Tuesday Race

Holy Crap.

That would be enough for me to say if you were there, but you weren't. For the record, I wasn't even supposed to be on my bike Tuesday per my coach, but I can't turn down a race, especially mid-week.

I rode out to Golden with new teammates Jeff and Jeremy at about 4:30 on Tuesday for the regular midweek "training" race series held at the State Patrol driving track on South Table Mountain. Lined up with those guys and rode the Cat4 race with them. I just tail-gunned it, riding up through the pack and coaching them when they looked like they needed it. I pulled out for the last lap - we're not allowed to interfere with the finish sprint, or any of the points sprints.

Jeff got 4th, while Jeremy was caught behind a terrible-looking crash midway through the sprint (everyone walked away ok).

Lined up in the back of the very large (90+?) 1-2-3 field. The wind was terrible. We were racing clockwise Tuesday, which means that we went up the hill to the finish. The wind was blowing straight up the hill, which might sound good - an uphill tailwind, right? Unfortunately, that on means that the wind negates any benefit of drafting, so the hill becomes just a power-to-weight ratio hammer-fest.

The ref blew the whistle, and we were off like a rocket. I was only planning to stay in until it got hard, which I assumed would be about 9 or 10 laps into our scheduled 21. Colby Pierce had other ideas. We went up the hill the first time at 35mph. Every section was guttered against the wind, and sitting mid-pack 1.5 laps in I'd had enough.

Those guys shelled about 5-10 riders each lap, and everyone who limped in after being dropped had the 100-mile stare and was mumbling incoherently.

I don't know who ended up winning, but it wasn't me. Whenever Mike Gibson (former national crit champ) is getting shot out the back of a chase group, it's not a race I want to be in. CO's race community has been talking about Tuesday all week - apparently the fastest race anyone can remember.

A warm "welcome back", right?