Well if last weekend’s racing was a hit this weekend was a miss. In other words as good as the racing played out last week, this week’s racing played out equally and oppositely bad. Great races put on by Duke close to home this weekend and there were no excuses other than poor race tactics and weak legs, hopefully more the former than the latter, for my poor performance.
Saturday’s race was set up for two laps around a 13.5 mile course then turning to finish up a steep hill. The course was full of short but steep punchy climbs one after another. I knew going in it was going to be tough for me to be there at the end as I havnt found my climbing legs yet nor have a reached the point in my training where I am peaking to have the power to hang when the field smashes it up those inclines. That being said though I was looking for a top ten and a good hard training ride. As the race started I sat in staying calm and feeling pretty good through the first half of the last lap sitting about 15th wheel in a relatively large 40 man field. Then for no particular reason I started to move up hard on the inside up a climb as the field slowed and as I neared the front I saw a group of four attacking off the front about 75 yard up the road. As I was moving up already for some reason I jumped and put out a really hard effort to bridge to the break. Not really sure what made me make this move as 1. I didn’t know who was in the break and who was in the field so I didn’t know how legit the break attempt was and 2. I was to weak to stay in a break anyway on a course like this.
It seemed I quickly forgot what made me so successful last week, namely not always being the strongest guy but being one of the smartest racers: Sitting on wheels, saving energy, using what little power I have when I know I need to and saving it at all other times or in other words making what I got count. As I caught the break though we hit another hill and the other four guys went hard again and I couldn’t hold on. So I started to float back thinking well Il just go back to the field. However little did I know my move had blown the front of the field into pieces with groups of two or three tryng to bridge up to us worried we were going to go. So as I was reeling from the effort I made I was getting swarmed by groups of riders trying to catch the break. Finally Kevin from Duke came by me on his teammates wheel and yelled “ come on” so I mustered up what little I had and jumped on his wheel. I sat there for a minute or two and recovered just enough to start surfing wheels up through the groups. Eventually these little chase groups caught the leaders and started to form a new peloton and by the end of the first lap I finally caught back to the end of the now lead group of about 15-20 riders. Problem was I had burned all the matches in my book through this first lap frenzy of bridging then chasing and therefore about a quarter lap through the second lap I fell out the back with five other guys and the lead two B women.
I did have some really unrealistically high expectations for Sunday though. I ended up taking the morning off from the collegiate race to go to church and save what little I had left for the Ninth Street Derby 4/5 public race in the evening. Realistically I had just done a hard race the day before and was sore and the other open racers were fresh and ready to race. On top of that was the fact that this was my first “bigger” crit with cash payout, downtown, with crowds and an announcer and therefore most of the best 4/5 crit racers in the area. With all of this however I wanted to be up there real bad. My family was up this weekend and had come to watch and I really liked the downtown course.
I lined up on the front row but other had squeezed in tightly to make it to the front as well. When the whistle blew I went but because of the close quarters the guy beside of me swerved into me causing me to miss my clip and so by the first corner I was already about ¾ of the way back in a 60+ man field. Honestly though I didn’t think it was a big deal. For the most part in collegiate crits the first few lap are civil and you can move up relatively easily. But by the time we made the second turn on the back stretch I noticed huge gaps in the field and the leaders already taking the third turn about .2 miles up the road. So I started moving up hard skipping from one wheel to the next until I ran out of wheels and there was about a 75 yard gap from me to the field. So I put my head down and started trying to close the gap. I did manage to start closing it down and catching other riders coming out the back of the field. Eventually I had it down to only about 30 yards to the field and it was at this time I glanced back and noticed I was pulling a group of about 7 other riders and I heard the announcer say here comes the chase group and they look like they aren’t giving up. So I pulled off and decided to let some of these other guys finish closing the gap. Bad Idea. As soon as I latched on the back the pace slowed and there was never an organized pace line formed to chase. We quickly fell to about a half a lap behind the field and I started to go to the front again when we came through the finish and Judy the chief ref pointed at us and told us we were getting lapped to drop out. It was about this time a single guy came by us screaming for us to move and I pulled to the side.
It was over that fast. 12 minutes into a 45 minute crit. Needless to say I was bummed…disappointed…frustrated…and…confused. What had happened? From the gun the field had attacked full bore stretching out the field and causing gaps from riders who couldn’t hang on and thus gapping off over half the field because when all the lapped riders were pulled there were about 20 guys left in the race. I also found out that the lead rider who ended up soling off the front lapping the field and then going off the front and almost lapping the field a second time had won every race he had entered and had no business in a 4/5 field. That doesnt matter though, fact is I was at the wrong place at the wrong time and this wasn't my race.
I had really hoped to learn a lot from this crit to prepare for the shamrock coming up in three weeks. I did learn one thing: stay up front until the group settles down and don’t get stuck in the traffic falling off the back. I really don’t know what else to say about the whole weekend except that I made stupid mistakes and things just didn’t work out.
That’s bike racing though. Reminds me of an Adam Myerson video taken after he crashed himself out of a cross race and was crying saying he was so close and he had the form but missed the opportunity.
Watch more video of Adam Myerson on cyclingdirt.org
Its just stupid bike racing....
The fact is in bike racing unless you are just superiorly stronger than the other guys in your race, the opportunity to win a bike race doesn’t come around that often. It is rare that all the stars line up and you find yourself in the right place at the right time to have an opportunity to win at the end. You have to cherish those races when things go your way and not be disappointed when in every race it doesn't. This is why when everything comes together and you win it is so sweet and when you have the opportunity and don’t win it is so disappointing because you know it may be awhile before things come together to give you that opportunity again. Last week, the stars aligned and things came together which makes winning seem easy. This however leads to stupid mistakes the next week because you think it was easy and forget how smart you had to be to get in the position to make it easy. That’s bike racing though things happen and you’re just another member of the peloton again until next week when you hope the stars align again to find you in the front at the end with the finish line in your sights.
Great perspective, Brandon.
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