My first foray into cat 3 racing and what a course to test it out. The Conestoga Challenge contains two really difficult climbs in each of four laps, the type that take a lot out of you, the type that fracture a peloton into little groups of riders. At 50 miles, this would also be about 25% longer than the longest race I've ever been in. The key would be to make sure I was in the front group when the peloton fell apart.
About 40 riders took the start. On the first lap, the peloton stayed together. Unfortunately, I was having some mechanical problems. In back, I couldn't shift into my biggest (easiest) cog without the chain skipping back and forth. Up front, when I would try to go into my big ring the derailleur kept throwing the chain over the top. Luckily I figured out how to fix this without stopping!
On the second lap, coming up the first big climb, the peloton fell apart. This was the moment and I was up to the task. Ten of us made the lead group and the other riders fell away. My only teammate in the race, Ryan Shebelsky also made the lead group as I knew he would.
On the third lap I started to realize that I was not quite as strong as my companions. On both of the big climbs I started to fall off the back a little at the end of the climb. I'm not sure if having that last gear would have helped me or not. At the top of each climb I was able to hook back onto the group.
The fourth lap started with my receiving a fresh bottle of cytomax from Rob Allen. All was going well and then we hit Stony Hill road. This is not one of the two big climbs, but it was enough. My nine companions simply climbed more quickly than I could. For the first time in my life, I fell off the back!
I kept at it, finding my own rhythm as they rode away from me. I just tried to focus on keeping 10th place. And then my mechanical problem became huge: my rear derailleur cable snapped. For the rest of the race (including the two big climbs) I would be stuck in my hardest gear. I pushed on. I had to jog my bike up the two big climbs and had to dismount on a third shorter climb, but I was going to finish the race.
As it turns out, we put enough distance from the rest of the riders that I was able to hang on to my position. My first cat 3 race was a pretty good result, 10th place.
Later I looked up the other nine guys in that lead group. The oldest guy was 9 years younger than me. The other 8 ranged from 18 to 27 years younger than me. Taking that into account, I feel pretty damned good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment