The weekend before.
I went out to King's Valley and got a flat on the first lap and had wheel change issues and dnf'ed. It sucked and it was hard to even force myself to do a second lap. The next day I went for a long ride out as far up Larch Mountain road I could with some new biking friends. That was a lot of fun and a nice day.
Things start clicking... literally
On Monday I went to a shop to have them glue on a new tire. While there I also was planning on putting on some new speedplay cleats - a task that was long overdue since I had not done any maintenance whatsoever to the cleats since I first bought the system in July of 2010. They were so bad that the screws attaching the cleat apparatus to the cleat mount were totally stuck if not fused together in a huge pile of rust. Luckily, a shop mechanic was able to drill out the cleat screws and then hacksaw off the apparatus.
Once the new cleats were on (and I had inserted the cleat anglers the right direction) my bike felt like a totally new bike. It was responding with seemingly no loss of power transfer to my every stroke. That night on some hillclimb intervals I easily got the farthest up the hill than ever before. Then at PIR, it felt easy to hang with the pack and even get onto Beardsley's or Ginsberg's wheel in a sprint. However, the wet track and my still slippery tires made things seem a little to sketchy to want to risk sprinting. At least a teammate got in a break so the team got 4th.
And now for the main event
The first stage race of the year for me! There really has not been a stage race that I've been to where it wasn't awesome and this one has been the most awesome yet. I feel like the Tour of Walla Walla is a really challenging regional stage race where doing well means far more than doing well in a local race or even a smaller stakes stage race.
Logistics
Getting there was definitely a battle and I was set on not camping this year. It was also tough to even find a ride out there again, but things worked out. Ted from Audi hooked me up with some other Spokanites (Spokanistanis?) that were renting out a house for the weekend. I slept on the couch the first night and managed to negotiate half of a bed the following evening just like last year. On a sad note, my housemate has been in India for a family emergency, but was gracious enough to loan me his car for the weekend. And off I went!
Friday
This year I have been trying to be a little smarter in choosing where I make my efforts. That means that I did not bury myself trying to breakaway on the first lap. I saved most of my efforts for the hill. The first time up was moderate and I was a wheel-length out of contention for a mountain prime, that was pretty cool though. After that, nobody wanted or could breakaway so I just waited up at the front for the hill again. It came and the pace got harder. Attacks came at 5k to go, but then the winner went at 3k and stayed away by 10 seconds. I came in 9th which I was quite satisfied with. And my mom had some homemade applesauce for me at the finish! Nice.
Saturday
It would seem as if I need to take on some better strategies for criterium riding. Namely not hammering on the front for 75% of the race. After the final prime I actually got away from the field, but then Team Bonehead Cycling sent a guy up to me who then proceeded to attack me and didn't get that far away. Ultimately the peleton caught us after a
I took things to another level in the Time Trial. Compared to last year, there now wasn't any wind, I had carbon wheelz and I had a skinsuit. But moreover I again set speed targets for each section of the road. On the first section I didn't anticipate the very slight wind so was a little slower than I wanted to go, but then I crushed it over my target up the hill. On the long downhill I wasn't going as fast as I wanted, but I was still flying. Then I didn't really have a good sense of how far that last stretch was and probably could've pushed it harder. I passed one guy and only got passed by the TT winner which is fine by me, especially since it was Tim. He's all right. My time was 21:16 compared to 24:37 last year. I am pretty stoked about that improvement.
Sunday
Sunday was my day. This time all things came together in the Success Equation, but more importantly I added a dynamic element to the equation in that I adapted my strategy as the race played out. I was sitting 9th in GC, so I was going to breakaway, no question. Last year I attempted to breakaway on the long downhill backstretch on the first lap and then barely had enough energy to stay with the pack after getting caught. This year I was going to go either on the hill after the sharp left or the feedzone hill.
The race day weather was predicted to be 80 degrees with very little wind. So I took 3 water bottles with me. Just before the race I had to swap rear wheels after I had had enough with this valve extender that could not accept air. Right before the start I took a leak (in a port-o-potty) which was a good sign that I was staying hydrated.
As the race began nothing much was happening, except Audi was absolutely intent on getting a break going. They had a guy get away with some other people by the time we got to the backstretch. I was waiting for the GC guys and their teams to do the work to bring it back. Tim (2nd in GC), his teammate and #1 GC put in their time at the front. Eventually we caught them just before the long hill on the front stretch after the break just died completely perhaps due to someone getting a flat, not quite sure.
Now it was time for some counter-attacks. Another Audi guy went up the road along with 2 others. Then a pro-city rider (they had 2 guys in top 10 GC) started mashing his pedals like no other to bridge up. I decided I may as well jump on this free ride and see what happens. It was a little early and not according to my plan, but the effort to stay on that wheel didn't require a lot of exertion for me, so I gave it a shot. We got up to the break quite easily and then were joined by an HSP rider (also 2 of them in top 10 GC). The Audi guy and the Pro City guy fell off, but we still had a yellow jerseyed (not GC-leader yellow) Canadian who claimed he was about to explode due to lack of water.
And so it was 3 of us and we began working. Each of us seemed to be putting in our fair share of effort even despite me taking a break here and there at the back to eat some food. We motored down the long downhill backstretch and then tempo'ed up the feed zone hill. All of us grabbed a watter bottle, but then hammered it down that hill so hard that we almost ran into the lead car if it weren't for us yelling at it. Then up the final hill and we still had our gap. It was then an intense mental and physical battle for us all the way down the hill to the finish. We could see the peleton just dangling about 20-15 seconds behind us most of our descent. After each pull we would nervously look over our shoulder but still kept working. All in all we were quite lucky that the field didn't organize themselves.
We got to the 1k mark and this little 3-man break that could had the podium sealed. After having downed my remaining half a energy bar at 1.5k I was ready for the sprint. We knew yellow jersey wouldn't contest so HSP sat on his wheel and I on his. With 180 to go HSP made a slight move to the right and then I blasted off to the left and pounded it out. At first I was like, is this happening? Am I about to win? Did HSP somehow cross before me? Whoa, I crossed the line! I think I won! I WON!!! YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! I actually screamed "YEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" twice. First time as I pumped my left hand in the air. And the second time while pumping the right hand. YYYEEEAAHHHHHH!!! I just screamed that again in my apartment as I'm righting this, but not too loud, don't want to wake the neighbors. That was an amazing win for me and ranks up there as one of the hardest won and deserved wins given the challenge of the reputable Tour of Walla Walla. I have been so psyched and pumped since this win.
Me and Team Guinness really want to obtain a picture of me winning this stage. Please let me know if you or anyone you know has a picture. I am going to put it here in this blog.
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