Gravel, Road Kill & Sandtraps... Dirty RR #2

My 2009 Road Racing season got under way Saturday, March 14th in Mitchellville, Iowa at the 50 mile Dirty Road Race. This was a training race of sorts that was conducted on 30 miles of gravel and 20 miles of county road over two 25 mile laps. There weren't any corner marshalls, cheering fans or podiums, but there was plenty of spray paint, attacking dogs/cats, road kill and pot holes.

My choice to ride my Madone was questioned at the starting line... yeah, I wasn't to sure about that either... what do you use to ride on gravel anyway. (Actually, I have never raced on gravel before, unless you count a few drunken mishaps on RAGBRAI). I had hard case tires on, at least, to maybe add puncture resistance against the rocks.

There were about 24 riders at the start. I was anxious to get on the gravel, and see what the situation would be, but I had to wait quite awhile as the first part of the course was road. Then, the moment arrived, Gravel...

LOLLIPOP SECTION

Clever phrase I heard at a point during the race..."maybe we should take that right turn to cut out the Lollipop Section"... I didn't get it at first but soon, I understood the joke... A part of the course that really SUCKS.

Riding on gravel was stressful. Everyone had shifty lines, tires that were spinning out and it was jarring. (Paris Roubaix?). The trick was to just 'pedal through it', but that took a few miles to figure out. A couple people seemed better at it than others, and the group broke apart a bit.

On some parts of the gravel, if you road all the way to one side, the sand created a 'trap' that caused you to sink in. I know of at least one rider that ended up in the ditch, and I can say I almost did on several occasions until I got the feel for the road surfaces.

About 3/4 of the way into the first lap, the gravel turned upward and Paul Denninger of Zoom Performance executed a mild acceleration. I was caught in my big chain ring, and too apprehensive to risk dropping my chain, but managed to hang on to that tempo. When the hill finally let up the race was broken up very definatively.

After the damage had taken its ulitmate toll over the next several miles, the strongest riders of the day emerged.. today that turned out to be Paul Deninger, Tracy Thompson (B2U), Ryan Elsbernd (All Nine Yards) and myself. (Jimmy Carrico joined us later in the race, but unfortunately, he had equipment troubles earlier, cut back on the course and ran into us, so he was a sort of 'lapped rider'. Having said that, he is strong as ever, especially when the road turns upward. )

Looking at the results, the chase group that emerged in the second half of the race seemed to then consist of four All Nine yards riders. Paul was very vocal throughout the race, almost like our team coach. He didn't mind telling us his moves or his tactics, and kept our pace dialed in to just the right tempo to maintain the gap.

Our only real challenge at this point was not to over exert ourselves, as it seemed that we had a large enough of a gap, so the pace was very comfortable. And with comfortable tempo comes the sandbagging...

MERSA

Still not sure what that is, but Tater claims that he had recently been in the hospital with this disease. I thought he said MENSA, and was wondering what having a high IQ had to do with not being able to train. Well, apparently a saddle sore had turned deadly, and he had been going to the hospital on a daily basis to get re-bandaged. He mentioned that at one point the gauze was so far up into his body that it made contact with his testicles. Well, that was pretty gross, but possibly could explain why he was slow to respond to some of the accelerations.

BACK TO THE RACE
Paul informed us that we were going to stay together into the big gravel hill section, then he was going to accelerate and 'see who shakes out'.

So the hill and the acceleration came and it 'shook out' all but three riders... Paul, Tracy and myself. Of course, Ryan was still in pursuit, so Paul instruced that we 'lose the All Nine Yards guy'.. tactically that did make sense.

Now comes the familiar part of the race when the breakaway group, once partners, has to eventually start to plot against each other. Hmm, I am riding with Tater and Paul Deninger, well respected and established Cat 1/2 riders.

Then Paul made his final announcment... For very understandable (and spiritual) reasons, he was going to go ahead and attempt to win this race, whereas in the past, he would have been content to use this as a pure training event, and pull me and Tracy, for a head to head sprint to the finish. This meant he wasn't going to pull for the remainder of the race.

Ok... so that means either I get off of my bike and start walking to get Paul to use some energy, or I pull and hope that Tracy's MERSA starts to flare up again.

I was cool with third place, so I just dialed in a nice tempo that would keep our gap from the chasing riders, but not too much in case I was strong enough to pull for the last 4 miles and still sprint to a win.. you never know.

So, as he said he would, Paul accelerated around me at the last uphill section. I hung on almost to the top of the first gradient, but then started slipping, as Tracy realized he would have to come around me. He hopped on Paul's wheel as I pushed myself to stay in contact.

The finish line was in sight, as they had about 50 yards on me. I was beginning to accelerate and make up ground as the two were trying to out smart each other for the win. Nah, I didn't have enough ground to catch up, and watched as Tracy stole the win from Paul at the line.

Good race, thanks to the organizers to provide some training opportunities in March. I imagine the 3rd one (this Sunday), will be very well attended. If the participants of the first race and this one all show up for #3... watch out, because some of the best riders in Iowa will be going head to head as a sort of last 'tune-up' for the unofficial start of the Spring 2009 Racing season, that following week in Kent Park.