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.
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