The roll out was at 10:00 and would start with a climb up Bittner Rd to Joy Rd and then onto Coleman Valley road before we got to the dirt descent on Willow Creek. As we were coming into the base of the first climb Barkow was riding across the yellow line when an oncoming car caused him to swerve back into the group smashing into my left arm and nearly taking down a bunch of riders, fortunately everyone stayed up but this caused a shouting match between Barkow and another guy.
As we hit Coleman Valley Road I lost contact with the lead group, I was in total shock with my heart rate at 190 within 10 minutes of the start without a warmup. Some guys with some major horsepower caused a split in the front group and I was drifting backwards. I just don't seem to have the horsepower to match the big guns early in the race but end up in a much better position once their edge has worn off.
I was now in the 3rd group on the road as we hit the dirt descent but dropped the rest of the bunch fairly quickly. I was catching a rider from the group ahead when he washed out on a bend and went down hard, his bike spinning across the wide fire road in front of me. I managed to avoid the riderless bike by going off the trail a little but that was no problem on a CX bike.
I caught the group in front of me near the bottom of the descent and we all worked together to catch the next group on the road just after the turn onto Hwy 130. The newly formed group was about 25 - 30 strong and working hard to catch the 10 guys who were up the road in the new lead group.
As we worked together we set a good pace on Hwy 130 to Duncan's grade. The start of Duncan's grade is really steep and I hit the bottom of it in the first 10 of our group. On the steeper climb I started gaining ground on the people around me and ended up in the top 5 with a gap opening up behind us. I was feeling good and holding my position even with some little surges. We started the descent and a there was no one behind us, even with the twisty little roads it seems we maintained our gap through the neighborhood onto the next climb.
We started the Old Caz climb and picked up a couple of riders from the front group and how had about 10 people riding together. As we got to the feed station near the top I pulled over to get a bottle but it appeared that someone had taken it. I just dropped my empty and started the chase back to the small group. I caught them just before the descent on the dirt to the creek but was held up behind some slower descenders. By the time I got around them and started to gain ground the rest of the group were out of sight.
I hit the creek crossing alone but could see the rest of the of the group about 20 seconds up the road. I chased them on the climb and the road descent, but didn't end up catching them for another few miles. Once I got up to them we were about 12 people and someone said that there was about 10 up the road in the next group. We started a good rotation with everyone taking part and had a good pace going. No one else was coming up from behind and we had no idea if we were gaining on the next group. We got back out into Hwy 130 and were pulling into a bit of a head wind. I noticed that 1 by 1 the group was getting smaller. By the time we hit the left turn onto the dirt of Willow Creek there were only 7 of us left.
I was rolling through staying in the top half of the group until the road started to go up, it was then I noticed that a gap had opened between 4 of us and the other 3 in the group. We kept it rolling and were now on our own. At this point I went over a rock or root and I could feel the rear tire bottoming out!! Then it happened again. I had a soft rear tire, I'm not sure how long it had been like this but it was defiantly a problem and was getting worse by the minute. My 3 companions started to pull away from me and I decided that it was time to pull over and fix the tire. Three more guys came past me and commented on my obvious bad luck. To get a flat at this point in the race just sucked. I was in the top 15 with only 3 more miles to go.
The tire wasn't completely flat which meant that it was a slow leak so I decided to just re inflate it with a CO2 and see how far that got me. I started off calmly and began to gain ground on the guys who had just passed me. I'd probably lost around a minute or so.
I passed two of the guys and one of them tried to go with me but only hung on my wheel for about 30 seconds before drifting back. I was alone again and feeling good on this section of the climb. The tire was holding up well so who knows how long it had been going flat.
I got onto the flat section of the climb and was spinning along when I could hear another rider coming up behind me. He was flying and there was no way I was going to stay with him so I let him go.
I could see the finish line ahead of me and it looked like a small crowd at this point. When I crossed the line I asked how many people were ahead of me and they said I'd finished in 11th place!! This was fantastic news, I'd never done that well in a Grasshopper and felt that good. There were a bunch of young kids in front of me and Scott Widoff came in just behind me. Barkow was next at about 5 minutes. We waited a long time for Bill and Peter Durham but they were no where to be seen. Jim and I rolled back to the cars and waited there. Bill came in about 45 minutes later and was hurting but happy he finished. He'd had a great day out. Cyrus was a little later. He'd had problems in the mud on his road tires and road cleats and at one point couldn't even unclip.
Billy Post Race
All in all this was a great day out and super fun fake racing. I felt really good and only lacked a little strength at the start. After that I was doing great and was solid all the way to the end. My whole mantra for the day was spin and save the legs. It worked!
Food for the day:
Breakfast: Two slices of Amicis Pizza - Probably not so good on the first climb
On the Ride: 5 gell packs and two regular bottles of Cytomax.
I could have done with another bottle for the 50 miles but someone took it.
Old Caz 2012 Route Card
Results
http://www.grasshopperadventureseries.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Old-Caz1.pdf
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