I was woken up around 3 AM with the rain pounding on the roof and windows, if this kept up it was going to be messy. There were only 9 riders pre registered for the Pro/1/2 race so the field was going to be small with the bad weather not helping.
The alarm went off at 4:50 AM and I dragged myself out of bed to find the rain had stopped, this was hopeful.
I got to the race venue and registered before heading to the start line to find there was only 8 of us in the Pro/1/2 field. The Cat 3 field that was starting a few minutes behind us had 35 guys so there was a possibility that we'd get caught if we didn't ride hard enough.
The rollout on the first lap was fairly mellow with everyone taking a turn at the front for short pulls. There was one guy from MarcPro Strava and 2 guys from McGuire so things were obviously going to be tough. My money was on one of these 3.
Things stayed mellow until we got to the 2 mile dirt road section. We were told at the start that there were a few potholes but it was way worse than I imagined, these were deep potholes that took up half the road. One rider tried to ride straight through one of the bigger puddles and his wheel was swallowed up to the axel. He managed to stay up but slowed significantly as he dragged himself out of the water.
I was thanking myself for doing so many CX races this past winter, I had no trouble avoiding most of the hazards and was able to go with the 2 leaders as the first big attack started. We got a gap of about 25 meters over the other 5 guys and started to drill it on the second section of the dirt. This was even rougher than the first section with about 20 yards of unavoidable stutter bumps. I lost both bottles on this section so would have to grab new ones at the feed.
I was feeling comfortable and my bike handling skills were giving me a much easier time of things than some of the others in the group. By the time we came off the dirt onto the road there we 4 of us with 2 more chasing about 20 meters back. One of the McGuire guys and the Davis Bike club guy were nowhere to be seen.
After about half a mile there was a solid group of six riders and it was obvious the other 2 were not coming back.
We rode a nice rotation for the next lap with only a couple of minor attacks before we came back around to the dirt. As we hit the dirt there was an early attack that was easy to stay with as everyone spread out to find their own way through the mine field of potholes. On the second half of the dirt I went to one side and tried to find a smooth section at the side of the road. The McGuire guy that was left also had the same idea. I was close enough behind him that I didn't see a couple of deep potholes and hit one hard with my back wheel, which started to make a funny noise. The tire was still inflated so I kept going.
At this point there was another big attack from the Marc Pro Strava guy and as I came up on the wheel of the guy in front of me he slid out on the sharp edge of a large water filled pothole. This forced me straight through the middle of the water and almost took me to a dead stop in a big gear. I pulled myself out of the puddle but a gap had opened up and I was struggling to close it down. A young guy from SJBC caught up to me and was yelling at me to stay with the move and trying to encourage me to dig deeper to get back on, but I didn't have it. I watched as the gap grew slowly at first and then when the other riders reached the pavement the gap grew more quickly. I was now the 6th guy on the road and desperately trying to bridge back on by myself.
I was in full TT mode now, catching and passing small groups of riders from other categories and hoping that the lead 5 would start sitting up, but it didn't happen.
I rode by myself for a full lap and the next time through the dirt section I noticed the junior from SJBC at the side of the road with a flat. I yelled at him to fix it fast and catch back to me so as I'd have some company but I think his race was over.
As I came through the finish with one lap to go the Cat 3 field was coming up behind me. I slowed to let them pass and noticed that the first McGuire rider to get dropped, Sergei Badeka, was sitting comfortably on the back of the 3 field. The race Ref told the pair of us that it was ok for us to sit at the back as long as we didn't interfere with their race, he said he'd rather us do that as it was safer for us to be in a group than by ourselves for some reason. I said I'd sit in as long as we didn't get relegated for drafting off another category. He told me it would be fine, he wouldn't relegate us. We relaxed and rolled the next lap on the back of the 3 field at an easy 19 mph, a big difference to the 22+ we'd been doing a lap or two earlier.
Things were really messy when we hit the dirt section at the end of the 4th lap, the 3's were attacking each other and trying to create a split before the climb to the finish. Sergei and I stayed at the back and had a birds eye view as the sprint started at 1K out, with the uphill finish it was obvious that they were going to fade long before the line. Sergei and I rolled in together with me taking 5th place and him taking 6th. There was no sprint for us. The race was over after 75 miles and all we had left was the roll back to the car. We were both amazed that we'd managed to stay dry, the weather gods were with us today for sure.
It was a great compliment that on our way back to the car Sergei was telling me about the McGuire team anyhow they had a couple of spots open. He invited me to join the team if I was interested. McGuire has been a powerhouse team in the past and this could be an interesting opportunity.
When I got home I was cleaning the bike noticed that the funny noise I heard from the back wheel after I hit the pothole was the brake rubbing on the rim. The wheel was quite badly out of true. I'd opened the brake up while I was TTing but this was too late. I wonder how big an impact this had on my not getting back onto the group during the second time through the dirt? Hailey is telling me that it time to retire my 16 year old pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone wheels but I'm not ready for that yet.
The bike was covered in mud from the dirt section.
It turns out that they were giving prizes through 6th place and 5th place got me $15 and a really nice Velo Promo t-shirt.
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Location:Oakdale, CA
another tough race dude.... and it sounds fun!!! I wish there were more road races like that down here.
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