Mount Hood Classic

Seeing as it’s been a month and a half since Mount Hood, I suppose it’s time I tell you what happened.  After a single day of rest and packing in Fort Collins after my trip home, I was on the road again—this time with the team on the way to Hood River, Oregon for the Mount Hood Cycling Classic.  The race was usually a field stacked with pro teams, but with scheduling conflicts this year for other big races, only a few individual pros would be in attendance.  We wanted to win, and had a legitimate shot at it.

We arrived a day early to preride some of the courses, and ended up renting a double-wide vacation home that overlooked the river and parts of the race course—our host housing didn’t work out (8 guys in a studio apartment with one bathroom and no kitchen simply wouldn’t work for a week).

The prologue time trial was a rolling course of a few miles with a nice little hill to finish.  We expected the winning time to be just over 6 minutes.  My full-effort practice run the day before without any aero gear was a 6:50, which was promising.  Ideally, I wanted 2^nd place…. Sounds bizarre, but 2^nd place meant that I would be very close to the race lead without the responsibility of defending it.

From my practice run, I tweaked my pacing a tiny bit and only gave it 95% gas up the starting hill.  I recovered a tiny bit on the subsequent fast downhill, and from then on it was all-out.  There wasn’t much thinking to be done, it was just go, go, go, go harder.  The final 250 meters was a steeper uphill pitch all the way to the line, and I sprinted the whole thing, not even giving the growing pain in my legs a second thought.

When I crossed the line, I had posted the fastest time of the day with just under 6:30.  I expected faster times to come, but they didn’t.  To top it off, Scott snagged 2^nd with a stellar ride of his own.  The top two steps of the podium were taken by a team that Velonews didn’t even acknowledge as a threat at the race….

Stage 1 featured tons of climbing, with two runs up an especially tough 7 mile climb.  The attacks started immediately, and Rio just made sure that the field stayed together by filling in the gaps.  A third of the way into the race, everything was still together when we hit the big climb for the first time.  Ian Boswell on Trek-Livestrong pegged it the whole way up, blowing the field into pieces.  I finally came unhitched about a mile before the top, and killed myself to catch the group of all the GC contenders on the descent.  Normally, I can use my descending skills to make up time in the corners by taking some risks, but this was just a straight-shot descent without many corners, so I would have to catch them with pure speed—a task made tougher by the fact that physics said I couldn’t go any faster than them.

It took me the entire 7 mile descent to close a 15-second gap, and I was none-to-pleased when most of the field caught us just a few miles later.  The second descent on the loop was a ton of fun—the kind where I could just go up to the front and have a good time railing the turns.

To discourage attacks before the final trip up the climb, Scott motored on the front and kept the pace high.  This time, with everyone a bit more tired, we were going just a tiny bit slower up the climb.  I was unhitched about halfway up this time when the attacks started, opting to keep my own pace rather than follow the surges.  Drew came back near the top from a break that had been up the road, and blew himself up to pace me as I began to ramp up my effort.  In the final miles of the climb, I closed the gap to the lead group that included Trevor from about 20 seconds to 5, and caught them relatively quickly on the descent.  We now only had 20 miles to go, and I had Trevor with me to chase down attacks and keep the group rolling to put time into the groups behind.  In the final kilometers, Trevor sat on the front and just motored to discourage attacks, and it worked.  A Cal-Giant leadout took over with a K to go, and I was able to manage 10^th on the stage in the downhill sprint after getting boxed-out 3 different times.  I had lost a few seconds to rivals in time-bonuses, but was still in yellow.

The next morning was the time trial—a fun loop that was predominately downhill and twisty on the way out, and then all uphill and straight on the final leg.  I had the luxury of starting very last as the race leader.  With the heat, I just made sure to loosen up well and get some efforts in beforehand.  

The yellow skinsuit I was wearing was incredibly tight, and oh-so-aero.  I would be counting on the fabled Power of Yellow to win, because I wanted to win both time trials as badly as I wanted to win the whole stage race.

Form fitting, much?

This was the first time I’d ever been followed by the team car in a time trial—they had spare wheels and bikes in the event of a mishap.  With my director and teammates behind me, honking and yelling out the windows, I was spurred onward.  On the downhill leg, I focused on taking the shortest lines possible through the twisty sections, staying low, and hugging the edge of the road for some shelter from the winds.  I took every turn without slowing down—I was not going to waste any time—and sprinted out of the turn before settling down into the bars again.

Stay low to go fast

I had not seen my minute-man at all on the twisty course, but when I made the final turn and popped out on the uphill 5k drag, there he was, just 30 seconds ahead.  The team car behind me continued to honk as I chased the carrot all the way to the line, nearly catching him by the time my aching body rolled across the line in a lactic-acid-induced daze.

Chasing the carrot....

It had been a fast time, we all knew that.  But had I won?!  I was infuriated to learn that I had lost to Nate English by a single piddly second out of nearly 1300 seconds of racing.  Nate needed 4 seconds to take over the race lead, though, so I would be starting the crit that evening in yellow!

The crit was a race that shall live in infamy.  In the first 50 meters of the race, Michael Olheiser (just 20-some seconds down on GC) rolled off the front in the corkscrew turn, and the guy behind him just let him go.  I debated chasing immediately, but decided to let him dangle for a while and burn up all his energy.  

The corkscrew caused some riders to slide out, this time Chase Pinkham right behind me.

My yellow jersey was one big target, and everyone had me marked.  They all looked at me to chase down attacks but wouldn’t do anything if I was there.  I stayed aggressive by attacking and chasing for the first half of the race to keep Olheiser in check.  

Leading the chase

With half the race gone, his lead was a very catchable 15 seconds.  I figured that my job was done and some of the sprinters’ teams would organize to pull him back…but they never did.  

Big field on a small course...tough to move around much

Olheiser was aided by the technical course that slowed the field down but allowed a lone rider to gain time in the turns, and went on to win by 30-something seconds, the new race leader.

The next morning was the final stage, a race with 4 big climbs, and I was second in GC, just a few seconds back.  Without the yellow jersey, I could now go on the attack.  The race started with a long and fast descent, where no breaks would be able to get away.  In the flat miles before the first climb, the field was chaotic on a crappy, half torn-up road that was in the middle of construction.  Just half a kilometer before the first climb, I blew out my front tire on a rough bridge transition.  I quickly stopped and got a wheel and a push from Adam, and raced off to find Chris and John waiting for me.  Those two sprinted me up to the field, which was exploding faster than I would have thought possible.  Riders were nearly standing still as the blew up, while the leaders pulled farther ahead.  I set fire to the whole matchbook to get through them all and close the growing gap, finally rejoining the lead group 5 minutes later.  Then they slowed to a crawl and the field reformed.  I was furious.

After the ripping descent, we made the turn for another trip up the first climb.  This time, I began it among the strongest in the field and was feeling good.  Our group began to whittle down a bit more at the top, and then I felt it....the squishy thump as my rear tire passed over bumps.  I was getting another flat.  I kept riding it as I began sliding back in the pack, telling Trevor about the problem and searching for Drew or John to get a wheel.  I found Drew and he quickly gave me a wheel and a push, and John sprinted me back up to chasing distance of the group.  I finally rejoined just as the group crested the climb.  More needless energy burned.

The snow banks on the sides of the climb had a very cold breeze coming from them.

I recovered as well as I could on the descent.  After the first couple turns, I had to reach back and tighten down my rear brake, as the wheel I got from Drew was much narrower than my original wheel, and the brakes weren't working.

As soon as the road pitched upward again, the strongest riders floored it and raced uphill.  I was spent.  Trevor told me to hang on, that he would pace me up to them, but I didn't have it. It was like the brakes were on and my legs were giving out from all the chasing back on after flat tires.  I told Trevor to ride for himself, and Drew paced me up with a chase group.  We crested the climb, but the leaders were long gone.  As we went through the feedzone, some kind rider behind me told me to open up my brakes....  It turns out, when I had adjusted them after the wheel change, they were rubbing too little for me to notice but enough to make me work harder.  Excellent.

Well, my race was done.  The leaders were gone.  I had given everything, but luck was not on my side this time.  I struggled in to finish 19th on the stage (and GC), whereas Trevor had a great ride and salvaged 5th place for the team.

It was a great race that didn't work out quite like we'd hoped, but it was awesome to wear yellow through all but the last stage!

Carpe Diem

I can't believe it's been over a month since Mt. Hood, and at the same time I can't believe it hasn't been a year since Mt. Hood.  I promise race reports are on the way, they were some resume builders for sure.  After flying back from Nationals, I took a week completely off the bike to just sleep and recover (and get over the sinus crud I picked up somewhere en route to Nats).

As I've said on facebook, big news is on the way, and I promise I'll spill the beans soon enough.

Anyways, while I'm formulating the race reports in my head, I'll share the song I've been stuck on for nearly two weeks now.  It's from a genre of music that most don't want to acknowledge, but the lyrics are amazing.  August Burns Red is one of my favorite bands, and their most recent release steps up their game once more.

The song is called 'Carpe Diem', and I think you can guess why I relate to it:

----

I’ve thrown away all of my outside distractions.
I’m diving headfirst to chase a dream
that I won’t let go.

It’s worthless- a waste of time. This goal is out of
reach. You better fall back in line.


This is what I need. You are what I need. I
need motivation to prove you wrong, and I will
prove you wrong.

What makes you think that you are different? How can
you chase these dreams? They’ve become a chore.


I know I’m close. I’m almost there. Just a
little more, and I will prevail through what
you call “ignorance.” I will prevail. Now I’ve
chased this dream to do what I love, and I
wouldn’t trade it for a thing. Now I’ve chased
this dream, and I made it out alive. I wouldn’t
trade it for a thing. I threw away what naysayers
say, and started on a race that I had to win
for myself.

And you proved me wrong, you proved me wrong.


All I’ve learned is teaching me more. All
I know is driving me on.

Father's Day/How I Got Here

As I write this, the Mt. Hood Race report is fermenting in my head.  Oh, and I have one more day of defending my green jersey before it becomes mine for good and I become Best Amateur at the Nature Valley Grand Prix.

For now, though, I'm finishing my mini-autobiography that I started months ago.  You should probably read part 1 first.

As kids living in Sherman, TX, Shane and I were always looking for ways to entertain ourselves (there's not too much going on there...).  We were always riding our little bikes in the driveway, propping plywood on some bricks and catching some sick air.

We moved to McKinney shortly before I turned 10, and soon thereafter I met Sammy.  We both had an affinity for bikes and tricks and seeing what we could do with them next.  We spent the vast majority of the next few summers on our bmx or mountain bikes, looking for things to use as ramps or building our own.

Sometime during our middle school years, Sammy's mom started for-real mountain biking with some friends, and Sammy got into it as well.  I was not to be left out, so I jumped on my walmart bike and hit the trails, too.  Sammy started racing and was doing really well.  So naturally, I wanted to as well.  Sammy got me my first pair of spandex bike short and a camelbak for my birthday, but I needed a suitable bike....

I don't know how significant this gesture is in the grand scheme of things, but I'm still blown away by it so many years later.  Naomi, a friend and neighbor of Sammy's mom, had just upgraded her mountain bike and was willing to sell me hers for an astonishing $250.  I had to pay for it myself by mowing yards, so it was going to take a little while.  I had $150 saved up, and gave it to her as a down payment.  When I went back a few weeks later to pay the remainder, she said to keep it.  How awesome is that?!  Naomi and her husband Duane still follow my racing, it's great to have people cheering for you!

I had a suitable bike to race, so that's exactly what I did.  It was only a beginner junior race, but I won my first race.  After an exhausting 13 miles:

I had caught the racing bug.  Over the next few years, I worked my way up through the categories in the Dallas MTB Racing series.  Sammy moved on from racing, and with him my mode of getting to trails and my connection to the racing world.  I was only 14 or 15 at the time, and couldn't get myself to the trails.

My dad jumped on the opportunity.  He bought a mountain bike, we loaded up the back of his SUV with our bikes and a spider's web of bungee cords that didn't work at all as intended.  His first time mountain biking, I wiggled my way through a high-speed tight-quarters section of trail and popped out into a field.  Behind me, I heard a skid, thump, oof, leaves rustling.  He waited in the car as I finished my ride.

Never to be left out, my younger brother Shane got into it as well.  My dad got up his nerve again to ride some more trails (albeit a bit more cautiously) and the three of us could not get enough.  Shane and I would hit jumps and then encourage our dad to do the same, which didn't always turn out badly.

He doesn't fly very well.  This ended how you would expect.

Over the next few years, he became the support crew for me and Shane, taking us to races and helping us out there, becoming our photographer as well, and anything else you can think of.  He saw that cycling was something that we were passionate about, and would not pass up a chance to be a part of it with us.

Fast forward a bit, and the three of us got road bikes.  Man, were we a bunch of noobs.

Through college, I worked my way up through the categories, and shifted my focus to the road, rather than the dirt. I worked full-time at Texas Instruments during the summers after my sophomore and junior years, getting real-world engineering experience.

I continued getting faster on the bike, though, and was having more serious thoughts about becoming a bike racer.  So for my final summer in school, I decided not to work but instead to travel the country being a bike racer--turns out I enjoyed it!

I got back very late one night after a cross-country drive to get home, and my dad greeted me with news that his persistent pneumonia was being caused by a large tumor in his lung.  A week later, I was in Chicago when I got the call that the tumor was, in fact, cancerous.  My 50-year old dad had stage IV lung cancer, with spots on his brain and other organs.

As I was finishing school, a lot was going on.  I had decided that I wanted to give bike racing a shot before joining the work force, but was worried about how my parents would feel after 4.5 years of school.  I was watching my dad suffer through his radiation and chemo treatments, and what they were putting his body through.  I was watching the cancer that tried to break his body strengthen his faith in God.  You want to talk about a role model?

Shortly before I graduated, I had a very significant phone call with my dad, during which he told me that I had his full support if I wanted to pursue cycling.  It was an emotional phone call, having my dad tell me to chase my dreams while he's fighting a cancer that he shouldn't have in the first place.  Here's his side of that call.

FYI, my Dad is now listed as No Evidence of Disease!

Now, just halfway through the year, I've made an impression at my races--enough that I'm being scouted for 2012.  The hard work is beginning to pay off, but I wouldn't have had the opportunity without the support of my parents, my biggest fans. Thanks for everything, Dad (and Mom!), it means more than you could ever know.

Happy Father's Day!

To close it out, here's three bald goobers:

Home Again

After Joe Martin, my body was thoroughly trashed.  I had just completed my first two NRC stage races with only 3 days “rest” between them.  So we busted it back to Colorado through the night to our own beds, finishing the drive late Monday morning.

The next two nights I was in bed early for two sleeping-so-well-that-you-have-really-bizarre-dreams nights with 10 straight hours of sleep.  I must say, the basement room with nearly zero daylight incoming does wonders for recovery!

Unable to stay in one place for very long, I took the opportunity of the break in our racing schedule and headed for home, where I would play piano with Alan, a teammate from last year at Ian’s (another teammate from last year) wedding.  Spend a year traveling and racing with a group of people and you become great friends, who knew?

My task for the past month has been to learn the song that we would play, which wouldn’t be too complicated if I had a piano to practice on and music to read.  After procuring a roommate’s USB keyboard, I set to work transcribing the piano and guitar parts by ear and with the help of a youtube tutorial of the song.  What can I say, I like a challenge!

After busting out the 13.5 hour drive with one 10-minute stop, I was home, and it was great to see the fam again.

The next day, Shane and I headed for Austin to get ready for the wedding.  Every day’s an adventure when the Haga boys are together…here we are attempting to close the garage door without getting out into the rain, not thinking it through completely:

In Austin, we met up with our buds Alan and Lawson, who was taking enough time off from being a cycling superstar to attend the wedding.  Feeling we should dress to impress, we hit the strip mall in search of the perfect ties to complete our ensemble (pronounced in the frenchiest accent you can muster).  If you happened to be at that particular strip mall, we were the four idiots sprinting down the street in the pouring rain.  We would not let Lawson busting his butt on the sidewalk-to-tile transition into a store hamper our pursuit of the perfect tie.

Our efforts paid off with amazing ties by Alfani (pronounced in the snootiest nasal voice you can muster).

The morning of the wedding, I jumped on the bike early and rode the 50 miles to the wedding site with the groom and best-man, and we were saved from an impending bonk during the rehearsal by the caterer, who had just finished barbequing some chickens.  Barbeque so good, the smell it left on my fingers survived two showers!

Alan and I shredded at the ceremony, in both our four-hands-one-piano duet and me accompanying him on violin.  My plan of taping the music to the piano to conquer the winds worked perfectly!  That sheet music wasn’t going anywhere.  However, it probably would have been better to tape the pages in the correct sequence, and to discover the mistake sometime before playing it in the ceremony.  Just guessing, though.

Sometime during the next week, I went for a long ride at home.  It was a warm day—nearly 90 degrees, a good 20 degrees warmer than a hot day in Fort Collins right now.  I stopped twice to refill bottles, drinking a total of 170 oz. of fluids in 4 hours, and still overheating to the point that my power numbers looked the same as climbing a mountain at 9000ft….  Oh how my heat tolerance has faded!  It was good to know, though, as that Friday night was a big-money crit in my hometown and I needed money!

On Thursday, my parents got back from their trip to MD Anderson in Houston for my dad’s 12-week checkup, where they learned that he is now “In Treatment, No Evidence of Disease,” which is apparently as close to remission as a an advanced lung-cancer patient can get.  We’ve known from the results of his previous checkups that the trial drug he is on was making significant progress, but even still none of us were surprised at the news (or at least I wasn’t). Ever since his diagnosis a year ago, many many people have been praying for him and we trusted that he would be healed.  Couple this news with the fact that my parents would be seeing me race for the first time since his diagnosis last year, and it was a great time to be home! If you want to read up on my dad’s story, here ya go: canceron2wheels.blogspot.com 

The crit was a lot of fun, racing late at night under the streetlights in my hometown.  I had a front row callup, which is always cool.  Also cool was friends from college coming out to watch the race, and getting to catch up with them a little bit.  Taylor, Matt and Kathleen, Steve and Rita…I met them all when I was a cat 4, just learning how to rotate in a paceline.

I made sure to animate the racing all night long, getting in a break on the very first lap.  Nothing I was in ever stayed away longer than a lap, but it was not for lack of effort.  It’s nice coming down from altitude to race, as it takes approximately 3 seconds to recover from a hard effort (or at least it feels that way).  There were 3 or 4 consecutive laps at one point where I attacked at the same place each lap.  It was clear that I was on a very short leash, though, reminding me of my collegiate racing days….  There were only two two-man breaks all night that stayed away for more than a couple laps, and once I bridged to them, they were caught within a lap. Frustrating, but when the field wants a bunch sprint there’s not much to be done about it.

I kept trying for a break up till 2 laps to go, then jumped back into the field and managed 11^th in the field sprint.  Far from what I was hoping, but making a month’s rent in 75 minutes is always good!  10 hours later, I was back in the truck heading for Fort Collins again, where I would have one day to rest and prepare for the next trip—this time to Hood River, Oregon for the Mount Hood Classic.

Southern Racing

It’s been too long since I’ve updated, but you’ll get over it.  I’m just gonna say I was building the suspense.

After the grueling Gila Monster stage, we headed back to the host houses and packed up so we could knock out the first leg of the drive from Silver City to Albuquerque.  Mind you, I slept very well that night.

The next night found the Rio clan in Oklahoma City eating breakfast for dinner (well, most of us, anyways) at a little place that was peculiar in more ways than one:

The next morning, we finally arrived in Fayetteville, Arkansas (prounounced Are-Kansas).  The weather was great, so we unloaded the bikes and went to ride the loop for the second road race.  A few turned around early, opting for a ride of just over an hour, while the rest of us soldiered on to burn out the gunk in our car-legs.  As luck would have it, storms rolled in and the temperature dropped, and we busted it back to the van in at-times painful rain.

I chose the host home with a piano (turns out they both had one, but no matter), jumping on the opportunity to stretch my fingers during the downtime.  I would be playing piano at a friend’s wedding just a few weeks later, and needed to reacquaint myself with the ivories.

As with every other race on our calendar this year, I have never done it before and was relying on everyone’s accounts of how it usually plays out.  Two themes were recurring: 1) the final day, a crit, would be one of the hardest crits I’ve ever done and 2) my final position in GC would almost certainly be my position in the prologue hill climb time trial.  So I was quite happy to go preride the time trial course the day before racing was to start and figure out the best way to pace it.  I was a bit concerned, though, as the time trial was a tad too short to really suit my strengths right now, at only ~8 minutes long.

The next day, after an agonizing wait that morning and into the afternoon, I suffered through a painful warmup and made it to the startline sweaty (I had taken care of getting the weight of my bike checked much beforehand, thankfully, as it was nearly half a pound too light!).

Warming up was a hot and humid ordeal

There’s not too much to say about the time trial, as it’s a fairly straight 2.5 mile effort that climbs 600 feet.  It is so short that you must simply start out hurting and hurt more and more, then it’s over.  I went as fast as I possibly could, proven by the fact that I was trembling for 20 minutes afterward, but only managed a time of 8:37, good for 26^th place.  I was not the only rider on Rio dissatisfied with my performance, but we still held our hopes for the days to come.  Mancebo won the time trial, and Bissell took 2^nd-4^th.  It seemed as if the battle between RealCyclist and Bissell had finally come to a head after Mancebo’s commanding victories at every stage race thus far.

Whereas every day at Gila was an early-morning start, Joe Martin’s races didn’t start until mid-afternoon, making the task of the day to stuff ourselves as much as possible at breakfast and lunch.  The 109 mile road race for stage one kicked off in the hot sun, and the field was aggressively attacking for the first third.  Finally a small break was established and the Realcyclist team settled in at the front to pull us around on what would become a very boring day.

With only 20 miles or so left to race, we hit a stair-stepping category 4 climb with break nearly in sight.  Even though the final 15 miles were downhill and flat into town—a textbook field sprint—we hit the climb hard.  And then something happened that has not happened all season: the RealCyclist Team cracked, leaving Mancebo all alone at the front.  Bissell leapt at the opportunity and began throwing attacks.  Seeking to avenge the previous day’s letdown, and seeing a real opportunity for a break to stick now, I found myself in a few moves and countermoves.  Mancebo fought hard to bring everything back, and we crested the top as a big group.  His teammates rallied once again at the front, and the field began preparing for the forecasted field sprint.

The finish featured two punchy rollers a kilometer out and then a false flat final 300 meters to the line.  I was only concerned about finishing without any time gaps to the front of the race like at Stage 2 of Gila, so I fought all the way to the line to close gaps that were opening.  Thankfully Trevor, Ian, and I finished with the leader’s time and maintained our GC positions.

That evening, I stuffed myself as much as I could handle, but knew that I was still a bit short on calories for the day….

The stage 2 road race was a 106-mile affair, and another hot one.  It was going to be  a long day, as my over-soft bed at the host house had wreaked havoc on my back, and it hurt to do much of anything.  This day, a break got away quickly, and RealCyclist immediately set a hard pace at the front. After the previous day, I seriously doubted that they could maintain the effort for too long.

At the beginning of the second lap, chaos broke loose on the punchy climb through the feedzone that we hit at what seemed a full sprint.  Riding at the front to protect Mancebo’s leads at several stage races had taken its toll, and they were well and truly broken.  They had it in reverse going up the hill, and Mancebo attacked to bridge to the break that was just ahead.  The field caught quickly, and now just 25 miles into the race Mancebo was alone without teammates.  Bissell tasted the blood in the water, and the next several miles were incredibly painful with attack after attack to break Mancebo.  I was following moves as well as I could, but my under-eating the previous night had shortchanged my recovery and I was truly fearful I wouldn’t finish in the field.

It was this aggressive racing (and RealCyclist paying an amateur team to help Mancebo pull back breaks) that eventually brought the race back together, save for a 3-man break just up the road.  Thanks to my teammates constantly fetching bottles from the team car for me and consistently eating, my legs finally came around at mile 90.  Bissell organized the leadout today, opting to maintain the GC standings for the crit the next day.  We finished in the field, but knew that the crit was going to be a real knock-down drag-out fight.

Not going to make the same mistake twice, I recovered properly that night.  After once again stuffing myself to bursting with normal food (and still being short on calories), I pulled out the key to open up my second stomach: Blue Bell ice cream.  I slept on the floor that night and my back nearly felt normal again, and the next morning I had my legs back as well!

The crit this year was a modified (read: safer) course from last year’s crash-fest, but that didn’t make it any easier.  After a twisty and narrow opening section, we blasted downhill for half a mile around two turns (and over a couple brick crosswalks that sent bottles skipping across the pavement every lap), then began a slight uphill drag to the final turn before a 150-meter steep pitch to the line.

The hill that concluded each lap

This 85-minute race (Round 3 of Mancebo VS Bissell) started fast and got faster.  I focused on staying near the front so as not to miss splits, saving as much energy as possible for the second half of the race.  Bissell’s riders were once again constantly attacking, and Mancebo’s teammates crumbled immediately, leaving him to do a lot of chasing on his own.  Splits happened a few times up the finishing kicker and through the twisty section at the top, and Ian and I were always there.

Ian and I had just bridged across a split near the front of the field

In really tough races, you have to know when to save your matches and when to use them. And sometimes, you have to recognize that it’s time to burn the whole book.  The pack had been slowly whittling down in the feverish pace and heat (I was pouring water on myself every few laps), and Mancebo had just burned a match pulling back a break on the drag to the last corner.  On the kicker to end the lap, Mancebo brought the field back together and another break was launched immediately across the top and he simply was done.

Ian and I were right next to each other and launched simultaneously in pursuit of the break that was quickly pulling away.  Holding nothing back, we made it to the break half a lap later knowing that we would never see the field again.  Our group worked fairly well together, rapidly putting time into the field.  I was in a world of hurt, constantly convincing myself that I could hang on for just 7 more laps, just 6 more laps, just 5 more laps….

Suffering more than we thought possible

With 2 laps remaining, cooperation ceased and Frank Pipp of Bissell launched a vicious move that would not come back.  Seeking GC time over a stage finish, Ian took a hard pull for me, then set me off in pursuit to see just how high I could jump on the GC.  I finished 7^th on the stage, Ian 9^th.  10 seconds after the finish I was plopped in a chair with ice down my jersey, a Coke in one hand and water in the other, in awe of the difficulty of the race and what I had just accomplished.

Fresh as a daisy

When the results came in, we learned that I had jumped to 6^th on GC (top amateur!) and Ian to 11^th (in a stage race where it was “impossible” to move up in GC….), and to top it off, we had moved up to 5^th in the team competition, top amateur team!  Bissell had unseated Mancebo from the lead in dramatic fashion…he didn’t even bother to attend the awards presentation.

I wore that smile for the rest of the day.

Tour of the Gila Part Deux

Stage 3: 16.5 mile time trial

Course profile.

To say I was looking forward to the time trial at Gila would be an understatement.  I'd been training for those 16.5 miles of suffering for the past month, and couldn't wait to get going.  With the expected time in the mid-to-high 30's, I didn't bother with too much intensity in the warmup.  I did a few hard efforts, but was focused mostly on just loosening everything up from the previous two days of racing.

I had had my bike setup checked well beforehand and the officials didn't give me any grief over my R2C shifters, thankfully.  That may have been because they were angled downward, but who knows--I certainly didn't broach the subject! Warmup finally completed, I donned all the slippery gear I could find and paid one last visit to Mr. John Porta before heading for the starting chute.

Wheel choice was a tricky issue that day: the winds were quickly picking up.  At the time of my start, the winds were ~25mph with gusts in the mid-40's.  I opted for the rear disc and a front 808, knowing that the lighter climbers ahead of me on GC would likely not be able to control that sail, giving me a slight advantage.  While waiting for my start to arrive, I heard the announcers say that Tom Zirbel currently had the fastest time of the day, with 35 and a half minutes.  Always favoring an ambitious goal over mediocrity, I chose Zirbel's as my target time.

At long last, I was on the opening 4.5 mile climb that stair-steps up around 4% gradient.  Wanting to nearly explode at the top, I paced myself carefully.  Every few minutes, I'd ratchet the pace up just a little bit.  I caught Frank Pipp of Bissell, my 30-second man, around the 5-minute mark and my 1:00 and 1:30 men at the same time a few minutes later.  With my heart bursting at the top of the climb, I convinced myself to suffer in agony just another 100 yards to get up to speed on the descent.  I'd finally earned a chance to coast for a bit as my speed quickly climbed to the 50mph mark.  I just stayed low and spun the 55x11 up once in a while to maintain momentum.

There was a half-mile at the bottom of the descent, though, where I was legitimately scared.  The winds were swirling in the little canyon and slamming me from side to side with gusts upwards of 40mph, and I was struggling to maintain control.  When in doubt, more power!  I made it through unscathed and tried to maintain a fast pace to the turnaround without hurting too much.

20 minutes in, I made an unceremonious u-turn around the cone in the road and headed back from whence I came, trying to save enough energy to fly up the final climb.  It finally arrived, and just 5 minutes of climbing at 8% grade later (yes, I stayed in the bars the whole time), I crested the top in a fury that made my legs think they were done.  Now all that was left was 4.5 miles of downhill tailwind, and a scant 5 minutes and change in which to do it (to match Zirbel's time).  The descent for me, with legs that could scarcely function, consisted of furious spinning for 20 seconds to get my speed back up to 50mph, then coasting for 20 seconds.  Rinse and repeat. I crossed the 1K to go mark at 35 minutes and knew it was time to use everything I had left, blasting across the line in a cotton-mouthed heavy-legged tired-armed blur of red, black, white, and neon green (dadgum non-matching cannondale!).

It hurt. A lot.

My face was frozen this way for some time afterwards....

My efforts were not in vain, as I ended up 7th on the day with 35:38 (Zirbel was 6th), only 59 seconds off the winner's pace! One of the best results on my race resume, for sure. And, I had jumped to 19th in GC!

Stage 4: 42mi criterium

We raced the crit.  We finished the crit without time gaps.

Nothing interesting happened, with the exception of the last-lap debacle.  Seems simple enough to me: 3 laps to go, 2 laps to go, 1 lap to go. Right?! Nope.

3 laps to go. 1 lap to go. (Backside of course) 2 laps to go! 1 lap to go.  Good thing nobody had taken off on their last-lap effort only to light the match too early.  Oh wait, the race leader Mancebo did. Oops.

Stage 5: 105mi Gila Monster

The Gila Monster. The most revered of all the stages. Check the course profile here.

I had been told the stage would stay fairly restrained for the first 50 miles over the category 3 climb and through the hilly Mimbres valley, then explode on the first category 2 climb.  Everyone was wrong.  The winds provided a good opportunity to wear people out, and RealCyclist was under attack. They kept the pace high to protect Mancebo's lead, never giving prospective breakaways more than 30 seconds.  We covered nearly 30 miles in the first hour, and the size of the field reflected that.

I had managed to stay near the front the whole time and so was still feeling fresh as we headed for the real climbing.  I thought the pace up the cat-2 climb was fast but not too painful, but the size of the field began to dwindle.  It swelled again to about 50 riders after the long and fast descent.  We made it to the turnaround and everyone braced themselves for the return leg.

Crossing the river again, headed for the category-1 climb. This is all that remained of the 150-rider field.

Going the other direction, we faced a cat-1 climb that ascends 1800 feet to an elevation 7500' in only a handful of miles.  The attacks began immediately and our group was down to 20 just as quickly.  I followed the attacks, knowing that there would be a chance to recover between them.  This lasted halfway up the climb, and I was finally unhitched from the lead group of 10.  I focused on keeping them just 30 seconds ahead.  As they began to pull away, the race caravan began working its way past me.

Stay in the caravan, I repeated to myself as the climb dragged on.  I cold-shouldered my teammates in the feedzone, focused intently on getting to the top with the leaders within closing distance and not wanting any additional weight at the moment.  My suffering paid off, as I crested the climb in a small group just as the tail end of the caravan was passing us.

The descent was amazing.  I called all my cornering skills into play as I and the other riders in my group wove our way through the caravan in a cacophony of honking (each driver announcing to the driver ahead of them that riders were coming up) at exceptional speeds.  We had the whole road and used every inch of it, using brake-lights of cars and the photo-motorcycles as indications of whether we needed to slow down for a corner.  I've never pushed so hard on a descent before and was terrified, but was also very comfortable at the same time just laying the bike over and sweeping from apex to apex.

Our group joined up with the leaders just before the start of the next cat-2 climb.  This time, I quickly opted to climb at my own pace as I was beginning to hurt.  I kept a group of riders just a bit ahead, receiving encouragement from Scott and Dr. Pruitt in the team car next to me.  I was able to catch that group across the top of the climb, then we all worked together over the final climb and sprinted it out at the end, each of us using the last of our energy.  I finished 19th on the stage, a few minutes down from Mancebo's solo victory, moving me up to my final GC place of 18th.  Ian and Trevor had finished strong in groups a few more minutes back, equally exhausted.  Our workers had pulled out of the race after delivering me to the climbs, wisely opting to save their energy for Joe Martin.

With my first NRC stage race done, I had a whopping 3 days to prepare for the next one!

Tour of the Gila Part I

A few weeks ago, the team packed up for a 2.5 week trip and hit the road.  On the schedule were my first two NRC stage races: The Tour of the Gila and the Joe Martin Stage Race.  I'd been told I could do very well at Joe Martin, but was more excited for the Gila as I love to climb and really suffer....

This trip marked the first real test of my design for the trailer setup, and it worked!

We knocked out the drive in a single day and were warmly greeted at our host houses in Silver City a few days before racing was to begin.  We spent those days riding some of the roads we would race on, including the time trial course, a stretch of road known for its blustery winds and high speeds.  Recon completed, it was time to race.  Our team was joined by Stefan Rothe, a friend from Texas who simply wanted to race hard and be a worker for the team.

Stage 1: 94mi race to Mogollon
Course profile

The race began with nearly 180 racers in the Pro/1 field, and the attacks kicked off immediately.  With the first hour of the race being downhill into a headwind, nothing went anywhere.  No team wanted to take control, so no break ever got more than a few seconds on the field.  The workers on Rio were active following moves, while Trevor, Ian, and I floated in the field saving our energy for the decisive climb at the end of the race: a 7-mile ascent of 1800 vertical feet to Mogollon.

When the field reached the circuits halfway through the race, the pace picked up as breaks began to stay away for longer durations.  The punchy rollers on the loop served as launching points for attacks, and it seemed that perhaps something would finally stick.  Concerned about this possibility and seeing that we were not represented, I began following moves.  Shortly after leaving the circuits, I ended up in a move that was nearly perfect.  Our 9-rider break had a player from every notable team except for Jamis-Sutter Home, and had a 1:30 lead in only a few minutes while Jamis made their way to the front to pull us back.  Our effort lasted nearly 30 minutes before we were caught; I had done my best to conserve energy but nonetheless was not as fresh as I should have been....

We finally made the right turn towards Mogollon and began climbing.  John and Stefan burned their last matches ensuring that Rio's GC riders were at the front, then left it up to us.  We made it over the first pitch halfway up in the lead group across the mesa, then began the final push to the summit.  Ian and I quickly let go of the lead group to maintain our own pace up the painful climb, while Trevor lasted a bit longer.  I was lacking a bit in legs due to my earlier efforts, and ventured deep into the pain cave as we wound up the mountain, hitting pitches as steep as 19%. Finally, at an elevation of 6794', we crossed the line.  Trevor finished 28th 2:19 back, I was 30th at 2:29, and Ian was 34th at 2:34.  We quickly began the recovery process and made the 2 hour drive back to town to rest up for day 2.

Stage 2: 80mi Inner Loop Course
Course profile

This stage featured two category-3 climbs right out of the chute, with a 3rd towards the end of the day after some tiring rollers.  Traditionally a sprint finish for the day, I would be focused on sitting in the field and making the splits.

A general rule-of-thumb is that if the wheel in front of you goes, you go with it.  It was by following this rule only 0.2km into the race that Ian ended up in the all-day break.  With the break established so early, the pack  hit the climbs at a good tempo without causing too much pain.  Since Ian was only 2.5 minutes down in GC, RealCyclist team never gave the break a long leash so as to protect Mancebo's race lead.  For a few minutes, he was the virtual race leader, though!

They set a fast but safe pace down the tricky descent of the Sapillo, and the field swelled as we rode through the valley when riders began catching back on.  The day dragged on uneventfully, and Ian finally came back to the field exhausted after 70 miles off the front.  From then, our main concern was to get to the finish safely without any time splits in the narrow sprint finish.  Sure enough, some riders allowed gaps to open in the sprint and we lost 16 seconds as a result.  Frustrating, but with the time trial the next day it may prove inconsequential....

Check back tomorrow for Part II: Suffering on a new level.