Since starting to ride a road bike, I’ve been debating road racing. It looks like my definition of fun and i know that i’ll try it one day when my bravery, the calendar and life converge. But back in March, i suggested we drive out to one of the first local races so that i could watch and get a sense for it all. The night before Rich decided that if we were going to drive out there to watch, that he might as well race it. Yes, this highlights our differences in personality. I admire his willingness to jump right in. Especially when jumping right in involves riding with a whole bunch of eager and inexperienced male bike riders!
You can follow his racing here: Rich’s blog
But i’ll also post some of it…
Mason Lake Road Race #1
Being game to try many things insane, I decided to enter my first road race (on the bike), earlier today. Annie was originally planning on doing it, but she did a metric century on the bike yesterday, so was a little on the tired side. So, given the opening, I decided to step in.
http://static.wsbaracing.com/flyers/2010/MasonFlyer2010.pdf
We got up at 5AM this morning (March 7th), in order to make a 8:30AM registration cut-off. The race was day-of registration only. Anyway, we got there at 7:45, after driving for 1:15mins, and were one of the first to get registered. I had to pay for the race, plus buy a one-day racing license and rent a number. We parked the car, and generally got our bearings about us. We decided to hit the washrooms first. The washrooms were very interesting. The stalls had walls but no fronts. Great way to make quick friends!
We meandered back to the car, and I pulled out our trainer so I could spin my legs and warm up. That’s what most other people were doing. It is mostly required to do this, if you want to have max power from the start of the race and avoid injury. Some people do this for up to an hour before the race. Here is a pic that Annie took from behind (of my behind). There was a woman beside me doing the same thing. You can see that she is wearing a “kit”, which is the uniform for a team. Her team is this rather large woman’s-only team in the area. I was one of the only unattached riders, actually.
Here is the other angle:
The CAT 4 men left first. 5mins later, the CAT5 men left, with me in the bunch. We had ~ 60 riders, I would guess. The race was quite different than I expected. It wasn’t particularly fast, and the speed was quite variable, a lot of stop and go. CAT5 is where all the inexperienced riders are. There is no CAT6. CAT1 is the best, and then you go Pro. You don’t need to “qualify” to get into CAT5, just pay the entrance. All the higher categories (lower number) require that you do certain things to get into them, so the riders there and the way they ride are quite different. Here is the start (leaving from a driveway to a park), with me on the left, in my non-kit gear.
We did 3 loops of Lake Mason. It was quite pretty. We could see mountains, the lake and a pile of trees. The road was generally good, although it was a bit bumpy in parts. I hit a couple pot-holes, which popped my handlebars into my hands. I had this thought each time of “sure glad I’m holding on”. It was ‘interesting’ taking drinks from my water bottle. I only did that 3 or 4 times, since it mostly was never appropriate to do that. You have to keep your wits about you when you are in a pack, with 3-4 abreast. It would be like driving on highway 401 with only a vague sense of lanes and 2 or 3 centimeters between cars. If the cars hit, your wheels fall off, and the next set of cars crash into you. And that analogy turns out to be a great segue into the rest of my story.
Most of the way through the first loop, we all heard this loud explosion. It was obvious what it was. A tire had exploded, which meant that a cyclist and his bike was down, which also meant that others would be down too. We all slowed, rode around the 5 or 6 guys, and kept on going. On the next lap, another guy provided the entertainment. He touched his front wheel to the back of mine, and went down. I turned and saw the whole thing. He landed on top of his bike, and it appeared like the side of his face hit the road. Ouch! It wasn’t really my fault, so I and everyone else kept on riding. I think 4 other guys fell on top of the guy too.
Here is the bulk of the riders in the CAT5 race, to give you a sense. The race mostly stayed together.
On the last loop, things were looking good. I was still in the main pack, and was starting to think about getting closer to the front. All of a sudden, a guy in front of me crashed. I started breaking, but didn’t have time to do much. I hit another bike and was down. It all happened so quickly, so I don’t quite know what exactly transpired. However, I was on the ground and my bike was on top of me. Interesting. There were 5 or so other guys down. I was the first to get up, and I asked the others if they were OK. They said they were, so I took off. The first few strokes of the pedals were a little rough, but I got back into it. There was only ~5km left of the race, so I had no chance of catching back up. I haven’t seen the results yet, but I will have placed near the last as a result. That’s OK. It could have been a fair bit worse. One of the guys in my crash (as I was getting off the ground) said “I don’t think that I have a bike left.” Ouch!
As the subject line would suggest, I do have a fair bit of road rash. My knee was badly bruised and I had a good sized cut on one of my legs. All in all, I got off pretty easy. And my bike looks unharmed.
I bought a fancy new bike in late December. It was really nice to ride it in this kind of environment. I noticed a number of other folks with the same bike, and most were at the same (high) quality level. It really felt like the bike wasn’t holding me back, and was more than happy to run with anything that I could throw at it. It is always nice, in pretty much any pursuit, having gear that takes the best of what you can do, and doesn’t inhibit you in any way. This bike is just like that.
Here is me and the kids just after I cross the finish line.
Here is a monster that we ran into. Very scary! After a short chat, we decided that the monster was nice, and opted to take her home with us.
Annie says that she is looking forward to giving it a go this coming weekend! Who wouldn’t?
Hope this story provides you with some entertainment ;)
rich
Post-race late lunch near Mason Lake. Mexican food. Next year i think that we’ll bring a picnic or something.
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