Tour of Page County Stage Race: A Lonely Way to Fail

We've just barely reached the midway point of the racing season, and I'm struggling. After failing, for the first time this season, to score even a single point at Jeff Cup last week, I had a terrible showing at the first of 3 events this weekend, and put myself out of contention before the action even got heated.

The Tour of Page County is a 3-part stage race comprising a road race on Saturday, followed by a TT and a crit on Sunday. The 3/4 group drew the short straw this year and got the earliest start time of 8:30a for the road race. Just like Jeff Cup, the race is ~60 miles, but unlike Jeff Cup, the signature climb on this course strikes fear into the hearts of mortals.

I'd done this course twice in the past. Once as a 5, and then the following year as a 4. Both times I'd come in 3rd in relatively small fields of ~30 or less. The 2nd time I did it on crit gearing and sat on the front for about half the race.

I felt much more confident going into this than I did Jeff Cup. And I'd been a good boy and not over-cooked it in the week before. No crushing group rides or anything crazy: just persistent low-level training. And a cough I'd been struggling with for the past month finally fully abated.

I even started the race smarter, rolling in the back 1/3 and moving up as gaps opened.

The first time over the climb wasn't too bad. My position allowed me to easily keep contact while sag climbers moved backward through the group, and there was no real surging. The heart rate crept up near the top, but the pace was very manageable. The descent on the other side, just like Jeff Cup, saw me sitting bolt upright to avoid running over the group. And then the finish climb, while horrible, still was no worse than the winery climb's pace the previous weekend. Good.

The 2nd climb was almost exactly the same, and I felt like I was in a good position to sit back and let the juniors do the work in the wind. I'd sink a bit on the finish climb and then roll back up to the front of the group in the valley.

Then, on the 3rd climb, all hell broke loose. The juniors attacked from the base of the climb to the top. I held on to the top, lost a few meters over the top, regained it on the descent, and completely blew up on the finish climb. Coming over the top, I saw the group riding away, easily 20 to 30 seconds ahead.

I caught another straggler, and we agreed OUR race was done. At only ~30 miles. I've never lost contact so early in a race.

Then a small group of riders caught us, and then another, and suddenly we were 10 riders. Someone took up the mantle of road captain, and we quickly established a reverse left-over-right rotation. 3 miles later, we could see the peloton. Another mile or so and we were back in the group. Big round of cheers all around.

Except we were close to the base of that climb again, and when we hit it, we hit it hard. The group pressed a pace every bit as tough as the previous lap's, and there was nothing I could do. I was 15 seconds adrift by the top of the main climb, and completely out of sight through the finish climb.

The 5th lap was sad, solitary, and slow. Amazingly, Strava shows that I actually gained back some time for a while, but was never within a minute. I caught and passed a few riders from different race groups, and since you can't draft off other races, rolled steadily on. By the time I'd reached the middle of the big climb, I was out of gears: 39x28 and struggling to turn 70rpm. By the finish climb I was weaving and just about to get off and walk the damn thing.

I crossed the line and asked the judges if I could stop. Initially they said no, but after a few seconds they relented and shouted that I could be done.

And that was it: I was pulled. I requested it, and to be honest I'm not sure I physically could have completed another lap, but that meant my stage race was already lost.

When results were posted, they confirmed that all of us who were pulled (which was almost half the field!) were penalized 10 minutes. Pulled does not equal DNF, fortunately, so I was able to continue to compete, but I'd be racing for peanuts.

I managed to pull up a couple of positions in Sunday morning's TT, catching my 30-second and 1-minute riders, but nothing spectacular. My heart just wasn't in it.

And the final event, the 45-minute speedway crit, was just about finishing. Since placement is on overall time, just finishing in the field would mean posting roughly the same time as the field, so I was pretty confident I would not lose any places in the overall if I just finished the damn race. And I did. The pace was just a tick under 28mph, there were no wrecks (though just barely), and I stayed in the back the whole time. I didn't get dropped. Yay.

When all was said and done, I'd finished 33rd for the weekend. I pulled up 6 positions from my road race finish, but it was not at all the weekend I'd hoped for.

But hey, now I can say I've done a stage race! And that's not bad.

Jeff Cup

I've had a big lump in my throat about Jeff Cup since 2016. It was only my 2nd ever road race, at the time, and my first in FSR team colors. I felt I had an obligation to do well, and I failed. The race was shortened to 20 miles before it even started, due to a power outage on the course, and the MABRA teams just turned it into a 20-mile sprint. The climb broke me, and it got in my head.

In 2017 I missed the race after breaking a rib the prior weekend at RIR, and in 2018 I skipped it because of weather...that never really happened.

So it's had 3 years to grow in my head and turn into a big ugly monster of a race. Yay.

We went up as a team a few weeks ago to get in some practice laps, including a hard full-lap effort after doing 40-ish miles through the mountains. The climb seemed more manageable, and folks seemed to be on-board for taking it on as a team effort.

Then came the forecast: strong winds from the South, which meant a big push up the hill, and a nasty headwind once over the top. So anybody foolish enough to attack over the top would likely get pushed right back to the group. Good. Really good.

Feeling better.

---

2 days before the race I commuted to work on the race bike, just to make sure everything was solid. And I figured I'd ride over to the local Thursday night fast group ride and just sit on for a bit to regain some confidence in a fast-moving group. It was a lovely plan, but I am an idiot. We were rolling fast toward a Strava segment that I worked myself half-to-death to win, and I was concerned that it might fall, so I took a flyer. Ok, one effort: no big deal. But then I got stuck near the front, and when we came to the first set of climbs (that I should not have even been present for), I decided to sag climb to save for the weekend.

And somebody in the group pissed me off. An offhand comment passing me uphill, but clearly derisive and meant to show that on that day, he was stronger. So...I chased. Hard. Too hard, for about 2 miles. Heart DEEP in zone 5, legs burning. I passed cars. And I caught back up to the group, but for no good reason other than damaged pride. My legs were TORCHED. They hurt all day Friday, and Saturday they felt like they should the day before a major race. Except Saturday was the race.

---

We started out with 3 guys in green, and a plan to keep contact with the group, and a backup plan to spice things up at the end. I still felt my weakness would be losing contact over the top of the climb later in the race, and the soreness in my thighs wasn't helping my hopefulness.

When the whistle blew, somehow I rolled off faster and harder than anybody else, and I spent the first 2 miles off the front. Not really working too hard, but just hard enough for a solid Z4 effort. Again, dumb: but it did help shake some of the nerves. After half a lap, I settled into the front 1/3 of the group and just let the race unfold.

The climbs weren't particularly aggressive, though the wall after the first turn always managed to get the heart above 180bpm.

And because of that, on the 3rd climb, we got neutralized near the top. The masters rolled through, we all took a "natural break" (peeing en masse in public!), and got back on. And then it LIT UP. The juniors apparently did not take kindly to being neutralized, so they literally chased the masters back down in half a lap.

The attack over the winery hill was so strong I was gapped off the back, and had to rely on my teammate Erik to get back to the group. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, I couldn't breathe. Riders were rolling by me in droves, and I was panicking: my heart was at 180, I couldn't draw air, and it all looked done. And then the last rider passed me, and I clawed with everything I had to hold that wheel. The pace stayed super aggressive, and then we got neutralized again for catching the masters. Holy crap. Yay?

Fortunately the group settled down after that. No more crushing pace up the climb, no more attacks over the top. The only challenge was managing space: when the juniors want space, they just take it. They'll move over on you to force you physically off the road. They race to kill, and it is not pleasant.

Only in the last lap did a small group of 3 actually get away, and they were kept at under 30 seconds. One or two riders tried to sneak across, but I'm not sure anybody actually made it.

When we came through the final turn, I felt pretty decent. I was still in the main group, there was just over a mile to go, and the pace, while fast, wasn't so hard that I wouldn't be able to sprint.

At just under 1K to go, we hit a major problem: we'd re-caught that masters field. They were set up on the right, and our group paused, unsure of what exactly to do. The front guys were gone, but there was tremendous confusion: do we pass them? CAN we pass them? Will it ruin their race? Will it ruin ours??

After almost half a km of sitting on their wheel, the group got testy: shouts of "GO!!" came from the back. I was sitting right on the wheel of my main competitor, and one of the strongest sprinters in the region was on my wheel. We'd moved right of our group, in the center of the road. The group surged, and as we moved alongside the masters field, the juniors in the group pushed to the right. The masters looked around, moving slightly left, and all of a sudden, at 200m to go, we were in a kill-box. The guy ahead of me snaked through it, but just as I cranked up the power to 800W, I ran out of road and had to slam on brakes to avoid hitting a masters rider.

I crossed the line in 29th place, my teammate in 30th.

How we didn't crash is a bit of a mystery. It sucked to have come so far, have stayed with the group, and to have had the legs for a sprint, only to have it taken away, but I did bring the bike home in one piece, and I didn't lose any points to any other riders for the season: only one VA Cycling CAT 3 BAR contender finished ahead of me.

Hampton Roads Shootout - totally not at all a stage race

This weekend was a bit of a mixed bag for this racer. A TT in the wet on Saturday morning, organized by one group, followed by another organization's crit under mixed conditions on Sunday, but with a combined podium and separate prizes/payouts. The format wasn't just confusing for the reader, as scoring officials were trying desperately to figure out how, exactly, the combined podium results should break down. Mixed category racing over both days didn't help.

Saturday was our first time racing the Conquer the Canal Time Trial, and my first time racing a TT with a true full complement of TT essentials. The weather was warm, but with rain rolling in from the South and winds forecasted at 8 mph. And it was a slow soaking rain.

The course was a 12-mile out & back due South, so the out-leg was into the headwind. I'd done a bunch of research on which way to push hard, and everything indicated it would be wise to go harder into the headwind, even if it meant blowing up on the return. But the research also indicated to roll onto power in the first 30 seconds, rather than exploding off the block, a piece of advice that I think made a huge impact overall in the event.

I followed every hunch I had in gearing up for it, too: no gloves, no watch or Road ID, aero helmet & visor (even fogged up and vision blocking it would be faster to go with it and just try not to die), speed suit & fancy TT shoe covers, freshly shaved face & legs. The bike was 95% perfect with aero everything--the only things missing being a deep-section front wheel that I didn't own and a single chain-ring setup with no derailleur. I'd even thrown on a cassette with a physically smaller 11-25 profile because of the flat flat flat terrain. Next time I might even go 11-23.

But I'd also spent the entire week before on the sofa, sick with the flu. My chest had been so congested I couldn't roll over without unleashing a hell of coughing that rattled through my whole body. I'd been unable to turn a pedal until an exploratory trainer session on Thursday night--one that had ended with a deep and troubling hacking fit. I choked down cough medicine and rested as hard as I could, confident that I'd roll off the starting block and collapse in a fit of deep chesty coughing.

My only solace was that there were just 6 starters in Cat 3, so all I'd have to do was turn pedals in wet misery for 12 miles, and there would be points for my season. Points pay 15 places deep. It wasn't a great plan, but it was a plan.

But when I got down on the skis, the lungs didn't complain. In fact they seemed to open up willingly. So when the timer got to zero, I rolled hard. I took my minute to come up to speed, constantly ready for the lungs to rebel. Ready to cough so hard I'd crash. But I just didn't. And I got through heart rate zones 3 & 4 with no problem. My real honest goal had been to push a little into zone 5, which starts at 175 bpm, so I probed that, getting up to 179 and holding it...and feeling like there was more. So I pushed on to 181 bpm, which is deep in the red for me, but I've held it there for a while in Zwift races.

And it just stuck. And the lungs stayed clear. And the legs didn't complain. So I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. And then I was at the turn-around, and grateful I'd spent some time tweaking the front brake after the wreck a couple weeks ago. I dove onto the brakes, unclipped and grazed a toe (hope I didn't trash the expensive shoe-cover) around the cone, re-clipped, took a sip, and pushed again.

I ended up holding a heart rate of 181 bpm for most of the return trip, which was supposed to be the slightly downwind run. I was running almost completely blind with the fog in my visor, and the Garmin wasn't turning in accurate results with all the wetness, but I was going for broke.

I crossed the line at 27:33, good enough for 4th place in the mixed 1/2/3 results, but a win for Cat 3! A win by 30 seconds, in fact.

A win that would cost me on Sunday.

TT's were going to be the great unknown for me in my efforts to secure a season trophy. I'd avoided doing them in Cat 3 last year because I expected I'd finish dead last and didn't want the embarrassment. I put all my eggs in the crits & road races basket, where I'd done really well as a Cat 4 racer, but through all of 2018 I struggled to have any sort of meaningful results as a 3.

I'd vowed to improve those results and "crack the code" of Cat 3 racing, and my season so far had shown a bit of improvement, with 4th, 6th, and 8th place finishes, and a 15th place that resulted from being impatient and chasing a late-race prime. I was optimistic going into Sunday, and hopeful that the full week of rest would allow me to go hard twice.

Yeah...not so much.

The weather Sunday was predicted to be wet and windy again, but windier and only wet sometimes. I don't like to crit in the rain, and I know I cannot race my fastest race bike in the wet--it eats bearings to the tune of $200 per wet ride. The backup bike is ok, but the geometry makes it weird to sprint on, and it's not an aero bike by any stretch of the imagination. Internal cable-routing is about it, and the alloy wheels are barely 25mm deep. I'd be doing all the work to make it fast.

And I woke up Sunday with absolutely no desire to race. My last race on a speedway had resulted in a broken bike and a broken rib, and so far this season has seen a 1:1 relationship between races and crashes.

Speedway + crosswind + rain + crashy-season. No desire. None.

But it didn't rain all morning. It was windy, but not too bad. And I was watching a rhythm develop to every other race, and starting to feel like maybe all I needed to do was just turn laps and feel it out.

And then, 15 minutes before we were set to start, it started raining. And it rained through the entire Cat 3/4 race, and for about 5 minutes after. And of course it then stopped and didn't rain another drop all day. Grrr.

And I'm not ashamed to say I raced fearfully. I was ready for tires to fail. For someone to touch paint on the ground and take us all out. For me to be the one to do it. Fear raises the heart rate, and this was a FAST race. Basically flat with light banking made it possible for the race to just surge and surge and keep right on surging until there was no surge left to surge. We were going every bit as fast, in a group, as I'd gone in the TT the day before. And my heart was deep into zone 5 for most of it.

Little gaps kept opening, and constantly nervous that I'd miss the winning move, I kept jumping into them. Over and over again, for 40 minutes. I found my way to the front easily enough, marked the guys I wanted to mark, but I just kept becoming aware of rising fatigue.

3 laps from the end, I probed a line that took me through the wind on the high-side going into the final sprint, found that it was principally clear, and decided to roll that line until the end. I moved up toward the front, and entering that turn with 2 laps to go it was clear that would work for me. On the penultimate run though that section, though, mysteriously the whole group moved up into my line, and I spooked. I didn't fight for the position, and suddenly I was freight-trained to the back of about 15 guys. In 1 turn I'd gone from the front to the back, and on totally the wrong lap to do it.

My teammate rolled up and told me to jump on his wheel, but I just didn't have it, and I ended up losing contact and rolling in for another 15th place finish. It was good enough for 1 point for the season, but it really sucked. I think it helped my fears of speedway and rain racing, so that's one positive. My heart spent 77.8% of the race above 174 bpm, which is usually ok, but not after a blistering TT the day before. Hopefully increased confidence in wet conditions will help soothe the nerves for next time, since it seems that rain racing is here to stay.

CCTT

Langley--a lower percentage of Z5 was still more time than I spent on the entire TT

Somehow, though, my combined results for the weekend were good enough for a 2nd place in the shootout. I'll take it!