Cycling Anniversary

My first ever bike race was on April 10, 2010, at the Tour of the Battenkill, aka "America's Queen of the Classics", aka America's answer to the Paris-Roubaix spring classic. The organizers kindly moved the race to a Sunday this year so that it not only coincided with its more famous French cousin, but also marked the exact one-year anniversary of my competitive entry to the sport.

Last year's race was a great introduction to bike racing, with none of my major fears (crashing, flats, or bonking) being realized, and a surprising 8th place finish in my 50-man field of 45+ Cat5 riders. This year I hoped to improve on that placing with a year of experience, a plan to work with another rider I had met last year, and a more aggressive race plan. However, I was still afraid of all the same things as last year. The course this year had more dirt sections than last year - a total of about 20% of the 64 mile course - and an additional two hills to bring the total climbing to about 2900 feet (although it's been reported in some places as 4000 feet.)

I lined up close to the front at the start with my "team-mate" Greg alongside me, and after a 1km neutral start we were off at a brisk pace. This was also my first race with any sort of bike computer, so for once I could figure out how fast I was going and where I was on the course. I was also gathering power data for later analysis, and trying to avoid being distracted by my instantaneous wattage.



One of my reasons for starting near the front was to reduce my risk of being behind any sort of problems, like water bottles popping out on the first section of dirt, but almost as soon as we hit the dirt road there was a crash in front of me. I was just able to get around it safely and when we regrouped on the other side I didn't see Greg. I guess if we were a proper team I would have stopped to wait for him, but not being sure what was going on I just kept riding. (Does this make me sound like a bad person? Let me stress that we were not officially on a team. And read on.) Soon we were into the first hill, and I followed my plan of doing whatever was necessary to stay with the leaders. This meant a pretty full-out effort, but I consider myself a decent hill climber so I hoped I wasn't digging much deeper than the guys around me. I made it to the top of the 2nd hill (Juniper Swamp Rd) in about 3rd place, feeling OK, and in a group of about 8 riders. We regrouped on the way down, and then one of the riders organized us into a paceline. The plan was clearly to get a move on and separate from the rest of the field. Before long it was my turn to lead the paceline, and after a little stint at the front I moved off and dropped to the back, as you do.

What happened in the next few seconds probably determined the rest of the race for me, but that wasn't apparent at the time. Somehow, when I got to the back of the paceline, I couldn't muster the energy to accelerate back up to their speed, and so I fell off the back. I have replayed this scene many times now and I have to think that the effort on the first two hills plus a maybe too-long stint at the front just left me too tired to pull out the effort to rejoin the line. But I probably also made a rookie mistake of waiting too late to start accelerating as I reached the back of the line. (Subsequent power data analysis suggests that my peak power for the race occurred at this moment.) And I certainly didn't know then that by losing that paceline I was committing myself to a very long day of largely solo riding.

I soon found myself in the company of one other straggler, and I suggested we work together to try to join the leaders, but we turned out to be a very poor team: he was much bigger than me, and I would lose him on the hills only to see him flying past me on the downhills - and this was with me being as aggressive as I dared on the descents, hitting 40mph at times. There's no substitute for gravity when it comes to descending I guess. We did eventually managed to work together on some rolling sections, and then were joined by two other riders. We lost one of them to a mechanical issue, and the three of us hung together for a while.

Last year's course had a longish flat, paved section in the middle which I recall spending at a very relaxed pace in a paceline, recovering nicely before the 2 serious hills in the last 20 miles. This year, that section had been re-routed to go over dirt roads with another two serious hills. So there was really no place to recover, and eventually my two paceline companions dropped me. (Again, I wonder if I should have dug for something extra to avoid that fate, but I was really pretty spent, and still 30 miles from the finish). Fortunately, I was soon joined by Greg, who was very scantily clad in a pair of torn shorts, testifying to the fact that he had indeed been in that crash way back near the start. To his considerable credit, he had got back up and ridden solo for about 25 miles, passing most of the field to reach me, and we were at this point both in pretty much the same worn-out state. We rode together into the feeding station, where I picked up my third water bottle without incident (unlike last year).

Soon we were on to Meeting House Rd, a series of rolling hills on dirt, where I almost lost it riding through some deep sand, and then a tedious flat section before the final climb. I gave Greg the last dregs of my water (he hadn't picked up a third bottle, and was clearly having an even harder day than me - see, I'm not a totally bad person) and ate a final gel to keep me going.

As we approached the last hill I saw a 10k to go sign which lifted my spirits considerably. Somehow I was always able to find something to get me up the hills in a way that I struggled to match on the flatter sections. The last hill has a few false tops, but eventually I was at the real top, on my own again, with 4 miles of downhill pavement in front of me. I was determined not to lose any more places if I possibly could - last year I was caught by 5 guys on the last section, testament to my dreadful descending abilities, and 4 of them outsprinted me, pointing to another weakness in my arsenal.

Soon I was seeing 5k to go, 4k, etc., and finally into the finish on my own. Greg came in a minute or so back, pictured below. I crossed the finish line feeling a lot more spent than last year - I slumped over the bike while a kindly volunteer asked me if I was OK. I'd compare the feeling as close to the end of a marathon, whereas last year it felt much more like a half-marathon.

Greg holds his shorts together at the finish for the sake of modesty.

I had been trying to keep track of how many people were in front of me, and estimated that I might just have made the top 10. Indeed, that was one of the things that kept me going. After initially showing up as 11th, the official results show me exactly at 10th, which somehow feels a lot better than 11th. Not quite the placing I had hoped for, but I will also say that I went for it a lot more than last year, against what I suspect was a considerably stronger field. And I think I've learned a few things that I can improve on both tactically and in my training. I'll definitely be back next year, hopefully as a Cat 4.