Cobb Park Criterium, Kankakee, IL, June 18, 2011

After the debacle at last week’s criterium in Galena, I sought to do a little penance at Cobb Park. I had only pre-registered for the 12:00 Masters 30+ 4/5 race, but then I received an email the night before that the 11:10 Women’s 3 race was being replaced by an open Cat 4/5 race. So, I decided to double up and do one race right after the other.

The forecast called for scattered thunderstorms at race time, and as I warmed up on the trainer the clouds thickened and the wind increased. The sun won out, however, and the weather was perfect for racing.

I had raced here two years ago, and at that time we went around the 0.70 mile course counter-clockwise. This year, however, we were doing it clockwise…which I had no problem with, since the two-block long uphill from 2009 now became a two-block long downhill. Two thumbs up to that!

Open 4/5

30 riders rolled to the line for the 30-minute Open 4/5 race. As soon as the whistle blew, one of the Tati women flew off the front. A rider bridged up to her and together they held the field at bay for a few laps as we chased them down. Immediately I knew that this wouldn’t be a repeat of last weekend. I felt relaxed, and my legs were comfortably managing the tempo. I was able to easily maintain my position in front for most of the race, sitting anywhere from 4th to 6th wheel the whole time. It felt great to go bombing through the sweeping right-hand turn into the start/finish straightaway after the long downhill without touching the brakes.

Shortly after the first attack by Team Tati, another of their women launched an attack. She didn’t stay away, but it was clear that the riders in orange had every intention to race aggressively. One prime was called about midway through the race. A few riders got a gap on the field and duked it out for whatever they were giving away, but then let themselves be absorbed back into the peloton after the sprint, rather than seeing if they could keep the gap.

It was a very clean race…from where I sat, at least. Everyone was riding smart, and for the most part we were gruppo compatto. Even the chicane in turn two didn’t cause any drama, and there were no high-speed wipeouts on the fast corner after the downhill.

When the sprint came at the end, I gave it my all and ended up finishing 14th.

Masters 30+ 4/5

After a quick cool-down lap, I had just enough time to pull of my jersey, pin on my new number, suck down some Gatorade and a hit of honey (the poor man’s Gu), and roll back to the line. This time there were 50 of us ready to do battle. I still felt pretty fresh after the last race, so I went into those one with high hopes of being able to pull off a decent finish.

We had to start off with a neutral lap to allow an ambulance onto the course. For once, though, the ambulance was responding to a house call and not to a fallen rider.

After reassembling at the line, we were whistled off for another 30 minutes of aggression. The pace was faster than the last race, and the bigger field meant that we had to negotiate the turns and the chicane anywhere from 2 to 4 riders wide. Being surrounded by greater numbers meant that there was a bit more of the whiplash slowing and accelerating through some of the turns. Whereas in the first race I was able to negotiate the final turn without hitting the brakes, I often had to feather them this time around to make some minor adjustments to my speed.

Also, because of the greater numbers and the more aggressive riding, it was more difficult to maintain my position than it had been during the previous race. However, I was mostly able to keep myself up within the front third of the peloton. If I found myself slipping back, I would use either the start/finish straightaway or the long downhill to zip up the side of the field and back into a more favorable position. I was still feeling good, ad the legs were doing everything that I asked them to do.

I didn’t have the greatest position when the final sprint came. An 11-tooth cog would have been a big help, but sadly I was maxed out on my 12. Still, I was able to outgun a South Chicago Wheelmen rider and snag an 18th place finish.

So, I ended my day with two solid, if unremarkable, finishes. I felt great, and ended up doing six times more racing than I had managed at Galena (60 minutes’ worth as opposed to 10 minutes). South Chicago Wheelmen put on a great day of racing, and I look forward to returning next year.

Tour of Galena Criterium, Galena, IL, June 12, 2011

What could make a person drive almost 5 hours, round-trip, for a 30 minute bike race? For starters, the fact that this particular bike race is in Galena…the quaint mining town that was once home to General Ulysses S. Grant, and where President Lincoln once delivered a speech from the balcony of the DeSoto House. Having grown up about an hour away from Galena, it was the destination for many family trips over the years, as well as my 8th grade class field trip (and don’t ask what year that was, thank you very much).

So it was with much excitement when the Tour of Galena omnium was announced. Although I opted to skip both the time trial (I just don’t do ‘em) and the road race (hills and I don’t get along very well), I really anticipated the chance to race the criterium in the historic downtown area.

In hindsight, I should have stayed a tourist.

The course was, for lack of a better description, an elongated 0.7 mile teardrop, with a bottleneck on the backstretch leading into a really tight hairpin left turn going into the start/finish straightaway. I knew that this would string out field and subject the poor saps at the back to a dramatic caterpillar effect as the guys at the front hammered out of the turn. As I sat at the line with about 25 other riders, I told myself to get to, and stay up at, the front.

However, sometimes there is a disconnect between making the body do what the mind is telling it that it should do. I started off with great position, but let too many guys drift around me in the early stages of lap one. Perhaps I was a bit too tentative on the brick pave to be found in the sweeping left hand turn shortly after leaving the start/finish. Whatever the cause, I soon found myself way to far back. I should have expended some extra energy early on to get back to the front. That is an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to do. Especially when I realized that my legs felt like lead. I had nothing.

Just as I expected, the riders at the front just absolutely drilled it coming out of the hairpin turn. There was a speed display at the start/finish and I noticed during the 2nd lap (when I was still tenuously with the field) that we were zipping through at 27 mph. Every time we came out of that hairpin I had to stand up and mash on the pedals as best as I could to either stay with, or catch back onto, the peloton.

Well, to make a long story short, I found myself off the back at only six minutes into the race. It is very demoralizing to have the rear moto buzz past you as you suck wind. A South Chicago Wheelman rider grabbed on to my wheel, but with as fast as the field was going on such a short-distance course, there was no chance of us being able to work together sufficiently to catch back on. Not the way I was feeling, at least. And, sure enough, as we came around to the start/finish after 10 minutes, there was the friendly official with whistle in mouth to usher us off of the course.

In a fit of pique I grabbed my wheels from the pit and headed back to the car. Although I really should have stuck around and cheered on my teammate Bryan to his 11th place finish (sorry, Bryan!), I couldn’t stomach watching the rest of the race. I changed and wandered over to the Kandy Kitchen, a family favorite over those many years, to pick up some of the best malted milk balls in the world (I swear that the chocolate surrounding the malt ball is half an inch thick).

I thought that I had done everything right. I had done an easy-to-moderate 30 mile ride on Saturday to open the legs up. I hadn’t participated in the grueling road race the day before that many of the others in the field had raced. I got to the course early and got in a good warmup. The temps were mild and the winds were moderate (although you could feel them on that backstretch).

I hadn’t involuntarily DNF’d since Glencoe last August, and it is a horrible feeling. I knew that my training this season would take a back seat to the new addition to our family, and very rightly so. Still, I have been able to put in more miles than I thought that I would, and have been posting up some decent, if unspectacular, results. Which makes it that much harder to get pulled from a race. For some insane reason, the official race results show me finishing in 25th place. But I know better. I “finished” mo more than Mozart finished his Requiem, or Gilbert Stuart his portrait of George Washington.

Hopefully I can redeem myself at Cobb Park next weekend. Stay tuned…