My shortest race was a 200M track sprint. It took all of 13 secs and, to add some technical difficulty, included exactly 1 left hand turn. The experience was super intense – head down, ears pressed flat, legs spinning as fast as humanly possible, blood roaring through ears, completely spent then recovery. My longest race was the Cherry Blossom Stage race (CBSR) just completed. This four-stage race took 5 hrs to complete spread over 4 days but strangely, included all the experiences of the track sprint……and a few more…although significantly more corners.
The Columbia Hills Road race (stage 1) consisted of 2 laps of an 18 mile circuit with about 2000ft of climbing just north of The Dalles. More than 70 Cat 4 riders started including several other Cat 4 HVers: Mexican, Neighbor, Kid, Quiet Achiever, Ryan and McDreamy.
The part of the course that could be my undoing if it wasn’t ‘managed’ appropriately was a 1.5 mile stretch that averaged 5% grade. This promised to be a challenge for the stouter riders – not so much the grade, but its length – just a bit too long to power over. The field would surely break apart during this climb.
I made sure to be near the front at the roll-out and settled in behind the Mexican on the right side of the road so as not to worry about drifting over the centerline. Initially, the pace was moderate with the occasional acceleration. The group stayed together until the climb about 9 miles into the lap. One of the benefits of riding in a large field is that unless you are stone motherless last there is always someone behind you. I made sure reach the start of the hill in the first third of the pack and from there kept an even tempo concentrating on not red-lining. This seemed to work and although I had drifted back through the pack, I had LOTS of company. I settled in behind fellow Clyde, AH and we summitted the hill together. The descent looked glorious as it stretched off into the green Oregon distance. The benefit of being in fairly good riding shape is that recovery time after extended efforts is fairly short. It was only a few seconds before we ramped up the cadence and bolted down the road ‘doggy-style’– heads down, butts up, like two dogs at an arse-sniffing convention.
We soon came across the now infamous Cat 4 Cherry Blossom crash of ‘10 – the only major bingle of the entire race. According to Quiet Achiever’s computer they were doing 35 mph at the time and some must have fallen hard. We arrived about a minute after it happened. It was like a war-zone, there were bikes, bodies and fragments of carbon strewn across the entire width of the road and even a couple down the embankments off the road to the left. Several race cars had pulled up behind and a race official indicated for us to stop. We came to a halt but were waved through the mess almost immediately. A quick scan failed to spot any HV teammates - somehow they had all escaped the carnage. We learned later that a busted rib and punctured lung was the worst of it.
AH is an excellent time trialist and we quickly made up ground sweeping up riders as we descended. Soon we had a roiling, boiling paceline posse of 10 or so of the heftier blokes in the field. It was a smorgasbord of muscle and fat hurtling down the road at >40 mph resisted only by the wind and the friction of rubber on road. It was a hugely enjoyable display of physics in its purest form. F=M*A indeed.
We caught a large group that included McDreamy, Quiet Achiever and Ryan about 10 miles down the road. Our pack, which now numbered about 25, represented the first chase group. We could see the lead group up the road from time-to-time. They were at least 2 minutes ahead. We started to chase in earnest but, frustratingly, it was a haphazard effort with some putting in the work and others content to not work. This resulted in a strange yo-yo action as we sped up and then slowed down as the chasers rested. Then it was the extended climb for the second time. By the time we reached the top our group split into two with me in the second group and McDreamy and Quiet Achiever in the first. Ryan and The Neighbor had been dropped by now.
Assuming our most aerodynamic positions, once again we settled into a downhill chase. Imagine this for a second……a ragtag collection of 15 tall, wide (or both) 1.5+ Contador-unit racers trying to get aero. It must have been quite a sight ………think…… the cast of ‘Free Willy IV - Return of the Pod’ on bikes. No wonder OregonCycling-frickin-Action NEVER takes any pictures of us. However, despite the visual comedy we were fast. The cool mountain air didn’t know what hit it as it was pushed aside quicker than a bride’s nighty on her wedding night by the pod of spandex-clad Orcas.
Nearly at the end now and running out of road. Our mini-peleton was close enough to see the group ahead. If we, the second chase group, could catch the first chase group we would record the same times. Well, we chased hard, made up a lot of ground and got pretty close but we didn’t quite catch them – we needed another 200 yards. In the end I was 6 seconds down on the chase group and nearly 4 minutes down on the lead pack.
It had been a drama-filled day of racing for the Cat 4’s with moderate climbing, blisteringly fast downhill chasing, a crash, more organized chasing, and a mad sprint to the finish. I was pleased to have been in a position to work with others to fight for the race. Also, it was nice to finish strongly in front of the family.
We ended the day at Double Mountain with pizza and an IPA. Heaven.
Highly skewed accounts of Stages 2, 3 and 4 to come……
No comments:
Post a Comment