40+ Stazio Criterium

March 26, 2006

I arrived home from three weeks in South Africa at noon on Saturday. Sheri picked me up and we went straight to Derek’s soccer game, where he scored two goals and his team won 7-1. I then rode my cross bike home from work to get in a little exercise. At home I switched to my road bike and rode out to pick up our RV, which I drove back home. That night we packed for our trip to Sedona.

The next morning I headed down to the Stazio criteriums. I was anxious to start the race season to support any teammates I might have in the race. Since there wasn’t a 35+/Cat. 4 division I would normally enter the Cat. 4 race, but my wife had given me a strict deadline and when she wanted to leave for the long drive to Sedona, Arizona, so I had to enter the earlier 40+ division. This division wasn’t exactly the same as the usual Masters 35+, but many of the usual suspects were in this race. The 2^nd toughest race division is the Masters 35+, after the Pro-1-2 race. It is considerably tougher than the Cat. 3 race. Knowing this and lining up with these guys I was reminded of the line Walter said to Donny in “The Big Lebowski”:

Shut the f$%# up, Donny, you are out of your element!

I was indeed out of my element and trying to stay quiet and out of trouble, which wasn’t going to be easy since there was a tremendous wind blowing and the long sections of our rectangular course were raked by a crosswind of mythic proportions.

After I signed in for the race, I found two teammates: Matt Vawter and Glenn Palumbra (or something like that). I didn’t know much about Glenn, but Matt is a strongman and superb climber, though inexperienced in criteriums. Right before the start of the race, he was having some mechanical problems – not an ideal time to be fine tuning the bike.

As I was riding around in the parking lot, warming up with the rest of the riders, I noticed Charlie Hayes. He used to ride for Excel, but today he wasn’t in any kit at all. It looked like he was wearing a black pile vest over a running shirt. Charlie is one of the strongest 35+ riders, nearly always finishing in the top 3 and just knowing I was in the same race as he was, I felt silly. He isn’t exactly Lance Armstrong, but the difference in our ability is a monstrous chasm. He rode up beside me and said, “Hi, Bill, do you know who I am?” I said “Yes, Charlie.” He brought up the email from a couple of years ago where I had railed about him. We discussed the event at the Bus Stop ride and he explained himself very well and I knew all the explanations a long time ago and had felt bad about what I had written, or at least for sending it out to such a wide distribution list. The curious thing about it was that he said he didn’t know it was me when he was yelling at us – like it would have made a difference. That was cool. Anyway, we got all that that behind us and I asked, “So, are we good?” He nodded. I told him that I felt out of my element in this race and wanted to make sure I rode safe and didn’t screw up any of the other riders. He agreed that staying safe was the key today, with the crazy wind. He said, “If that means riding off the back, then that’s where I’ll be.”

The pack of 60+ staged for the start and I was furthest back of the Rocky Mounts. When the gun went off Charlie put the hammer down and sprinted off the front. Three more riders went with him and that was the race. That break never came back. The four worked well together until one guy went for a prime. After that he was blown and the other three dropped him. That was a bad move by that guy. To win a prime and give up a chance of a 4-person finish…? Crazy, unless he knew he couldn’t have lasted until the end.

I moved up a bit in the pack, trying to stay in the front half. I maneuvered for position to always be shielded from the wind. The only benefit of the wind was that we had a tremendous tailwind going up the short, steep hill on the 1.1-mile course. By the end of the 4^th lap, Matt was out of the race with a mechanical. By the end of the 5^th lap, Glenn was out of the race with a mechanical and I was in my usual position: halfway through a crit without any teammates. Glenn did the same thing that I did in last year’s Boulder Stage Race. He broke the dropout holding on his rear derailleur. The derailleur then went completely around the wheel and locked that back wheel cold. Thankfully Glenn was going up the hill at the time and when he crashed it wasn’t too bad since he wasn’t going that fast. His day was done, but Matt got to race later in the Cat. 4 race.

I basically just hung in the pack and tried to stay out of trouble. Maybe halfway through the race two riders tried to bridge up to the lead group. I waited for someone to pull me up to them, but no one went. On the hill, I went hard and bridged up to one of the guys. We worked together for maybe a lap before getting caught. On the final lap, going into the penultimate turn, the guy in front of me let a gap open up and that was it. I should have jumped hard and tried to close it down before we turned into the headwind, but I didn’t, once again hoping for someone else to do the work. Another rider took up the challenge at the turn, but we now had a headwind and it was too late. I drafted him until the final turn and then went around to do some pulling to the finish. I came across in 30^th and wasn’t too disappointed to finish in the middle of this group.

Later, in the Cat. 4 race, teammate Chris Busacaa finished 4^th. Taking second place in that race was 15-year-old Taylor Phinney. He had previously won the 15-16 and 17-18 junior races. He has some good genes with the winningest U.S. bike racer for a father (Davis Phinney) and Olympic road race gold medallist Connie Carpenter. My friend and U.S. National Cross rider Jon Baker won the pro race.

I left shortly after the race and we were heading south in the RV by 12:30 p.m. We drove until about 10:30 p.m. and then slept in a rest stop until 4:30 a.m. before completing the drive to Sedona by 9:30 a.m.