I pre-rode the course a few weeks prior with my teammate Mark. They call this race the Paris-Roubaix of California, and after I rolled back into the parking lot at Williams High School where we started from I began to understand why as I realized how numb my hands were. As I pulled off my riding gloves I was thankful for the loss of sensation in my hands as I saw the beginnings of small blisters forming on my palms. The course consisted of sections of "paved" roads followed by stretches of dirt. I use the term "paved" loosely because there were so many sealed potholes covering the road that it was pointless to try and avoid them. There was simply no good line to take and diverging from your current course to try to miss one rough spot would only slow you down and ensure you hit the one behind it. My hands futilely searched the bars for a haven from the road vibrations- dancing from the hoods, to the flat of the bars, to the drops and back again.
There is a small section of Old Sacramento that retains the cobbles laid down from when the town was built in 1849. My daily commute to work takes me by this stretch and one day I decided to take a small detour from my usual route and see just what all the fuss about these cobbles was about. The pain that ensued as my front wheel crossed the timeline of asphalt to cobble unleashed a fury of pins and needles on all points of contact between me and my bike. I was immediately brought back to this moment when riding the Leesville Gap course. I cherished the sections of gravel as they were smooth as glass compared to the pavement. My cyclocross experience paid off when negotiating the loose patches that caused my rear tire to fish tail when applying power to the pedals. It proved very interesting to pilot a road bike at speed with 23mm slicks off-road compared to the sticky grip and plush ride provided by my Tufo 32mm tubulars run at low pressures on my cross bike.
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The route started off civil enough from Williams High School.
I laid down to go to sleep at 9:00 PM the night before the race wanting to get as much sleep as possible, knowing full well that it would be hours before I actually fell asleep. I squinted my eyes to protect them from the blinding light of the alarm clock display in the dark room and it gawked back at me with "11:11" on the display. That is the last thing I remember before finally falling asleep.
The incessant beeping of the alarm crawled its way into my ear drums and roused me from my deep sleep. I drunkenly stabbed at the box of noise missing the snooze button several times before shutting it up. Through half-open eyes the display told me that it was 4:30 AM- time to get up. I had prepared the coffee pot the night before so it was ready to start brewing once I flipped the switch on. I made scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast topped with almond butter, banana slices and cinnamon.
Everything had been packed the night before as well, so all I had to do was load up my bike and hit the road. I had included 5 water bottles, extra gels, a change of clothes, pump, a small amount of tools and a towel. I was fairly confident that I had everything I needed for today's event. It didn't occur to me until I was 15 minutes away from my destination that I had forgotten my USAC race license! Luckily I had my smart phone on me and was able to pull up my account and prove my active status at the registration booth.
Pulling up to a race event always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My eyes zig-zag back and forth between all the high-end bikes and deep-dish carbon tubulars that I dream of one day being able to afford. A few Cat 1 guys rode by as I pulled my bike down from it's rack and the mechanical ratcheting sound of the pawls on the freewheel made my ears perk up with excitement; I can't exactly explain it but I love that sound.
I made it through registration and put my jersey on my car window and shut the door to hold it in place while I affixed my number to it- I would be 325 today. After pinning the fours corners, I removed the jersey and put it on, modeling it to myself in the car window's reflection to ensure that I had gotten the positioning right. I tucked into an aero position and the number was displayed adequately. Taking the jersey back off, I added the remaining safety pins so that the number would not flap in the wind at speed.
I did my usual warm-up consisting of easy spinning to get the blood flowing followed by several hard efforts. I returned to my car and saw that there were about 10 minutes until the start of my race. I downed a Clif gel and made my way to the starting line. I was one of the first few riders in my category up to the line and made small talk with the rider to my left. It turned out that he had raced in the Sacramento Cyclocross series last year in Men's C's and would be moving up to B's to race with me next year- small world! The race official paced back and forth in front of us while going over the rules: Center line strictly enforced, 5 mile neutral lead-out until we got outside of town, pretty usual stuff. Then he blew his whistle and we were off!
I made the cardinal mistake in road racing and was the lead out man for the peloton. I exerted too much effort in the first part of the race and by the time we got to the first climb I started back-sliding. I watched in disgust as the group climbed out of reach and soon disappeared from my horizon.
I was now riding solo 20 miles into the race. As I crested the first climb and began the technical descent I thought I could make up some time and catch back on to the lead group as I am a descent descender which I attribute to my years of riding sport bikes in the twisties and on the track. The descent was just as littered with potholes and patches as the rest of the course- and as I came around a sweeping left-hander I heard a bang and scraping sounds and looked back only to see my water bottle had jostled from the cage and spun into the ditch behind me. In an instant I was on the brakes- I was still 30 miles from the neutral feed-zone and couldn't make it that far riding solo in this heat with only one bottle. I had covered a surprising amount of ground before coming to a complete stop so it took me a while to recover my battered bottle and continue the descent. I can still catch up to them I told myself and hammered the downhill trying to make up time. After another mile I heard the same sound and looked down only to see my other bottle had flew from its cage! I was irate at this point, but nonetheless had to stop and recover my second runaway bottle.
A couple miles up the road I had set into a nice rhythm and had caught a Cat 4 rider who had been dropped from the peloton. I exchanged a few words with him, but we were both concentrating hard on riding so it was short and sweet. When you come across a dropped racer from another category all you want to do is jump on their wheel and hide from the wind to save every extra watt that you can, but doing so would disqualify you from the race. A section of small hills rose up in front of us and as I went to switch from my large to small chain ring, I felt the pedals stop pushing back against my legs and looked down and my heart sank- my chain had dropped! I was perplexed as to why this happened since I was not running any cross when I shifted rings. The only thing I can think of is a limit screw is out of adjustment from all the jarring on the course or a well-timed bump jostled the chain at the exact moment I shifted rings.
I conceded any hopes of catching back up with the peloton and felt defeated. I was on my way again after fixing my chain and looked forward to seeing the finish line and the gluttony of mishaps to be behind me. I continued on the rest of the race in solitude except for passing several Cat 5 racers who had popped off the back of the group as well. I tried to get them to organize so we could work together but despite my efforts I could not get a fluid pace line formed. As the road tilted upwards once again entering the neutral feed zone, I looked back to see they had lost contact with my wheel.
The neutral feed zone was placed at the top of a short but steep section of road just after the second descent. I moved my Camelbak bottles from my bottle cages and threw my third bottle away (felt like a pro!) and eagerly grabbed two bottles from the volunteer feeders. The bottles looked worse off than the ones that had decided to jump from my cages: there were black marks and gouges adorning every side and the logos had long since faded from whatever ride they had been handed out at. I opened the first bottle and took a gulp. The water was luke-warm at best and had a plastic taste reminiscent of drinking from a garden hose in the heat of summer as I used to do playing in the backyard as a kid. A man standing next to a cooler had handfuls of ice which he handed to each willing rider. I grabbed a handful and shoved it down the back of my jersey to help cool me off.
I was essentially wearing all black since the old version of the Team BEER kit was all black, I had a black helmet, and black socks and gloves. At least my shoes were white! The heat swelled up around me and I began to feel the effects of heat exhaustion setting in: dizzy, weak, and nauseas. I was thankful for each short section of shade that spilled onto the pavement from the sparse sprinklinig of trees along the route. I was starting to feel the fatigue set into my legs as I watched the speed fall on my speedometer. I stood on my pedals to squeeze every last watt out of my attempt at maintaining a decent speed. I slumped back into my saddle and took a brief recovery before standing again. I made the final left turn and rode for what seemed like forever but was only a few miles. My heart jumped as I saw the 1k sign and gave all the energy I had left in my weakened legs to cross the line to end the suffering.
There were still a few miles to ride back into town and to the Williams' High School parking lot but I had finished Leesville Gap road race. When I reached my car and tried to dismount my bike, instant cramps bit into my quads and locked them up. It took several tries to get them to loosen up, and I gingerly removed myself from my bike and sat down. Mark pedaled in a few minutes later from his race and we had our "recovery drink" and went to check on the results. They only placed the first few riders from each category so we were going to have to wait to see just where we fared. Mark was excited about how great he had raced and was fairly certain he was inside the top 15! I knew I had passed several Cat 5 riders so I hoped to have a mid-pack finish. The results were posted by the next week and our predictions were almost spot-on. Mark had finished 12th and I came in 20th.
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