Triple Valley Stage Race April 12-13 2008

Well, the race season kicked off for me this past weekend. First race of the year and it was a stage race. Haven’t been able to train much as of yet with school still in full swing, but that ends next week. The good news is that I haven’t gained any weight since the end of last season. I’m topping out at 180 lbs. A great weight to start with! Much better than last year’s 190. So Triple Valley. 3 stages. Stage one was a 52 mile road race in beautiful, desolate Skull Valley. Felt good for this one. I can’t seem to get my cyclocomputer to work, so the speeds are estimates. We started out right off of exit 77 I-80. Cat 4 turnaround was classified as ‘turnaround B’ about 26 miles south. The stage had a brisk pace the whole way through. I would say 20 or so mph to start with with a graduation to about 25-28 mph to finish. The starting group was about 50 or so riders, I would say. Category 4, of course. I stayed towards the front of the peloton for the first 1/2 of the race. As it would turn out, I should have tried to stay in the front. Our team captain rode this race with us. All in all, I had about 5 teammates with me. We cycled through with a couple of racers from Colorado. These guys were acting funny throughout the race and we decided to stay with them in case they went for the break away. The trip out was relatively uneventful. As we approached the turn around, a number of guys were wanting to stop at the neutral feed zone to relieve themselves. However, the boys from Colorado had other ideas and went for the sprint immediately. About 10 of us were able to hang with them for the sprint. Unfortunately, everyone caught up with us and just like that, the fireworks were over. Until the crash, of course. I fell back to about the middle of the peloton when someone to my right, just ahead of me touched wheels with the guy next to him. This knocked him over and he fell hard. He seperated from his bike and went careening off right in front of me. He skidded to my left and the guy to my left plowed right into him, sending him over. This was at about 25 mph, so it was rather violent. I slammed on the brakes and avoided getting tangled up. Unfortunately, I now found myself behind the rest of the peloton. I had to do some hard riding to catch back up with them. Once you’re in no man’s land, it gets pretty tough when dealing with a peloton. A couple of guys were behind me and we started working together to catch up with the rest of the group. Once we caught them, we mingled back into the fold. The pace was off and on like an accordian from here in. This was extremely frustrating. We were riding 3 and 4 abreast and the guys up front would not go. We were stuck in the back. I tried the left and the right to no avail. There were a couple guys back there that were yelling at the guys in the front, but there didn’t seem to be any desire to go for it. With 8 miles to go, everyone was getting anxious and pissed. I was feverently trying to get past the wedge that blocked the path. The time to go was at hand. Everyone was dreading the possible pile up and we were all pretty much expecting it to happen. I was desparately trying to get up front for the sprint. Lots of yelling and positioning, but no change. One of my teammates almost went down. Someone cut him off and hit his front wheel. He about went over, but corrected. And just like that, we all crossed the finish line. I felt pretty good, still had a bunch of energy. I would need it. Stage 2 was in the afternoon. Stage 2 was the time trial. 7.9 miles from Copperton to the Kennecott Copper pit entrance, then back down the hill to the finish. Time trials are usually my bread and butter. When I’m in my training regime, I do 2 of them everyday for the commute to work. So I felt great heading into this stage. I had taken it easy from the morning skirmish and gave my legs a little recovery time. So far, my standing in the general classification was about right in the middle of the pack. We all had the same time going so this time trial was really going to break things up a bit. My start time was 05:43 PM. I had my skin suit on. My fancy new TT helmet and positive attitude. Too bad my body didn’t feel the same. The start was purely downhill from Copperton to the very sharp right turn onto Baccus Highway. I almost overshot the turn, but was able to correct. Then the hard part came. Time trials are extreme exertion and alot of mental fortitude. The next 200 meters or so had a slight climb gradient to it. The burn came, but I was able to still push forward at a good pace. The west side of the Salt Lake valley is rolling foothills. So at the top of this minor climb came a quick descent down past the finish line. But first we had to trek back up the other side to the turn around point, which I wish that I would have driven the course beforehand to see the layout and plan accordingly. I hit the hill and proceeded to get murdered. My legs hit the wall and I found myself shifting way down to make it up the hill. My mind was screeming at me to keep the pace up, but my legs would have nothing of it. The guy that started 30 seconds behind me caught me on this hill and I thought for sure that the guy behind him would catch me too. He didn’t which is good because that would’ve sucked. The kid, for his age is amazing, but he’s only about 12 or so years old. He bypassed the juniors and is riding in the Cat 4 mens group. But he weighs 50 lbs soaken wet and time trialing isn’t his specialty. Anyway, I reach the top of this murderous hill and I’m thinking that the turnaround it the next right, so I slow down a little. I look up to the left and see no other cyclists. I look forward and see everyone coming back, so I try to sprint back up to speed to get to the cone down the road to turn around. I shifted down to get my spin at a higher rate to try to flush the acid out of my legs for the descent to finish. Mentally I turned everything off and just gunned it down the hill as fast as I could possibly go. I would estimate here that I topped off at around 45 mph or so going down the hill. Thank god the course was only 7.9 miles long because I was beaten. I lost 3 minutes on this stage in the GC. Stage 3 was a 25 mile circuit race in Tooele Valley the following morning. The field thinned out a little bit due to the crash and some guys opting out. But I stayed the course. Entering into this stage I was at 29th place in the GC. Not too bad considering the amount of time that I have trained, which is almost none. I was 3 minutes behind the leader and I was determined to stay with the pack to try my chances at moving up in the standings. This was a pretty fun course. 5 miles in rural Tooele valley with 5 laps around this course. The finish leg was all downhill. Everything else was pretty much uphill, which, of course nuked me and several other guys by the time the race was over with. The pace was very fast right from the start. It was a neutral start for about 1/2 of a block to the circuit and then a left turn onto the course. It was on from the start. Again it was a fairly large group and everyone was concentrating on not crashing. The second turn started the slow climb back to the top of the circuit. This leg wasn’t long, but had an increasing gradient to it. Not much leg burn here, but just enough to slow the group a little. Then another right hand turn to the main climb. There wasn’t much elevation gain here, but it sure seemed like it. Everyone was amazed at how this hill was zapping you of your energy. I managed to stay with the pack. This leg meandered through the countryside, the whole time in a climb. Then a quick turn onto the southern, westbound leg. This leg was highly controversial. It was extremely short and wasn’t marked. The other turns had someone directing traffic but this one did not. One guy at the front of our peloton went straight down the road at a high rate of speed. By my estimation, he was lost to the race. Everyone else turned onto the finishing leg, wich was one long, straight, downhill stretch. I figured we were all doing over 30-35 mph down this leg. The finish line was right about in the middle of it. 5 laps around this course. I stayed on for 3.5 laps, then the legs gave out again. Damnit all. Ah well, I stuck with it. There’s nothing in cycle racing like seeing the peloton start to leave you. And there’s nothing much you can do about it either. You just have to stay the course and attempt a personal time trial to finish the race off. I lost another few minutes on this stage. This race was pretty fun. My first of the year. Plus I felt better at the end of it than I ever had any of the years before. Shouldn’t take long to shake all of the rust off. I hope at least. Overall I finished 34th in the general classification. I was 6 minutes behind the winner, so this was obviously a pretty close race for everyone. I just need to work on my uphill power. Up next: the Tax Day Circuit race. Inkom Idaho, April 19th. Beautiful course and extremely fun. A bit of climbing to do. Got to get the legs ready for it.