Won my 1st race and it was a good one!!



bgoetz

Active Member
Nov 25, 2010
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I got my 1st win and it was a great race with lots of excitement. My group (cat 5) has had a full field since last Sunday, the rest of the groups where pretty full, so there were 300-400 riders present at the race. The course had several rises, but to most it would be considered fairly flat, and not significantly demanding. Well the wind had something else in mind, with 18-20mph sustained winds and gust up to 30mph, it was a challenge, especially considering most of the 8 mile course was into the wind or cross wind.

My race was 5 laps (40 miles). As always my strategy is to get close to the front ASAP, away from trouble. Right away I picked out trouble. This guy was absolutely delusional, ridiculous, and worse dangerous. 1st lap he came by me on a slight decent with a tail wind at 35 mph, and went into a corner hitting the yellow line at the apex, as soon as he hit that line his back tire let loose. I have never seen anyone so out of shape that did not go down, he recovered the severe low side only to almost high side. You would think that such a close call would calm him down a bit, but no. He then completely came across me in a corner almost taking my front wheel off, luckily I had my eye on him and reacted quick enough. I kindly responded by asking him what the f**** he was doing and told him to chill out, it is just the 1st lap. Well 2 laps in and he is still hanging around the front, I am feeling just fine with a nice steady HR, and this guy is on the rivet, completely maxed out just trying to hang on. This makes his bike handling skills that much worse. It got to the point where I was telling other competitors to watch out for this guy. Well he must have overheard me because he moved behind me. It wasn't to much longer and I heard that sound that sends chills down all cyclists spine of wheels rubbing and brakes locking up right behind me. And like that the field goes from 50 down to 30ish, with a hand full going down and the rest getting cut off from the group.

It was then pretty uneventful until mile 28, at which point I ended up in the front on a downwind section and noticed that I was making a slight gap and thought "what the heck" and just went for it. I ended up in a solo break with a pretty decent gap for about 4 miles. It was honestly the best part of the whole race, as I alone was being led by the pace car past other fields in a solo break. Once I got clear of the field I was careful to get into a TT pace and not exert myself anymore than needed. Well with about 8 miles left the wind won out and I was caught, the good thing was that in the process of catching me the field shelled at least 10 riders.

So I went into conserve mode and did everything I could to save energy, but stay towards the front. With hard efforts the last stretch we ended up down to 5-8 heading into the home stretch and I was 2 back. There was a slight hill just before the finish and I used this as an opportunity for my final attack and I went out hard, not looking back. As the 200m sign came into sight, and my lungs were exploding I knew that I went way to early. I blew up, let off and looked back quick enough to see at least one person behind me, as he went around I managed to grab his wheel and recharge for a split second for the final sprint. I had no idea who else was behind me, so I went as hard as I possibly could go, and managed to hold out in a sprint for the win!!
 
Break that into paragraphs a bit easier on the eye and folks might read it....

Congrats on your win!
 
Congrats! Sounds like a fun race.

I am especially impressed that even when things didn't go your way - getting caught after your foray up the road and starting your sprint early - you hung in there, and managed to pull out the win anyway. Sometimes I am so afraid to make big moves because I think if I fail that will be the end of my race, so your race report reminds me that need not necessarily be the case!

how many more races until your cat 4 upgrade?
 
Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .

Break that into paragraphs a bit easier on the eye and folks might read it....

Congrats on your win!

Done, LOL
 
Originally Posted by CalicoCat .

Congrats! Sounds like a fun race.

I am especially impressed that even when things didn't go your way - getting caught after your foray up the road and starting your sprint early - you hung in there, and managed to pull out the win anyway. Sometimes I am so afraid to make big moves because I think if I fail that will be the end of my race, so your race report reminds me that need not necessarily be the case!

how many more races until your cat 4 upgrade?
Yeah, I was really careful that once I got clear of the field to go at a pace that was not going to significantly hurt me if and when I got caught, almost figuring on getting caught with the wind. I figured that if I did get caught there would hopefully be enough time fore me to recover. I am not sure how I pulled out the sprint, truth is I think I went so hard and so fast, completely catching everyone off guard that it took some energy on their part to catch me. Once they guy that got 2nd caught me, he should have tried to sprint past me, but he didn't allowing me to get a free ride for a split second. The finishing sprind was all I had and then some, I was seeing stars, LOL

This was my 3rd USA cycling race, all top 10 finishes (6th, 4th, 1st). I also have a club race that I did real well at, but I doubt they count that, we are a USA cycling club, I just don't think they count our club races. Our club president, said that at any point I felt like I wanted to upgrade he could try to make some phone calls, so I may do a couple more and then try to upgrade before I get caught up in a crash.
 
Great race report! Really well played, great job on seizing the opportunity to get a gap without burning a huge match, great job pacing within yourself while away, great job sticking with the group after your big solo effort and really great job to take the flyer and still be able to dig one more time at the finish.

Sounds like you're well on your way to your upgrade which is great and should make things a bit safer (but there's still squirrelly riding in the higher categories and unfortunately still crashes but hopefully fewer of them) but you have a unique opportunity to really learn a lot and try different things. It's clear you're very fit relative to your competition and can both roll fast alone and sprint with others. I'd capitalize on your situation and try some different and intentional strategies in upcoming races. Go from the gun in a race, be cagey in another race and play for the field sprint end game. Figure out how to be right up front as the sprint winds up in a big field, try a suicide flyer from the back stretch. Open a gap in a longer road race and float within sight for a few minutes to see if you can encourage a bridge to form a break or let one or two riders get a gap without immediately responding and see if you can do the bridging without towing the field up with you.

The point is to expand your bag of tricks while you still hold a fitness advantage over much of your competition. It will make things much easier when you upgrade and face fitter riders. It's harder to take risks and learn what works and doesn't work in the higher category races so do the experimentation while you still have some extra fitness margin that might allow you to try something that's doomed (like your early sprint flyer yesterday) and still pull something out.

Way to hit the ground running on racing and get off to a huge start with a win so soon.

-Dave
 
Good to know you're doing something right training-wise, you're just naturally talented, and/or Cat. 4 needs your presence sooner than you thought...nice work.
 

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