It was with a LOT of trepidation that I entered today’s race. First, it was a hillclimb. Historically not my best event (but getting better). Second, it was a really, really, really, tough hillclimb. 22 miles, 4400 feet of elevation gain, short pitches of 17% grade, a 4 mile stretch at 10-12%, and to top it off – 7 miles of rolling dirt road with some washboard sections thrown in for fun.

The course has been the subject of much discussion among the members of our team for almost 2 weeks. Here’s an example of some of the chatter that’s been flying around our email list:

I have never done a harder climbing course. My “easy” test ride was very hard.

It is demoralizingly steep in sections and then it just keeps going. It is unlike any road climb that I have ever done, with some pitches that rival mountain bike terrain for steepness.

4.6 Left turn to Magnolia Rd: NOTE: it is important that you take the INSIDE on this turn. You will have the best line up the first switchback. If you are on the outside of the first turn you will likely be in the inside of the 1st switchback which is so steep, it would be almost IMPOSSIBLE to negotiate on a bike. Also the inside of that switchback is SUPER smooth from tire wear and my tacky race tires (on the right rear of my car) spun out!

Actually, it was the steepest sustained climb I think I’ve ever done. I used a 13-29 and did not find myself spinning out of the 29 on the steepest pitches.

I sent out the pre-ride announcement earlier, and, for those planning to race it, it would be a REALLY good idea to make the pre-ride. This is probably the HARDEST climb on the front range, if not the whole state…

Wow! Now you can see why I was shaking in my cleats. Especially never having ridden/driven/seen the course at all. I also knew that events like this are a magnet for the rocket-up-the-hills MTB dudes that keep a road bike laying around and other climbing hermits that come down out of the peaks to force feed a sack full of humble pie to the regular-joe road racers like myself. This is THEIR time to shine. All this can be yours, I’m thinking, for the low, low price of only 30 dollars. What a bargain!

To top it off, I had been feeling less than optimal in the legs over the past two weeks after my 100+ miler with Phil in Utah. The trouble wasn’t doing that big of a ride, it was doing it and then nothing else for the next 4 days. That let all the little tears and tweaks in the muscles start to heal up and made for some tight and very dead-feeling legs. I just did not have any snap left in them. In the week leading up to the race I had alternated some very hard riding days, with some super easy spins on the rollers to loosen up the muscles. I also worked at massaging my legs (too poor to pay someone else…) for up to 90 minutes a night. That is a huge help in getting them back on track.

With all that said, the day of the race found me feeling more relaxed than I had been at any of my races so far this year. The pressure was off. No chance for a win, top twenty was all I dared hope for – but even that seemed questionable. I basically resigned myself to considering it a $30 training ride and would just see how things went. I did my best to prepare with the resources I had available. Thanks to some efforts of a few teammates, I was able to construct a course profile with key mileages to keep in my pocket. That helped a ton (but still didn’t make up for not knowing the course). I kept my warmup pretty low key and didn’t even do any hard efforts on the trainer, just a half-hour of moderate spinning. I knew that we’d have 4-5 miles of gradual climbing before we hit the steep stuff and didn’t want to waste any energy before the start.

The first bit was ok. Our group of around 60 started up Boulder Canyon at steady clip. I was surprised to see the same 2-3 guys sitting on the front pulling the group for most of the approach. I was thinking that was kind of dumb, but made sure to do my best to take advantage of their effort! I kept myself very well positioned sitting in the sweet spot of between 10-15th place in line and trying to stay as sheltered as possible. We went through a cool tunnel a couple of miles up the canyon and I commented on how ‘euro’ we were to a teammate. From then on, my eyes were glued to my computer – counting the tenth’s of a mile to reach 4.6 where the real race would begin.

At mile 4.5 I took the last tug on my water bottle that I’d be able to for a while, and prepared myself for the carnage that was sure to ensue on the first switchback. When we made the turn off of the main canyon road, my legs sprung to life as I stood and cranked my way up and around the steeeeep corner. One guy was putting so much pressure on his saddle while he was grinding up the hill that it snapped clean off the rails – that’s one way to get out of having to do the climb… I had to pay attention to my weight distribution as if I was mountian biking, my front wheel was lifting off the road at times.

Much to my absolute amazement, my legs felt really good! Despite the fact that my heart rate was over 180 for the first half-mile of the climb (which would normally mean that I’m about to blow because my max is 187), I wasn’t even breathing that hard and didn’t feel the exertion like I normally would have. Man, what I wouldn’t give to feel like that all the time! A few guys immediately pulled away, but I elected to just keep my own pace – because there were so many unknowns for me regarding the course. Plus, I didn’t want the magic bubble I was riding in to burst!! Here I am, racing up some vertical road on my bicycle, guys weaving all around me and breathing so hard it sounds like they’re going to explode – and I’m actually having fun?!?! I went into it with the training ride mentality, and it felt like a training ride – only I knew I was going well because I left all my teammates behind very early in the climb, and I caught and passed two others at mile 7 that had started in a group a couple of minutes before mine.

George Hincapie (Armstrong’s teammate) calls a day like this on the bike “no chain”. I was feeling no chain. Accellerations came easily, I wasn’t breathing hard, and my legs felt like they had endless power to tap into. Wow.

I knew I should kick it up a notch and try to make up time on the guys that pulled away earlier, but I was enjoying the moment and just doing my thing. Any other course and I would have been flying off the front with the same voracity as the rabbit in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.

The dirt road section was a hoot! The road was in pretty good shape for the most part, but there were some exciting moments to be had taking corners downhill at 30+ mph on skinny tires. Yee-Haw! I saw one guy flip himself upside down when he was yanking on the bars while climbing a short hill – ouch!

The dirt ended very suddenly, catching me a bit off gaurd as we hit the pavement for a fast and twisty descent to the base of the final climb. As luck would have it, straight into a block headwind. Fortunately, I was with three other guys at this point and we were able to take turns plowing through the air. After a mile or two of false-flat, we made a left and started the ascent to the finish line which was another two miles or so up the mountain. I was still feeling ok when one guy put in a solo attack. It was still a ways to go to the finish, and I had dropped this guy earlier in the day, so I let him go – thinking he would either blow up, or that I could reel him back in. Turns out he didn’t blow, and he managed to open up quite a gap. I upped the pace enough to drop the other riders with me, but kept it below full-on chase mode. Still waiting to see what would happen up ahead. He must’ve made an amazing recovery from getting dropped earlier, because he showed no signs of slowing at all. Once we hit the final kilometer I started chasing HARD! I was closing fast, but he turned and looked back with just a couple of meters to go and began his own sprint when he saw me coming. I pulled even, then inched ahead, but just couldn’t hold it after chasing so hard and he managed to nip me at the line for 10th. Bugger!

However, 11th place was FAR better than I had hoped for. After being the top finisher for our team again, I’m starting to get a small reputation as a climber. That seems so funny to me – when I think back to my chunky white, hairy legs and 220lb. body of a little over a year ago. Now they’re lean and tan, and people are calling me a ‘climber’ – ha… Feels good!

Well, I opened up a huge can of kung fu on this one.

Hugo is a couple hours east of where I live. Not quite in the middle – but definitely on the edge, of nowhere. There is a big stage race in Wyoming next week that several of my teammates are going to. Since I’m not going to that one, I wanted to make a little road trip out of Hugo. I picked up Jonathan after work on Friday and we headed across the plains. It was sooo windy! My poor car was struggling bad – I had the pedal on the floor in 4th gear and sometimes had to drop down to third if there was a small grade to climb. Bikes on top, AC full blast, and a huge head/cross wind were not making it happy. The thing is supposed to get up to 36mpg on the freeway, I figured I got around 17…

The race has a reputation for being windy, but this had me a little concerned!

We finally made it to the motel. First class accomodations at the Econo Lodge. Dinner consisted of a sprint across the highway to Arby’s where, when presented with my Big Montana sandwich, I told the kid behind the counter that I had a salad coming as well. He looked into the bag, then the quote of the weekend, “Uhh, are you sure??”. HAHA! Am I sure!?!?!? I timed the roll of my eyes perfectly with the flick of my wrist as I flipped the receipt on the counter. “Yeah, bro. I’m sure…”. The manager came up and grabbed the reciept and went into full scramble mode to get me my salad. What a crack-up!

I didn’t sleep so great. I woke up around 4:30 and pretty much just layed there until 7:00. I was glad not to be getting up at 4:30, though. I mostly thought about the race and tried not to get too nervous. I knew I had a good chance to do well in this one. It was going to be a 63 mile war of attrition, which is my kind of race. I had been training hard since Utah and feeling stronger all the time. I didn’t really back off on my training to try and peak for this one, but decided to just take it in stride and try not to put too much pressure on myself. The forecast was for lots of wind out of the south, sun, and 90+ degrees.

We started on a pretty small road, and were supposed to keep to the right of the center line. Umm, yeah… I was in the middle of the pack somewhere, and using way too much energy just to fight for position and not crash into people. I knew we’d be heading straight south (into the wind) for the first 20 miles. I decided that I’d rather go sit on the back, and gamble that nothing would get off the front of the race. I started drifting backwards through the racers for what seemed like ten minutes before I was finally the last rider of the bunch. Turns out our field was 110 riders. That was huge! The biggest I’ve ever raced in by far.

My strategy of surfing the back turned out to be a pretty decent one. I was able to sit up, relax a bit, hydrate tons, stretch, and generally try to conserve as much energy as possible. It’s not a totally free ride, but as long as you keep an eye on the riders that are about 20 ahead of you, you can anticipate the accellerations and respond in time. This being a mostly straight road helped a lot too. I just kept telling myself – save the kung fu, save the kung fu…

We finally came down a 35mph descent into a 90 degree right turn. This is where the biggest hill started and the crosswind would begin to play a major factor. I was dead last around the corner, which concerned me when I saw the leaders hit it seeminly 30 seconds before I got there. Once the hill started, I was able to hold just inside the center line and started passing people like crazy. Luckily, the wind wasn’t too terrible on the lower part and I was able to slingshot quite a ways up the bunch. I stood on the pedals and started cranking. Soon, I found myself about 10 riders from the lead. A lot of my training rides have consisted of 30 miles of steady tempo riding, followed by an all-out effort up a 30 minute climb, then tempo riding home. Perfect for the situation I was in now.

I was working hard, but knew I could go harder. It’s amazing how much you use your ears in a race. Mine were totally tuned to the breathing, shifting, and pedaling rythmns of those around me. I heard suffering… I thought to myself – “Ok boys, KUNG FU TIME!”, and took off as hard as I could go. I pressed on for 30 seconds and then took a quick glance back to assess the damage. A couple of riders were coming up, so I eased up and started working with them. Eventually more and more came up, I think probably around 40 in all, but the rest of the field was like a stick of dynamite had been tossed in there. Riders were strung out all over the place. BOOM! I was ready to rock.

The next 10 miles were super tough. Bad crosswind. Nowhere to draft, rolling climbs, and a very hot pace. I was at the back of the group – I didn’t really worry about getting dropped, but I was worried about trying to recover as much as possible from my earlier efforts. Tough to do when your heart rate is only 4-5 beats below your absolute MAX!!(which was at a new record of 187 beats per minute after my first attack). Riders were continually dropping off in one’s and two’s. We passed a kid from an earlier wave throwing up in the grass as we went by. Good times.

We finally made it to the feed zone (chaos as usual) and made the turn back north. More rolling climbs and wind to deal with. I was finally able to start recovering here, though. The group was down to 20-25 now. As far as teams go, we had 3 guys and two other teams had 3 riders. I was fairly happy with that situation. I think we started with the most by far though (13-14??), so I was wishing we would have had more representation at this point.

We hit another good size roller after 40+ miles, and I could sense some guys were getting pretty tired. I launched another attack. Not necessarily to totally get away, but more to try and shed the dead weight. I did NOT wan’t to go down to the line with 20+ guys. My plan was to try and make the race as hard as possible. I knew if I could go the finish with a group of 5 or so that I would have a good shot at the win. The danger of the plan was that I would possibly be sacrificing a higher placing by doing so much work. I decided that I would rather try and attack and make something happen, than take shelter and wait for the sprint. My accelleration managed to shed a few more riders, including one of my teammates. Rats…

I tried probably 4 more times, attacking and covering other attacks, before we got to the final turn. Nothing would stick for very long. We had about 10 miles to go at this point and the wind was BRUTAL! Coming hard from the right hand side, it pushed us single file, into the gravelly edge of the opposite side of the road. Good thing there wasn’t any traffic out here! Pure suffering to hang on at this point. I was at the back again, treading on dangerous territory of getting dropped, trying to recover. After an eternity I saw an opportunity and shot up the left hand side into some shelter for a minute. I recovered a beat or two, then launched off the front again. Shed my last teammate – dang! I recovered for a couple of seconds, then the strongest team sent two guys up the road. Crap! I knew that was the move and dug deep to go with them. I was the only one to make it because I was still in good position near the front from my previous attack. It hurt me, though. Right after I made contact, the second guy started to waver and come off the wheel. Man, I just could not get a break! I had to sprint around him and finally made contact with the first guy. This was THE shot I had been waiting for all day. He was on the strongest team, and still had two guys in the group behind. If there was ever a chance to get away, it was NOW. I was hoping that his teammates would control/cover things in the group and let their boy have his chance. We had about 5 miles to go. I was yelling go – go – go!! And trying to encourage him to take shorter turns at the front so we could really get a move on. I’m not sure he was really committed to the effort, though. The thinned-out group of 15 or so made it’s way back up to us after a few minutes. I was smoked at this point, and knew my race for the podium was pretty much over and done with. We had averaged 26.2 miles per hour over the last 40+, which is incredibly fast for a bunch of old dudes like us. My heart rate averaged 173 for that same period, which is normally my threshold for much shorter efforts. Nothing to be sorry about there…

Our group split in two while I was at the back with about 2 miles left. I just could not get across to the leaders and worked it with another guy to eventually come in 10th place.

I had a great time and was totally stoked about how I rode. It was by far the most aggressive I’ve ever been in a race, and a good confidence booster. I may have been able to finish a little higher had I raced differently, but I don’t feel like I did anything stupid and probably wouldn’t change much about the day. No regrets.

This is what the drive to the final stage time trial looked like. RAIN, hail, tons of wind, and lightning. Pretty bad stuff.

After several delays, false starts, warm-ups, and cool-downs, they finally called the race. The final classification wouldn’t change. So much for keeping a little in reserve for today! Lesson learned, race your hardest and don’t leave anything out on the course.

Overall, I’m really happy with my weekend. I got a 9th, 11th, and finished 13th overall and managed to do so without digging too deeply. It was a lot of fun catching up with Uhl and Heather, my old friends from my previous racing life, and making a few new friends as well.

Goodbye Tour of Utah! Hope to see you next year!