Jason, Teal (matt), Evershed, and I took off from my house around 10 am, no rain yet. On the drive down, we hit rain. Rain that made it hard to see while driving and slowed us down. All our thoughts were “is the race canceled?” We got to the registration area and it was pouring, everything was muddy but the show must go on (slightly delayed though). We all registered and went back to the car to get the bikes ready and to put on our kits.
We got the bikes ready and started changing; it started pouring again so we all jumped in the car to change. It is obvious why people question the homo-eroticism /sexuality of bike racing. At one point people were changing nakedly (word?) in my car and pinning each other in compromising positions, all the while the car was steaming up and getting extremely hot. Ok everyone out and ready to warm–up.
We all were warming up and readying ourselves for the race: to help get everything back on time they took a lap off our race. Only five laps today. The split the fields into Wisconsin riders and non-Wisconsin riders; strangely there were quite a few more non-Wisconsin riders. Our field had approximately 35~40 people in it. We started off in a neutral staging area about 0.5 mile from the start line, but sadly at the bottom of the fabled hill.
The first lap was slow, no-one wanted to do anything just yet. It was raining and the roads were wet and people were feeling each other out to see who could handle riding in the wet. Lately I hadn’t been feeling very strong of a rider, so my goal for the day was just to sit-in the peloton and be a bum. On the second lap I got a little antsy and jumped to the front of a big downhill section that was fast. Since I am extremely good at coasting (aka exerting no effort and letting gravity do the work) I was flying down the hills with minimal effort. I mainly did this so I didn’t have to brake at all sitting in the pack and it’s a good moral booster to be in front at least point in every race.
Ok time to put effort in, so I let the pack catch me and I sat back in. Around this time we were approaching the hill for the 2nd time. I rode into sitting near the back of the pack thinking this was a good idea. I didn’t climb very well and fell off the back about 20 ft. Luckily on the top side it is flat and then a downhill section, so I was able to jump back in. The 3rd lap was uneventful until we came around to the hill again. This time I fell off even more and wasn’t able to jump back on.
Luckily quite a few other riders also fell off the back. I quickly scanned and evaluated the riders around me and organized us into a chase down pack. Usually when I do this it fails terribly because the other riders tend to fall further off the back and disappear all-together. But today was a different story we were working together extremely well and were slowly catching back on. A few more riders fell of the main pack and our chase down group dropped a few and picked up the new riders. This is when we picked up Jason. Our chase down group was me, Jason, a guy from Café Hollander, UW- Whitewater, and an unattached rider. We were pace lining perfectly, everyone taking pulls to their potential and pulling out when they started slowing. We were making amazing time and were closing the gap between us and the main pack.
We closed the gap to about 100ft before the hill, most of us decided to sit-up and rest up before the hill, with plans of pursuing after the climb. Jason attacked up the hill and made it back in the pack on the topside. We lost the Café Hollander and UW-Whitewater guy, just me and the unattached rider left. We still were taking rotations and were able to close the gap and rejoin the peloton about 1 mile after the hill. Only 5 miles left of the race.
I joined the main pack and sat-in with the intent of recovering as much as possible for the hellacious uphill finish. We were about 1.5 miles from the finish when I decided to make a move and sprinted to the front. I saw my buddy Addison (solid finisher) and a few of his fellow teammates (all strong riders), I was hoping that they would jump with me and we would be able to break-off the front to finish. Addison yelled up “Sorry I got nothing”. Shit, time to sit back-in. Closer to the finish.
One last straight away to go, a right turn, and then the uphill finish. I thought about how I wasn’t climbing well that day and decided to make a move again. I jumped and got a 30 ft gap on the field. I thought “holy shit that worked,” but the hill was the great equalizer. Some riders caught me on the climb and I finished 13th overall. I was very happy with my performance that day. I successfully fell off the pack, organized a chase group, rejoined, and finished 13th. This race got me really excited to race road bikes again, and was the motivating factor to start training hard for SuperWeek.
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