Everything I Know About Bike Racing I Learned From American Flyers

American Flyers, the quintessential 1980s cycling film, is a veritable tome of cycling knowledge. If you've seen it, watch it again and take notes. If you've never seen it (and you call yourself a cyclist?), go rent it right now, it will change your life.












Here's some of the lessons I've learned from this theatrical masterpiece:

• You don't need to be outfitted in the latest Assos kit to ride. Jean jackets and cowboy hats are perfectly acceptable riding gear.
• An awesome way to work on your bike handling skills is to ride your bike around your apartment complex.
• If you've been riding 30 - 40 miles a day on relatively flat terrain and have never raced before, you are totally ready for a major stage race in the Rocky Mountains.
• If you want to perfect your sprint, find a neighborhood with a lot of loose pit bulls. Rumor has it that's how Cavendish trains... 
• "Shake and Break" is an excellent technique to get rid of a "wheel sucker"
• When racing, be wary of the Costner-proclaimed "oldest trick in the book" - when a rider pretends that the race is over and then shifts to the big ring and drops the hammer. Those cowboys certainly fell for it... 
• Also, beware the second oldest trick in the book - when a rider pulls down your shorts and leaves you fumbling to pull them back up as he rides down the road. That's why bib shorts were made.
• It is totally acceptable to rip off the nickname of the all-time greatest cyclist if you are a mildly successful professional cyclist
• If you want to be competitive, you've got to be an asshole to everyone, all the time. Exhibit A: Barry Muzzin.
• It is acceptable to try and run someone off the road on a high speed descent if it means winning the bike race. Your competition will forget all about it at the end of the stage. Hell, they may even respect you for it.
• ANYONE is capable of winning a bike race. Even if you are a first time racer and your competition consists of current and former national champs, olympians, and high ranking euro pros.

The Year in Review

The Michigan State Cyclocross Championship was my last race of the season. Even if I planned on more races, due to an unfortunate crash on the first lap, it still would have closed out my season. I ended up with a severely sprained thumb, and, after a couple weeks, it just hasn't been healing. Turns out the reason my thumb hasn't been healing, is that I have a torn ligament. Torn ligament = surgery... So, on Tuesday I go under the knife. After the ligament is repaired, it's 5 weeks in a cast followed by several weeks of PT. So, no riding outside for me until the cast is off and I have some strength/mobility back in my hand. My trainer and I are going to be intimate friends.

I've just been taking it easy these last couple weeks. I started a new gig at my company and there's been a lot to learn. So that's kept me busy (busy would actually be an understatement...) So, now that I've got some down time, it's a great opportunity for some reflection on the season past.

• Road Season: After an 8 year hiatus from road racing, I was finally giving it another shot. I got my license and I was starting out as a Cat 4. I can pretty much sum it up in one word: Disappointment. After a series of mid-pack finishes, a bad crash in June that I never quite recovered from, and a stalled out season-end, I was glad to say goodbye. This put me in a really bad spot coming into my "real" season, cyclocross. I was kinda depressed, over-trained, and just not enjoying myself. This taught me something. First, I had set some unrealistic expectations. And second and probably most important - Fun first. 

• Cyclocross Season: With an upgrade to B this year, I knew there would be some challenges. My crappy road season didn't help matters any and my first few 'cross races definitely reflected that. I started to find my rhythm near the end of October and I kinda stalled out. It seemed like everybody was improving except me. Even guys I was beating a couple races before were kicking my butt. That's when I remembered my new mantra - fun first. If you focus on having fun, everything else will come around. An even if it doesn't, you at least had a good time. This isn't my job, and God knows, I don't need it to feel like one.

That's why I have mixed feelings about the 'cross season coming to an end.  On one hand (my good one...) I had a lot of fun, and hanging out with all my fellow 'crossers is a good time, but on the other, I was wore out. Well, now I've got all the R&R I could ever want, as I rehabilitate my thumb over these next several weeks. Expect to see lots of blog entries and I'll update on how the surgery went (and the good drugs I'm prescribed...) when it's over.

Back in the Saddle

Well, it's been a few weeks since my crash and bruises have faded to a nice yellow and scabs have fallen off to reveal the rosiness of freshly formed skin. Recovering from a crash is tough. It's tougher than doing 2 hour's worth of lactate threshold intervals - probably because it's all a mental thing. Your body needs time to recover but your mind has gotten awfully accustomed to time in the saddle and the intensities of racing. If your not careful, it's really easy to slip into a funk.

And that's exactly where I found myself. In a funk. It kinda sneaked up on me, creeping into my psyche over the last 2 weeks. I found my motivation waning, I was eating more, the quantity of food wasn't really the issue, it was the quality (junk food city). I probably put on 15 pounds over the course of 3 weeks... Feeling like a lazy fat ass was all the motivation I needed to start training again. So off I went, logging a good 2 hour ride last Saturday.

To help things out, my beloved LOOK came back with a clean bill of health (thank the bicycle gods, since I couldn't even think of affording a new one right now). It's back on!

Well, fate had other plans. The job got hectic, and I had to put in some serious hours at the mill (my pet name for my job in advertising). Long hours at work = no training.

Our Thursday Night Worlds was coming up and nothing gets you motivated like a little racing. I decided that would be my come back, and despite my dilapidated fitness and form, I would just hang on as long as I could and get in a good workout.

For me, the first race back after a hard crash is always fraught with self-doubt. Will my nerves overcome my ability to race? Will I be able to ride at the same intensity? It's a struggle for me to put faith in something that has yet to be tested. Even if that thing is myself.

The Thursday Night Worlds race takes place on a car racing track so the pavement is great and plenty wide. A great venue for someone to get their race-legs back. I got there early and did a few warm up laps. Well, the LOOK wasn't doing so well... It seems that, despite the "clean bill of health", my rear derailleur was coming dangerously close to my spokes when in the upper cogs of my cassette. This in itself wasn't that big of a deal. To make matters worse, my chain was slipping in the top 5 (17 - 25 tooth cogs) of my ten speed cassette. I tried fiddling with the barrel adjuster on the derailleur, I even tried bending the derailleur back, all to no avail.

As if my post-crash nerves weren't bad enough, now I had to deal with technical problems nagging at the back of my mind. Great.

The race went off with out a hitch and I got in an early 4 man break (very early, about 1/2 a lap in). I had one team mate with me and all four of us took even pulls as we made our way around. We had a good 1/2 lap lead when me and one other rider (John from the Wolverine Cycling Club) started to fade. My teammate and the other rider pulled away and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. It was John and I pulling each other around the track for the next 45-60 minutes, while the inevitability of the encroaching pack loomed a turn or two behind us.

Neither of us had the strength to keep them at bay, and, as we approached a long windy straight, we were swallowed up and spit out the back.

From then on, it was just a matter of survival and I managed to latch on to the back of a group of stragglers for a lap or two only to be shelled out the back as my calves cramped up. I was cooked. I threw it into the 39 and spun the remaining laps until I got lapped (and pulled) with two laps remaining. Welcome back.

Even though the outcome wasn't what I wanted, this race definitely served it's purpose. Consider the cobwebs blown off and my funk officially de-funked.

Team Training

I'm a solo artist. I like solitude. I really enjoy riding alone and I do most of my riding by myself. That said, I've been neglecting some crucial areas of my racing development.

This was made abundantly clear last night when I joined my cycling club for the weekly team training night at a local auto race track. My club rents the track every Tuesday night. I've been meaning to get up there but, I figured I could get just as good a work out on my own. I figured wrong.

The training session was about 2 hours long and consisted of some fast paceline work, a gear-restricted race (39x18) and an all out race (any gear) and then ended with some more paceline work as a cool down.

Here's what I learned in those 2 hours:

1. I'm terrible at cornering in a group - I loose about 2 bike lengths on the wheel ahead of me each time we enter a turn. My confidence had improved by the end of the session, but this is for sure an area I need to work on.
   
2. My pack riding comfort needs help. I've always thought I was a pretty steady rider but I found myself getting nervous. Again, I felt a lot more comfortable by the end of the session, but it's something I'm going to work on.
   
3. I'm pretty freaking strong - I finished 4th in both practice races, and this was in the A group...

The thing that's holding me back most is number 1 and 2 listed above. I'm definitely making it a point to go to these training sessions more often - some things can't be learned on your own....

das Tour de Frankenmuth

This morning was the Tour de Frankenmuth. The race took place in the quaint village of Frankenmuth, Michigan. It's a flat course through neighboring farmlands and the wind usually plays a critical factor in the race. Not today, but we did have temps in the 50s with rain. Felt like what I imagine racing in Belgium is like.

The race was about an hour and a 1/2 drive form my house, so with a race start at 8:00 AM, I had to get up pretty damn early. Got to the race pretty damn groggy, picked up my race packet and waited the prerequisite 15 - 20 minutes to take a crap... Damn coffee and waffles... I swear, bike racing must be some sort of laxative or something, cyclists shit more than any one I've seen. Is it nerves? Maybe it's a hyperactive digestive system....

Any way, checking the air pressure on my tires and, pssssstttttt.... Slow leak around my valve stem. I only had one tube with me so I swapped it out and filled up the new one very carefully. I've been buying these cheap tubes ("Q-Tubes") and they suck. The valves are the biggest pieces of shit ever, I blew through two tubes last night and the one this morning makes three, just from faulty valve stems.

My tire/tube issues a thing of the past, I warm up for about 20 minutes and then downed a power bar (I learned my lesson from last week when I bonked like I've never bonked before - I need to eat). I stuffed an Enervit gel and cheer pack in my jersey and loaded up my water bottles.

Embrocation time - I used some impermeable stuff by Born, it's pretty good for this type of weather, it's like Vaseline but with a slight warming effect.

Lining up I was amazed at the sheer amount of racers - the Cat 4 race was at capacity and the Cat 5 race they actually split into 2 groups! Is this some type of cycling resurgence we are witnessing??

47 miles for us, three laps. Just as we rolled away from the start/finish it really started to rain. It had been raining on and off all morning but it really came down hard for a period of 15 to 20 minutes.

The course was pretty flat and on narrow farm roads which made moving around in the pack pretty difficult. I was feeling a little nervous for some reason and it took me longer than usual to get comfortable in the pack. I stayed put for almost the entire first lap and just hung with Pete and Mark from my team. All in all, pretty uneventful first lap.

Second lap - moved up a in the group a bit. got first hand experience of the benefits of a sports drink. I also discovered a new gel flavor that I like - it's "Cola" flavored gel by Enervit - it tastes like gummy cokes, which just so happens to be my favorite candy of all time. Yum.

Last lap - moved up to the front third of the pack. HUGE crash just to my left as we hit the second to final straight-away. I avoided it (thank god) it looked nasty. The funny thing with crashes is, you hear them before you see them. This one sounded horrible - tires popping, carbon snapping, the sound of grunts as bodies hit the pavement. I hate seeing crashes, it always freaks me out. This was no exception and it took a lot of the wind out of my sails. I left the final sprint to the braver souls as I took the final turn at a respectable speed.

Finish - 22nd

Kudos to fellow Flying Rhino, Rodney who won the Cat 4 race by a bike length!

Welcome to Cat 4...

I recently upgraded to a Category 4 road racing license. This equals longer races and bigger fields. I decided to upgrade, not because I was cleaning up in Cat 5, (of the two races I did last year and the year before, I didn't even finish in the top ten) but because I wanted to do longer races. For me, racing isn't only about winning, it's about the challenge and I just wanted more challenge than the 30 mile races that Cat 5 could provide.

Well, I guess I should have been careful what I wished for.

Saturday was the Tour of Kensington Valley. It's a hilly (by Michigan standards) 13 km loop that has a nasty little gravel section, complete with "Michigan Pave" (potholes). As a newly knighted Cat 4, my race was 7 laps, roughly 92 km. Far and away the longest race I've done in 7 years... I figured I've been doing some 100+ km rides the last couple of months so this wouldn't be that big of a deal.

To say this was an error in judgment would probably be a gross understatement...

For starters, it was rainy, windy and cool. Not that I mind, I don't have a problem with riding in crappy conditions. Actually, I was glad it was raining. Any additional liquid being absorbed into my body was something I welcomed gladly. More on that later...

The race started off great - I was feeling really good, my 8 year old bike wasn't protesting at all and I was feeling at home in the peloton despite my extended absence. There was a pretty serious crash on lap 1 on a bumpy descent and I managed to avoid it. I even was taking some good pulls upfront to reel in a group of three that managed to go clear on lap 3. That's when things started to go awry.

I noticed I was starting to get some slight cramping in my left quad. It was especially prevalent while climbing but nothing too serious. I just figured I need to drink more. That's when I noticed that my big water bottle was almost empty. My second water bottle was gone soon after as I tried in vain drink my way back into a hydrated state.

And that's why the rain was a welcome sight. If the sun had been out, I would have overheated and probably had to stop riding. Maybe I should have stopped, but with a $45 entry fee, I figured I might as well get my money's worth and finish.

I became so dehydrated that any pressure applied to the pedals resulted in vice-grip seizures in my quads. I had to put it into a small gear and spin with as little pressure as possible. This made climbing extremely difficult, and on some of the steeper climbs, I almost came to a complete stand-still.

In addition to being dehydrated, I only had one gel packet with me, and apparently, this was no where near enough. I bonked harder than I ever have in my life. I would have eaten the foil packaging that the gel came in if I thought it had some caloric content. At one point, on the last lap, I was starting to see stars and even took a wrong turn because I was disoriented... I seriously thought about quiting but 1) at this point I was determined to see this through, and 2) I still had to get back to my car, which was parked just past the finish.

And finish I did. 36th place... Out a field of 65. I was pretty disappointed. I was shooting for a top 20 but I guess I over-estimated my fitness. Or, maybe it was just a complete oversight on the amount of food/drink needed for a 90+ km road race. Either way, I will make sure I'm prepared with ample food and drink for my next road race.

My Dad and my Uncle decided to come and watch my race. And thank God they did... They had some dough nuts and a couple water bottles in the car and I scarfed down two glazed and downed both bottles as fast as I could. This surge of sugar brought me back to coherence and gave me enough energy to cruise back to the car.

Lessons learned:

• Hydration is important in longer races
  
• So is food...
  

Well, some lessons are best learned the hard way -

Pre-Race Rituals

As one of my first "big" races draws near, my mind starts reeling with all the things I need to prepare. Bike in good working condition? What are the weather conditions supposed to be like for the big day? Clothing/kit selections? Is my kit clean? So much stuff to worry about... Maybe that's why we have certain routines and rituals, so all those little tasks just become automatic.

Here's my pre-race ritual - welcome to the inner sanctum!

Thursday (assumes race on Saturday):

• Make sure cycling team kit is clean, layout on duffel.
  
• Throw race wheels on the bike and go for a minimum of 1.5 hour ride. Make sure everything is in good working order. Pay special attention to shifting and breaking and any weird noises. Fix as necessary.
  
• Clean the bike thoroughly and lube.

Friday:

• Shave the legs - this is probably my only superstitious thing. I always shave my legs the day before a race.
  
• Go for a short ride just to make sure shifting is still good.
  
• Check air pressure on spare wheels. Top off as necessary.
• Pack:
  
• Helmet and shoes - these always go in first, since you can still technically race without the other stuff.
• Water bottles - another important one
• Glasses - tinted for sun and yellow for rain
  
• Undershirt(s) - one long sleeved, one short sleeved, and one sleeveless
• Arm and knee warmers
• socks (two pair)
• Gloves - fingerless and cool weather gloves
• Cycling cap
• Gillet
  
• Assos Chamois Cream
• Mad Alchemy Embrocation
• Tool box
• Chain lube & rags
• Spare tube
• Spare wheels
  
• 2 Towel
• Post race change of clothes and running shoes
• A couple granola bars - one for on the way to the race and one for after
• During-race food (gels, fig newtons, sports drink)
• Water jug
• Stationary trainer
  
• iPod
• Race License - it's in my wallet, just so I don't forget
• directions to race

• Load up the car (except for my clothes and the bike.)
  

Saturday:

• Up and at 'em...
• Breakfast: typically waffles or oatmeal, nothing too heavy. Oh, and coffee, lots of coffee...
• Get dressed: I just suit up in my race gear and drive to the race in it. That way, if I'm running really late, I'm already dressed.
• Fill up the water bottles and jug and load into car
• Load up the bike
• I'm off...

• At the race: register and pin on numbers - warm up
• Put on embrocation if race conditions dictate
• Line up!
  

Pre-race ritual can be driven by necessity, obligation or superstition. For cyclists, everybody's ritual is a little different. They all share the same end goal, to create consistency in a sport where anything can happen...

Off to the races!

The First Race of the Season

My first race was on Saturday. It was a training series that my club puts on at an auto racing track. It's a nice race to get your feet wet since the pavement is in pretty good shape, there aren't any sharp turns and if you get dropped or lapped, your car isn't that far away. They divide the race into A, B, and C categories. I chose to race in the B category.

Having raced MTB, 'cross and road, I'd have to say that road racing still comes out on top as the most intense. Cyclocross is a harder effort, but the high speeds and rider proximity of road racing make for one helluva' adrenaline loaded experience. Maybe downhill racing could beat it but I don't have the nerve for that.

Lining up for the race, I was quickly met with some of the, how shall I say, less favorable personalities of the sport... One gentleman looked my bike up and down and, with out so much as a "hello" or "hey", proceeded to comment on the relatively high cost of my bike compared to his and his teamate's. Let's get something straight. My bike is a Look 285, and it's about 8 years old. A lot of the parts and components on the bike have been discontinued and have been out of production for at least 4 years. So it by no means is something that should induce envy of any sort. Maybe it's because these gentlemen were MTBer's (a fact made obvious by the goatees and Time ATAC's they were rockin'...) and maybe in mountain bike racing the most expensive bike usually wins. Their compulsion to comment was influenced by the threat of the perceived value of my bike. Whatever the case may be, it's personalities like those two that lend credence to negative stereotypes...

Once we started, all that BS was forgotten. Nothing to think about except the race at hand. All in all, the race was pretty uneventful. It's was a really fast pace (ave speed around 25-30 mph) I sat in the peloton most of the time with a couple of short attacks off the front (short because I couldn't sustain them, it's still too early for me). It was fun just the same. One of my teammates took third, and I finished with the bunch somewhere in the top 20. As for the two that were scoping out my rig at the start, I beat one of them and finished a couple bike lengths behind the other - so maybe they had a right to feel threatened!

2010 Cyclocross World Championship - Quiet without Boom

Is the apocalypse nigh?? Lars Boom will not be competing in the 2010 Cyclocross World Championship to instead focus on the Spring Classics. He's not entirely hanging up the cyclocross bike, he plans on racing 5 cyclocross races "just for fun". Cyclocross Mag has the full article.

Ghosts of My Past - Estes Park Challenge - Stage 3 RR

This is it. the final stage. A 9 mile loop of hilly hell that we would have to traverse 5 grueling times. After the road race and time trial from yesterday, my legs are a bit fatigued. Maybe gelatinous would be a better description. I tried to scope out the course by car last night but ended up getting lost on some crazy canyon road in the dark. Oh well, sometimes I feel like the less I'm prepared, the better I do. Less pressure.

I get a short warm up in and it's time to line up. A few riders exchange nervous banter while waiting for the start. Why is it that people can't just sit in silence. Is it nerves? The gun interrupts my pondering and were off.

The peloton moves along with a comfortable ease, legs a bit fatigued from the previous day. The first 2 and a half to 3 laps continue at this pace, feeling almost too easy. I'm up near the front to keep out of trouble (and to keep an eye on the overall leader), riding along, maybe even getting a bit lax... When, bam! an attack goes clear. The leader isn't in it so nobody responds. I sit, watching the group of 5 or 6 riders pull away. I could catch them still, if I really put the hammer down but another minute and it will be a different story.

I go. This is a hands in the drops, head low, big ring pain fest, but I know I can bridge the gap. Inching closer, I notice a shadow on my left side. A glance back and I realize that I've towed the entire peloton up to the lead group. Good for me...

One big happy family again. Everyone plays nice until the first hill on lap 4. It's a steepish number, not particularly long but a leg burner just the same. Who decides to attack? The leader himself. Stockburger. No one chases... What the hell?? Do I have to do everything? So I go. I get right on his wheel and sit in. That wasn't too tough. I look behind me and we've put some distance between us and the peloton. This is crazy. I'm on a possible winning break with the overall leader of the Estes Park Challenge.

I take a turn or two up front until we get to the false-flat downhill that precedes the start/finish. Then Stockburger hides behind my ample draft and lets me pull him all the way to the next hill. We cross the start/finish line, 1 lap to go....

I'm feeling good but getting nervous. I can't panic but the gravity of my situation is setting in. I'm in second place and there is the slim possibility that I could win (if I don't do something stupid). I glance behind me as we start the climb, the peloton is back there but I don't think we'll have to worry about them catching up.


That's me in the dark blue looking a little haggard, sitting in second place in stage three of the Estes Park Challenge.

All the sudden Stockburger stands up and he's gone. Damn... I go WAY in the red just to match his acceleration and proceed to blow up... Damn. Next thing I know, the peloton is passing me and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm now with the stragglers that the peloton dropped. I get in with a small group of 5 or 6 and we take turns up front on the final downhill before the finish.

I've got nothing left for the finish. That last hill is going to eat me for breakfast and it seems everyone in the group knows it. They all attack in unison and I put forth everything I've got to pull even with the last guy in the group as we cross the line.

21st place. Stockburger won (not that I was surprised). Race over. That was my first and only stage race.

What did I learn from all this? Well, it was something another rider said to me that I've held onto over the years. A Vitamin Cottage rider came up to me after the race and told me that I rode really aggressively, and that he thought that if I had played my cards better, I could have beaten Stockburger. He said I worked too much at the front and chased down too many breaks over the course of the race. I needed to conserve more energy and not to expend it unwisely. And most of all, to be patient. It's funny, at the time, I was probably a little taken aback by what he said. But as I've aged, I realized he was absolutely right.

Final overall: 17th place.

Ghosts of My Past - Estes Park Challenge: Part 2

...Continuation from yesterday's post


Actual photos of the race courtesy of my wife - The start

The Peloton, with John and I tucked nicely in the middle, rolls out from the start. As soon as we reach cruising speed, I start making my way closer to the front. Ideally I want to be among the first 10-15 guys. John is content to stay mid-pack so I bid him farewell.

I pick my way through the pack by waiting for small gaps to open and very subtly, but deliberately, moving my front wheel into those gaps with the rest of my bike gradually following. If there's one thing I've learned about riding in a pack, it's no sudden movements. Even when moving quickly, it's done with a gradual merging so as not to upset the flow of the peloton. I get to where I want to be nearly without incident. Nearly, because at one point, I get forced onto the gravel shoulder, but work my way back onto the tarmac with an outstretched elbow (and some slight contact), encouraging the rider to my left to give me my strip of road back.

The first climb begins, some racers accelerate and some seem to move slightly quicker than standing still. the peloton no longer exists as one cohesive unit. The rider in front of me feels like he is going backwards, so I stand on the pedals and go around him. I do the same to the next couple of guys and all of a sudden, I'm up front. Just me and a rider in a blue Polo Sport jersey. He puts the hammer down and I grab his wheel, we manage a small gap, but as we summit and begin the descent, I look back to see the peloton already gaining.

I put my hands into the drops, and shift to the big chain ring as the Polo Sport rider and I increase our speed. Just behind me, I hear the familiar cacophony of multiple shifts being made, the peloton is back with us. The descent continues, pretty much straight down with a couple of sweeping bends, not too bad even for a nervous descender like me. We are going really fast now and a couple of racers begin to pass me. My nerves start to protest the speed. I look down at my computer... 54 miles per hour. What would happen if my front tire were to flat at this speed? I try not to think about it, but fear insists that the vivid imagery stay front and center in my brain. A sweeping right-hand bend sneaks up on me and I feel the overwhelming urge to grab the brakes, but I know all too well what happens with forceful braking mid-turn. I take comfort in the riders in front of me taking the corner faster than I am. If they can do it, so can I. I don't really believe it but that's what I keep telling myself so I can relax. That, and there's this little trick I play on my brain...

The trick plays off nothing more than classical conditioning. The brain is conditioned so that when the brakes are applied, the bike slows. Therefore, the squeezing of the brake levers is associated with the decrease in speed. What I do when a descent makes me nervous is rather than grabbing the brake lever, I grab the shift lever that sits right behind the brake and squeeze that. For those of you with Campagnolo Ergo shifters this will make sense. The brakes don't engage and the bike doesn't slow, but my brain associates that squeezing with slowing down. It helps calm the nerves. Any other bad descenders out there with Campy shifters should give it a try, it works pretty well.

We arrive at the bottom and I'm still with the group. The peloton chills out on the long flat section leading up to the next climb. Gotta conserve... Then what in the hell am I doing up front again? I move back a few riders to get some draft. This is where I want to be.

Next climb, not much to this one, not steep, no turns, not that long. Everyone stays together as we top the hill and begin the next descent that leads to the start/finish. I know from my course reconnaissance that this descent SUCKS. It's steep and twisty with a couple of off-camber 90 degree turns and a couple of switchbacks. Just the type of thing you want to negotiate with 100 other cyclists at 40 mph.

We gain speed and I'm already feathering the brakes in anticipation of that first turn. Riders pass me and I join in with a group of 5 or 6 guys going roughly my speed. We get to the first turn, it's an off-camber 90 degree asphalt monster waiting to shear the flesh off some poor racer's hindquarters. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of red on my right side, this guy is going to try and pass on the outside! He's got way too much speed going into the turn and he just continues in a straight line. I see him shoot off the side of the road, bike and rider totally airborne, and, out of my periphery, I see the cloud of dust and debris that marks his eventual landing. I imagine he's badly injured, there was an old post and wire fence running along the road and he may have hit it. Best not to think about it now, my nerves can't handle it.

After witnessing the crash, the peloton negotiates the rest of the descent with more caution. Great, now I can keep up... We round the last 90 degree, right hand turn (again, off-camber - which will be fun on the final lap when everyone is jockeying for position for the inevitable sprint) and begin the slight uphill straight to the start/finish line. I cross the line in about 10th position, right where I want to be at this point in the race. 5 more laps to go.


Lap 1, descent just before Start/Finish

Laps 2 through 5 go by with out event. I chase down a few more breaks and eat a gel packet on lap 4 and the Polo Sport rider and I launch a flimsy attack on the first climb of lap 5. The peloton catches us with minimal effort and I fall back into place in the group. The group descends and climbs as one and I'm right where I want to be coming into that final, tricky descent. If I can hold position, make it around that final off-camber right-hander... My uphill sprint is pretty good... I could win.

To be continued...

Ghosts of My Past: Part 1

During the winter months, as the temperature plummets, thoughts often turn to warmer times and of races gone by. Today, I find myself in just such a retrospective mood, where thoughts have turned to races in my past.

I've never won a race. Placed top 10 lots of times. Placed top 20 even more. Even stood on the podium once. But I've never been first across the finish line. Not sure whether it's a physical or mental thing, but my suspicion lies with the latter. My point is, the races I recount are the ones that stand out in my mind. Maybe they stand out because they were epic, or very difficult, or maybe I did something really well or made a dumb mistake. Either way, this won't be a brag-fest or a bloated recount of my palmares.


The Race: Estes Park Challenge Stage Race
Date: June 23 and 24, 2001

My first (and only) stage race. It was also my first race involving an overnight stay at a hotel. I was just coming off of a nice top 10 finish at the Andy Finch Memorial race so I knew my form was coming around, besides, I had been training like it was my job (much to the chagrin of my wife and my actual employer).

Being nestled in the Rocky Mountains, this race promised some REAL climbing. My climbing was above average so I thought good results were in my future. The goal I set for myself was a top 20 overall, my secret goal: top 10 with a podium spot on one stage.

Checking into the hotel was a very cool experience. Racers everywhere, multi-thousand dollar bikes laying against the front desk, lining the halls, it was crazy. I felt like a PRO, even though I was racing Cat 4. The "PRO" experience continued in a large conference hall where registration took place. We all gathered to receive a pre-race briefing, complete with course maps and racer schwag bags then it was dinner and off to bed. Tomorrow bright and early, the first stage awaits...

Slept like crap. Got up early, made some crappy coffee in the hotel coffee pot, then made some crappy oatmeal in the same pot. Did a quick check of the bike and my wheels, pinned on my numbers and suited up. The morning was cool and foggy, calling for arm warmers and knee warmers. I wanted to get in a practice lap and scope out the course before the race start.

The course was an 8 mile loop with a couple of decent climbs, unfortunately for me, both climbs were followed by blistering descents. The first one, I topped out at 49 mph, according to my computer. I'm a terrible descender, there wouldn't be any lasting breakaways for me. I will get ahead on the climbs and just try and stick with the group on the the way down. Back to the Start/Finish and it's almost starting time. Racers are out warming up, doing quick little bursts to and fro, like spandex clad hummingbirds. I find my buddy John amid all the chaos and exchange some nervous pleasantries. We talk strategy for a bit. He's talking about how we can get in a break and he'll work for me, but I know that once we start, I won't see him until the finish. John can climb and descend like crazy, but his starts are horrible and it takes his engine a long time to warm up.

Loudspeaker crackles on - "Cat 4 men - 5 minutes to start." Quick trip to the Porta-John and it's line up time. WOW... There must be over 100 racers lining up (actually it was 93). John and I nestle into the middle of the group. Loudspeaker again, telling us about the rolling enclosure, the yellow line rule, neutral support, etc.

"Racers get ready..."
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Crack! The pistol fires and the peloton slowly rolls forward. I clip my foot in and the race has begun.

To be continued....