Well, I lost my bicycle racing virginity today. After 3 training races, today at Jeff Cup was the real deal. I will admit, I had a few butterflies in the tummy before the race started. But one thing I realized the evening before and during time leading up to the start is that bike racing is so much less complicated than getting ready for a triathlon. All you need to worry about is your bike stuff, pinning your number on, throw in a little warm-up and you’re ready to go. It felt pretty much effortless.
Since I’m a little limited on time, I’ll cut to the chase. I finished second in the Cat 5 race in a photo finish (I lost by 1/10 of a second). Mike, the guy who beat me was pretty strong the entire race. I had a gut feeling one of us would win.
The pace of the race started fairly brisk. After about 4 miles in, I attacked hard and opened up a pretty big gap, but nobody was coming. After about 5 minutes, I decided to back off the throttle since going alone would be futile at this point. A few minutes later a Casey Auto Group guy (Mike) attacked hard and opened up a pretty good gap. Unfortunately, when I saw him jump on the slight incline we were on, I was boxed in about 5 deep at the edge of the road. Damn, his gap was increasing and I couldn’t go. Gradually, I was able to get over and then I attacked to bridge up to him. It took me a good 3-4 minutes to bridge up. Nobody else came with me.
Once I made contact, I tried to catch some recovery, but I started doing my share of the work right away with Mike. I worked hard with Mike for about 4 miles, but I was definitely feeling the effects of the two previous hard efforts. At that point, we got a time split of 30 seconds. Honestly, not as much as I’d hoped. I turned and the field was still in sight. A couple of guys were trying to bridge up, but they weren’t that far off the front of the field. It’s at that point I decided to buy some more time and drift back to the field.
When the field caught back up, I was a little surprised that it appeared the field had been whittled down to about 25-30 riders. That was good. I just started riding smart, doing my best to stay near the front and out of the wind which was blowing pretty hard from the SSW. Mike ended up dangling about 15 seconds out front for another 5-6 miles. The field was pretty content to go just fast enough to keep him there until about the 17 mile mark where everything came together. From that point forward, the pace stayed relatively high for the final 10 miles with what I would call “gentle” attacks sprinkled in from various riders. Nothing really with any teeth. I remember looking around with about 5 miles to go and the field was down to about 15 riders from 50 starters. I took that as a good sign.
With about 4 miles to go, my legs felt pretty good. My plan was to put myself around 10th position going into the last turn and let someone else do the early lead out up the ~1.5 mile gradual uphill stretch to the finish. I was pretty comfortable with the fact that I’d be able to close on any long attacks and use it to my advantage if it happened. I gradually started moving up on the right. As a wheel became available I’d briefly position myself to get a little draft and keep moving forward. From what I remember, since it all happens so fast, is that the guy (Sean) who took third jumped from the front with about 150m to go. I could see Mike was starting to go to his left, so I decided to go hard to his right.
About that time I hear this awful bike on asphalt noise coming from my rear left. I didn’t look since I was fixated on the line and had just jumped out of the saddle to sprint. I hit the line and out of the corner of my eye I could see Mike’s wheel was just a hair in front of mine at the line. So, it was second place for me. Yes, it’s not first place but I was still pretty happy with the effort and result.
Things I learned (at least from a beginner’s perspective):
1. If I attack hard early and clearly noone else is coming, shut it down and wait for another opportunity. Early solo breaks are pretty much doomed for failure unless it’s a team tactic to wear down another team(s).
2. Pay more attention to where you are seeded at all times. I let myself get boxed in and couldn’t respond early to an attack. I had to waste a lot more energy bridging up vs going right away with the attack. Also, when drifting back, try to stay toward the middle to outside edge. If someone counters at the catch, you won’t be boxed in on the right.
3. Be patient, but not too patient. I feel like I did a good being patient during the last mile, but I think I should have went 110% about 5-10 seconds sooner. My power was ramping up all the way to the line, but I wasn’t quite at the max when I hit the line.
4. Be happy with the result. Mike had a great race. He did a lot of work and was clearly very strong. Now, if I had lost to anyone else, that would be another story.
Almost forgot. After getting back to the car, I started to undress and get things put away. Not 3 minutes after, I hear this spewing of air coming from my rear tire. Holy Crap! I must have run over some glass on the way back. Thank god my timing is good! That would have really sucked if it had happened during the race. I did overhear some earlier racers mentioning that there was a lot of broken glass on the course and flats. I guess I was lucky enough to hit it after the race.
