Cycling is a team sport.

Last weekend Carbon Racing sponsored the Tour of the Valley stage race. Four races over three days, a time trial and Crit on Friday, a road race on Saturday and another crit on Sunday. My schedule would only allow me to race on Saturday, which was fine since I've only done 3 races so far this year anyway. I certainly didn't think I would be up for 3 days of hard racing at this point.

Spin did have 7 guys racing for the overall. Dave, Derrik, Jason, Justin, Pete, Thom and Tom. Thom rocked to an 8th place in the time trial, and won the crit on Friday to end up sitting in second on GC on Saturday morning. Without any other points, everyone else on the team was riding in support of Thom's GC.

I'd looked at the course profiles, and figured it would be a tough go. 66 miles of racing over a pretty hilly terrain. It might not be good for me to be racing distances as long as the longest training rides I've done all year. I've got plenty of training miles in, but effectively no racing intensity... so my plan for the day was to be a total domestique. I would work for the team however I could. I was hoping to conserve until we'd made it over the first KOM climb... then I could completely put myself into whatever efforts I could, not expecting to make it over the climb with the group on the second lap. If I did, double bonus, and I'd work more.

Sign in went well, and we ended up with 11 guys at the start, adding Mehul, Zak, Pete S and Myself. Thom would stay focused on the guy sitting in first place, and a Kelly Benefits rider that didn't have many points, but looked to be a threat. There was Pete and Tony from Lake Effect, Cameron from RGF and a guy from Stark that we were supposed to be careful about. That meant if we got into a break with any of these guys, and Thom was not there, we sat on and did nothing. If they were off the back of Thom's group, we could not work to get back to the group unless we could attack to bridge, but should do nothing but sit on. No personal ambitions today for anyone on the team. It's all for Thom.

On the line, it looked like maybe 50 guys. Considering there were about 35 GC riders, we definitely had numbers. Lake Effect had four or five, and Stark had three. The two guys Thom was watching were solo... though we did see Pete talking with Kelly Benefits, maybe looking for some help.

This race was extremely cool. We had a rolling road enclosure... no yellow line rule, which was really nice. There was space to move around the field instead of being stuff into one lane. The team spread out among the field, and Thom sat comfortably in the back. I tried to stay near the front, ready to do whatever.

As we hit the first climb, a guy next to me somehow crossed wheels or something and came off his bike... he managed to stay standing. WOW. The climbs were more than I had anticipated, but I managed over it just dangling on the back. Once over the top, I worked my way back to the front to get ready for the KOM climb that was next up.

Tom and I were on the front as we came to the descent. There was chip and seal that had been well swept off... but it was still bumpy and curvy. It could have been a blast if I had ridden it a few times before the race. Tom and I made it down sitting on the front, and then prepped for the KOM climb.

Not having raced much I had no idea how this climb would go. I was sitting on Kelly Benefits as he paced me right up the climb. I was comfortable, and looked back and we had a slight gap. COOL! Then a guy came around us and Kelly upped the pace a bit... I tried to match it, but it screwed up my rhythm enough that I lost those two and started fading back to the group. Thom was moving up to get on the front group, since KOM points counted toward GC. It was all good, I just need to get over the climb with the group.

I kept looking for the top of the climb as more of the field was going by. The climb flattened out a bit, then started up again, and the 200m to go line indicated I had almost made it... but a large part of the group had gone by.

Over the top, I was just off the back and regrouped with Tom and Dave. We grabbed Pete from Lake Effects wheel, and just sat on there. "Oh... that must be disheartening" You've got about 200m to make it back into the field, and look back to see about four guys sitting on your wheel, and three of them will not be doing any work to help you. Tom at least told Pete, "sorry, our guy is on top of GC right now, so it's all up to you to get back on". An unattached rider was behind me telling us to pull through, so I gave him the situation. He was more than welcome to help, but the three of us were going to sit on... if we made it back, great. If not that was fine too.

Pete was a monster. But so was the course. The rollers after the KOM were killing me. Pete pulled us back to the group, and I almost didn't make it. The others were sitting in while I still was chasing. Every part of my body was hurting... I looked back at some point, and there was NOBODY behind me for a very long way. Eventually, the course stopped the rolling climbs, and I was able to get back into the group... so I had some time to eat and recover.

At 66 miles, I had two bottles of drink mix on the bike, and another bottle of water in a jersey pocket. I made sure to bring lots of food also. I ate, and emptied one bottle of mix. As I switched the jersey bottle, one of the number safety pins opened.. and started to stick me in the back every time I pedalled. I'm flying downhill in my biggest gear in the field with one hand on the bars, and one hand trying to get the pin off me... after sticking my finger hard, I finally got it free... and I threw it into the grass on the side of the road. I hate littering, but I figured that was my safest move. I was returning some iron to the land I guess.

The KOM hill had done some serious damage to the field. We were down to about 30 guys, and the yellow jersey was one of the casualties. Someone said he had broken a spoke and fallen off the pace. We still have 9 Spin though... only loosing Mehul and Derrik.

Some of the racing then got kind of strange as guys on GC would try and attack the field. I'm not sure what they were thinking with about 40 miles left to race... but it had the effect of changing the pace in weird ways. At some point a guy did get off the front, and we had Zak off the front with him, or maybe he had tried to bridge up. Either way Zak was sitting alone with a big gap, and another guy was further up the road. Zak stayed away for a while... and we started getting time gaps when the other guy was about 30 seconds ahead of us.

By this time, I was ready to do work if needed. 30 seconds with another time up the two climbs, I figured was no real danger. The GC was based on points, not on time, and with Thom in virtual yellow, and Spin with numbers, it was obviously our duty to keep this guy in close enough to catch. Zak came back in shortly before the end of the lap.

Rolling through the start at the end of lap one, we got another time of 40 seconds. We were still rolling easy. It was extremely cool to go through the feed zone at the front... the whole field sat up as we rolled through, and the gap opened more. I started a little pull to try to get the speed up just a little. I pulled off, and spoke with Dave about when we should really start to bring this down a bit. When we got the 100 seconds time. OK, now it's time to do some work.

Dave and I went to the front, and started to pull. Tom, Pete, Pete and Zak joined in and we started a rolling team effort to bring the gap down. The next time we got was 40 seconds... after about three or four rotations, I'd had enough and started to fade back when Dave asked if that was enough... and I agreed. If we left the gap at 40, it would come back on the hills. I also wanted to have a CHANCE to get over the hill with the group. Though I doubted it would happen.

Over the first hill, I was danlging again. This time Zak and I were right there... and we worked together to get back on. I was sitting more in the field heading into the KOM, but felt confident after the efforts so far. We hit the KOM, and again I started fading off the back. I could see Lake Effect Pete again so I tried to pace the hill to stay close to him. I made it over the top just behind Zak and Pete. I managed to drive myself back to Zak, then we worked to get onto Pete's wheel. I apologized to Pete, but I certainly wasn't going to help... again.

It looked like the group was all together again, and about 200-500 meters in front of Pete, Zak, an unattached guy and myself. I made it over one roller, but my legs were not doing anything good... so I waved Zak through as I came a few meters off my group. Zak attacked Pete to get over the top, and then I was chasing the chase group. My legs were fine unless the road was going uphill. I could stay close on the flats and descents, but I lost ground every time it went up. The field was right there... then they were gone. Pretty soon, so was the chase group and I was alone.

So 50 miles or so into a 66 mile race... and I'm done. I figured I'd done my work, but would try to ride tempo for the remainder of the race to just get back. When I came around a turn and up a rise to see Dave getting onto his bike. If he needed a wheel, I'd hand it over... but his legs had just shut down. So I had company on the rest of the ride. Sherman in the the wheel truck had dropped back to see if Dave needed anything, so we knew we weren't that far behind. But Dave also knew the attacks had started so we were not going to get back into the field. He also didn't think that Pete would make it back in.

Since Dave was racing in the GC, I figured I was given a new job for the team. I could pace Dave in, saving him some energy for Sunday's race. Very cool, even though I'm dropped, I still can do work to help the team. We didn't kill it all the way in, but we did try to keep a reasonable pace... at least until the rain started. I'm going to guess we rolled in about 10-15 minutes behind the field, considering some bikes were already packed on their racks.

Thom had gotten third place after attacking the field with a mile or more to go. Kelly Benefits bridged and Thom thought they were going for the win. Unfortunately, somehow someone else had already gotten up the road. But Thom was now sitting in yellow heading into the last race of the weekend. Very cool, he was far enough ahead that he only had to watch Kelly Benefits on Sunday.

I'll give away the ending. Thom defended well, and won the Cat 3 overall on Sunday. Dave rocked the last crit, got in a break with eventual second place GC guy, and worked hard to come in third in the sprint. Those points elevated Dave into 13th on GC, so even more team success there.

The team did an awesome job on Saturday, and I was a part of it. The weekend was also a big team success with 3 race podiums, and three members on the final GC podium... How cool is that! The race was absolutely cool, and extremely well run. I'm hoping to be able to swing going for the GC and doing all four races next year.