Highland Rim Cycling Classic
 

Who's in?

Come watch this flatlander muster every watt to pull his ass uphill, trying not to just pull over and quit on the the first stage. Seriously.

What am I in for at this race?

I was interested until I saw the 110mi length for the Pro/1/2 race.

In April, unsupported? Hell no.

In July or August, with support? Maybe.

I'm in for the CAT 4 race

*might be my last one as a 4*

Nobody else racing this? Frickin wussys!

Anyone decide to register?

I'm in for the 3's in a support role for our climbers. I haven't ridden very well this week. Sunday's race was cancelled after 14 miles(few bad crashes) and I worked Tuesday. Gonna try and get a decently hard short ride tomorrow and travel 7h Friday. Hopefully get a good leg opener that night and prepare for the punishment of Saturday.

Me and a teammate are in for the 1/2 race, should be a slugfest.

Yeah, I saw that you were in. I think having Joe Martin at the same time will hurt though. On the other hand, that could make the HRCC a very hard race. What team are you with?

I'm with Team Dayton, in red and navy blue Verge kit on Fuji's. We're all in the 3's this year and are bringing some juniors. Have to keep an eye out for you during the crit.

We're staying at the Best Western McMinnville.

Think so? You think there will be a lot of pros in town because Joe Martin is the next week? I would imagine guys would be resting their legs for Joe Martin and not racing McMinnville.

I was thinking JM was this weekend. What I meant was with/if JM is the same weekend, some of the big boys would go there, leaving the local big dogs to really hammer the Highland Rim race, but possibly hurting field sizes. I was guessing that some of the guys would skip Joe Martin thinking they may not have a chance there, so they come to try and tear the legs off in TN.

I'll be heading down tomorrow to do the cat 4 race. I've been wanting to do this one for a few years but kept missing it. I hope there's a good turn out.

Is the Best Western real close to the event?

Now I know who to tell my teammates to mark

I'm doing the CAT5 RR and TT. This will be my first RR and TT..

I pre-rode the RR a couple of weeks ago. Man that wind up on the plateau was brutal. Not to mention you are on a major hwy for almost the last half of the course.. I was loving the climbing though.

Bring on the suffering..

Where is the finish? From what I understand there is a fast descent, coming essentially back down off the plateau. But how far is the finish after the bottom of that descent?

Looks to be about 4 miles to the Saturday morning race site and real close to the crit.

Thats right ... mark the fatty in orange.

I believe that the finish is ~3 miles after the descent. It's not that flat either.

I will be there for the cat 5<30 omnium.
I'm really hoping they decide to combine the under 30 and over 30 groups since nobody is registering for the under 30 races. That RR with 4 or 5 guys would be miserable. Too early this year for me to go to 4's too. Especially for this race.

Anyone else in cat 5 under 30 too?

Many will not pre-reg for this one. They wait to see how they feel and what the weather will do.

Yeah, so combine my 190-195lbs with dead legs this weekend and you get the idea. Paced the climb at slightly over threshold and picked up a few riders. Got into a good paceline and were starting to gain time on the main field. Stood up to stretch and cramped terribly. Tried to stretch the hamstring and the quad cramped. Had to get of the bike and massage it out. Humbly rolled across the line. During the TT, I just put it in the 27 and spun. Anytime I would really put power down, I would start to cramp again. Not that I could have gone THAT much faster though. Legs were dead for the crit this morning. Had a teammate in 3rd overall. I took off for the first few laps, Then tried to catch onto the back of the lead/break pack. Held onto them for about 4 laps, then popped. Finished again........humbly.

I sucked this weekend. That is all.

I have never raced this poorly. I knew I sucked at hills, but this was incredibly rediculous. Back to crits, cross and TT's for me. :)

Props to all those fast hill guys. I don't know how you do it.

Don't feel bad, one of our really good climbers had a bad day in the RR as well. I think one of our 3's got second in the rr and won the crit though so not a bad weekend. That is one tuff race and the reason my 87kg did not attend....

I managed to get my 195lb carcass up and over the plateau for a 6th place finish.
I slammed down some caffeine and sugar and got 4th for the up hill TT.
That was brutal after stiffening up for a few hours.
I really liked that crit course too. Nice, tight and very technical.
All round a really good race.

i'm 215lbs and that 5 mile climb killed me.

i kept sight of the leaders until the top but, once the wind and rollers started across the plateau, the 8-10 leaders were just far enough ahead that our little group of five was no match.
still, i was happy to finish in (or around) top 10 of the cat 5 field.

this was my first race.

I was riding around after the RR with one of your teammates. The guy who says he heads up the Kids program(I think). Nice guy, I was just tooling around and asked if you were there, so we got to chatting.
Right as his group was winding up for the sprint, a Honda CRV decides to slam on its' brakes about 30 yards from the line. :sigh:

And does anyone know where the pics get posted? There were tons of photogs there that I'm sure got some killer pics. I'd like to re-live some of the moments I missed in my lactic acid/cramp induced haze.

And for the record, I will not be attending this race again as long as I live. :)

Sounds like you were talking to Tom. He is a really good guy. Go to http://www.tricitiesroadclub.org and scroll down til you see the link for Bart Nave photography. I checked this afternoon and he has some pics uploaded. It did not look like he had them all as I only saw about 5 pages worth and I did not recognize any from the 4 field, but there may be more up by now. I'm sure there were lots of other photographers, but I do not know who they were.