San Diego Omnium Road Race

May 21, 2005

If I have another 140 lb racer tell me what a great climber I am for being such a big guy, I’ll become Darth Vader. I know it is meant as a compliment but I can’t stop thinking that if I was a good climber I wouldn’t be in the chase group having a discussion on climbing in the first place. Funny, when I was a body builder and weighed in at 210 lbs I always felt pretty small next to the “real” body builders. Now I’m a skinny 190 lbs and looked at by other racers as a giant – must be some irony in there somewhere.

Photos from "The Digital Photo Guy" 

May 21 and I’m in San Diego to compete in the Cyclo-Vets Omni Road Race. I couldn’t make it down early enough to compete in Friday’s time trial and I’m still too chicken to compete in the crit to be held on Sunday. So at 0700 hours I’m at the head of the line waiting for our chance to enter the 50-mile course. I signed up for Masters 40+ and here in San Diego this means guys from age 39 to 53 (there was a category Masters 55+.) There are 40 guys in line and since this is a relatively small group all categories are represented. What I mean is that some of us are Cat 2, 3, and 4, with a bunch of 5s tossed in. This always makes the Masters 40 a tough group, you may be up against a guy who has been racing for 20 plus years and joined masters as a Cat 2. But this is also a good thing as their bike handling skills are superb and you have a much less chance of bouncing off the road.

Photos from "The Digital Photo Guy" 

We really are not in San Diego but 40 or more miles to the East off of I-8 in the Buckman Springs area. It is dry and hot, with end of the race temperatures in the low 90s. Seems like we are out in the middle of nowhere and I noticed an INS checkpoint (or as my wife says, “La Migra") just a couple of miles away on the San Diego bound side of I-8. I know it’s going to be hot so I fill both my water bottles. Bottle one has my complex carbohydrate drink that should stop me from bonking and bottle two I decided to put Gatorade in it instead of water. I finished both bottles during the race and still drank a Hansen’s soda and a full bottle of Gatorade right after the race.

Photos from "The Digital Photo Guy" 

The lady blows the whistle and we are off. It’s a neutral start for the first ¼ mile or so. This means that the actual start of the race is ¼ mile away and we are just to roll easily until we hit the actual start and finish line. I punch my heart rate monitor and settle in about 5 places from the front of the line. A center rule is in effect for this race so we are not to cross the yellow line in the center of the road and only to ride on the right side. I don’t know this course so I ask the guy next to me where the 1200’ elevation gains are and how tough they are. We are doing 2 laps of 25 miles each and each lap has a series of small gains and then one long grade toward the end of the lap. After listening to him I realize I’m back in the Devil’s Punch Bowl seat again (see my other May race post) and in for a hard morning of climbing. I decide right then and there that I must be aggressive and get to the front of the peloton before any big climbs. In the first two miles I find myself next to another racer about 40 meters in front of the Peloton. He makes a comment about how we’re the “snake patrol,” riding so far out in front of the group but I use this time to quiz him on the course.

Photos from "The Digital Photo Guy" 

There are a lot of strong riders in this group and a couple of guys shoot past us with the peloton in hot pursuit. Our stay at the front is short as both of us settle in with the top 10 guys at the front of the chase group. Speeds are pretty high and the peloton is content with keeping the two guys off the front in view at about 60 meters in front of us. We hit the first roller hills and I have sufficient power to stay with the group. I did drop to the back of the pack on the last roller but easily moved up to the top 5 and even handled a couple of pulls at the front – definitely riding a lot more aggressively in this race. One of the toughest parts for beginning racers is just trying to get a drink from your water bottle. You really have to judge when the peloton is sitting in and grab a quick one before someone takes a flyer off the front and the whole group takes off. This group was jumpy and I was in on several “attacks” while I was riding near the front. Not knowing the course is a true disadvantage and I really didn’t have the slightest idea when the course was going to get series with the vertical. I looked at my computer and saw that we were at mile 11 and knew the hill must be coming soon - so I did something I’ve never really done before, I attacked. I actually took off chasing after the two riders in front of the peloton, and I took off like I meant business. Bad move. I looked like I really knew what I was doing and the lead elements of the peloton had to take me seriously so they were off after me to bring me back. My only reason for taking the flyer was to get out in front and start the uphill grade with a good lead on the group so that I could drop right into their draft at the top of the hill. I had tried this tactic at the Sea Otter Classic but there I made my jump within site of the hill and it was pretty obvious what I was doing. Here, I misjudged the distance to the grade and fought off the peloton until we reached the base of the grade. My move was gutsy but it was too soon. The peloton enveloped me at the base of the long 5-8% grade. I was working as hard as I could up the grade but I was slowly moving back through the group and at mile 18, I was spit off the back. I had plenty of company as other riders went off before me and I was passing other big guys that had shot their wad, trying to hang with the group. They were successful in hanging on longer than me but at a high price. Such a high price that I was now easily passing them up to form my own chase group of one. At about mile 20 I saw two more guys get shelled off the back a good ¼ mile ahead of me. I made it my goal to “time trial” and catch these two guys and make a 3-man chase group.

Photos from "The Digital Photo Guy" 

I could no longer see the lead group but I could still see the two guys that had lasted longer than me on the hill. Each downhill I poured on the coals and could tell I was gaining on them. The first lap came to an end so I still had 25 miles to go. Within the next 4 miles I caught the two guys in front of me. We discussed what happened and how tough it was to stay with the lead group – we were now the official chase group. We set up a pace line to give chase but it was pretty obvious by this time that the lead group was out of site and out of range. I was the stronger rider in the flats and descents but Eric, a grade school teacher in San Diego, was the stronger rider on the hills. I started pouring on the speed and we soon dropped the 3rd racer. I never did catch his name but learned that he was a new Cat 5 racer with this race being only his second race ever. Eric and me made a deal to sprint against each other at the 200 m mark but both of us found our quadriceps to be “fried” when we had occasion, on a small hill, to rise up out of the saddle and stand up on the bike. We agreed to not sprint but just finish the race as strong as we could. With about ½ a mile to go I told Eric to take charge and jump out in front of me as he deserved to finish ahead of me, since he was dropped by the peloton last and that he had given me a focal point to keep going strong in the race. He shot around me at this time and started driving for the line. In all honesty, I doubt I could have challenged him anyway. Eric is new to the Masters 40+ having just become 40 years old this year. He only weighs 140 lbs and is an excellent climber. As I was driving along for the finish a few yards behind him I couldn’t help feel a bit jealous of his seemingly weightless “dancing on the pedals” finish.

I ended up finishing in 25th place. 40 guys started the race and 8 guys dropped out and received the DNS or “did not finish” prefix in the results. My computer gave me a time of 2:25 for the 50 miles, which is about a 20.7 mph, good on such a hilly course. Check out the complete results at http:///www.Cyclo-Vets.org.

Devil's Punch Bowl Road Race

SEE POST BELOW PICS OF THE EVENT

Getting ready for the Devil's Punch Bowl Road Race with my wife, Esmeralda and daughter, Jade 

Putting holes in the jersey 

Start of the Masters 40 race 

My 2nd time around after 1 lap of 16 miles and 1500' elevation gain. All pictures by my daughter, Maya Grove 

April 30, 2005; Devil's Punch Bowl Road Race

Devil’s Punch Bowl Road Race, the name says it all. This was a devil of a course with two laps of 16 miles each. Doesn’t sound bad until you factor in the 1500’ climb each lap. The pros had to do 5 laps and 80 miles of racing – ouch.

I knew my 190+ lbs of body weight didn’t bode well for racing this type of race. But on the other had, this race is right in my own backyard. The Punch Bowl is a cool outcropping of sedimentary rock on the North side of the San Gabriel Mountain Range. The mighty San Andreas Earth quake fault runs right by so the sedimentary rock layers have been tossed up at a very acute angle. Many T.V. viewers have seen the sister formation to the Punch Bowl in the pushed up rocks of the Vasquez Rock formation just outside of Agua Dulce, 25 miles or so to the West. I can still picture Captain Kirk fighting the Gorn with the rock formation in the background.

It was warm and very dry as I pedaled around the starting area waiting for the Masters 40+ race to get going. We started at 12:32, an unusual late starting time for a race, this also meant that it was late enough for the usual Antelope Valley winds to start blowing – oh well. About 40 of us lined up for the start of the race and we were off. The beginning of the race heads West on a slight upgrade of around 2% for about 2 miles or so then we take a left and begin heading up the road that branches off to the Devil’s Punch Bowl Park proper. The pack was a bit jumpy and a few ripples passed through the peloton. Someone said to take it easy as the upcoming climb would separate the pack anyway. After a couple of miles we passed the turnoff to the Punch Bowl on our left and continued heading South toward the town of Juniper Hills. The 2% grade began to change to an 8% plus grade and the climb was on. I was too focused to actually check it out but I could swear the first 6 miles of this race were all uphill. I knew we would climb 1500’ before the lap was done, I just didn’t think we would do it all at once.

I was bound and determined to stay with the pack regardless of the elevation gain but it wasn’t going to happen. We continued to climb until the road turns toward the West and a small descent presented itself. The descent was very short and we were soon climbing again. My heart rate monitor was showing 177! I’ve never been above 176 in my year of training – a new high. Riders were being shelled off the back and I was still in contact with the lead 20 plus riders but with my heart at redline I knew I couldn’t hold it. The road now started to turn to the North and the final rolling set of hills. I finally began to shift down the gears, my first time out of the 26-tooth sprocket of my cassette since the hills started in earnest 6 miles ago. I was definitely falling off the back of the pack now but with my heart rate still in the 170s I couldn’t possibly go any faster. My goal now was to maintain visual contact with the lead pack and rely on my downhill speed to catch up. The flip-side to being a heavy racer is that I go downhill very quickly. When I was a young sprinter on a team up in Santa Cruz I was known as a “descender” or someone that could maintain bicycle control when bombing down a steep descent at 60 plus mph. This strategy worked somewhat well. I wasn’t losing any more ground to the lead pack on the descent but I wasn’t gaining either. The famous desert wind had definitely sprung up and it was right in my face, slowing my descent to only 50 mph. The pack, with its superior aerodynamic characteristics was having an easier time with the wind. I slowed to make a sharp right turn to head East and breathed a sigh of relief that the road ahead was relatively flat. The only problem now was that the wind had a slight “Santa Ana” characteristic to it and was coming out of the North-East. So as usual, it seemed to be in my face again. Riders in the Antelope Valley swear that no matter what direction you ride the wind is always a head wind. (The wind here can change direction in a heart beat and I’ve actually had it change 180 degrees in a single ride to actually be in my face in both directions.)

I was now a single rider caught in no mans’ land. I was coming up on riders that started in other categories but you can’t work with these riders. The pack was now pulling away because they could work together in the wind. I did the only thing I could, I actually slowed down and waited for a “chase pack” to come up on me. I didn’t have to wait long, a pack of 4 masters 40 riders came up on me quickly using a fast rotation. I dropped right into them and we had a pack of 5 doing a tight rotation and not losing ground to the lead pack. This was great but the road started to go uphill again, not much but at the speed we were putting out, definitely noticeable. The other problem was that we were only a pack of 5 and the high-speed rotation was putting a lot of strain on us. As I took my turn at the front and then quickly rotated off to the right I couldn’t find the 4th rider – he had started to drop off the back. It was now a rotation of only 4 riders so there was very little rest at the back of the “pack.” A quick glance at my HR monitor told the story my body was already telling me – I was tired. The monitor was showing numbers back in the 170s again (my average HR for the 32 mile race ended up at 165 and my lactate threshold is supposed to be around 161.) and to make matters worse we were coming up a 5% upgrade again. I took my pull and as I dropped to the back I couldn’t maintain speed and was dropped from the chase pack. The chase pack was now only three guys. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the 5th guy, the one that had dropped off before me, so I slowed up and we started working together – we were now the official chase group of the chase group. We were working pretty good together but I needed to drop down to my small chain ring. I hit my left shifter to move the front derailleur and move my chain from the big chain ring to the small ring. At the same time I started up a steep hill and had too much pressure on the chain and I throw the chain right past the small ring. I yelled to my “partner” that I had thrown my chain. As I watched him speed away I brought the bike to a stop and remounted the chain. This was a bummer. I had to start up again with the two chase groups riding off into the distance and no one to work with to catch up. I finished the first lap and smiled at my 14-year old daughter as she took my picture. She thought I was just out enjoying myself without a care in the world. My heart rate monitor said otherwise as it was still registering a number in the high 160s. I started up the hill again only to see the first two chase groups a few hundred meters ahead of me. I gritted my teeth and accelerated until I bridged the distance between us. We were now officially the chase group again – which lasted about 20 seconds as we were again starting up the 8% plus grade. The group was once again shredded and I can’t tell you which one of us fell behind first. Forget the lead group, it was now time to just get over the top of the hill and finish the race. The temperature was in the low 80s and my sweat was just pouring off me as I slogged to the top of the hill. I was moving so slowly that I could watch my sweat drop vertically to the asphalt below me. Even though I had a sweat-band on under my helmet, the sweat was pouring into my eyes blinding me. My sunglasses had so much dried up sweat on the lenses that I could barely see in any case. With about 6 miles left in the race I rode up on a Masters rider and we gamely started to work together, just to get to the finish line faster. We wondered how many of the 40 riders were ahead or behind us. As we hit the last major incline he dropped off and I was again by myself. I passed a few riders from other divisions and with 200 m to go I got passed by my old partner – he was smelling the barn. I didn’t have the energy to sprint with him but I crossed the finish line in 1 hour and 40 minutes. I ended up #24 out of 29 finishers. 40 started the race but at least 11 dropped out for various reasons. (See complete results here)This was a tough race, the toughest I’ve had all year. I was pleased with my 19.2 mph average over the hilly 32 mile race. This was also my first race with my new Colnago frame. But the new Colnago, and how I built it up, is fodder for another post.