious road bike hangs with us for two laps. Then he disappears.
So now its two of us. Me on my mutant old Pinarello, with a Sora STI 8v setup and a 105 DT lever for
the front, pretty chrome fork, and me. The other guy is riding a nice late-model Trek, STI and
everything, but the Camelbak betrays an off-road bent.
timed 45-minute race. We hang together now, moving fast. I try a break on him once, get away for
about a lap. Hm. He can make time on me on the climb, but I lose him on the flat/downhill part of
the course. Start/finish is halfway up the climb. 1.5 km
we keep going for a while like this. At one point I look over, and warn him that his front skewer is
open! Yikes. I tell him I'll wait, motivated both by sportsmanship and a disinclination to watch him
die when his wheel falls off (weird...I'd actually warned another dude he had his wheel loose at the
start line, and helped him fix it). He declined my offer, but pulled up to fix the wheel. I carried
on, but slacked off, basically taking a rolling rest. He caught up again within a lap.
With about 14 minutes to go, I tried a bit of a break, and made it for a while. But with about three
laps to go, he's caught up to me at the top of the climb. Gotta work on that "being fat" thing. Bad.
I definitely don't want this guy with me at the bottom of the hill...
We come around again. He's right with me the whole lap, and I let him lead me up the climb. He
tries a half-hearted break, but as long as I'm on his wheel, he's not going anywhere. They ring the
bell at the start-finish. I remain calm, and we get to the top of the climb, which ends with a
sharp corner.
What's that racing strategy Bicycling advocates? Attack at the top of the hill, when everyone
wants to rest?
I attacked. Jumped out of the saddle, spun like a loon, banged into the big ring, snapped off
upshifts like a pro, sprinted until spots danced before my eyes and my HRM to 188 before I stopped
paying attention. I pedalled the descent, pedalled the flat, and as I rounded the corner to the
climb, I looked back and couldn't see my nemesis anymore.
Not sure how much time I had, I kept steady on the pedals, and when I saw the finish line, sprinted
it. In the end, I actually won by something like 20 or 30 seconds. The second-place guy admitted
that when I started my sprint at the top of the hill, he had nothing.
For my trouble, I got an embarrassingly proud t-shirt proclaiming me the UBC Stadium Cycle
Criterium CHAMPION!
I dedicate this win to Fabrizio Mazzoleni.
Then I stayed around for the Competitive race to see how real riders do
it. I'm gonna do the weekly crits this year. Probably no wins in my immediate future, but it's going
to be a lot of fun trying.
--
Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden] sfu.ca~rcousineOpen ↗ President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club