Oak Ridge Road Race and Time Trial

So I guess I'm a cyclist now.

The cat 5 race started out squirrely and punchy as always. Even in the neutral zone people were hitting their brakes hard and playing that accordion like a French street musician . Stop, go, stop, go, back and forth, back and forth. I was trying to leave a bike length buffer zone ahead of me but goofballs would always cut into the gap and then hit their brakes. Eventually I found myself at the back from trying to leave little buffer gaps. Being at the end of a squirrely peloton = bad as I would soon find out.

Finally some attacks came and that seemed to cut some of the nervous energy down a bit. I think most of them were dummy attacks but at least we were racing. Then as we hit the first little stinger of a hill the whole peloton nearly imploded! I finally said out loud, "Who's driving up there?" and a few people chuckled. Three people had just dropped their chain! Ahhh! I was trying to stay positive but I was getting frustrated. Then someones saddle bag came off and started flailing and flapping all over the place. The dude reached down and as he tried to fix it, he nearly took out the rest of the group that had just barely avoided the dropped chain gauntlet. It was actually funny how nuts we all were.

The first hill was approaching and I decided to go to the front and apply some pressure to separate some of the riders. Near the top I pulled off and there were only 4 or 5 still on my wheel. Cool! Except two of them were on the same team so I didn't really want to work that hard with them. Oh well. Eventually the group worked itself back to about 20 riders. Fortunately, things were much smoother.

I didn't have an odometer so I kept asking Drew how much farther. Surely the finish was right around the corner, but it wasn't. The race was moving slow again and we were spread out across the entire road. The motorcycle referee came up and yelled at us to not cross the center line again or we'd be disqualified. Since we were going so slow and the finish was approaching, I could feel everyone getting antsy again. I went to the front and did a little turn for a minute or so and then surprisingly, everyone started to pull through and work together. It was great!

We turned a sharp right corner and immediately, a dude attacked. I was like, "Okay, anyone else feel like chasing that?" Then I saw a big 500m on the road and I thought, "Oh sh!t! That's the winning move right there!" I shot out of the saddle and closed down the gap as quick as I could. I immediately went right by him and saw 200m on the road. "Go go go" I thought. "Everything you've got!" I crossed the line and then quickly entered that state of oxygen debt where you feel like throwing up, pooping your pants, and cursing at the same time. As we grouped back up we all introduced each other and chatted about the race before being allowed to ride back down the hill. It was a great race and I was glad I got up extra early for once.

The Time Trial

The time trail would be different. Instead of a few seconds of pain at the end of your race, it would be nearly 20 minutes of pain. That sounds short compared to my 40k and 56mi triathlon time trials but you have to push so much harder. I'll repeat, SO MUCH HARDER. As my start time drew nearer I actually started to get nervous. In a road race anyone can look good hiding behind wheels and blasting for the finish in a last minute dive. The other cyclist and even yourself can get a false impression of fitness. In a time trial its all you.

5...4...3...2...1...Go!

That count down is one of the scariest things you'll ever hear in this sport. You know it will hurt... a lot! But you don't know what will happen. There's just so much uncertainty.

I'm pretty sure I started off faster than I wanted to because of my nervous energy but before I knew it, I topped the first hill. Now I felt the efforts begging to set in. "Stay aero and smooth" I kept saying to myself, "only a few more miles left after this." Work on catching the next rider up front.

On the second little rise of a hill I was giving it everything. I know going up hills is where I'll do the most damage so I was really pushing. On the down hills I was spinning out but still trying to apply the pressure. Now where is that 1k mark?! I'm dying here.

I finished and luckily ended up wining luckily... but it was close! Chris Morelock finished only two seconds back, pushing me all the way. I was happy for wining but there are a lot of improvements I can make for next time.