Turlock RR
My first cat1/2 road race was last wekend at the 3rd anual Turlock RR. It was a windy day with four laps of a 22.8 mile rolling course around Turlock Lake.
...tailwind...rollers...headwind...rollers...headwind...rollers...headwind...rollers...tailwind...
Because of Santa Cruz Crit and Chico Stage Race the cat1/2 field was small, but I was happy to use this as my first cat1/2 race and happy to have Will Rose and Fergus Tanaka with me in the field. The wind was blowing up a gale and right at the start Fergus gave a little kick, slowly look back, stared at everyone, and then just took off. It was hilarious. At mile 1 of a 90+ mile race we were all strung out in a pace line, moving at a decent pace with the tailwind. Everyone seemed ready to go and we started to trade pulls and keep it moving along smoothly. About 6 miles into the first lap there was a sprint preem for the county line and about 500m from the line Fergus give it a kick and took it. That really strung out the group with Fergus off the front. Pretty soon one rider and then another rider jumped across to his wheel and formed a lead group. With a slight hesitation from the rest, the three riders gained a nice gap, but as we turned into the strong headwind they slowly came back and eventually we were all back together.
It was non stop headwind and rollers from here on out and everyone fell back into rotation to plow through it. As I took my pull, I gave a little push to up the pace and move things along. When I looked back, all of the sudden had a a few bike lengths of a gap. So I crossed over to the left of the road, looked back again and didn't see any reaction. So I decided to push on and see if anyone would come along. Keeping in mind that this was only 15 miles into the race with 75-80 miles remaining, I wasn't exactly trying to make a solo breakaway. I was simply trying to draw out some stronger riders and see what happens. As luck would have it a rider bridged up, passed me and started hammering it. At first I was a little surprised at how hard he was going, but I sat on his wheel and came around for my pull. We continued to trade some hard pulls and soon we had a 1mim30sec gap. As we turned into the tailwind the other rider looked over, told me he had a man in the back that wouldn't chase him down, then put his head down and started to drill it. It was awesome. With that tailwind we were hammering at 32-34 mph and extending our lead as the miles went by. It was on. I couldn't believe we were going for a 75-80 mile breakaway. 3.6 laps of never ending rollers and headwind was a tall order, but we were working well. As the moto ref gave us time splits, we just kept it nice and steady in the headwind and went hard in the tailwind sections. Our gap went up, then went down, and then continued to go back up for the rest of the race. On the third lap I could tell the other rider was getting worn out on the rollers, but I wanted him to hang on so we could help each other in that hellish wind. As we took the last lap the other rider started to take shorter pulls and I was worried about lossing time, so I just plowed along and started pulling harder and harder. At one point he apologized for not helping more, but I just wanted him there to give me a break from the wind. When we hit the last 5 miles the moto ref came along side us and told us we had a 4 min gap. That was it....we had it...it was over...all that suffering was worth it...and i knew the other rider was blown. At 2km from the finish we shook hands and smiled in the fruits of our labor. I led into the last km and at 200m form the line I looked back gave a kick and it was over. My first cat1/2 race and i won it with a crazy breakaway. I couldn't believe it!!!!
(Photos courtesy of Ray Prevost)
Of course thanks to all support from the sponsors. Also everyone please send some holistic healing vibes out to Will Rose and Fergus Tanaka who were caught up in stupid, pointless crash that gave Will a broken collar bone and Fergus a broken helment and saddle...someone really owes them big time. Here is the podium pic, but I couldn't find any other shots of out breakaway efforts. I will post some more photos if they show up.
-DB