Update From the Beaches and The Chesapeake Criterium

The wheel of time slowly turns. The familiar autumn slant of sunlight leads my memory to past epic surf. The many years flow together and become one atmosphere, one great big luscious feeling representing all those waves ridden.

The ocean water temperature is pushing 80 degrees. Various water brothers talk now of free diving and spearfishing on the shipwrecks littering our local sandbars. The ocean is flat, clear and the wind is light and easterly. This is what our local islandscape, the context in which we live, is like just before the first real swell comes. So as we wait, we do other things in order to be ready.

Last Saturday I raced in my first race as a Category 4 bike racer. I had had two weeks preceding this race of careful, recovery-type training rides due to persistent groin and ligament strain. I believe this is attributed to lack of weight training in support of the racing season following hernia surgery. Lifting just hurt the scar tissue too much. So I just rode miles and put in time on the bike. I kept the intensity dialed down. I didn't really feel prepared, but resolved to ride in the Chesapeake Criterium anyway.

I rode up with my friend Robert. You could say I'm an entry level Cat 4 racer. He's ready to upgrade to Cat 3, but has decided to finish the season as a Cat Four. So for the first time we got to ride as teammates in a race.

Robert has done nothing less than lead many new local riders into the sport, and in some cases like mine, encouraged a few long time riders to enter criteriums and road races. He has led by putting in a Herculean effort himself to improve his fitness and skills for great racing results. I'll post a blog in the future characterizing the kind of unfailing devotion and commitment this takes in cycling as an amateur racer.

We were to meet one of our team's boy wonders, Ricky, 24 years-old, whom we knew would be armed with a murderous sprint finish. We also knew he was not happy with his results in the recent Piedmont Triad Omnium in the North Carolina foothills. Ricky is a natural sprinter. He would come to race. If he was in any kind of good position in the last 300 meters to the finish line, he'd be in the money when it was over. I'm always hoping I'm close enough to see it at the end. I raced with him when we both were in Cat 5 together. He kept winning so he moved right up to Cat 4 leaving me to slave through all 10 required races in order to also move up.

I lined up on the start line. Ricky tapped my rear wheel with his front to let me know he was behind me. As we started, I let a few riders find the front of the peloton before I fell in close behind, intending to hide from the wind more than I usually do. Robert had lined up on the start line to my right. The rider on the front set the pace which settled in around 25+ mph. I was watching for a break but there was none. I rotated to the front and took a short pull. I was determined to ride in the top ten, the safest place to be in a race, keeping the majority of the other riders behind me as much as possible.

We had been told by the referees at the outset the race would be 40 minutes. They said they would time our beginning laps then put up the number 13 on the lap board so we could watch the laps count down from there to the final lap. As the leaders cross the start/finish line on the final lap, cycling tradition has a bell ringing (like a cowbell)to signal the riders.

The race announcer could be heard briefly as we passed the finish line each time complaining about the slow pace of the race saying,"when will these riders pick up the pace and really begin racing?" Then a four dollar prime (pronounced preem)was announced the next time we passed by. Four dollars to the next rider to lead across the line on the next lap. We were being demeaned. I never did learn who won that prize. We weren't impressed.

I worked hard to hold a position near the front which had much more to do with bike handling skills and maneuvering than speed and strength. Our average speed at the race's end was only around 26.4 mph. But it's the movement in, around, and among the other racers that is the real intensity in the main part of the race. It's intoxicating.

If the pace sagged coming out of a corner, the leaders would be passed on the right and/or the left all at once. Riders would stream by like river current. I would be left having to pick my way back up to the lead group again after sinking backward until I couldn't tolerate my new position.

A rider went off the front of the pack and pulled out about 20 yards away. So I came out of the lead group and bridged up to him, covering the potential break. He signaled me to pull through and help stay away from the pack. I refused and stayed on his wheel. I was really just enjoying a safer place to ride and rest out of the wind.

We crossed the line, the bell rang and the last lap began. I was about 7th wheel from the front. We turned into the back stretch and ran up to around 28+ mph. I jumped over to the righthand gutter, climbed up the side of the leaders and launched off the front. I separated from the others only briefly as I struggled into the wind. I peeked behind to see the others closing on my rear wheel. Swiftly, the last corner before the finishing straight neared. I leaned hard into the turn holding my speed up. As I straightened my line, the riders behind me exploded across the road and up the sides in a maddening, furious sprint to the line. Among them were my teammates Ricky and Robert.

Robert had found the wheel of a friendly rider we knew from another team. When that rider got up to sprint, he put a watt loaded pedal-stroke down and his chain came off suddenly dropping him on his top bar. He managed to keep his bike up, but Robert had lost much of his sprint momentum, skidded and then all at once started his sprint again.

Ricky, waiting for no one, shot by me on the left and finished third. Robert ended with an eighth place. I finished safely 18th in a field of thirty-nine. It was a worthwhile race. Today I learned I could ride in Cat Four. There's nothing like riding with able teammates.