kle

With yesterday's 'opener' ride (Deep Blue TT #1) having me unable to walk without pain and today's weather being far colder than anticipated, I was questioning whether it would be a good idea to race today. But I couldn't forego a chance to race in one of the most interesting places for a bike race: a NASCAR race track, the Richmond International Raceway, a D-shaped oval with a wide, banked track and no turns.

My legs came around with a bit of trainer warm-up, although my heart rate told me that I was still a bit fatigued from yesterday. Typical lack of response to stimulus - pedal hard, but the HR barely lifts to Z2. Oh well - maybe I can just sit in and bide my time for the field sprint, right? Because there WILL be a field sprint, right?

As we started, my cardiovascular system finally woke up, and I felt like racing again. From the gun, there were attacks after attacks after attacks. Breakaway attempts that lasted for a lap or two kept popping off every other lap, and I was in the thick of it covering attacks, bridging up to breaks (really bridging, not just reeling in), and even doing some attacking myself. I'd get reeled in, slide back into the middle of the field, recover, find my way up to the left side (where making moves was easier), and then launch off again. This was fun, and I felt good!

A couple of my teammates were there when I'd get reeled back in after an attack/breakaway attempt, and a couple of my other teammates were keeping an eye on things from mid-pack. For over thirty laps, we continued like this - attack, counter, bridge, recover, repeat. There were only a few brief moments when there was no one up the road.

It was very interesting racing on this track - with no turns, hills, or other selection points, it was basically a hammer-fest. Watching the moves and the peloton's response to them was interesting, too - whenever the guy at the front of the peloton would get tired, he'd pull off up the track. Riders behind him would follow him up, and that would cause riders behind them to start following them up too, causing the group to start flowing up the track. Eventually, after the first fifteen or so riders were moving up the track, the next guy would break the pattern and surge forward. Like a crashing wave, the guys who went up would see the surge and come back down and re-integrate into the pack, all having dropped back about twenty places. Many times I was caught between the rising crest of the 'wave' and the 'undertow', having moved up to what was the left of the group to make or cover a move - when that happened, I'd find myself right back in the middle of the pack and I'd have to start working on moving to the outside left again.

Finally, with about six to go, I was where I wanted to be - outside left, about 10-12 places back - and saw there was a guy up the road (and that the pack didn't seem to be gaining on him). I launched my bridge to him and got clear of the field. Successfully reaching him, I began to rotate with him to sustain his break - he shouted that we had a good gap, and that we could make it bigger by working together. For the next five laps, we traded pulls about every 30 seconds.

Truth be told, I was trying to stay away with that guy on the final laps (my role on my team this season is support, to ride for someone else, but I wanted to be a little bit selfish just this once). I would have tried for 1st place, and I would have been satisfied with 2nd (since I've never made it onto the podium in any race, ever), but the bell lap came and he put the hammer down attempting to break away from me and solo in for the win, which totally scuttled our 10-second two-man break. I couldn't hang with him, blew up, and cannonballed backwards. I got caught by the field soon after; unfortunately for my former break-mate, he wasn't strong enough to do it alone either, and the field was in 'big crunch' mode anyways, so he got caught too. I was quickly spit out the back.

But I saw my teammate in 3rd position as I was fading away in the last 500 meters, and knew we had it. The field strung itself out in chasing us down, which opened the door for my teammate to kick it in for the victory.

It may not have been my day, but it was my team's day today, and for that I am very pleased.