Pedalling Squares

Winters Road Race
Winters, CA
August 28, 2004

The Cast:
Patrick "P-Money" Monroe
Rob "Everything's Better with Maple Syrup" Robertson
Dave "Shin-to-the-Head" Schindehette
Levi Leipheimer (but he forgot his Pegasus kit and wore some "Rabobank" kit instead... whatever)
Me

The Course:
24 mile loop 3 times. It's got a good hill in it, but enough of a descent and runout to the finish to allow the pretender-descenders to catch back on. The finish is flat and fast, and if all had gone well (ahem), we would have had the full road (both lanes) for the sprint.

The Plan:
Survive. The start was a little chilly, but it was clearly going to get warm. I was bringing all the liquid I could carry and hoping for a neutral feed as well.

Last year I did this race and tried like hell to force the pace on the hill in hopes of dropping people. It didn't work - almost everybody caught back on eventually. So this year, I planned to just go easy up the climbs and save the energy. The race could be hard enough where even just the sprint at the end might be difficult after 72 miles of heat!

P-Money and MapleBoy were busy rubbing oil on one another or something so Dave and I didn't catch their plan. But I know that P-Money has been training hard probably had the same plan me. Dave and Maple Boy were a little uncertain of their fitness and were just out for the tan, the chicks, and the cosmopolitan culture of Winters, California.

How It Went Down:
The first lap was pretty uneventful. P-Money decided to show off his climbing legs on the big climb. Dayum - he was killing it! But I was content to be in the middle riding my own tempo.

The second lap was more of the same. Near the end of the second lap P-Mo rode up and said his rear hub was seizing up. At first it sounded fine, then it started making this awful grinding noise like when I first starting driving a stick shift. So he bailed at the end of the second lap.

At the beginning of the third lap, I assumed my position at the front. This is when the shit goes down. A Maguire guy just rolled off the front and got quite a gap. A Spine guy went after him. I stayed at the front but didn't really work too much. I was not feeling super and was still wondering if I had the legs to get over the climb one last time. Not sure where Dave and MapleBoy were at this point, but they weren't at the front. The Spine guy is a good climber and would easily get through the hilly section without any trouble. I resigned myself to catching him after the hill and descent. The Maguire guy came back as soon as the climbing started.

I stayed near the front on the climb and set tempo a few times, but didn't kill myself. It was now very hot - probably mid-90's. If knew if I could just make it over the climb with the lead group, I could be there for the sprint. We came down and were probably a group of 30-40 - I stayed at the front and didn't really look back.

I took a few turns at the front as we made an effort to catch the Spine guy. It was looking like a race for second. There were 4 Maguires and 4 Alto Velo but they weren't putting any effort in the chase - only 2 of them total were riding at the front. I yelled some sweet nothings at both teams, but since I used polysyllabic words - they couldn't comprehend. Oh well. I decided to sit in and ride for second place. It looked like none of the Pegasus homies made the lead group so I was on my own for the sprint.

At 1K to go an AV guy ramps it up as fast as he can for the sprint and I'm right on his wheel. But, of course that lasted about as long as a JLo relationship and at 500 meters he pulls off, leaving me in front. Now what do I do?!?!?

So I keep the tempo high, wait for the guys to swarm me, hoping I can just hold onto a decent placing. At 200 meters we're supposed to get the full road. But, when we hit 200 meters there's more traffic than a Paris Hilton website: a truck in our lane, and a big utility truck with a trailer in the other lane coming towards us. Nice. I stay seated, keeping it safe as we steer left then right around the first truck and come across the line a safe distance from the truck in the other lane. Four guys came past me, so with the Spine guy winning solo, I ended up 6th.

Woohoo - another Velo Promo T shirt!!!

Post race:
I drank nearly 5 bottles of water and still ran of out of water with 10K to go. HOT!!!
Avg speed: 23 mph

And yes, Levi Leiphiemer really was there, just back from the Olympics, but I didn't see how he finished.