Race Report: Self-Esteem Crit works!

Ryan Cousineau

Now this is strange. Last night I didn't have any intoxicating
refreshment, either before or after the race, and yet...

I line up in the "C" group, enduring the merciless "sandbagger" taunts
from my teammates. What the heck. Only 11 riders at the start line.

Race starts, and a rider I don't recognize in a plain yellow jersey
jumps off the line. I say to the really young kid beside me "he'll never
stay away." Young but smart kid says "he's pretty strong."

He stayed away! Rest of the race was defined by that guy being 20
seconds off the front of the pack, and the pack not catching him. Our
chase was not impressively organized (I think it was a catalogue of
possible paceline errors, except for no crashes), but it turned out he
was pretty strong. An obvious, ridiculous sandbagger. Can you believe
that? In C?

Ahem. Final sprint, the pack knows the escape artist is going to stay
away, and nobody is even attempting a last-second breakaway. Suits me
fine, the only thing I can do is sprint. I park it in third wheel and
wait to see who comes around.

Finally, the little kid (who has been a strong worker all race) jumps
off the front, and an older guy right behind him follows, and I follow
too. The little kid is pretty strong, but there's no way I'm going to
lose to a kid in a sprint.

And I don't. As the older guy starts to come off his wheel, I go around
on the other side. It's a relatively early jump in my mind, but I go,
and I clear all chasers by a comfortable margin.

It was in some ways a goofy race, but the sensations were interesting to
me. I didn't take long pulls at the front of the pack (3-10 seconds and
rotate back), but I took every turn that came my way; the core of the
front paceline was me, my teammate, two Coastal riders (one was the
little kid), and whatever random others were up front trying to work at
the moment.

The pulls were not hard for me. It was clear that even as I pulled
through each time, I was not hurting, but other people were. I guess
that makes me a lousy sandbagger. Further, I had supreme and justified
confidence once we got to sprint-land. I was just at another level (and
probably less tired) than anyone in the pack. Sure, I took most of the
cool-down lap to catch my breath, but that's how a sprint is supposed to
work, right?

So anyways, it turns out I probably am a sandbagger, because racing
should hurt more. After the ride, my teammate who rode B grabbed my
number, ran back to the commissaire (impressive considering he was in
road cleats) and told the commis' I would be upgrading next week.
Thanks, Jak!

--
Ryan Cousineau rcousine@gmail.com http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

joseph.santaniello@gmail.com

On May 30, 3:40*pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So anyways, it turns out I probably am a sandbagger, because racing
> should hurt more. After the ride, my teammate who rode B grabbed my
> number, ran back to the commissaire (impressive considering he was in
> road cleats) and told the commis' I would be upgrading next week.
> Thanks, Jak!
>

It doesn't have to hurt that much I suppose. Maybe you are just used
to the level of suffering from pre-getting-dropped efforts.

You clobbered them in the C's, but are you ready to hang on in the
B's? If Jak thinks so, so do I!

Joseph