Archive for June, 2011

2011 Tour of Galena – Road Race

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

Joe and I got in a decent 25 minute warm up about 2 hours before the race on a chilly Saturday morning. The wind was negligible but added a tiny bit of chill to the 60F air. I’m certainly not complaining after my previous Saturday was spent riding 25 miles in 100F. Looking back I probably should have warmed up either a lot more, or a lot closer to the start of the race.

Joe and I lined up at the front. I slipped to about mid pack as I got pinched going around a corner during the neutral start. The neutral start was a gradual incline of a couple hundred feet over about a mile. This got us out of town and onto much less crowded roads. The race officially started atop the first climb. This is where I probably could have been a bit more warmed up. I stuck with the pack as we descended the first climb and worked our way towards the next. The pace wasn’t horrible fast as we started the second climb (250ft). I worked hard to stay with the pack but slowly fell off the back. At the top I was pretty well cooked and wondered what I had gotten myself into. I was riding caboose by this point.

I descended pretty well but had to brake pretty hard as there was a hard turn at the bottom. The third climb (200ft) was up to a nice almost flat that made for a decent chance to recover before the biggest climb. This is where I finally got my legs. The third climb didn’t seem as bad as the first two. I went up it relatively quickly but still felt like I was going to die at the top. The ‘flat’ at the top was still a bit of an incline so while I was able to recover a bit, it wasn’t as much as I could have used.

The fourth climb (410ft) was a killer and probably hurt a lot of people throughout the day. I passed my first rider a bit before the beginning and could see a rider walking his bike about halfway up. That didn’t do much for my confidence as I approached. I passed another rider (female) that was dismounting as I was about 50% up. I was going somewhere near 5mph and barely turning over the cranks. I got to within 50m of the top and simply couldn’t turn them over anymore and hopped off to jog to the summit. I don’t have any shame with this as my Garmin was reading a 24% grade.

The descent was just plain awesome. I pedaled myself over the top and tucked in for the ride. I never saw my speed as I went but the Garmin tells me I hit 43.1mph. I didn’t pedal a single stroke the whole way down. Had I pedaled i could have reached 50. (Next year!)

The last climb (250ft) is a blur. I passed a few of the Women’s 4′s and a few of the Masters (40+ 4/5). This was giving me confidence and seemed to put a few extra watts back in the legs. I started to lose track and figured I had passed around 6 riders from my category and another 6 or so from the groups that started before us.

In the last 4-5 miles of the race I could see two men ahead of me by about a half a mile and a mile. I made it my goal to catch them by the finish. I rode hard and caught first guy who ended up being a Master in two miles. The second guy was in my class. He took a bit longer to catch but I passed him around the 2k to go sign. I glanced over my shoulder a few times between the 1k and 500m signs and didn’t see him. I eased off the pedals a bit as I was navigating the last few turns into town. In the last 100m he must have been digging hard because he was right with me at the finish. To be honest I have no idea who finished first as there wasn’t a clear indication where the finish line was. My wife said I was only about 15 minutes back from the winners. I’m happy with this.

All in all it was a great race. I’ve decided I need to warm up a bit more in an effort to try and hang with the pack. If I had to guess they pulled out pretty quick on me until about halfway through. Then as I gained my legs the gap stayed pretty steady. The hills were extremely humbling. Nearly 1400 feet of climbing when all I’ve ever ridding is Central Illinois is crazy. I can’t wait to go back next year.

Congratulations to Joe for his 9th place finish, even after a crash and some road rash on Wednesday.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91721664

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2011 O’Fallon Grand Prix – Road Race

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

Race Report:

I’ll start off by saying O’Fallon was expecting record high temperatures and the weather did not disappoint. The high was 98F but I think it got to 102-103. My Garmin got as high as 110F on the road. I have no idea what the heat index was.

The Cat 5 race had 36 registered and 2 no-shows. Furmi (Tom) was also there from Wild Card. I started about a 1/3 of the way back in the pack and stayed there for the neutral start. It picked up pretty quick after the ‘real’ start. I was able to hang on for about 5 miles. I think Furmi lasted 8 or so (IIRC from him telling me after). The hills combined with the heat is what did me in. The pace wasn’t much faster than a normal Wednesday night ride, so all things equal I feel I could have hung with them. Of course, if the temps were lower I’m sure the faster guys would have set a higher pace a dropped me just as quickly.

There were about 3 of us in the group that fell off the back around 5 miles in. Several more fell off around the 8-10mile mark and I started to catch them. I pulled within 30 seconds of Furmi and sat there pretty much the rest of the race. At about 13 miles I caught another guy (can’t remember team) and I sucked his wheel for a bit before I rode around him for a pull. We traded pulls for a while but never really gained on the guys in front of us. A third guy (white t-shirt, tennis shoes, toe-clips) managed to bridge up and sucked our wheels for a good 8 miles. This guy refused to take a pull and eventually rode around us to bridge up with Furmi.

The group of three of us took turns dropping each other but we would always bridge up and recover for a bit before the next guy fell off the back. This continued until about the 2000m to go mark. There was a hill that wasn’t particularly steep but by then I was cooked. I ended up slowing way down and go caught by a guy that was way back and pretty much soloed the whole race. At 500m I decided I was close enough to try and take my position back. Like a rookie I started my attack/sprint too soon. I pulled about 20m on him by the 100m line. He cranked it up and ended up beating me by 0.04 seconds (according to the chip timing).

Final result for me was 33 out of 34. The guy behind me was another 8 minutes back. I finished 17:52 behind the winner (1:26:01.992) who finished in 1:08:09.362. Furmi finished 29th at 1:24:31.551.

The whole experience was a good one. I’m actually pretty happy with my result for my first ever road race and only riding in any competitive manner for a little over 3 months (and only having a bike for a little over 15 months).

Next weekend, Tour of Galena with nearly twice the climbing but luckily the highs are nearly 20F lower and a few miles shorter. After that I’ll be joining the Wednesday and Saturday rides again. I’ve been skipping Wednesday to conserver energy for race day.

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