Le Peleton

Its not about the race. Well, thats depending upon how well I do, or not, and last weekend at the Elkhorn Classic Stage Race I failed to meet expectations. Its not about the race.

I had nine Veloce Cycles teammates in attendance and almost all fields were full, including our Category 1/2 field which started over 100-riders including a couple of pros. The weather was hot, and we were well aware that the racing was set to be hot too. How hot we were unsure and this made me feel uneasy because my "new life" made it apparent that racing with the pros was fool hearty and that I should generally stick to racing with the Masters. This philosophy, unfortunately, was proven correct.

Let's make this quick and painless. There's no need to relive whats already done, right? But what about the spirit of the race report? Race reports are for winners.

The first stage opened under a cruel sun. It had to be in the 90's, and many of us succumbed to the heat, I did, but not until the final miles when the race started to blow wide open and it was react or die. As it turns out, I started things off on the second to last climb of the day about 20-miles from the finish. I attacked at the start of a long roller and 2-guys bridged up to me, and we kept it rolling for a few short minutes before a raging peleton caught us, jumped and trampled us, and spit us out along with the remaining shards of a shattering field. By the time I felt some semblance of strength returned to my legs it was too late to respond and I could only keep the power steady and start picking off other chumps. Its what I did. I caught and passed a few groups and rolled into the finish with a group of 8 within the top-25 a few minutes down.

Stage 2, Day 2 -- more of the same in the time trial. I was passed and dropped hard by my 30-second man who ended up setting the fastest time of the day near 2-1/2 minutes ahead of me. And I was running a rear disc wheel and 4-feel of time trial helmet that I borrowed from a teammate and so I had no excuses. Unless being a wuss is considered an excuse. I've no illusions: I need to dial in my new TT bike and spend some time on it if I ever hope to be competitive in the race of truth at this level.

Stage 3, canceled because of a light piss of rain. Sucks, I would have won!

Stage 4: let me set this up. Another hot day. 105-miles. 4 Cat 2-3 climbs. 1 Cat 1 climb that came in the final 8-miles of the race. It was a hill top finish. I thought that this suited me, and might have had I been racing at the front, but on the final "easy" climb about 30 miles from the finish my back would have no more, my hammies siezed and so did my will to suffer. Essentially I bailed. I bailed for about 20-seconds and that was enough to cost me the wheels of the peleton and so I had to settle for a 30-mile chase with the fat guys. Then, ironically, the final 8 miles I felt good and blazed the climb in just over 30-minutes and caught the tail end of the shattered main group. I could have had a great race. Core!