Summer Solstice Stage Race

They say a rider’s first tour really changes them. I’ll never ride the Tour de France so races like this past weekends Summer Solstice stage race is as close as I will most likely ever come to feeling what a tour really feels like. Never having raced two days back to back before I was a little nervous at the idea of riding 4 stages in three days but I was confident that I had decent fitness and that if I was lucky, that I could possibly just finish on the famed Caesar’s Creek Dam on Sunday. This event was hosted by OVR and I would like to say first and foremost that I thank them for their effort and willingness in putting together an event this big as it takes a tremendous amount of work to pull something like this off. That being said, I sincerely hope that if they plan on ever trying this again that they really evaluate this years event and solicit feedback from riders and teams on how the event can better and safer.

Friday Evening
Friday’s stage was a Criterium on the campus of Wilmington College which was described as a lazy 8 route. While walking to registration, I heard a rider describe this as officially the worst crit course ever. I was a little skeptical but while continuing my walk along the course I could see exactly what he was talking about. Lazy is the wrong word to describe the course. Risky is probably a better choice of words in my opinion. The course had two 180 degree turns at the both ends of the loop which took you into parking lots and then 90 degree turns taking you out of the parking lots. Getting into and out of the lots meant going over curb cuts that were two inches +/- high which meant rims would be taking a beating four times per lap. It looked like they were aware that most people would be upset about this so it seemed like there was an attempt to level this out by either placing some Quikrete or sand there. All this did though was make those corners sketchier as this material broke up and made sliding out a possibility which resulted in a crash in the race prior to mine. Going into this series, I didn’t have any ambitions as this was a last minute addition to my schedule and not one of my goal races. Being a crit however and typically riding well in crits I did want to make a good showing here. However, seeing the course and having 46 guys on it all at once, I decided it was better to ride safe and if need be to abandon the race if I thought things were out of control but if there was a chance at the end that I would go for it. The shortened race was fast as expected with a crash or two, but for the most part it was uneventful and fairly safe. All the other races seemed to have big splits in them but ours seemed to stay together, although there were a few stragglers who were pulled off the course when they lost contact with the group. I ended up finishing this race safely in 20th place and most importantly with no time loss.

Saturday Morning
Saturday would be a big day of racing with a 54 mile road race in the morning and a 5 mile time trial in the evening. The morning race was scheduled to kick-off at 9:00 but we didn’t end up rolling out of the parking lot to the neutral start until just after 10:30, so much for planning on my energy needs for the day. The race was also shortened to 45 miles, which I had no objections with. The plan for the team for the weekend was to protect Carl and Mike as they are riding really well right now. That would leave the remaining five of us making up the Cat 4 field (Tim, Marshall, Jim, Don and I) to watch the field and cover any dangerous moves that might take place. This was my first road race of the season and I was looking forward to it as all I’ve been doing so far this year is crits and I’m not typically fond of those. The day’s weather was hot and very windy. This made racing a little slower and somewhat uneventful except for the constant braking that seemed to happen in the field. The first two (out of three) laps we did there were a few break-away attempts but they were usually one or two man moves and that wouldn’t be enough to survive out in the wind for very long. Tim and I worked hard on the second lap to try and get away but all that did was string things out. We looked back and when we saw that everyone was still with us, we sat up waiting for someone else to come around to take some responsibility which took some time. The longer it took, the slower we went until finally a group of riders must have gotten irritated enough to come around us. As expected on the last lap, the pace picked up about 5 miles from the finish to try and shell a few more riders. I found myself in good position along the right hand side of the road and as we came into town and close to the finish line a hole opened up in front of me and I was able to dive into it, finding myself in third position. The problem I had was that at that point a gap had opened up between the first two riders and us and I was now no longer in someone’s draft and I was now sprinting from a little further out than what I would have liked to. My only hope was that a teammate was on my wheel that I could lead out. Coming up to the line, I let third place slip out of my hands but I still hung on for fifth place. This was a great moment and I was thrilled as this was my best result so far as a Cat 4. All of the excitement would soon enough go away as I watched the finish of the Cat 3 field. Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess, but I can’t believe the organizers didn’t see the dangers in having cars lined along both sides of the road at the finish. Guys are pumped up and taking chances and using every inch of road possible to get to the finish line first. Unfortunately bad things happen and in this case, a small crash caused one rider to collide into a pick-up truck along the side of the road. This crash happened in front of me and I was the first one on the scene to make it over to him. All I could do was yell “Medic’ as I could tell that this poor guy was hurting. Fortunately Carl was close by and he was able to immediately move into triage mode. It took several minutes for the ambulance to show up (why wouldn’t the organizers have someone on the scene?) and then he was flown away on a life-flight shortly afterwards. My thoughts and prayers are for this rider and I hope everything will work out well for him. So far at this point in the stage race, the organizers are 0 for 2. Hopefully the evening’s time-trial would go better.

Saturday Evening
I was a little hesitant at first to try this time-trial but I will say that this was only because I had never done one before. Working with a power meter I was comfortable in knowing what kind of power output I could put out for the 11 or 12 minute effort that I suspected it would take (I joked it would take me a solid 30 minutes). Having no aero equipment other than the addition of some shoe covers I took the start line and was off speeding down the course. The race started an hour later than normal but that was because they needed to give a local business an additional hour of operation prior to closing down the road. After this morning’s incident, I was happy to wait the additional hour for some more safety. Speeding down the course all I could do was watch the power meter to make sure I was in my targeted range and try to stay as aero as possible. I was also hoping that the guy who left 30 seconds behind me wasn’t going to pass me. He never did and I crossed the line in 10minutes, 50 seconds, according to my power meter. Official results posted me at 11:02. Now, funny thing here; we were given timing chips for the stage race so official times could be easily tracked and standings determined. Of all races where time is critical I would think a Time Trial is it as this is really the only place where major time differences would occur this weekend but for some reason these weren’t used out there. That explains the additional 12 seconds added to my time along with several other people that I had talked to.

Sunday Morning
Sunday’s stage was supposed to be another long stage, 64 miles and was also the State Road race. Riding over to the race course with Rick, we joked about how the race wouldn’t get started on time and sure enough when we got there; it was delayed from starting at 9:00 to 11:15. They said they were also going to shorten the course but there was no information on how it was going to be shorted so total mileage was now going to be a guess. This delay came because there was a lack of coordination in knowing that there was another race event occurring on the course at the same time and because there wasn’t enough support to run every field on the course simultaneously. Making the best of the situation, we pulled out some blankets and camped out under a tree to pass the time. The nice thing about this break was that we were able to learn that Carl was in the lead in the G.C. after a fabulous time trial the previous evening. With the race finally underway hours later Jim and I went to the front setting tempo. We didn’t set an incredibly fast pace with the strong winds and our job wasn’t to set a fast pace but to just control things and to make sure nothing dangerous got away. I was feeling a little like Jens Voigt out there on the Cervelo watching over my team leader. There’s a little stretch of the course that has a screaming downhill. I luckily was able to go down that hill first so I could set my own tempo. Turns out a small gap opened up with a few other riders and one guy then made a jump for it. I thought he was one of our marked men for the day so I quickly covered it and as it was my turn to pull through; I lightened up the pace just slightly to keep things under control to get everyone back. When it was all back together again I was still on the front and as we were approaching the climb of the day I decided to ramp things up to try and make the pace on the climb high to discourage any attacks. I also was hoping that some of my momentum would get me up the hill and knowing that as I would be undoubtedly sliding back in the field that as we crested the top that I would at least be at the back of the group. This strategy started to work but half-way up I noticed what looked like Carl on the side of the road. Turns out that I was right and I saw Carl and Jim there. Jim selflessly gave up his rear wheel to Carl to try and keep him in the hunt for the G.C. At this point I’m thinking, man I’m going to have to work way harder than what I was hoping for as I was looking for a little recovery but I knew at this point my race was to only get Carl back into the race. Tim and I worked together for the next several miles taking pulls at fast speeds picking up riders who became unwilling or unable to work. I saw that we were getting close to Marshall and I was thinking that he must be waiting for us and that he will help pace us back into the field because he’s an absolute motor. When I came up to him he looked over and said “I’m sick.” Man, that sucks and I knew that it would be up to Tim and I to get him back. Unfortunately this just never happened as I had nothing left shortly after starting the second lap, probably a victim of working harder than I thought I was on the first lap. The saving grace for the day was that Mike finished the race off with a win for the team. Congratulations to Mike on a well done race.

Final thoughts
Fun weekend but I’ll really think twice about coming back again next year unless there are some major changes implemented prior to me risking my life and shelling out my hard earned cash.

brian