ToAD - Schlitz Park and Ripon

By writing the race recap in the morning following the race while relaxing before the next one, I have found that it is difficult to get one written before the 6:30 departures for the the early morning races. If you've read any of the other race recaps, you will notice that this has not been my best week of racing in my life. Things started to change for the better for me at Schlitz Park. Chris and I got there pretty early. This turned out to be rather advantageous because we had a chance to pre-ride the course a few times and get acquainted with the hill. After riding the hill a couple of times, we thought that the hill would be rather selective. Following our warm-up, we worked to get near the front at the start. Sure enough, the first lap up the hill blasted the field apart. I worked my way through the carnage of riders blowing up to latch onto a group as far forward as possible. Luckily, I found my new friend Tyler from UW-Whitewater to work with. He, being the better climber, would take the uphills and I, being the better descender, would take the flats and downhills, all in the goal of chasing back onto the leaders of the race. Unfortunately, he wrecked his chain and dropped out of our group. Then I was left with the guy in the overall leaders jersey who was willing to do some work with me and a few passengers. About 10 minutes into the race, I accidentally dropped my bottle, so I had to go the next 40 minutes without liquid on one of the hotter and more humid races. Yippee. I tried a few times to drop my companions on the downhill and flat, but they were good enough climbers and I was running out of gas due to dehydration that I could not get away for long. With a few laps to go, my posse caught and passed Chris. He looked like he was not having the best of days. He said later that he gave up on the hill a few laps in and decided to ride a training ride. On the last lap, my passengers got in front of me before hitting the downhill, which was too technical to safely pass them. With only 100 meters of flat before the finish, I ran out of real estate to get back around them. I took 14th for the day and Chris took 16th. Much better than our previous results.

Chris and I got to Ripon early enough that we were able to pre-ride the whole time trial course. This proved to be helpful in us not being able to blow up on some of the hills along the course. When it was my turn to go, I felt pretty good and started the first climb just like intended. My goal was to rock whatever gear I could maintain 90-95 rpms throughout the course. I was having the time trial of my life, flying past people and getting stronger throughout the course. With .6 miles left, there was a downhill "S"-bend. When Chris and I pre-rode it, it was dry; however, the on-and-off rain had caused this corner to be slipperier and my brakes to not catch. My rear wheel slipped out and I slid across the road on my side. I think that if I would have crossed the double yellow, I could have kept it upright, but that is technically illegal. Thankfully, I was only a little scraped up, but my rear derailleur hanger was bent. So I started the walk back down the hill to the finish line to both finish and send a medic up for the guy who was hurt way more than I was. Once I finished, I headed back to the medic tent to get patched up. I was a little pissed because, as I said a few lines up, I was having the time trial of my life. It took me 35 minutes flat to get to where I crashed, .6 mile from the finish, which with my speed would translate to a low 36 minute time trial and a top 10 finish. As a result of the crash, I finished last in 47:15. Chris crossed the line in 19th in 37:39.7.

We are planning on getting to Sheboygan a little early today, so I can have some time to visit the medic before I kit up and go for my warm-up. It will be nice to get some fresh bandages for my wounds.

Happy Racing!