After a week of work and travel in Canada I returned to Omaha for the Babcook Memorial Road Race, the final race of the Omaha race weekend. This was my second road race (ever) and my first race in Cat. 4, and I wanted to represent well for the club and hometown crowd. I managed to get in one ride while in Canada and a few runs so I figured that while not in peak form my fitness would be more or less o.k. Some of the guys on the team had talked briefly about employing some team tactics, but as it turned out our numbers were split as Dave and Pete opted for the masters race while Todd and I battled it out in the Cat. 4 field. Ben Swan and Doug Reid also rocked out in the Cat. 5 race while a trio of ladies (Jackie Wieres, Simone Duryea, and Maddie Eliston) represented Velo Veloce in the cat. 4 women's and junior races.
I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from the field as there were a lot of guys lined up who I had ridden with on the “Wednesday Night Worlds” ride who are pretty strong riders. One thing was for sure though, I wasn’t just going to be able to ride away from everybody, especially on a course that really had only one hill on it that was tough enough to create any separation. I hoped that we would be able to drive the pace hard enough on the climb to whittle down the field by mid-race or so.
We got off to a casual start, but given the sweltering heat I’m not surprised that nobody was eager to get after it early on. The pace continued to dawdle through the early laps, at times becoming painfully slow. I had to resist the urge to charge to the front and I kept reminding myself to try to conserve as much energy as possible while staying out of trouble. The slow pace kept the field together for probably at least 4 of the 7 circuits, and I felt incredibly claustrophobic at times. The climb was particularly challenging as the lane was quite narrow and I was occasionally forced to brake (!) on the climb as riders in front of me were climbing at a slower pace.
There were a couple of people who got off the front occasionally, but I don’t think any of them were real serious efforts to get away. I’m not surprised that nobody wanted to cook out there by themselves on this day. Eventually with about 3 laps to go I was able to get up front, and spent some time pulling the group along. Not surprisingly we didn’t have any organized rotation going in the group so I stayed in the middle of the group and never really saw the front until mid to late race.
(photo credit to Dan Farnham)
On lap 6 (of 7) I made sure that I stayed close to the front so that I would have an open lane of attack going into the climb. As we approached the base I slowly ramped up the pace and then hit the jets as soon as the pitch kicked up. As far as I could tell I got immediate separation, and I continued to hammer my way towards the top. As I neared the summit, Patrick Sumrell, a tall lean jr. rider who regularly hangs with the top group at WNW pulled up along side me and said something to the effect of “we’ve got it”. Sweet, a gap AND someone to work with!
I latched onto Patrick’s wheel to recover for a bit and then we traded pulls throughout the lap. I rode as hard as I could without blowing up, hoping to stay away to the finish. I was counting on a lack of a concerted team effort and cooperation in the group chasing us to keep them from shutting our move down before the finish. For the most part this worked as we were still free when we hit the 1k to go mark. Just prior to that I had been sitting on Patrick’s wheel resting, and thinking we had the race for 1st and 2nd in hand. I came around to ride parallel with him as we started the climb. We both accelerated as we started up but Patrick dropped back slightly and I figured that would be a good time to go for the win. As I got out of the saddle to jump, both of my quads started to cramp…attack fail. I had to sit back down and try to recover somehow as I watched Patrick ride away to victory. It was then that I looked over my shoulder to see Rob Swanson bearing down on me at a rapid pace. Crap. I tried to accelerate again but my legs weren’t having any of it. Both Rob and Ryan Johnston passed me well before the line and I had to hobble it in for 4th (although scored as 3rd in cat. 4 since Patrick is a jr).
All in all it was a valuable racing experience as I was forced to think about the race, make decisions on the fly, and pick a strategy that I thought would give me the best shot at winning. I don’t feel too bad as I know the guys I lost to are strong riders, and I’m not sure it would have turned out any differently had I chosen to wait for a field sprint at the finish. I definitely feel like I can win a race like that, it just didn’t come out in my favor this time. My only mistake really I think was not sitting on Patrick’s wheel a bit longer as we approached the finish. I figured we’d just have a head’s up drag race to the finish from 1k out, but I know that’s not how things operate in the cycling world for the most part. Maybe with a little more rest I would have had the juice to more effectively vie for the win (or at least hang on to 2nd). I guess that’s a question that will have to be answered next time out, perhaps at the Lincoln weekend this fall. Thanks to all who provided support, especially the Greenstreet crew for the bottle hand ups (and post-race shade!) and to the race organizers for a great race. Also great to see all of the fellow teammates out there racing!
2 comments:
Sooooo close...that just bites. Great job and strategy.
Way to go. In hindsight, would it had made any difference to have Dave and I pulling for you in Cat 4? I flatted half-way through our race, so that was that. Never caught up.
Great job on a fine race and thinking thru a strategy for that race and future races.
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