Deer Trail Race - 2006
April 29, 2006
This was the first race of the Colorado Cup Road Racing Series and only the second ACA race of the season. We had targeted it for a major team effort and the Rocky Mounts were out in big numbers. Scott, Chris, Joe, David, Gene, Bruce, Kris, Matt, Brad, John and Bill, for a total of 11 racers!
The race took place an hour east of
Shown here are the race profile and map.
We were supposed to ride from Deer Trail (point A) to Byers (point B) and then down to Agate (point C). Then we ride back to Deer Trail, turn right and ride east to the end of the pavement, before turning around and finishing at point E. They modified the morning course to going out to Agate twice, instead of going to Byers because of dangerous water on the bridges. The distance remained at 61 miles.
Here’s the course profile:
Only 1400 feet of climbing over 61 miles, which is flat as a pancake for a Colorado race and quite a contrast to the 4000+ vertical feet in only 37 miles in the Boulder Beer race the weekend before. This would likely come down to a field sprint, but the last ten miles of rolling, hills offered an opportunity for a breakaway. Last year this race ended with a lead group of 22 riders, finishing in 2h30, for an average pace of 24.5 miles per hour. Chris Busacca got 5th and Dave Kutcipal got 7th. They are both now Rocky Mounts riders. The field maxed out at 90 races via pre-registration. That’s a huge field and it would be the biggest race I had ever entered. With a strict yellow-line rule in effect, it would be important to get to the front before things heated up at 49-mile mark. It’s wise to ride near the front anyway to stay out of trouble.
We had a conference call with most of our team on Thursday
night and discussed our race tactics. Unfortunately, I missed the call. In the
last race, some of us thought we might be able to bridge up to the breakaway
group, but didn’t to protect our riders there. Afterwards, Busacca and I
figured that if a solo
Kris and I huddled in the car until 15 minutes before the start. We didn’t think much warm-up was necessary for a race this long. We rode for about five minutes before staging near the front of the group. With 90 riders in the race (the race limit) and only a single lane to ride in (strict yellow-line rule), moving up would be difficult. As usual
Joe described the weather this way:
The weather was ridiculous. I couldn't tell if it was raining the whole time or I was just getting sprayed with Bruce's wheel for the first half of the race.
We didn’t really get any rain in our race, maybe a drizzle, but it was mostly spray from the wheels that coated us with moisture. Kris and I started the race with full leggings, long sleeve jersey, undershirt, long gloves, and our clear plastic rain shells. Others had similar gear on. I carried three full bottles, two in my cages and one in my jersey pocket. There was a feed at this race with ten miles to go, but I didn’t know they’d have bottles for everyone, so I went unsupported.
We did two laps, out and back, going about 12 miles each direction. Going out we had a strong tailwind and coming back we suffered. The pace out was very fast each time, as everyone felt great flying along at 30 mph, but once the pack swung back around it was very slow. The pace was even a bit jerky and we would hit the brakes often. I could understand the pace, though. Who the heck wanted to get on the front of the peloton and suffer? Why? Hence anyone on the front was just crawling along.
Flat!
About halfway back on our first lap, after about 18 miles, I had to pee so badly. Busacca told me that last year he went to the back of the group three times and peed off the bike while moving. I needed to do this, but I had never done it. I should go practice this. I was tempted to try it right where I was, but with the wind that would have been bad form and I might not be stable enough and would risk a crash. I couldn’t do that. I started slipping back through the peloton asking teammates along the way if they needed to pee as well. I figured we could team together to chase back on to the peloton. No one wanted to risk it though (afterwards I heard Busacca did exactly this on the second lap).
Anyway, as I’m slipping back I’m riding on the far right and I notice that my rear wheel is flat. Damn! I thought. I’m out of the race. I’d take too long to fix the flat and I didn’t put any wheels in the following vehicle. It couldn’t hurt to try though. I throw up my hand in the air, just like those pros do, and coasted to a stop. I jumped off as the wheel support pulled up behind me. The guy was a Cat. 3 racer just volunteering for our race. A really nice guy.
I yanked off my back wheel and then went to pee, yelling the whole time, “I need 10-speed, 10-speed!” Jerome had told me that Shimano would work with my Campy, so I didn’t want to limit myself to Campy, in case he didn’t have it. It takes him awhile to find a 10-speed rear wheel, but he gets one and he even slaps it on the bike for me. I finish peeing and jump on the bike and he gives me a big push. What support! I wondered what would happen to the guy who actually put this wheel into the support car, but I didn’t wonder much.
I was in serious trouble now. The peloton was out of sight and the headwind was brutal. I suffered along in my drops thinking that I would at least finish the race and get in a good time trial workout. I had never had a mechanical in three years of racing and knew I was overdue. I’m still lucky, though, because most of the races I’ve done do not have wheel support. I caught a few riders, but they had been dropped from a huge pack and therefore were no help to me. I went by. I eventually caught a group of four or five and sort of got them organized, but they really didn’t know what to do. To their credit, they listened and tried, but it’s hard to teach a paceline in those conditions when you can only talk to one guy at a time. The pace was too slow, though, so I just pulled the whole group, eventually riding all of them off my wheel. Dang. I needed help in a bad way. When I saw the group coming back the other way I tried to get my teammates attention and motioned for them to slow it down. None of them noticed me and I knew later that the peloton hammered once they turned to go with the wind.
Crash!
On the second lap heading out (with the wind), Scott was on the far left and he hooked bars with the rider beside him. They went down in a crash that went left, taking down Kris, Matt and some other guy. Five guys down and three are Rocky Mounts! This happened in the front half of the group and at a high speed. Fortunately things were a bit strung out, but it is still rather remarkable that more the peloton didn’t go down. Matt was able to get up and chase back on to the peloton, but the other four were out of the race with injuries, though no broken bikes. KT and Scott have enough bruises and road rash to probably keep them of next week’s races. KT broke his helmet in half and had his bell rung pretty seriously, though his most serious injury was to his calf. He could hardly walk for the rest of the day and it’s bound to be worse tomorrow. They also ruined the kit they were riding. Matt described the crash this way:
I
have a pretty good idea of what happened to Kris' calf. As riders and bikes
were being strewn around the pavement, riders were forced
to lock-em-up and in some case
ride over people's limbs! I know. I t-boned some dudes neck and head myself
before going down and kissing
da pavement myself. Unavoidable.
It
was like a ritual of human sacrifice on the altar with writhing bodies, the
smell of burning rubber and the sounds of agony. Dante
would be proud. Bosch also depicted this scene in 1504.
Gene, John, and David didn’t go down, but they were caught behind the crash. Now whenever there is a crash in the field the peloton instinctively starts hammering. The thinking is that if they go hard now, they can split the field and increase their chances. Of course this works. Only the strong will get back on. Here’s Matt’s description of the crash and his successful chase with Gene-O, John, and David:
Yeah I went down with ya
dude.....Lotsa rash myself, along with 2 cosmetically broken shifters, bent
derailleur hanger, a maladjusted wheel and whacked
out front derailleur. Lying there with you Scott, I could tell you were quite angry.
I was pissed too. So
pissed that I got back on the horse and
bridged back with Gene, John and Dave.
So I could not shift too well to my big
ring in front and could not shift to
small cog in rear without hitting my
spokes, but I figured if the weather was gonna
cooperate, I might as well hammer!
Of course I didn’t see this race and I didn’t even know about it until much later because I way behind doing the solo time trial of my life. Once I got to the turn around I only had two other riders even close to me and they were apparently shelled. These riders must have been dropped by fitness and not a mechanical and they couldn’t help me regain the peloton. They were too slow. They were too slow even to ride my wheel. I left them behind. Riding back out, I noticed Joe Clark on the other side still finishing the first lap. I would learn later that he dropped his chain at the first turn-around and had to dismount to get it back on the bike. He had tried to chase on, but in that brutal wind he couldn’t make it. I don’t know if he even finished the race. Solo for 50 miles in that wind would not be fun.
I went into time trial mode. This wasn’t nearly as demoralizing now that I was going with the wind, as I was flying. My new wheel was a 10-speed, but it only had a 12 in back. This would have been fine if I wasn’t riding a compact crank, but I got spun out at times because I only had 50 teeth on my big ring up front. This was encouraging, though, as I knew I wasn’t going this fast in the peloton. The problem was that I was probably only going marginally faster and I was suffering big time. I looked down at my watch and saw 170 bpm. I figured I shouldn’t push it any higher, as I needed to maintain this for nearly an hour.
I caught and passed more riders in my race (designated by the 500 series) and each time I’d say, “Come on, get on, let’s work together.” One of the guys I caught here worked with me for a bit and took probably two pulls before he blew and fell off the back. I caught another rider before the turn around and I saw a group of six or seven 500’s up ahead. I worked hard and bridged up to these guys. One riders was trying to get them to ride in a peloton, but not succeeding very well. We caught another four riders or so and I got everyone working in a reasonable paceline. I was barking out orders: “Pull off to the left, into the wind, and then soft pedal. Keep it smooth.” This worked okay, but the riders were going too slow for me. I didn’t want to leave a group of 12 riders, but it was frustrating. I’d just take long pulls on the front.
Once I turned back into the wind, I sat up and pulled off my rain shell, as I was overheating with the effort. I also emptied one of my bottles, but couldn’t get the empty into my jersey pocket. Now a real racer would have just tossed this stuff by the side of the rode, but I was 13 miles from the car and didn’t want to ride 26 more miles to retrieve it after the race. I balled up my plastic shell and rode with it in my hand. I either had the extra water bottle in my mouth or in my hand. I looked ridiculous. I kept thinking I’d ride just a little further before tossing them.
Eventually a group of 600-series riders overtook us and we got mixed in. The race marshal told us to go to the back and let them pass. He wanted me to sit up and not ride until they passed. I said to hell with that and I went off the front of the 600-series, bringing three other 500-series riders with me. We stayed out in front of them for about five minutes, but they swarmed over us again. I was on the right and soon I was embedded in this group. The race marshal, riding on a motorcycle, drove up to me and yelled, “Get out of that group!” I said, “I’m not going out the back!” He yelled to get out of the group again and told the riders on my left to give me some space to get out sideways. They made room and I moved clear to the yellow line, in the wind, and not behind any 600-series rider. I don’t know if he yelled at me again, but I wasn’t going backwards. Another 500-series, A Boulder Sports Network rider, took over the lead from me a bit later and said, “Right on, man, I’m not going out the back either.”
This was my first experience with being caught by another group and I didn’t like it at all. I know we shouldn’t mix with other groups, but I’m in a race, they can’t expect me to sit up and give up. I had a mechanical, I wasn’t dropped by the peloton. I’m not even sure what this group was. I know teammate Eric Peltier was in the group and he rides Cat. 4, but Cat. 4 normally start in front of us because their pack rides a bit faster than us old guys. I think this might have been an overflow Cat. 4 group because I had heard they were having overflow groups, even for our category. I wonder what happens if you win your overflow group race…? These overflow groups will definitely be smaller fields and probably weaker fields in general. I’ll have to ask about that when I visit Beth Wrenn-Estes tonight to pick up a kid’s road bike for my son.
We rode along for only another five minutes before we swarmed into my race, the 500-series. I just flowed with the 600’s through the 500’s until I got to the front. Once there I asked what the state of the peloton was. Was there anyone off the front? Where is the front? Etc. I was told, “You’re at the front.” Hallelujah! I was back in the race. It had taken me nearly a full lap to get back here, almost twenty miles. I told a teammate at the front that I was whipped from chasing for so long and he said, “Oh, did you get caught in the crash?” I said, “What crash?”
My heart rate graph (below) shows my chase to get back to the peloton. I chased for 46 minutes and during that time my average heart rate was 163 bpm and was where I worked the hardest during the entire race, including the final five miles where the peloton went from 20-25 of the strongest riders to just three at the finish.
The race marshals separated out the 600-series from the 500-series and we had a pace car in front of us that basically neutralized the pack. It wasn’t that big of a deal because our pack should have been going slower than the 600’s anyway, but it was a strange experience. We all wondered once what would happen when we got to Deer Trail. Here the race would head out to the east over constantly rolling terrain.
Once back in the peloton Busacca saw me with my jacket and bottle in my hands and said, “Bill, you need to resolve that situation now.” I thought again about tossing them by the side of the road, but decided against it. I asked Busacca if he’d come give me a hand stuffing it in my back pocket. I helped Vawter do exactly this with this vest later on. Chris told me to just ride up to the lead vehicle and throw it in the window. This sounded like a good plan and I went off the front, telling everyone that this wasn’t an attack and that I was just dropping off my gear. This worked out well, except that it was the last I saw of both the jacket (unfortunate) and the bottle (I didn’t care). Speaking of gear, though, I did retrieve my rear wheel after the race and returned the wheel I used.
As it turned out, the rest of the race went fine because when the race got to the rolling terrain things went ballistic. Our plan was to launch continuous attacks here, but most on our team thought it was suicide to attack from ten miles out on such terrain. If you did get away you’d be rewarded with five very hill return miles into a strong headwind. I knew I had done my time-trialing for the day. I would try to cover any accelerations or attacks, but I wasn’t getting on the front. Brad Fink, a bit frustrated that no one was attacking, took it on himself to go to the front and put the hammer down. Now he didn’t attack either, but he inflicted a lot of pain on the group, including me. Going up each of the hills on the way out, I was on the rivet and seeing that we still had 20+ guys in the group, I was wondering if my legs could even deliver a top-20 finish. Going down these short hills, I was slightly gapped because I’d once again be spun out. I worried that this would eliminate me as a sprinter at the finish. I needn’t have worried about using the 12-tooth on the way back.
At the turn-around, with only five miles to go, only twenty riders were still in the game. Gene-O Palumbo was riding strong on the way out, along side of Matt and myself for most of the way, but he flatted somewhere around the turn-around point and after a great race, a huge effort, and 56 miles, he was out of the race. Gene is a strongman and good results are in his future. I’m not sure, but probably Brad popped off the group here as well, after working so hard for so long, his job was done and the field was now small. Here’s how the Rocky Mounts stood:
Crashed out: Scott, Kris
Mechanicalled
out: Joe, Gene-O
Effort-induced out: Brad
Still in the game: Chris,
Matt, Bill, Bruce, David, John
Shortly after the turn-around a Boulder Performance Network guy attacked. This was purely ridiculously into that wind and no one reacted, except for Busacca. He jumped and the two were off. I grabbed wheels near the front, but Matt eventually got on the very front and he was on the far right of the road, in the wind, working harder than anyone in the group. I formed an echelon to his left and we looked a bit ridiculous with two Rocky Mounts leading the charge to reel in two escapees, including one of our own. Matt just cannot resist the front and I understand this, though I have no trouble resisting the front when I can draft off someone, even a teammate. With Busacca on the attack, I wouldn’t pull through. Eventually someone else did and I got on his wheel.
Up ahead and unbeknownst to me, Busacca wasn’t working at all, but did drafting the BPN guy. That guy didn’t know what he was doing and pulled Busacca for five minutes. When he sat up, beat, Busacca said to him, “Come on, man, don’t quit on me now!” And the guy went again! Busacca almost broke out laughing. The guy blew up shortly afterwards and had to finish way back. Watching these two I did notice that I only saw Busacca on the BPN guy’s left side, out of the wind. Apparently he was always there. Chris said at one point he almost waved us up to him, as he knew it was fruitless.
Back in the lead group we weren’t soft-pedaling or anything, the effort level was kept high and we continually shed riders. Once we got the breakaway, Matt jumped and the entire group reacted, all of us struggling to stay in the game. I was working at my limit to stay with the group and stay on a wheel. I assumed we were still altogether, but then Busacca says, “Come on, we have a break.” By the time I looked around, sure enough, six of us had gone clear. Apparently at Matt’s first acceleration we had ten riders, including Bruce and David, but now we were six, including three Rocky Mounts: Chris, Matt, and myself.
We all took some pulls, working hard, and I was surprised how quickly the rest of the peloton was gone. At times, while drafting, I wasn’t even working that hard, as can be seen by my heart rate graph. In the lead group and leaving everyone else behind, my heart rate would occasionally dip down to a relatively comfortable 150 bpm. The suffering was mostly pretty constant though and all of a sudden we were only five riders. Then we were only four riders. And when these other riders dropped, they didn’t just ease off the back of our group, they were gone completely, way back, out of the race.
So with four riders left it was three Rocky Mounts and a very strong Simple Green rider named Steve. He was in a bad situation, though. He tried one attack, but we covered it. He dropped back to talk to me and attempted to get us organized into an echelon to put Steve on the yellow line, but I didn’t get it at the time. With only three riders, we’d need one gate keeper and it might not have worked, anyway. He asked me if I wanted to be the sprinter for the team, if it came down to that, and I said yes only because I knew the alternative was to attack, which I physically could not.
We started attacking Steve, with me sitting on to try and get him in the end. Vawter went first, hard, but Steve reacted immediately and chased it down. As soon as he caught Matt, Busacca launched and Steve couldn’t go again so soon, and Chris was off the front. Vawter’s effort had emptied him and he dropped off the back. Steve looked around at me, just to see if I was still there. I was right on his wheel and he was putting me on the yellow line. We both rode nearly on top of the yellow line. If he didn’t, I’d move up alongside him, out of the wind.
Steve knew he was in a bad spot, but had to give it a try. He went hard to chase down Busacca as we closed in on the finish line. We were all three at our absolute limit now with only 300 meters to go. My heart rate hit 177 bpm and I remained on Steve’s wheel. Busacca had enough of a lead, though, and he breezed across the line with the first win of his career! Steve was too strong for me and I couldn’t come around, despite my best efforts. I finished on his wheel in third, and all three of us were credited with the same time, though Chris was at least a couple seconds ahead of us. Matt took fourth by himself, six seconds back (I'm surprised it was this close, clearly he worked hard to the finish). David and Bruce took 9th and 10th respectively, about a minute back, John was 3 minutes back and Brad faded to 4 minutes back after his superb effort to break things apart.
Port Mortem
Out of 11 Rocky Mount riders, we finished with 7 results:
1.
Chris Busacca
3. Bill Wright
4. Matt Vawter
9. David Kutcipal
10. Bruce Polderman
28. John Guillaume
34. Brad Fink
Only 62 out of 90 starters finished the race. Some names I noticed in our field was my friend Jeff McCoy's friend Sam Linzell, who finished 19th, and race promoter Brian Hludzinski, who finished 41st. We had five racers finish before any other team finished their second rider. The BAT (Best All-around Team) competition would seem to be up for very easy pickings.
Busacca was the man today. He was positively driven and clearly the strongest man at the end. He got a well deserved win. The first time I met Chris was at our first team meeting. He arrived a bit late and everyone was already seated at the conference table. He walked in, stood in the doorway and said, "Hi guys, I want to win!" Well, he did and suspect it won't be his last.
Vawter was once again an absolute horse! He works so damn hard, but too much of the time. It's a testament to this fitness, though. Since I had missed the team strategy call the night before, I developed my own strategy: stay with Matt Vawter! At least, as long as I could stay with him.
Riding
back to the start, Bruce says to me, “These big ring races just kill me. I
can’t wait until next weekend for the Pillar to Post hill climb.” Heaven help
us big ring dudes next Saturday. Bruce is bringing out the pain stick and he's
going to beat the shit out of the peloton. He’s has some pent up aggression
after these last two races. Scott will be dishing out the pain as well, since
he’s fine. I know this because the next day he dropped me no less than five
times in a single ride up