Powerman - 9/29/2007

Holy-moley, it's the last road race of the season. Word was out, Snakebite would have a nice contingent out, as well as a bunch of the East siders showing, so I got my papers signed to go out on Saturday.

I did this course last year. Raced up in the cat 3 field, and then they combined the 7 1/2's in with the 3s on the line. Ouch. I made it through the 7 miles of the race before the hill, popped because of bad positioning, spent the remainder of the race chasing the field with Dave S. Once it was clear they were gone, we rolled around with 3 Echelon guys, and then race the last 5 miles to the line. I felt reasonable about it, because I took the field sprint, and I was still a cat4.

This year, I've been riding much better, so the plan was to watch the known guys like StarkVelo's John Lowery and Echelon's Dan Rhule. Follow moves, and see what we could do. I picked up Dave and Pete S. for the complete Snakebite showing. Pete has just put in for his cat 3 upgrade, and was going to race up... No problems registering for whatever he wanted, we had 3 in the field.

There were 20 cat 3's on the line, and they again combined in the 5 cat 1/2s at the start. They did give us a good view of who we were NOT racing against. They lined the 5 up at the front, said look at them, they are racing for 2 places. Brent Evans, Jeremy Grimm, Jim Matson, and a couple of guys that had traveled to the race. The cat 3's are racing for 5 spots. Then they mixed us all up, and we were off.

So I settled into the front 10, and stayed there. As we rolled around, I remembered a lot of the course, but it was all pretty blurred. They had changed the course up also, so I wasn't totally comfortable where the climb was. There is only one climb, and we told Pete to be near the front going into it, since it's the safest place to not get gapped.

Pretty calm as we rolled out. Everyone was waiting for the hill. Brent pulled for a while, then Jeremy, then one of the travelers. Lowery went up front, and I followed, we rolled through, not really pushing the pace, but not sleeping either. At about 4 miles in, Mark Lopresto, a new 3 from the East side riders, rolled off the front and got a gap. He opened it slightly over a roller, and one of the travelers decided that was enough.... so he closed it down right before making the right hander toward the hill.

As we made the turn, I was about 10 back with Brent when he asked me where the hill was... I had no idea, since the course was different, but I suspect it was soon. Right after the turn, we rolling up a short roller, and Dave and Pete are right there... except Pete's front tire is going flat. So his race is over within 8 miles. Ouch.

As Pete fades off, Dave and I move further up. I'm still near Lowery, and he sends Rick Parr to the front to pull the field.... we must be at the hill. As we crest the second larger roller, I see a monster hill come up in front if us. Straight to the top, which we can see, but it looks like a wall. It's about 200 feet up in six tenths of a mile.

OK, here we go. I tuck into the drop before the hill, and hit the bottom about 6th wheel.... when one of the travelers gives it the gas. It's all good until about half way up the hill, when I realize I'm not in a very good gear... so I shift, and still bog down, so I shift again, and I'm suddenly going backwards as the entire field passes me by. I'm now in my 19, and am grinding my way up the hill, not very quickly either. Holy cow is this nasty. Up over the top, finally! I'm flailing, AND off the back!

The road drops over the top slightly and heads into another big roller. OH MY! I have to get over that too! I get my momentum back up quickly, but I'm about 500m off the back. We hit the next roller, and I loose more space. Again it drops over the top, and I bring back the first guy... I'm in chase mode again. Shoot.

The first guy is totally cooked, and I drop him immediately and go after the next one. I pick him up right before the next turn, and encourage him to hop on and we'll work it. Make the turn, and we've got a mostly descending road back to the farm.

So we go into a rotation. I'm not happy, but I'd like to see what we can do. I've been able to chase back onto fields a few times this year, so I'm getting used to this... I don't like it, but I have some confidence that it's possible. So we start to work. Up the road, I can see another guy, so he's the next goal. Before we make it up to him, the follow vehicles come around. Pete's going for the ride, and hollers some encouragement as they pass us up.

It takes a couple of miles, but eventually we do pick up the next guy, and it's Mark. He dug deep, he says, but chose the wrong gear up the climbs... I know that feeling. I pull right around him and give him a bit of a break. He points out the field is just ahead, so I say OK, We can make it. The other guy goes to the front, but I get the impression that he's done... I tell Mark to pull through! He does, and then I pull through. I think we can do this. It's only 500m or so (again). Mark takes a pull, because we lost the other guy. We take about 2 or 3 rotations, and we're getting a little closer... then I take a pull, and I gapped Mark. Shoot! I'm still to far to go on my own, that's it. We're alone.

It turns out Jeremy attacked the field right past the start finish, so that was my last chance to get on. When Mark couldn't hold my wheel, I backed it off a little, to give him a break. So, it's a training ride now. Again... just like last year.

That was it, we chased onto the back side of the course... and when we couldn't see the field any longer, we gave up the chase. We stopped to take a leak. Then got back to the "training" part of the day. I told Mark I'd like to keep up the pace, so we went into a tempo zone, and just plugged away. Rotating through, chasing, but not really expecting to get anywhere. We didn't see anyone behind us, or in front of us.

When we mad the turn onto the hill road, I was starting to think about the cat 4 field behind us. Over the second roller, I looked back, and thought I saw a car with flashers. On the hill, Mark left me again, I was just not getting up this thing quickly today. In fact, I was grinding it in my 23... ouch, this was nasty. There was a photographer near the top taking shots... which would have looked cool, except we were way off the back, and my "head down" attitude would give that way. Mark crested about 100m or so ahead of me, and sat up over the top to wait for me.

I grabbed some gu, and chased back. I told Mark the 4's were coming, and that I'd like to get to the finish line before them. So we'll need to work. Off we went with renewed vigour. We almost made it too. The lead car kept getting closer and at one point I looked back to see a lone rider behind it. One guy, off the front of the field was pulling us back. He caught us with about a half mile to go. We managed to hold off the field, but we'd lost a full 10 minutes to them over the two laps they raced.

As we came close to the line, Mark asked if we were going to do the last lap. Of course we were, we paid for the race, so we're going to get the training out of it. There were quite a few times on the lap that I was thinking, I'd rather have had a flat.... totally out of my control, and no questions about what went wrong... you just know. Pete had the easier day today, even though it sucked for both of us.

We had to be the last guys on the road. We ended up pulling around in a high z2 low z3. The hills were killing me, and Mark was having to sit up every time the road went up... I have no idea what's stopping me from getting up these things except y head.

We made the turn onto the hill road, and Mark left me on the second roller putting in the 100m gap there. Down to the base of the hill, and he was nearing the top... again, nothing I could do, I expected to bring him back again at the top. Not that it really mattered for place, I wasn't planning on out sprinting him for 18th or whatever it was. Over the top I could just see him, but by the time I made the top of the next roller, Mark was gone.

Gone, I mean really gone. I expected to see him at some point... but nothing. Once I made it onto the road back to the farm, I started picking up folks on TT bikes practicing for Sunday's duathalon. I even picked up a couple of the cat 4/5 guys finishing up their race... Mark was ahead of all of them I knew... but I didn't see him again until I crossed the line.

What a let down. I figure I was at least 15 minutes off the pace. Yeah, we lost a minute or so because of the stop, but most of the lost time was just not having the guns to stick with the field. It turns out to not have been a complete was of time. I ended up with a 21.3mph average over the 47mile course, on our own. So we got a 10 mile race and a 35+mile training ride at z2/z3+. So at least I got in a decent workout.

On the TOTAL upside, Dave Steiner made it over with the field. He said he kept waiting for me to make it back to the field... until Jeremy attacked at the end of the first lap. He dug deep, and even went off the front with an attack. The 5 cat 1/2's took off on the second time up the hill, with Anthony Rienzi from RGF. Anthony will be a cat 2 soon, as his upgrade is also in progress. So the cat 3 first place had got away. Dave stuck with the second group of 6... almost came completely off with a cramp 3 miles to the line... dug deep to chase back on, and opened the sprint to the line... he held on for third in the group and 4th in the cat 3 race! Rock ON!!!! Congrats to Dave for a very nice position in an extremely hard (for me anyway) race.

I wish I could have held on enough to actually contribute to his race, I had felt great on Friday, and had some real expectations to finish well. It may have been bad nutrition, digging a hole by only getting 4 hours of sleep on Friday, not have a 12/25 cassette for that climb, or just not having legs on the day... I'm not sure why I had the trouble I did. I hope I had a brake rubbing or something else out of my control..

Now my road season is over, and I've gone from the highs of podium places in the cat 4 fields at RATL, to getting popped after working to chase back on and succeeding at Valley City and the Fall Challenge in 1.2.3 races, to completely dropped for no good reason here... so I've covered all bases. So, instead beating myself silly for not making this race again, I'll chalk this up to a nice little workout that I doubled up with some light cross work on Sunday. Because, it is all about cyclocross after all.