Bike Racing...for Real

When I first heard about the opportunity to move out here, I promised myself that every race I did would have some sort of epic climb, and that I'd get so used to high altitude that when I descended upon the mere mortals of the Midwest, the air "down there" would be like soup to me. Thick, and delicious soup. With potatoes in it.

Well, I started my season off in typical less-than-grand style. A series of also-ran appearances on the road, winning a mountain bike race, making the "podium" (4th...top 5 in MTBing...which I didn't stick around for) in another upon upgrading to the next level, not a single road race (yet), a couple of Tuesday night Portland International Raceway (PIR) efforts, and finally, this week's iteration of the Hood River Criterium Series.

Let me preface this by saying that yes, I realize that my racing achievements are few and far between, so for me, it's the effort that counts.

Race recap:

18 starters. 4 corner industrial (several breweries, actually) crit with a set of railroad tracks to cross on the back stretch. A solitary rider went up the road, got 5 seconds, and I jumped after him. I caught up to him shortly, and we began putting time into the field. We were away for somewhere around 15 laps, and as the field began shattering behind us under the constant attacks, we lapped two riders. Normally I'd hope that they would have the good sense to remove themselves from the course, but they weren't getting in the way, and they more than likely drove 60 miles from PDX, so I had no problem with them getting in some training miles.

I have to give credit where credit is due; my partner in the break was killing me. Or maybe I was killing myself. Either way, a quick run down shows that he did about 60% of the work during our escape. Although it appears that I was taking slightly faster pulls, albeit of shorter duration. 320w during that ~30min effort.

Now for the downer. We both began running low on coal, and steam production faltered. Or the 6 man chase behind had enough power that we were doomed regardless. Whatever. We were caught with 4 laps to go, and shortly before we were swept up, I told my break partner that I'd do whatever I could to help him at the end of the race. He was stronger than me, and I appreciated him not attacking me towards the end of our time off the front. So, for the next two laps, I chased down everything I could, and then blocked when he and another guy attacked with two laps to go. With 3/4ths of a lap to go, we started to close in on them as people started attacking out of the new chase group, and I attempted to bridge up to them solo. Failed, and ended up not only blowing what little I had left, but dragging the guys I was trying to ditch up to a decent position. I rolled it in for 8th. Break partner ended up winning the race, which was pretty cool. Not a great result for me, but my legs are coming around, and I'm getting some speed to go along with the endurance/time trial strength I've been building.