Hi All,
This past Tuesday was the second race in the series I posted about a
while back. Here is my report for those tired of doping threads.
The race was 60km, with 4 loops of large circuit, and 3 loops of a 3km
circuit at the end. The total ascent was only 348m, which came mostly
in one semi-short, semi-steep hill, and in the finishing 200m. The
weather was nice and sunny, a comfortable 13C, but rather windy.
There were 60 starters, and right off the bat various people tried to
get away, only to be pulled back immediately, followed by another
doomed attempt. This made getting into a rythm difficult, but in
general I felt pretty good. The quick accelerations were never long
enough to cause me any problems. But the road surface was poor, and
the road was narrow, so I tried to keep to the front third of the
pack. At one point the guy next to me rode into a huge hole and his
foot clipped out of the pedal and he swerved uncontollably into me. I
was riding on the edge of the road (the right side as the road was
open to traffic and I don't want to get killed) so I had noplace to
go, so I boxed out my elbow like I was playing basketball looking for
a rebound, and he bounced off. My mass came in handy there! So I'm 2
for 2 in the contact with other riders in this series, I streak I'd
like to break.
Anyway, I felt pretty good, but as I had never seen the course, and
hadn't the foggiest idea as to how hilly it was, I allowed myself to
too easily psyche myself out. After about 10km I saw we were
approaching a hill, but it was impossible to see how long it was. So I
poured on the coals to get to the front, so I could set my own pace. I
heard some folks shouting, "Who's that?" in a panicking sort of way,
and my acceleration prompted a response. As if a 100kg guy was making
a threatening move on a hill! So my plan backfired, and the feild
picked up the pace, and I just looking to limit my losses, remained
seated on the edge while the group rode past. I had foolishly gone
into the red getting to the front, and now I was being passed on a
hill of unknown length. It turned out to be only a couple hundred
meters, so I should have just gorilla stomped over it with everyone
else. But I didn't, I let my size defeat me mentally. At the top, I
was 20m off the back but the road turned into the stiff headwind. I
tried all I had to get back on, but it didn't work. I did catch
another big guy and we made a good effort, but couldn't close the gap,
particularly as we headed up one of the smaller hills. He commented
about his 97kg, and I realized I was not alone in the defeatist mood.
I was bummed, but the guy insisted we were not the only ones dropped,
so we should sit up a bit and wait for other stagglers. Sure enough a
small group of 5 or so appeared behind. When the got up to us, that
gave me new motivation. But these guys had been dropped before the
hill, so the really had nothing to offer on the wind-swept farm lanes.
So I ened up pulling easliy 70% of the time, and the guy I'd been with
the other 30%. They just didn't have the speed. But when we'd get to a
hill, they would sprint up it (past me) and then sit up on the top as
I powered of the crest and kept going. Why they didn't save their
energy and take it at my pace knowing I was going to pull them over
the top, I don't know. I tried to get them to do an echelon, but
nobody had the speed. Even when we picked up a few more riders off the
pack. So I just pulled and ignored them. On a long flat section with a
tailwind, I saw 56km/h for a while. The gear-restricted juniors in the
group and a few others couldn't keep the pace, and when we turned onto
a different road back into the wind, I saw that only 4 guys managed to
hold my wheel there. So we just continued like this for the next 40km.
Once we got to the short circuit, I started thinking about how to play
it. There was a fast tailwind section, followed by 1km right into the
wind with a 90 degree bend 200m from the finish up a 20m rise with the
finish at the top. I knew that if these guys could barely hold my
wheel in a tailwind, that if i could shake them loose in the headwind,
I could ride away from them, and I wouldn't have to worry so much
about the uphill sprint. With 6km to go, we got passed by the lead 2
man break that was on it's last lap, 2km from their finish. I
obvioulsy didn't grab their wheel, but I held our distance as we
pushed through the headwind. As we came around again, I thought it was
our last lap, and I jumped as we turned into the wind. Nobody
followed. Oops! I wasn't 400m from the finish, I was 4000m! That
didn't exactly go as planned... They jumped when they caught me at the
top, where I was trying to soft pedal to recover as much as possible
to have enough juice to jump again, but it didn't happen. We we racing
for 28th place or something so it was hardly worth contesting, but I
sure had fun.
At the finish I had an average of nearly 41km/h, riding 50km more or
less alone, and we were only 3 minutes behind the main group. I like
to think that if I hadn't punked out on the hill and gotten dropped, I
would have been in a position to finish well. There are a few more
races later in the season on the same course, so I'll be prepared.
Joseph