Tuesday at PIR
I made it out to PIR, and all was kinda normal until after the 2nd hot spot. I was still struggling to position with the main field, but followed some wheels to stay up front and before we knew it, there was about a 9-man breakaway. I didn't think it would last long since it was PIR, but held on nonetheless. The pace was brutal and we eventually shed it down to 6 riders. I was saving it all up for the final sprint so didn't contest for any hot spots. When the final lap came around there was a bit of cat and mouse. The winner made an epic jump at the overhead walkway (maybe 500 meters out). The rest started going hard on the left, so I latched on after being on the right side and made a good enough sprint at the end for 2nd place in that sprint, but 4th overall due to the hot spots. I was very satisfied since I had excellent timing on my jump for 2nd.
Here's two sprint photos: at about 50m and just after.
Wednesday at Tabor
Tabor was a different story. It was my first time doing the course and I was really trying to figure out where to hit the gas pedal. Should I try to break away? Should I hit it at the bottom of the hill or maybe the 2nd-to-last wind? I couldn't quite figure it out and got close, but never got a prime and was altogether dropped on the last climb. Inside I was kind of laughing at myself thinking that my tactics are so off that it's kind of funny.
Thursday
Today was kind of a prep day for Elkhorn. I did my ride a bit later in the evening and then decided that not only would I pack everything the night before, but I would also clean my room since I couldn't find everything anyways. So I ended up getting to bed at 2am, but with a clean room I am really on a roll towards being more organized.
Elkhorn Stage 1
Now before one even does the Elkhorn Stage Race, one has to actually make arrangements to get there. Sure I could just zipcar it and then book my own hotel room, but if I did that every race I'd be broke. Furthermore, I get to meet some interesting characters to pass the time on the 300+ mile journey to Baker City.
I scored a ride with a masters racer and woke up at 5am to get ready to catch my ride at 6am. I somewhat slept in the car all the way until about where I-84 leaves the Columbia. Then I drove the rest of the way. The scenery was gorgeous.
The first stage was a 75 miler with a good climb in the middle followed by what appeared to be some easier hills. A break made a jump at 7 miles in. I did some fake attacks and just dangled myself off the front a few times but then got
So I just sat in and made it over the top with the climbing field. The hill wasn't drastically steep and my heart rate was only just above my threshold, which come to think of it - I don't really know what my threshold hr is. Anyways, we had dropped most of the field and then we didn't really work much after this. I'm used to breaking away and trying maintain breaks so I was getting a bit flustered with how slow these climbers were going after the climb and descent was over. Nonetheless, I still sat in knowing that there were some kind of hills remaining before the finish. The last set of hills were sort of a mirage - it always appeared that whatever hill we were going up was going to be the last, but this continued for like 10-15 miles. Again, I stuck with the lead group.
The finish was perfect for me and I should have won it. It was slightly downhill and after all the previous climbs, I was one of the more powerful guys left. The finish line was visible for a while, but still far away. I picked the wheel that got 2nd place, but if I had been where that guy was I would've won the sprint. Instead I got 3rd. My mistake was not having enough perception of where the finish line was.
After this, we all rode back to town. I had arranged to share a hotel room with none other than OBRA-celebrity Jake Hansen. At the time of writing this blog post, he is on the front page of the OBRA website and the Oregon Cup leader:
Jake is quite possibly the sweetest racer I've yet to meet despite his intimidating race record. He says he's a part-time caretaker, part-time youth worker and of course part-time bike racer. He's featured often over at this blog about his team Word-RCB.
Saturday
As usual I wasn't looking forward to getting my ass whooped in the time trial, but gave it a go anyways. I did better than normal finishing 17th. In this race in particular I was noticing that my heart rate was nowhere close to the heart rate I observed climbing up the hills yesterday for the duration of the TT. I think I've got to work on truly trying to kill myself to get a better time.
The crit was really successful for me. The previous three races were cancelled due to rain on the abnormally slippery course, but it was dry enough for the 3s to race. Since I hadn't a clue yesterday where the finish line was, I warmed up on the course and practiced sprinting for the line from a few different places to gauge how I felt. This helped me a lot. I knew exactly where in the field I wanted to be coming up on these primes. For two primes I was in that sweet spot and then busted out two awesome sprints that earned me $50 and a $10 gift certificate to an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. I was more stoked about the breakfast buffet prize. The second prime was with 3 laps to go and a dangerous move by 3rd in GC went off the prime sprint. I was really gassed and could not chase that. The field did and barely caught it. In the final sprint we were going really fast to begin with and I couldn't pull out a better result than 6th.
After the race, Jake cooked up some mean spaghetti and pasta. It was well needed and both of us jammed it down because tomorrow we'd need it.
Dooley Mountain
Today's race was something to be intimidated about. 102 miles with a 8 mile hilltop finish. And with the way Baker City was surrounded by snowy mountains, it seemed as though it would make for a good challenge. Jake and I biked over to Sumpter Junction to redeem our prime gift certificates for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. We ate with a bunch of people from the Ironclad team which were the only other bike racers there, surprisingly.
At the race, the entire team of Bob's bikes broke away at about 6 miles into the race. The rest of the field concluded that that move was ridiculous and proceeded to ride at paces that got my heart rate down into zone 1. We would push it up the hills, but by the time we hit mile 45, our support car said the break had 10 minutes on us! At this point, only a few people were trying to chase and basically Vergari set the pace nearly all the way to the final climb. On the way there, I tried a number of futile breakaway attempts and it was just laughable each time I went. I don't know if I ever became a rabbit for the peleton to chase, but it seemed kind of ridiculous in hindsight.
As we neared the climb, my rear wheel really started acting up. I knew it was slightly untrue so was sort of ignoring other people advising me that my wheel was messed up - something always seems to be a bit wrong with my bike, so it's cool I thought. Just before the climb I was fumbling around trying to feed myself and got dropped and then my rear wheel really became a problem. I couldn't tell what was wrong. It seemed like I had broken a spoke, but there wasn't any broken-spoke clanging around on the wheel. Eventually I got off the bike, adjusted the rear brake to the maximum gap and the wheel was still rubbing both sides! Finally, I was able to bring myself to request another wheel from the masters field that was passing me and that helped, but at a point that was too late in time. Once I got back to Baker City I identified the problem:
Well, that damned wheel cost me the race and my GC position of 8th went down into the 20s. I really wanted to see what I could've done on that final climb. And after that drama, I'm kind of in a limbo on the verge of upgrading to Cat 2. I'm wondering if I've got what it takes to compete directly with pros. However, I'm also wondering that if I don't keep challenging myself that I may not learn as quickly as I want.
Getting Home
After this, the final process of getting home begun. I had biked back to Baker City with Jake and another guy (this was another 18 miles of riding after the 102). I went straight to Safeway and loaded up on some rich chocolate milk, perrier, two bowls of deli pasta, but then realized my wallet was back in my jeans in my suitcase.
I biked back to the high school where everyone was packing up. My ride wasn't headed back for a while, so I decided to take a shower while I could. I was hungry and wanting to go back to Safeway as soon as possible. Once we got all our stuff jammed into the car, we drove over to Safeway, but this time the Baker City Safeway was SLAMMED with customers. There were at least 12 people including 5 of us bike racers. They could barely handle the crowd and I was growing impatient nearly yanking my chocolate milk back out of the checkout line as each clerk had to not only check out the items of each people, but also catch up on the daily lives of the locals in line. When my credit card finally processed I grabbed the chocolate milk and started chugging it right beside the checkout stand. aaaaahhh. But I didn't chug the whole thing at once - gotta pace myself.
After having satisfied my immediate hunger we got back on the road and begun to discuss our race stories. I felt a little bad about having such a focused desire on my chocolate milk that I was kind of ignoring the circumstances of my driving buddy. Turns out he had won his race and category! That was really cool, and I learned more about this guy - turns out he used to ride with David Millar over in Hong Kong before David went pro. We made excellent time and got back to Portland before 10pm!
Monday
On Monday, I worked as usual and then when I got home at about 7pm I was tired and took a little nap. However, I woke up at 1am and decided that I still needed more sleep and finally got up again at 7am.
And beyond...
Well, now that I've finished my
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