Bike racing is still fun! Who'da Thunk it?

Found out on Wednesday that I had been registered for a race the following Saturday (damn, I've been busy). A short, flat circuit race and I was racing in my age category. All right, I thunk, what the hell. I'll go.

Then I remembered that my wife would still be away so it was me and my 20 month old son all week. What the heck, he'd go with me. The wives/girlfriends could look after him during the race (he loves the ladies) and it would be his first bike race.

All good.

Then I woke up really tired, had to get us both ready and drive an hour and a half to the race. I felt a bit of trepidation because of my last race (http://oldguyracer.blogspot.com/2008/05/alishan-race-18-may-2008.html) and being a bit worried about dragging my son around all day. He is bike crazy and I knew it would be a lot of work. But I soldiered on.

The race was a mix of all the masters cats (from 30 years old and up). There was one former track pro now in his mid 60's. That was kinda cool. Once we were staged I looked around and recognized a few riders and some of the bigger teams.

This race was nice because it was tied in with several other events schedules throughout the weekend in this SMALL town and there were a lot of spectators all around the course. The finish was 3 deep. That is always cool.

I am riding for this club which is basically most of the guys I've been training with and some of their friends. They reg'd me and tossed me a jersey to wear. They keep changing sponsors as they can't seem to get anyone to commit to (and honour) the sponsorship agreements. They ink jerseys and then, 2 months later, there's another jersey. I still don't know what the name of the team I was riding for is...

Bang and we're off. It's 4 laps and we decided to let the team with 6 guys play their hand for the first 2 laps. They're usually a strong and aggressive team so I wanted to let them do some extra work and see if they really could control the race. Having the biggest team doesn't mean you can control things. That is a skill. I wanted to see if they had it or not.

The best laid plans of mice and men...4 km into the race one of my team mates decides that the plan is out the window and he jumps. When he is reeled in the other guy goes (there's really only 3 of us to mix it up). So then I take my turn (which seems to be the new plan).

My first 2 jumps felt sluggish. I could hold good speed but I had no snap. I found it really hard to jump away from the group. The next few felt better but I knew I didn't have that kind of snap today. This meant I could offer a solid lead-out to our sprinter or look for a break.

We continued attacking the race. A few laps of this and the field was thinner, the team with 6 riders never got a chance to play any card and we were at the bell.

The course started out along a 2-3 km long steel girder bridge that, I guess, was really old, recently restored and the reason why we were racing on it. It stretched across a very wide river, was totally exposed and had a nasty cross-head wind. At least the surface was good.

Then a quick right, up an on-ramp and onto a closed section of the hi-way and a cross-tailwind that saw me jump over 60km/h, repeatedly. Coming off the highway there was a sharp right that dropped down, slightly off camber, off the hi-way bridge onto a wee gravely road. 50m after that was another hard right corner and then into the last 1.5km that was a dog-leg shaped wind tunnel. Right in your face to the finish.

Each lap I made sure I lead through these turns and I kept ramping it up a notch further every time. Just testing. I knew this would be the only place where I could get the kind of gap I needed that my legs weren't going to give me otherwise.

Going onto the hi-way bridge, the last time, I had a team mate up the road in a 4 man break. The group was slowly bringing it back and I wasn't sure if they could hold it to the end. They were getting awfully close...

As we got near to the end of the bridge I had another team mate on the front setting a false tempo and, knowing the line I was going to set through these corners was going to be TIGHT and FAST, I told him to hold the pace steady.

I did a false attacked about 1.5 km before the end of the bridge to see if I was being marked. Sure enough there are 4 guys from the same team on my wheel when I look back. I soft pedalled and looked at their faces for the right moment. Then I attacked for real just before the corners.. I held good speed and my tires stuck. Then I had to bridge into the nasty head wind.

Luckily the break had taken it easy through the corners as they didn't want to crash out in the last few kms. This gave me some extra speed coming out of the corners and I was able to catch them just as we passed the 1km to go point.

As they set up for the sprint I knew who's wheel to grab (the team mate). We had talked about the sprint before the race and I knew just how he was going to play it and how far out. I rolled onto his wheel just as he got up to sprint. He rolled across the line sitting up, I was a bike length behind him and there was open road behind me.

I was second.

But wait a minute! Hold the phone! I totally forgot about the age category thing! I won. Yipee!

All in all a small race but it was good to get back and get my head in a race for a while. I just wish I was feeling better.

It also gave me an indication of where my fitness is and what I need to work on now.

Bike racing is still fun.