In Your Travels

CSC Invitational Pro Race

Leaving my son at home wailing and refusing to either wear pants or take a nap, I headed off to see the big boys lap the course. My wife knows what a big show this race is and insisted I go, so isn't that just so awesome? Later I found out he was practicing hard on being a terrible two until he got his nap out. Then we had lots of fun while she went shopping, as he even made a few turns of the pedals on his trike and ran around in the back-yard, still refusing to wear pants. No wailing at all, so I lucked out.

I met up with cat 3 buds Wade and Freddy from NCVC and walked around the course. We'd walk, find a spot, watch them go by, walk for about a 45 seconds and pick a new spot, and then there they'd be again. It was really a cool way to observe the race. We watched Brad Huff from TIAA Cref get a 2 second gap and work it. Really frickin' impressive. A lesson to all you novices out there who sit up whenever you turn around and see somebody chasing you. He stretched it out to 10 seconds. Then people started to counter and it went back down to 2 seconds again. Did he sit up. N.O. spells no, people. So then Brooke Waters of Priority Health bridged the gap and the field stopped motoring, and bang, they've got thirty seconds. I hope they were gobbling up fat primes like PacMan gobbled up Inky, Blinky, Clyde and that other guy (Stinky? I think not). So my I am not worthy buddy the down-to-earth Lars Michaelson, top-five Paris-Roubaix dude and Ghent-Wevelgem winner back in the day (1995) starts trying to make a real bridge. Here is a shot the lap when he is setting up to make his move: But the next lap he comes into the off camber turn five a few seconds ahead of the field, just that little bit too hot and dumps it. He slides around backwards and goes head first into the curb. Lesson to all you amateurs, pros remember to lift up their head slightly under those circumstances, so the head glances off the curb and you just crack your helmet, instead of breaking your neck. The front of the field is going ape after him cause he won the race two years ago, set up Cancellara for the win in this year's Paris Roubaix and all that. So they are mostly going to fast on the same line to and about 10 guys stack it with varying degrees of seriousness. Despite Lars's excellent technique I run over there kinda worried about him. I tell him he hit his head real hard and I think you're done for the day as he tries to get up. So he sits there for a minute or two and then unbelieveably gets up. Not so lucky is the guy that tanked into him, endoing and landing with all his weight right on his hip. They took him away in a cart. I'm guessing he broke his hip but I don't know. I've done the same thing (in a different way) and I'm here to tell you the rehab is long, painful and just totally awful. So I hope he didn't break it.

Anyway the motorcycle sits there and guards these guys, and Hilton Clarke from the Navigators makes the bridge Lars was meaning to. They keep banging while everybody in the field gets the shakes from the crash and remember that bike racing is dangerous. They get some primes to keep going and they hold the break off from lapping distance, but don't close the gap any either. Meanwhile there is steady attrition at the back of the field. In a local point of honor, Rockville-Harley Davidson's elite team was not the first to be dropped. They hung on for varying degrees of time, one or two guys really lasting for quite awhile, but one guy went down too, and wasn't getting up either. He crashed on a long straight, probably a tangle as the course narrows there slightly. As the winner later said in a moment of obviousness and wisdom "You've got to pay attention out there." Sounds simple but when your mind is clouded in an anerobic haze, it is much easier said then done.

Eventually the fatigue gets to a guy in the break, and he loses it in turn five as well: You take an off camber turn at the bottom of a hill that you can easily take at over 30mph, put a brick sidewalk in the middle off it, add a couple of bumps, cook at 98.6 degrees at a heart rate of 190 for about an hour, and what do you expect? Hope he got some primes, poor sod. I saw him walking away and he looked like the prom king whose queen wouldn't dance with him. Still, the break held its lead unabated, minus one dude.

Then I got to pow wow with my elite teammate Peter Dickenson and Julie, who I guess is his wife. I sat there and really dug a nice chicken/avacado/cheese sandwich. Mmmmmm. We talked about doubling up (doing two races) and he said "Just do one good one." Right on. Then as I walked up the street to go feed my car's meter, I saw Brent, who was 6th in the 1/2/3. In true sprinter fashion he mentioned how he would have liked to win the field sprint (for fourth) but that he was still pleased. Considering all the quality talent that got shelled in that race (~ two cat 3s finished) with only 26 finishers, pretty awesome if you ask me. But yeah, I know there is something satisfying about winning the field sprint after the bitterness of missing the break, so I get him.

So to bring this novella to a close, the break gets caught. Another crash happens in turn one this time, with half-a-dozen laps to go. Bikes and dudes are flying into the curb on the outside. Somebody's bike flips up into the air and smacks a metal sign and it makes that weird flexing metal sheet sound. Woomp-whooump-boing. I was on that outside line a lot and man that curb sure could get close, so I guess somebody finally hit it or got squeezed and tangled up. Whatever, there was a big pile of bikes and dudes just laying there. Somebody drags a couple bikes that were stuck together off the course, picking them up as one. Then one disentangles itself and sickly falls, landing on the front wheel and slowly tipping onto its right side. That is just wrong. Anyway I guess the crash took out some of the remaining sprinters so that opened up some chances for the 22 guys left in the field. Haedo out. Dominguez out. Michaelson out. Etc.

I gate crashed my way into the cheap seats (on top of some newspaper machines). Great minds think alike - old courier buds Shane and Aaron made the same move and we could see some Kodak guy on the front with three turns to go. The winner must have made a move there, then hit the front and gunned it with two turns to go, and we saw him alone on the right with a good gap as he hit the top of the rise on Wilson and launched his sprint. For a non-sprinter, Mark McCormack can lay down some zip when he needs to, not bad for a 35 year old geezer. The other dudes were way on the left, in an eschelon across the road, making a bid for second. Aussie Karl Menzes, who is just an impressive looking dude, all legs below the waist and a lean muscular triangle on top, was best of the rest. I wouldn't want to fight that guy.

So that's it, another race day in Clarendon goes down in history. If you missed it man you should be kicking yourself. Great bike race, fun people watching, all your friends there and when you meet the pros after the race you can tell them you raced that morning and you know how dang hard the course is. I mean only 25 pros finished. Well over 100 starters. The rate of attrition in this race is higher than just about anything. The straights are long enough to go really really fast, but the turns are so tight you really have to slow down, so all of that just wears people down. Every year it is the same, with like ten laps to go people just crack up physically, emotionaly, and spiritually. It really tests everything you've got, phew, I get tired just writing about it! Thanks for reading!

posted by Mark @ 1:14 PM