IVRR Race Report

First let me start of this report by saying that I havnt done an actual road race since 2005 and that was in New England. As I used to race a bunch on the road back in NE in the late 90s-early 2000s as a very competitive cat 3 (got my points to become cat 2 but life had other plans) I thought that I could just “sit in” without having actually trained or done a ride over 50 miles this year. Man was I delusional!

The weather on Saturday could not have been finer as I was racing my new bike, the sun was shining and a slight breeze was blowing in the 65-70 degree air = perfecto! After we rolled the neutral start, complete w a red light stop, a large group rolled off the front and created a 10 man break w all of the big teams represented. Even though I told myself before the race not to do any work and to just “sit in” and see how it goes, the sight of seeing a large group just roll away made me feel like the race was already over since a bunch of Garage, Audi and Course en Tete guys were just sitting on the front. I decided to put in a little dig and got away w a Garage guy who promptly told me that he had guys in the break; power in #s my friends. After working together for a few turns I saw that we were’nt going to get anywhere and was hoping to be joined by some other suckers. After sitting up and drifting back to the peloton I realized that the racing was just about to begin and pain was going to occupy my space.

I did my best to stay near the front, surf wheels, close gaps and move up when I could but it felt like I was trying to hold back a tidal wave w a boogy board. The elastic snapped earlier than I could have expected at about mile 25 into the 60 mile race on the 2nd time up the first of 2 climbs. I remember seeing Dougie spin past me as I felt like my legs were full of rapidly setting cement. Luckily, I wasnt the only one one feeling the pinch  as about 1/4 of the group was suffering the same effect. After trying to make up time on the decent, being careful not to hit those 2 Dachsunds in the road, and the flats I gave up the ghost and rolled the 15 miles back to the car w Hahn Rossman (Alki/ Rubicon) all the while talking about esoteric bicycle geometry stuff and taking in the beautiful sunny day.

Conclusion: Road racing is really fucking hard! It sure would be nice to have some teammates out there, hint hint 😉 I cant wait for Bike Camp!

Max