Cherry Pie Race Report: A Missive

...And so it begins!

2012 starts not with the mountain bike race I thought it would, but rather, a road race I thought I'd never do again: the Cherry Pie road race. I did this race a long, long time ago and swore I would never road race again. Especially since it takes place in February, a time of year in Oregon not known for its blue skies and butterflies. Frankly I've always thought road racing to be mind-numbingly boring and not something I was likely to ever pursue.

Last year was good year of racing for me. As a Cat2 in the XC mountain bike series, I managed to make it to the podium 4 times; twice on the top step, securing 2nd place for the overall series. With this I earned myself an upgrade to Category 1 for 2012. As a Cat B in cyclocross, I started the season in early September with 11 top-ten finishes. I started the Cross Crusade series at Alpenrose Dairy by taking 2nd place and only nearly missing the win in the last minute and a half. After this, I was awarded with an automatic upgrade to Cat A status. It did not take long to realize I had a long way to go before I would be anywhere near the top-ten again! It was at this point that I revisited the idea of road racing again.

What would it take to be able to compete with these guys? They are fast, I mean, stupid fast. With most of my racing background in the off-road disciplines, I generally had no trouble competing with these guys through the more technical sections of a race; it was my fitness that slapped me right in my face.

Criteriums! This is where the fitness will be built. They are similar in nature, in that it requires and all-out effort for 45-60 minutes with little or no time to recover. I decided that for 2012, I needed to do as many crits as possible and I need to do them as a category 3 road racer.

The simple problem is that one cannot just arbitrarily upgrade from a cat4 to a cat3. In road racing you must earn your stripes.

"One does not simply walk into being a Cat3. Its black gates are guarded by more than just OBRA officials. There is evil there that does not sleep. Kenji's eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with high vO2 max, high LTs, and broken spirits. The very GU you eat is a poisonous gel. Not with ten thousand water bottles could you do this. It is folly."

Road racing: a necessary evil for the betterment of my cyclocross racing! And so, the friday before the Cherry Pie, I was informed by my roommate that I was racing on Sunday and that I didn't have a choice in the matter. Once the weather reports confirmed that I was indeed racing, I started readying my soul.

Race day! Bags packed, bike tuned, oatmeal eaten, coffee drank, nutella/jam sammy made, numbers pinned, legs warmed up, nutella/jam sammy eaten, ~2 mile neutral roll out and we were off! The race started fast. Although immediately up to 30 mph, I was quite comfortable sitting in the middle of the pack. This was my strategy: hide in the pack, do no work, go home a winner...this almost worked out.

From the beginning, one solo rider got away from the group and took an impressive 2 minute lead then about 10 miles into the race, another 2 riders got away. In an attempt to catch the second breakaway, a couple of guys moved to the front of the pack and pretended to do some work. However, after sitting in the middle of the pack for nearly 20 miles, the last 2 or 3 of which trickled by at a mere 18.5 mph, I started getting antsy. I didn't necessarily need to catch the breakaway, but I wanted to do something other than decide which wheel was the best wheel to suck. I was feeling too fresh for my own good. I decided I would put in just enough work to get the party started and then drift back into oblivion. To the front! I pulled us up to about 22 mph, where I still felt strong, but wasn't spending too many watts! I only stayed there for a couple minutes and that was enough. The real chase began and before we knew it, we had the 2 riders in sight and soon enough, we had them in our grip.

We hit the final climb of the first lap at balls-out speed and I immediately went into the red. Knowing this is where a split in the field could happen I was committed to staying with the front of the group. Once over the climb, we had a small split, though it came back together within just a couple miles. It was at this point we finally caught the solo rider who had been off the front from the beginning. Ready for round two!

Early into the second lap another two riders broke off the front, got 40 seconds on us, and stayed at 40 seconds nearly the whole time. Midway through the lap, with about 12 miles to go, we decided it was time to start the chase. Again...sitting in the middle of the pack had rendered me impatient and I felt like I needed to open my legs up a bit. 5 or 6 of us finally started working together and formed a nice tight pace line for a few miles and brought the gap down to about 10 seconds. With the final climb/sprint rapidly approaching, and satisfied with my efforts I went back to mid-pack and continued my trash-talking and started singing Lady Gaga.

As we approached the final right-hand turn to the finish climb, I knew I needed to be no further back than 10th wheel so I made my move and made the hard right. My big fear was that I would be so jacked up with energy that I would make the mistake of trying to fully sprint the 1K climb up the 7% gradient. But, I kept my head and picked a nice low gear and started the slow grind up the hill. As what felt like the entirety of the field came screaming past me I briefly questioned my tactics. That is, right up until I actually saw their tiny little heads explode one by one and I continued right on by the bloody stumps of their shatters legs. I spun the pedals, dropped a gear, spun that one up, one more gear, spun that one up too, dropped one more, 200 meters to go, passed a few guys, then a couple more, one more gear, heart beating in my ears, tunnel vision beginning, passed another guy, one more gear, 50 meters to go, finish line in sight, people screaming.....

11th place! (Which actually ended up being 10th because one guy was later disqualified for a tainted blood sample or for crossing the centerline during the sprint or something like that!)

Though I missed any upgrade points by just one placing, I am confident that with a little commitment to this road racing business, I will be racing the crits this summer as a Cat 3 and well on my way to peeing with the big dogs of cyclocross this year!