The road race course is shared with the NCNCA's Panoche Valley Road Race. Compared to last year's Men's C race, this one went quite further and also had more punchy climbs. It was a 55-mile race that lasted 2 hours and half. My goal was to finish in the lead group, which seemed pretty realistic. I raced with Christian, Eric, and Yao.
The course does not have the smoothest roads. It also gets twisty at times at the road width isn't consistent--it gets narrow and wide at times. With that said, it's easy to get locked into a position in the pack, especially in the back. Once you're there, you're there, unless the pack strings out. But for our race, our pack was bunched up for around 70% of the race.
Like I said, the climbs are punchy and can be big-ringed. For this race, I wanted to see how conservative I could be, so I either used the little ring or if it was like a 4% grade I'd just use the big ring and cross chain. For the most part, I felt I had an optimal cadence on all the small climbs. I think at one point I was spinning 110-120RPM but 100RPM was quite common on the climbs.
The race was pretty boring in the beginning. Other than the climbs, I was mostly in low zone 2 or lower. The first half of the race was also uneventful. My horrible descending skills were tested on a narrow descent that was twisty, but I didn't get dropped.
After the turn around everyone was anticipating the climb back, which was the reverse of the twisty descent I just mentioned. At the bottom, it surged and I knew this would be he perfect time to finally move up as I had spent all this time in the back. So, I shifted into the little ring and the chain had fallen.
Thankfully, I didn't need to get off my bike and was able to just use the shifter to bring it back. I probably lost like 5 seconds so I had to use more energy that I would've liked, but I was still passing people left and right, and I felt good. At this point, the field had been split up and Eric maintained staying in the 2nd group. Christian was up in the lead group.
The end of the climb was the transition to the long descending rollers. This is where I was chasing the lead group. A chase group of 4 or 5 formed and they were digging deep. I rode with them for a while, but they were going too hard, even though they didn't need to. I figured that I could just pace myself there without burning too many matches. At first it yo-yo'd but they slowed down so I caught on and stayed there until the end.
From here until the end, the pack was cruising at tempo. A few people tried to attack, including Christian and I, but the headwind (which wasn't even as strong as last year) prevented anyone from getting away. As a result, my fear of a bunch sprint was coming closer, because the road was narrow and I knew I'd get locked in, which did in fact, happen. My mistake was purely as a result of my mentality because I was focusing too much on the end instead of the now. In other words, I should've focused on moving up instead of being worried about getting locked in a bunch sprint.
I ended up finishing 14th, with Christian at 10th. We both expressed our disappointment because we both had the legs to put out a good sprint, but we both got locked behind guys who couldn't. Regardless of that, I still enjoyed the race and it was a great workout! Overall, I had good performance but bad positioning, so that is something I need to focus on.
Criteriums
The Men's B Criterium started an hour late due to a crash in the C's. I had a pretty good warm-up, but we started hard, which was a relief from the crit in Salinas and yesterday's RR. It finally felt like a race!
For the most part, I stayed in the pack, mostly in the pack, but I managed to move up some times when I felt good. I attacked at one point but couldn't get away, probably because I didn't want to make the mistake of racing too hard, like I did in the UC Santa Cruz weekend. My goal was to save everything for the sprint.
When the end did come, I couldn't move up in time. My mental game was truly off, most likely because I didn't have a specific plan or goal other than saving it up for the sprint? This is something I definitely need to address for my next races.
I ended up finishing 15th but had a lot of fun, and finally had the feeling I was racing, instead of being impatient and attacking all the time.
This feeling was amplified during my 2nd race of the day in the E3/4. This race started hard and fast. THIS was the feeling of a race. I started off in the front but pulled back into the pack after people kept attacking. There were plenty of surges because of this, but it wasn't hard enough to drop people.
I knew from my last race that I needed to move up so I used a line I was familiar with after the chicane to move up on the outside. My mental game was better, but still not good enough. I at least knew to stay on a wheel, and shift my lines safely on the straights. Of course if there was someone next to me, it would've been impossible to come from the outside on one corner and shift to the inside. This was especially true in the last two corners and the chicane.
I didn't move up to the front in time, and the pack was crowded during the sprint. I ended up 13th but was happy with my moderately better mentality that last time.
The whole weekend was a great way to remind myself of the mental aspect of racing which includes the technique needed to move up in time for an optimal position in the end.
I'm looking forward to next weekend due to the hilly nature of both the road races and criterium :).
-- DB
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