Waiting

(Harris Roubaix from a few weeks back)

Sorry for the lack of posts. The uncomplicated world I try to set up around myself sometimes takes up a lot of time.

Race number 13 of the year was this weekend. The Race to the Ridge in Maple Ridge BC. I went into it with a lot of hopes of doing really, really well, but things didn't pan out as I had hoped.

One of the beauties of road racing is the tactics and the different aspects of the race. Racing a road and stage race is like a well played game of chess in a lot of respects. Sometimes the strongest riders don't always win, and the race often comes down to the rider who played the best hand at the right time, and had the legs to back it up. Unlike mountain bike racing, where the strongest guy usually powers to victory, road racing is taking its time teaching me all these aspects. Its something that cant be taught really, just learned through experience. I'm realizing that I have some time to go before I learn to conserve my energy for when it really counts.

The road race went decent for me. There was an insane climb in the middle of the lap that was about 700m long and went into grades of 20%. From there it leveled off for a couple hundred meters and went up again. We had to do it 8 times, which left some burn. The second climb wasn't as steep, but it was a killer because your legs are toast. As expected a break with a couple Red Truck Racing guys went. I took note of the riders numbers I needed to watch and figured if these guys went. Then go like shit with them.

After a couple break aways and some useless energy lost, I saw the eventual winning break go. I launched out of the pack to try and go with it, but the pack was on me like white on rice. A lap or so later I went again on the climb to try to bridge up but only got about a 20 second gap before the pack took me in again. Bah! I thought as I knew the break was gone.

Over the race the climbs took it out of the guys and other than the 4 man breakaway, the pack was whittled down to about 15 guys(of 50). I gave it my best in the Sprint, but finished 16th...1 place out of the points.


The TT was the next day. I slapped on my ram-jam TT setup made of Cinelli TT bars from 1997 and gave it all I had. Surprisingly I pulled out a 14th place(of 50ish) which was decent. The call of a TT bike is tempting.


(me, on the far..blurry left)

Crit went horrible. 30 minutes before the start it rained causing the 6-turn course to be pretty tricky. On one corner in particular there was a walkway made of some weird pebbles-joined-with-glue material, which had a puddle directly before it.

On the second lap I went down. I've now been introduced to road rash for the first time of the year and its on 5 different spots of my right side. I thought I broke my elbow as it was SUPER pain, and it was mighty cut up. I walked over to the Paramedic and she looked at my elbow and instantly said "Your bone is poking out!" in my head I was like oh no the seasons over........When she pulled off my ripped arm warmer she discovered the protrusion was some rocks/pebbles that have worked their way into my arm warmer, and the white she saw was road rash that hadn't filled with blood yet. Either way I was done for the day.

The race went on and the crashes continued. 5-6 crashes happened in the first 3 or 4 laps, and I watched people go down continually from the paramedic station. Even the course markers were like 'What the hell" as guys would go around corners at like 10km/h and still slide out. Only about 20 guys finished.


Anyway, I'm a little stiff but going strong. I'm going to give the elbow a couple days, and think about my plans for the next few weeks. Props go out to my boy Scott who WILL beat you in a sprint and Zack the Newf for being fast as shit.

Viva le Burritos!