Race Rehash: Upstate Cycling Weekend, 4-12-08

Race Rehash:

Upstate Cycling Weekend race report. Alright, so this was my first ever cycling road race. The weekend consisted of two days of racing, Saturday at Donaldson Center, five laps, 35 miles, and Sunday at Walnut Grove, two laps, 56 miles. For those of you not familiar with Donaldson Center (heretofore known as DC) this is an airport slash industrial complex that hosts the infamous “Donaldson Center Tuesday Night World Championships”, and is a seven mile loop with one hill and lots of wind. Walnut Grove is described as “a 23 mile loop with nine rolling hills”, however when rolling along at 20 plus miles an hour the term rolling translates to “my tongue is rolling out of my head”.

Anyone who knows me (not in the biblical sense) knows that I have a tendency toward nervous excitement and come Saturday morning I was nervous enough to poop my narrow britches. But I did manage a .001 mile warm-up after pinning my number on, and then toed the line with all of the other Cat 5’s. Holy shite, there are some squirrelly dudes in the Cat 5 pack. We (barely) manage the first lap without any crashes and after going up golf course hill for the second time this guy attacks off the front. No one seems concerned (except me) cuz’ I love to chase and BANG, off I go in pursuit. I catch him and we put our heads down and get into a nice (horrid) pace. After half of a lap of all out suffering it begins to rain and we are joined by another rider. We try to work together but by now the chase was on, and after one full lap of being off the front, we are caught. The peloton however, does not come around, they just sit on our wheels. I look over at my guy and say WTF? We just laugh and say Eff it, lets roll. We roll it for another quarter lap or so but I am getting baked like a potato so I pull off and drop in. Last lap, last hill, the pack drops the hammer, drops me, and my compatriot in pain. And even though we got shelled, we slap hands in salute of a job well done, happy that we at least tried to make something happen and not just sit in the whole race. Jolly Good Show! The rest ov’m.....Wankers the lot….Ha.

On to Sunday I say! Actually I did not plan on racing again but after a huge lunch and 2.5 gallons of sweet tea, it was on! After the Tour de’Bikeshop, I settle in at the Tri-Store, as that’s where they hang on to most of my money for me. I stroll up to Sir Randy and declare that I just might possibly have a “friend” that would gladly take those ratty old used 2007 Zipp 303’s (really….07’s……the horror!) off of his hands for him, as a favour to him of course. Sir Randy declares this to be a right and proper gesture and helps me dispose of a rather large chunk of take-home pay that had been such a bother.

Sunday morning, toeing the line with the Cat 5’s and sporting my 303’s, but sans breakaway buddy, shucks. I have decided to find a suitable wheel and see what I can do. Rolling out, I am pleasantly surprised to find that we are cooking along at a medium boil from the get go. As we hit the first climb though, the pace intensifies and I can sense that this is going to be “it” and it is full on afterburners. Gas it, up we go, and off the back goes half of the pack. Hide from that. As two small groups go up the road, we quickly form a chase at the top of the climb. The pace is at my absolute limit but I hang on and take a pull when I can, though they are short. I think that we are at mile ten at this point. As the race rolls on, it is evident that the climbs are going to make or break us, and it seems that every time we hit one of the steeper slopes, a rider gets shelled. After we hit the second lap I try to take a gu but I can only get about ¾ of it down before we hit the next roller. As we start going up, I can feel the intensity getting to me, causing me to have a moment of self doubt when I realize that they are going to drop me if I let up for one second. I knew that if this happened, my race would be over. At that point I just snapped and thought hell no, I am not going to go out like this, I am going to fight until there is nothing left. Dig a little deeper and up we go. The chase group at this point is down to six or seven riders and we continue to shell a rider here and there until there are four of us at three miles to go. Guy number four, who is taking heroic pulls at the front gets dropped on the final climb but manages to bridge backup and it is still four of us. As we hit the final stretch to the line I snap it into my big ring and give a final push to see what’s left. Not very much evidently as I am way over geared and the other three out sprint me to the line.

Official results: 11^th overall

A wicked good time if there ever was one!