5:00 AM  - Ben - “What’s our strategy for today? Roadies have strategies I think”  Me - “I don’t know what the hell a race strategy is.  Lets sprint from the start just to annoy the field, that’ll be fun”  Ben - “Thats awesome lets do that” ~ or something to that effect, it was early

Really that was about the extent of our plan, we thought it would be fun to sprint from the start, string out the field, annoy some folks with a fast start, confuse some game plans and such, but it was slightly less than a serious strategy and more of a joke.  We race mountain bikes and cross bikes, which means going fast start to finish is the extent of any formal race plan we usually have.  Though our “strategy” was more to have fun than anything else, there was a twinge of thought that went into it.  We were in the Cat 4/5 race, and although “teams” were involved, the general peloton in that level has no idea what’s going on, they don’t get organized, and they’re more likely to fumble a chase than actually work together in an organized fashion.  This is no insult to the 4/5 group, most racers at that level are just learning about race tactics, myself included, and to have too much organization would really suck some of the fun out of it I think.

At the start of the race, we confirmed that our joke of a plan was actually a plan and decided to give it a go, because if things went awry we could always just drop back to the pack and have some fun attacking again later.  The race had a neutral start behind a pace car at about 16 mph through the feed zone.  Once we cleared this area it was a go.  There was a solid tailwind as well as a nice little downhill at this part of the course, so as soon as we cleared the neutral zone I stood up and sprinted, hit 43 mph, and off we went, let the good times roll.  Ben was still working with his cross gearing so his poor little crankset was having none of the speed, but I decided to just keep going.  It appeared there was a lone man chasing me, but I was definitely putting a gap on the field. 

Roughly 4 miles in, the chaser found my wheel and introduced himself as Mark (I didn’t get the team name as it was in cursive and I don’t read so good while racing).  I politely informed him that my attack may have been idiotic, but he would have none of that and thus began our 40 miles together.  You couldn’t ask for a better person to ride with, we traded pulls the entire time, if I was getting tired he always had some encouraging words and vice versa.  I am a a road racing idiot so a few times he pulled off when it was my turn to pull and I missed my queue. He would look back, I’d apologize and put in my work.  In all honesty I thought he was the stronger rider and I was busting my ass to try and make sure I put in my fair share of work.  When we hit a headwind we worked really well together and traded pulls frequently keeping a solid pace and making sure neither of us was fighting the wind for too long. There was no whining, no complaining, we both just worked hard.  He did make a comment about our respective teams helping us which got a laugh out of me.  I had no idea what Ben was up to and he’s certainly a nice and helpful rider, but I sure as hell would never ask him to work for me in a race.  If he was leading the pack to chase me down so he could join the fun I would have had no complaints.  I kindly told Mark that I wasn’t expecting much from my team of one back there, but I thought we could do it.

A few times during the first lap I thought I couldn’t keep pulling and held Mark’s wheel for what felt like too long a time, but as soon as I recovered I tried to make sure I was earning my keep.  At the end of the first lap, I made a boner shift and dropped my chain on the final climb.  I was only off the bike for about 2 seconds, but Mark was kind enough to slow up, much to my delight.  From his perspective going solo in that wind was a poor choice for both of us so it was worth it for him to hold up for a few seconds.  After the race there was endless bitching and moaning about people taking pulls, crashing, riding poorly and on and on, so my hats off to Mark for being a class act the whole time, which apparently was not the norm.  

Mentally and physically I was pretty tired in the first lap.  After the half way point, and realizing the pack was no longer in site, I made the goal to keep it just the the 2 of us through lap 1.  I’m much better with smaller goals so this worked for me.  When we crossed the line on lap one I made the decision that we would fight to keep the whole race.  By that point, we had settled into a good rhythm, we rarely said much at all, just kept trading back and forth.  The second lap seemed to go by much quicker, but the wind on the backside was brutal.  I think gusts were between 12 and 40 mph so it was pretty substantial in some areas.  We passed the cat 3/4 racers pretty regularly and I think we took  over about 30 or so which felt good, considering they had a 6 minute start on us.  I was pretty confident nobody was launching an attack on us at this point, so for the last few miles I was trying to think of a way to take the win.  It was all I could do at times to hold his wheel, but I knew I was dead if I lost him so I kept giving it all I had to make sure I was taking my pulls and holding his wheel.  I thought surely he was stronger and would take me in any form of a sprint. 

The only advantage I could see that I had left in me was downhills and corners.  My mountain and cross experience has given me pretty solid handling skills and this was one area I found I was consistently faster in.  Luckily the course had a mile or so of bricks with a nasty little decent and a hard left coming into the finish straight.  Unfortunately there was a slight incline after this and then about a half mile for Mark to catch me, but I couldn’t think of any other plan.  Coming into the last climb, I gave a quick little effort on the hill to see if Mark would counter, but he just held my wheel and was content when I slowed down on the second half.  He came by for a pull at the top of the hill so I followed him through the corner then drafted him for about half the downhill to rest my legs.  When I started gaining I decided it was now or never so I sprinted through the downhill and into the bricks.  I hit the bricks at about 40 and took the left at right around 30.  Mind you this was not exactly a smart turn to fly through, there was some uneven brick and sand through multiple sections, but there was a solid line I had seen while warming up with Ben and took on the first lap.  I unloaded coming out of the turn and when I couldn’t pedal anymore saw I had opened a nice little gap.  There was still a half mile or so and I thought Mark could definitely still catch me so I pedaled for dear life, but I was pretty much out of juice.  Apparently Mark was shot too, I held the lead through the finish and took the win.  I forgot to pose with my arms up or some other shenanigans when I crossed the line, but I’ll try and put together an appropriate celebration if I get the chance again.

It felt great to get the win, as I know my training has paid off and I am in good shape for the upcoming season.  This does not mean I am ready for the mountain courses as I haven’t touched the dirt yet, but physically I at least know my conditioning has been pretty solid.  I kept it mixed up with the pool, running, weights, spinning, and rides so I don’t feel like burnout should be an issue later and physically I felt strong. 

All in all it was a great day.  I had a fun car trip with Chris and Ben in car awesome, both of which also had good races.  Chris unfortunately was in a crash and flatted, but still managed to have a solid finish.  We had a little carpool down with Tim, Adrian, Zach, and Kevin of Half Acre, It was fun to have a solid group of friends and riders at the race. I received lots of congratulations on my ride from random gracious folks which is always very uplifting and life was good. At least a half dozen people told me they thought it was XXX taking off at the start, so much for unique black and white, but its ok the dirt is our turf not so much these paved events (though I thought this comment was funny.) EDIT: not so much a case of mistaken identity, actually a xXx rider referring to the chase group

Overall I think everyone in our group did well and really enjoyed the race.  They were all kind enough to wait for the prize and trophies before we took off for home, so thanks to everyone for that.   The organizers put on a great race, so I highly recommend it for a fun early season event.