The new game has officially started. Last weekend in Rock Hill, SC was a rude awakening. It was my first race as a Cat 2 rider and any illusions I had about my level of fitness were quickly ripped out of my body via my legs.
Rock Hill is about as tough as it gets for a smaller local race. Mountain Khakis and DLP had full squads. There were also a couple Kenda and Team Type 1 riders thrown in for good measure. In addition to the roughly 15 pro riders there were also several top level regional amateur teams fielding full squads. The final tally was around 85 guys on the line. Saturday was the downtown crit on a technical course. I was still feeling the birthday celebration from Thursday but wasn’t putting pressure on myself so I was relaxed. Lining up was a bit of a rush. I had finally made it to the main event and was rolling up beside some guys that are strait up legit bike racers. The gun went off and the fun ended there. I was gaped off in almost every corner for the first three or four laps. After that I started driving my bike better but by that point I had been at the back and guys were getting popped. I constantly found myself having to close gaps which was not good. Closing a gap in a 3 race is nothing. I never thought twice about it. I knew I could close anything but then again I wasn’t having to accelerate up to 30 mph out of every corner. In short, it was fast. After about 20 minutes a guy made a desperate move to stay on and about took my front wheel out in the process. Then he blew and left another gap, my day was done. The real kick in the pants was the fact that the entire time I was dying a thousand deaths and getting dropped, Hekman was off the front by himself. It’s just another level.
After spending the night with the Mountain Khakis guys at some excellent host housing I was hoping for a better result on Sunday. I still wasn’t putting too much pressure on myself and decided to just race as hard as I could and whatever that was it was. I felt like most of the garbage from Thursday was flushed out of my system the previous day so I was ready to ride. I got a good spot on the line and wanted to stay near the front in case there were any big splits in the field. I wasn’t looking for a small break but if 20 or so guys rolled away I wanted to be in it. We started slow as everyone got warmed up. It was the calm before the storm. After 10 or 15 minutes the clouds were starting to look ominous. A Mountain Khakis rider rolls past, closely followed by a DLP rider, then Jet Fuel, Global Bike. Then, all at once, BOOM, the shit hit the fan. One guy went and it was on, it was just never ending attacks from then on. There was this constant reshuffling of the deck as guys went, were brought back, countered, and so on. I stayed near the front most of that time and if 20 guys had gone I had a good chance of being there. Ten guys eventually got away and it was game over. The pack chilled until we hit the hills on the last lap and things warmed up again. Nothing crazy but we weren’t exactly chatting on the hills either. The last ten miles were insane but incredibly fun. I didn’t have a computer on but I swear we averaged at least 30 mph for that entire stretch. Everyone was attacking, chasing, fighting for position. There is definitely going to be a learning curve to this part of the race at this level but I felt good and was enjoying the fight. I stayed in decent position most of the time and felt like I still had some legs for the field sprint. However, I was too far back and rolled in around 30 something. It was a little redemption from the previous day and very educational. So I was able to end on a fairly positive note.
Another positive from last week was that I started working with Zach Lail of Precision Cycle Coach. I’m really excited to be working with Zach and I think his experience is going to be immensely helpful. More updates on that as it progresses. The bad news of the week was hearing that another one of my teammates had to withdraw from ITS-Kane. That means the already small squad of five is down to three, two of which apparently don’t race bikes much. Hopefully we can pick up another guy and everyone will start racing consistently. The other bad news is that my frame size isn’t in yet. It’s supposedly being expedited from Taiwan but who knows. So the new componentry and the iAero are going on the current ride for now. The next post will probably be an update on how that’s going. Now it’s time for more much needed rest. Adios.
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