After the hill climb, I had some steak, pasta, and a solid 12 hour sleep. Felt pretty good on Sunday morning, and was excited to race after watching the earlier races in the day. Mom and dad (the "fans") came down, as well as Tori and her parents.
Felt good during warmup, legs weren't sore, heartrate was responding nicely to efforts, and the day's temperature was good for racing. Watched the Cat 3 and Women's races, then got my chance for a few warmup laps on the course in. I tried a bunch of different lines through the corners, practiced going by the corner right in front of the store at 40kph against the barriers, and also did a few corners through the worst lines I could find, knowing that I wouldn't always be at liberty to pick the ones I liked best. All seemed do-able.
Finally, it's start time at 1pm. First neutral lap was around 50kph, which made my 40kph warmup corner feel inadequate. After the neutral lap, the straightaway speeds were near 60kph every lap. I was in the last 4 riders, but not feeling overly taxed quite yet. I decided Bob Veroba and Jesse Collins were good guys to stay near, and was generally following them around. I tried to work up a spot or two each lap, and was having fun doing so. It's neat being non-competitive in Cat 2 in a race like this... instead of thinking about any end result, I was enjoying the dynamics of the race at every second. It's fun being in a peloton that fast, and I was feeling solid, ie. I wasn't going to blow up in the next 20 minutes at that pace. Having said that, that pace was completely inadequate for that race!
About 20-25 minutes in, I'm approaching the right hand corner in front of the store, and happen to be once again in the perfect spot to watch a high speed crash. CP Walsh and Cyrus Kangarloo put skin to pavement and go for a nice little slide, I was only inches behind. The thought of braking crossed my mind, but I had no idea who was behind me and how close. So I just tightened up my corner a tad and managed to make it by unscathed, although my heartrate jumped a good 5 beats a minute. I hammered out of the corner with a few quick pedal strokes, then had an epiphany.
Recalling Mckee's BBQ on Friday, where Geoff Clark was sporting his recently broken collar bone, impressive bruising, torn rotator cuff, swollen blue fingers, and whatever else he wrecked... I realized that the upside of me continuing to race was a) more fun, and b) a bottom end of the pack result. The downside could be getting tangled up in one of these crashes and missing TransRockies.
I shoulder checked, coasted over to the side, and abandoned the race. I figure I used up two lucky stars in the last little while between being a close observer of this crash and coming out of the Colorado crit unscathed. As I reported to the officials that I was out, Cyrus was getting his leg wiped clean, and was holding his wrist in pain. Rumor has it he's now wearing a cast, which probably isn't the worst news for a cyclist, but Cyrus is also a XC skier, so that can't be good news for his training regimen.
I think had I not pulled out, I only would have made it another 5 laps or so anyway. The Symmetrics guys were putting on the heat, and broke up the peloton in short order, with Zach Bell eventually lapping the entire field. Rather amazing.
About 3 years ago, I volunteered to be a guinnea pig for a study at the U of C for cycling performance. The group I was in also included Bob Veroba and Zach Bell. Among other things, we did a series of 20km time trials. The girl who sent out our performance data thought she was hiding the confidential data of the other riders, but let's just say she isn't quite as adept with spreadsheets as the average investment banker. Zach's data confirmed that he made the right career choice by sticking with cycling, and that I made the right choice by sticking with the day job. I am (I was?) about 65% of the cyclist he is, mathematically speaking anyway.
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