ToAD - Waukesha and Greenbush

Since I didn't get to posting a result from Waukesha, I will just include it with my post about Greenbush. Due to my desire to let the glue dry some more on my bontragers, the torrential rains upon leaving my house and my quest to not get my expensive bike destroyed at one of the twitchy crits, I decided to race on my Jamis with my training wheels. I knew the course was flat enough that the extra weight would not be much of an issue. I was right in that regard. Chris and I rode close to each other the whole race near the back of the field. Not ideal position, but it was difficult to move up without really blowing a ton of power. We just decided to take it easy near the back and make sure we did not get gapped by someone falling off the pace in front of us. This worked pretty well until halfway through the 7th lap to go when Tyler from UW-Whitewater's team went down in front of me in turn 4. I saw a line to the outside, so I went for it. Unfortunately, so did his sliding/flipping bike and body, so I had to come to a complete stop in the gutter to not hit him or fall myself. As a result, a huge gap was created between myself and the field. Seeing that there were several other gapped people because of the crash, I tried chasing for about 1.5 laps to get back on. With no real progress made, I conceded that I was completely out of contention for the day and started taking it easy (especially around the officials, to try to get yanked). Finally, with about 2 laps to go the official signaled that I could stop, so I asked if he would still score me. Once he answered yes to this, I thanked him and got off the course. Knowing that I was out of contention for today, I did not want to completely blow my legs for Greenbush or the rest of the series. Chris finished with the main field (he was lucky enough to dive inside around the crash and did not lose too much time to the field). He was 29th and I was 44th.

I have only raced two road races prior to the road race in Greenbush. Both were hilly courses and I got gapped early spending the rest of my day chasing. No fun. I knew Greenbush would have some hills, but the big one was mostly a power climbers hill. Since I have dropped the weight, I have actually become a decent climber. Words I never figured that I would utter. My plan for the course was to ride in my little ring as much as possible. As much as possible was defined for me as still in contact with the main field. On the first lap, I was in my little ring for about 60% of the lap and I was steadily moving up the field. Perfect. For some reason, I got away from this mindset a little on lap 2 and drifted back to the back of the main field. At the start of lap 3, I decided to go back to my bread and butter play and spend as much time in the little ring as possible and climbed back to the front end of the main group. As we crossed the start/finish line receiving the sign for 1 lap to go, I was sitting about 15th wheel, feeling fantastic and ready to unleash pain upon the field (who some I could tell were starting to fade and admitted as much) once we got out of the forest. Each lap, the field would slow down exiting the forest because the roads were not overly smooth and they just finished all of the big climbs. I knew that was the time to make the move. I had spent most of the race hoping for a breakaway to form with a K/S Energy guy, a ISCorp guy and a Brazen Dropouts guy (since those were the three largest teams left in the main field and knew a break with that make-up would not likely get chased down). Now that we were on the final lap and that hadn't happened yet, I knew a better shot for a breakaway would be with whichever other solo riders were left in the main field that felt as good as I did (basically like I hadn't worked the whole race). I call myself solo because (as I found out later) Chris had a mechanical early in lap 1 and was in a chase group 10-15 minutes behind the field. After I had assembled a little posse of riders interested in turning the gas on exiting the forest, I heard that great sound of air rushing out of my tire. Flat. Well, crap! Some of the other guys expressed sorrow for me as I pulled to the side to get out of the way and look for our follow car for a spare wheel. In this road race, we had a lead car and a follow car with an official in it. As the follow car pulled up beside me, the official yelled that the neutral support was that way (pointing backwards on the course). I yelled back asking how far, but no response. So I got off to walk backwards on the course to find neutral support. I saw what I was looking for following the Masters 3/4 field. At first, he did not want to hook me up with a wheel, but we were 3-4 miles into a 10 mile lap. I needed either a wheel or a ride to get back to the start line. I told him that I knew I was not in contention any more and that I just wanted to get back to the start/finish line. He gave me a wheel and I set about my solo journey back to the finish. I saw a pack of 4 riders just up the road, so I tried to chase onto them for a little while. I realized that was probably stupid when I did not gain ground and just settled in for a nice long cool down. Once I crossed the line, I found my wheel and started looking for Chris. He crossed about 5-10 minutes after I did. I am not sure what our placement was, but we both realized that we thoroughly enjoy road races.

Now I am resting up and relaxing before the final 6-turn criterium in this race. Throughout this series, I have learned that I am strong in road races and circuit races and that my true-criterium skills need work. Hopefully my luck starts to change, since this has to be about the most unlucky stretch of racing I have ever had (2 flats in 4 races, crashes in the final laps after the free laps in the other 2 right in front of me that have taken me out of contention for anything).

Happy Racing!