Yes, yet another battenkill report. I'll make it short.
I cheated. I rode like shit, I have to say I _did_ embarrass myself (contrary to my previous post) and I'm doubting my future in racing bicycles.
I felt good up through the first little series of climbs on the paved road, but when we hit the dirt leading to juniper, the pace remained high, and I wasn't able to recover from the climbs. I got shelled on juniper. I ended up in a small chase group of about 10. Thankfully, the field had relaxed, and we were able to get back on. Still, I felt horrible during the chase. I took long breaks at the back of the pace line. If I were another rider I would have been mad at me.
Up joe bean road, I felt good for the first half since I had the chance to recover, but then, rather spectacularly, my legs just shut down. I had nothing. It was disappointing how quickly I popped, going from feeling good and staying with the main group to a sudden pppffffftttttttt.
At the end of joe bean it takes a left onto dirt. It's long and straight and downhill. I could see the group,well over a minute ahead. This is where I cheated. The cat 4s came by, and I latched onto the back of them. I wasn't the only one, there were a good dozen or so of us at the back of their field. But, just because everyone else is doing it....well, you know.
So riders in my field that legitimately pushed themselves to stay in the group were beginning to hurt, and now I was dropping _them_. People like Solo, who really should have finished minutes ahead of me if I would have let the 4s ride through, ended up behind me.
I deserve all the negacoaching I get this year.
At the last dirt section, I at least felt like I was riding well. I was passing a lot of people. At the end of the last dirt section someone yelled out '4 miles'. I wasn't going to hit it hard since I wasn't really riding well enough and 40th place wasn't anything to race for, but a few minutes later a group of 6 40+ came by. They were working a pace line. I tried to take a pull......oh no...as soon as I got into the wind at _their_ speed I had nothing. So once again, I sat at the back.
Once I saw the intersection for the right turn before the finish, I went to the front and pulled all the way to the end. I didn't sprint, and three guys came around me. I was hoping to pay a little debt to not only those guys - whose wheels I sucked for the last 3 miles - but in hopes that they were some of the ones who did the right thing. I hope they realize I wasn't sprinting, and my goal was to make our little finishing group look good, not to take advantage of sitting at the back of their group.
The results aren't up yet. That's aggravating. For a $60 entry fee I would have hoped they would have been a little better at getting results up. I don't want to hear any shit about 'well, they had 1500 riders, this takes time'. I've been doing this a long time. It shouldn't take two days with a timing service, high speed camera equipment and computers to post results. As of right now, only half the fields are listed, and mine isn't one of them. If this was some podunk little race with one drunk official I wouldn't mind, but this has become a major event on the calendar.
Well, I'm not going to lose any sleep over my shitty results not getting posted. I'm not sure I _want_ to know.
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3 comments:
Field mixing is irritating, but that is life at our level. It's a big reason I soured on GMSR. After two years of a giant group grope on Middlebury gap, I lost interest. FSR is not much better, with several races on an 11 mile loop at once. One year the 1/2 women were neutralized for 4 out of 6 laps. Promoters need to find a way to make it work financially without 1000 riders sharing the course.
At this point it will be hard to have any faith in the results when they get published. If things had gone smoothly, they would be up by now. What was on cyclingnews had no finish times either, so clearly there were major breakdowns.
I hope they learned from it. Even though this was the 4th year of the race, the size/scope was a huge jump from the past. In that sense it was like a first year event. I suspect the Pro race Sunday got 90% of the attention. There should be some communication from the race management on the forum by now.
I still had fun.
And oh yeah, you're not ready to hang it up yet. You were injured half of last year for shit's sake. Give yourself a break. If everyone bagged out after one shitty (hilly) race, my entire team would be gone.
Jc - let's ride soon.
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