A three-fer two-fer

Two weeks, two states, three races, and one constant: wind.

Last weekend, VA Cycling ventured across the border into North Carolina for the "Battle of the Border" at NCCAR (NC Center for Automotive Research). NCCAR is a sort-of race track just over the border off I-95, featuring very little elevation change over a 1.9-mile meandering circuit. As an automotive race track, it's not very interesting. As a track for bikes, it should be a blisteringly fast course with turns wide enough to NEVER touch the brakes.

The day was billed as a double-header, with morning races going counter-clockwise, and afternoon races reversing the direction. It was frosty cold in the morning, and warm enough for summer kits in the afternoon.

But the wind. Bwuh. While it was rough at 8am, it just built throughout the day, peaking at about 15mph cross-winds blowing nearly straight across the longest straight.

In the first race, my whole mantra was "burn no unnecessary matches". I had no teammates, and plenty of other teams had shown up with numbers. But somehow I lined up behind Johnny Holeshot, and before even the first turn I was already into the wind at 2nd wheel. I stayed near the front, leery of the cross-winds and ready to jump across to anything that looked like it might stay away.

But nothing did, and suddenly it was a prime lap and I was out front. On the peg. With only one other rider and a gap to the group. It started to look like the prime was within reach, and I started to get greedy. When the group rounded the final turn, I still had the lead...and about 400m to the finish line. A rider jumped up-wind to my left, and I jumped to respond, but realized I had nothing after pulling for 2 miles. The effort turned into a feint, and while the group to the right over-took me, they also cooked themselves early.

The race settled in, and I took a lap to settle into the group to recover.

But I'd forgotten that the race was going to be shortened, and what should have been 2 laps to recover was suddenly the bell lap, and I was WAY out of position, clawing away deep in the field, and barely in view of the leaders. And a dude from the local sponsoring team had just run off the front. Crap.

I buried myself into the wind and saw my marks just up the road, with the only option to close the gap being a short sprint into the middle lane of the peloton--my most loathed position to lead into a finish sprint.

The gap stayed open long enough for me to get over the fear, and I closed it just as we made the turn for the final run. Others reported that the lead rider had set up to the right, in the wind, as a feint, while his teammates gathered forces for a sprint on the left. I didn't see that. What I saw was a gap open to my left, and then my world was horrible noise. The sound of carbon hitting the deck. The sound of scraping. A smack of flesh and water bottles.

I *saw* a wheel come at me sideways and hit my front tire at 34mph, and I had a choice: surrender to the crash or knuckle down. Having crashed before at high speeds, I chose the latter. I hit the wheel square on, and it bounced away. Then I saw a water bottle go under my tires, but just barely missed going over it. Then I saw motion out of the corner of my eye as another wheel came over my shoulder to hit the end of my handlebar.

And then it was done. I was alive, and the race wasn't over. So I stood on it and brought the bike home in 6th place, matching my previous best finish since upgrading to Cat 3 in 2018.

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The afternoon race was less eventful. With at least 4 riders taken out from the wreck, the field was somewhat diminished. The winds, however, were not, and to counter the effect of the wind in turn 2, we were laying the bikes over farther than I have ever done before. Like reach-down-and-touch-the-pavement-low.

After a few laps of steady grinding into the wind, one rider lost focus for an instant and was literally blown off the bike. The group settled down and rolled.

Then a string of attacks threatened to split things up, but nobody was interested in being shelled off the back, so it always came to naught.

There was one set of attacks and counter-attacks, though, that did literally split the field in half. I started in the front group and ended the cycle watching them roll away, and at one point they had at least a 10 second gap, but for whatever reason they all sat up! With just over one lap to go, the front group of ~10 riders GAVE UP THEIR BREAKAWAY VOLUNTARILY to let us rejoin. Bananagrams.

I didn't think it would matter, but when the last set of turns came up, some guys decided to bow out of the sprint, and suddenly I found myself vying for a position I frankly hadn't earned, and I ended up crossing the line in 8th.

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Fast forward to today: the Sleepy Hole Cat 3 crit. In the wind and rain.

6 riders pre-registered. One bowed out due to last week's wrecks. One dropped after an earlier race got too dicey. 3 registered at the event. 7 starters across 5 teams, and we had 2 in green.

7 riders in any race might make for a pretty boring day, but Sleepy Hole features the worst racing surface I've ever ridden. The warm-up was so rough that after 3 laps I quit. Alastair's 20-minute race-of-one was bad enough that his hands were numb half-way through.

The first turn features a string of patched pot-holes running about 30' along the entry to the corner, and had seen a horrible wreck in the race just before ours (get well soon, Brad!). The 2nd turn had taken out one member of a 2-man TT effort in that same race, and was really good at washing out rear tires. That turn had lead to a cross-wind section of the course earlier in the day, but had switched to a full-on head-wind for our race, and T3 lead onto a short but terrifying straight with 20+ mph cross-winds. The final turn featured orange construction fencing with steel poles and a porta-potty on the outside, with chopped up pavement on the inside, and a turn across the wind that was pants-fillingly terrifying.

It was not a great place to race in the rain, and I'd never raced a wet crit--everybody has cautioned STRONGLY against it since I started in this sport. I had no desire to tempt fate, so I flatly told people I was happy turning parade laps and just finishing. No sense tearing up hardware with only 7 starters and no real shot at glory.

The plan was to make it an aggressive group ride, and if someone wanted to run off the front: they could HAVE it. Somehow that someone became me, at least for a while.

The race started like a damn Zwift race, with 3 guys rolling like they'd been shot out of a gun for half a lap. It settled quickly, and after a couple laps came the first attack. I was 2nd wheel and had no desire to chase a solo effort, so watched him burn up in the wind.

The 2nd attack looked much the same until my teammate chased it. As they were being reeled in, I just stayed on power and suddenly had a gap. And then the gap grew. And grew. And then, within 3 laps, it was 20 seconds! I've never put 20 seconds on a race group alone, and I started to believe in it...just as it started to shrink.

My break lasted 6 whole laps, but they may have been some of the 6 best laps of my short racing career. I never actually attacked, but once I was away just locked my heart rate at 181 bpm and waited for the chase to organize. It took them 3.5 minutes to figure out who should chase, and then the group split in half trying to shut me down. And once caught I managed to stay with them, a group now of only 4.

After a lap or so I verbally volunteered to lead the group if they would save the tomfoolery for the end. I knew I didn't have a sprint left, and having been assured a 4th place finish when we lapped the remaining riders, I was guaranteed a decent amount of points for the season championship. They obliged, and I pulled for about 5 laps.

With just over 5 laps to go, one rider jumped. The others followed, and I had nothing to respond. I was gapped, and sure the race was over. All I had to do was cruise in to the finish. For almost 2 solid laps the gap grew to what it had been when I was off the front, and then they just neutralized themselves. Just like at the afternoon race at NCCAR, the front 3 just kinda...stopped racing for a minute. I railed the first 2 turns, put down an effort into the wind, and was right back into the mix with 3 laps to go!

Except I was dead-legged and not *really* in the mix. The next 2.5 laps were so neutral I recovered to zone 3 heart-rate. The last run through turns 1 & 2 were under 18mph.

One rider jumped on the short cross-wind straight, and it was game-on. The other two were bashing elbows all the way to the final turn, and I just sat back and waited to see if they'd all make it through up-right.

They did, and rounding the final turn I probed a sprint, found it unsettling in the wind, and sat back down to cruise home to a comfortable 4th place.

2019 Shamrock - 1st race of the season for me

I skipped William & Mary this year. Kinda felt bad about it, but I generally do not race in the rain, and certainly not when it's COLD and rainy. Reports from that race ranged from "unfavorable" to "screw that". And it's not a BAR race, so there was no real sense taking that kind of risk that early in the season.

But without doing W&M, the pre-season jitters don't go away until the first BAR crit: Shamrock. If I could make just one polite suggestion to any future racer(s) who may stumble upon this blog, try not to start your road season with a crit. Everybody's excited, but we've all been on trainers all winter, so nobody has any bike-handling skills. I'd only even ridden in a pace line three times this calendar year before toeing the start line.

But Shamrock is the beginning of the BAR season, the races that count toward the season championship, and I was determined to get some points.

As with both previous years, the weather was much colder than the forecast had predicted, and the winds were typically strong, though this time blowing straight into your face on the finish. The Garmin recorded an average temp of 37-F, with about a 10 mph wind from ENE.

The race was mostly uneventful. No successful breaks, and though there were a few flyers, the pack never let anything get more than 5 seconds away. I tried a couple of times with other guys, but it was clear the group was not going to let go. We even had a couple of perfectly-timed counter-attacks from a new team member, but the group was super motivated.

I had even managed to hold on to some matches as the race wore on, surfing 2nd & 3rd wheel for a significant portion of the final 3rd of the race, but then with 5 laps to go, the prime bell rang.

I had just moved out front, into the wind, with the intention of pulling for no more than 10 seconds, and I was sure I'd get swamped as folks lined up to go after the prime. But nobody came around through turn 1, and nobody even moved on me in the huge lane between there and turn 2. I ran at the front down-wind to turn 3, ready to cede the front to anyone who'd take it, but as we came through turn 3, it was clear nobody wanted it. I even stepped way off the gas coming through turn 4, but again: nobody jumped. So I jumped, because dammit I wasn't going to tow everyone around for a whole lap and then NOT win the prime. In the closing feet, I saw someone jump out to my left and run me down, and I was about spent and waaaay into the red on heart-rate, but I just barely eked it out and won the prime, whereupon I sank like a rock.

It was all I could do to get moving again without getting spit out the back, and coming out of turn 2 I felt someone's bars bounce off my backside. I totally expected to hear a crash behind me, but thankfully the rider kept it upright. No idea why he tried to pass outside me when I was only a couple inches off the dirt.

My race ruined, I settled into the middle of the pack and tried to re-gather any strength I could, though in that field I knew it was over for me.

When the final bell rang, I was probably in 30th position. But I saw a friendly wheel in front of me and figured I'd follow whatever he did. We picked up 5 - 10 spots between turns 1 & 2. Entering turn 2, the same rider who'd hit me 3 laps before hit someone else, went down hard, and took out several others. And though it happened right beside me, it made everyone check up just the tiniest bit. The leaders had gotten through unscathed and were already gone, but suddenly "mid-pack" was back in the mix for points, which pay 15 deep.

I willed my dead legs to do something--anything--and get to the line. My friendly wheel was now up the road, but I had one rider to draft and another chasing. I picked up one position coming into the finish straight, but again had a chaser try to jump out and get me right at the line.

Ultimately I ended up 15th, good enough for exactly 1 point for the season championship (the winner got 30). And I got the prime, which was pretty nice, but not the result I wanted. I've still yet to learn how to make a plan and stick to it during the race. With an average heart rate just barely in zone 5, there was literally no way I could chase the prime and a decent result--I let pride interfere with my plans.

Gotta get smarter if I want to have a chance at glory.