Bicisport Grand Prix

9 hours into my Sunday office stint, I feel like narrating yesterday's race.

Saturday evening was a warm and windy affair. I left work (late), rushed to do an errand, then headed down to Race City Speedway in a relatively embarrassing level of preparedness for the criterium.

I warmed up a bit, conversed with some folks I hadn't seen for a while, and watched Geoff Clark and Mike Mckee do their thing in Cat 4. Mike's got some legs for the finishes this year by the looks of it!

My plan was to race with a bit of cleverness rather than brute force. Some people can win by pummeling everyone to bits. I'm not Merckx. I also distinguish between "pummeling" and "racing". Pummeling in my mind is for Tuesday or Wednesday hammers, where the object is to go hard in the absence of any tactics. Racing in my mind demands tactics first and foremost, and if that includes a pummeling, deliver one if you can. In longer road races, where I'm fit, I don't mind pulling for my share and still seeing what I have left for the finish. However, after 6 weeks of 80-90-100 hours of work, and a short race format that doesn't really lend itself to "wearing down the group" (although this did occur), I opted to sit back and watch the majority of the race unfold with a degree of calm before applying myself.

For better or for worse, I decided to race for "placing" rather than for "excitement" or "proving my strength".

I think this event was my 4th time at this race. I've learned a few things along the way. Yes, it's going to be windy. If it's not one direction, it's the other. Yes, tactics will play to the wind, and yes, "nobody will work to make a breakaway" together. But instead of wasting all my energy trying to make the unlikely happen, I tried to focus on what will happen. There will be 5 or 7 laps. There will be 2 premiums, where people will sprint for some dubious glory that I don't care about (the marginal utility for a $40 cash prize is admittedly quite low for me). There will be attempted breakaways and innumerous accelerations. My bet is that unless Vinokurov joined Cat 3 in Calgary recently... that they won't get away. There will be a bell that indicates 2 laps to go, which will be followed by a massive acceleration that peters our coming up the back stretch, on both of the following laps.

I'm not saying I'm a hero rider, but if there's one ability I believe I have it's chasing/pulling into the wind. With this in mind, I decided to watch all of the above unfold, and not stress over any attempted breaks. I figured that if something actually looked like it had a reasonable chance of going, I'd wait until they were out for a few minutes, and see if they still had jam to hold the gap. My guess is that wouldn't happen, but if so I was willing to attempt to chase later rather than from preventing it from happening. When there were mind numbing accelerations into the headwind down the back stretch on lap 3, instead of standing on all the pedals for all I was worth to keep the acceleration, I'd pick a wheel, spin up easily, and let the pack stretch out. Within 3 minutes we'd be a happy, 5 wide bunch again. Premiums, and the counter attacks that followed them didn't draw me in.

In fact, I think I only put out anything over 400W for a cumulative of a minute or two for the first 90% of the race. I just told myself my goal was to imagine I was a little Honda Scooter trying to stay in the pack of race bikes with only tactics to make up for my extreme lack of power. When a "massive" acceleration happened, I'd grab a wheel, let myself hold whatever position I could with 300W, and keep that pace until we regrouped.

On the last lap I positioned myself in 5th for the headwind ride up the straightaway. The fellow in front of me launched an impressive attack that took us nearly up to the corner. I follwed in his draft hardly over 300W. When he faded, the real accelerations around the big corner came. I wasn't too tired from the 300W up the back stretch, so I had energy for the remaining 1 minute or less to the finish line. It seemed to pick up to the 400W range for another minute around the corner. I think I was still in fifth. I took a wide line to the left side of the finish, and hammered out what I could for power in the last 100 yards. I had this energy left in me because I hadn't "wasted" it on attacks earlier.

At the end of the day, the first three spots were within a bike length. I'm fairly convinced that had I been able to shave off... ohhh say 100 hours of work off my last month, that I'd be able to finish another bike length ahead. For my consolation I guess I get some bags under my eyes and a peloton leading T4 slip. Such is life.

I'm happy to say that it would seem that I've now earned my points for Cat 2. I've now proven my ability to a) understand enough road race tactics to make it through a couple levels of amateur racing, while b) amassing sufficient fitness to employ such tactics, and c) holding down my day job. In all honesty that's the last "good" road race result I expect to have... as from now on I'll be the whipping boy for "real" racers - those who have real talent and/or low time commitment day jobs. I'm sure I'll have good races in the future, I just don't forsee any chance of numerically good results. I'm fine with that.

Now if I can just get out to enough mountain bike races to make progress on that front, I'll be happy.