Reports by:

• Richard
• Tim
• Garry
• German

Category: 3
Result: Off the back

The Cat 3 team got to McLane in plenty of time to get registered and have a good warm-up prior to the delayed start. The day promised to be gorgeous and indeed it was, with warm sunshine and little wind - perfect racing conditions.

Getting through the crush of riders to get into the correct starting group was a nightmare, but we found a way and rolled out near the front of the group. Once on the course, it didn't take long for the racing to start, and it didn't stop. Unlike last week's Snelling RR, there were no collective "sit up and eat some food " interludes. I got well practised at eating Gu on the go, and was even relatively unfazed when I rubbed handlebars with someone in the middle of eating.

I was very happy to get further than half-way round the first lap this year. At this point, I began to follow wheels towards the front of the race and along Turlock Road, was well placed to follow an attack, enjoying a moment on the front of the race. It was too early for a break to get much ground so we didn't last. As we approached the rollers on Cox Ferry Road, I found Ziggy and made sure he was on my wheel near the front of the group. He was the protected rider, and it was my job to keep him near the front where possible.

At the top of the roller just before Keyes Road someone with good legs attacked and a couple of riders went with him to form the first real break of the day. We screamed through the feed zone at the end of the lap and were about 30 second behind the leaders. In the early stages of lap 2 the leaders went out to about a minute, but I think that was the maximum they had. A team-mate of one of the leaders was having an effect blocking, but the surges were not that easy for him to control. Along Turlock Road the break was beginning to be brought back and I was again helping Ziggy to maintain position at the front. It was only a matter of time, and then the counter attacks started. At one point near the turn onto Cox Ferry Road, I was on the front of the bunch with Ziggy with a small group trying to establish itself when Ziggy suggested that I go across. I declined as it was clear that there were about to be efforts to bring them back.

I had Ziggy near the front again going up the rollers and near the top of the final one, Ziggy went past me staying with the leaders. I slipped back a little, but made an effort to get back up to Ziggy for the Snelling rollers. In the process, I managed to mis-judge the corner onto Keyes Road and managed to piss off someone when I had to correct my line. He let me know about it and I apologised, but at least I had got myself close to Ziggy again. Through the finish, I needed a bit of a rest and let Ziggy know.

We again screamed through the feed zone and I was able to ride the bunch up to near the front despite resting - I wasn't going to pass on that opportunity! Onto Bledsoe Road, and I found myself near Garry close to the front as a couple of riders got a break going. The composition looked good and I suggested to Garry that he should join them. He went across and suddenly I was among allies blocking at the front. We let a couple of single riders go across and I think there were 5 in the break with quite a few team mates blocking at the front of the bunch. It was a good move, but it didn't last.

Along Turlock for the final time, we were riding a little slower and the bunch was spread wide across the road making it very difficult to move up. I had to wait until the turn onto Cox Ferry Road before I could get back to the front and Ziggy wasn't far behind me. I kept us close on the approach to the rollers and we were in the first 10 beginning to head up it. About half way up the cramps in my legs which had been building since the end of lap 2 made themselves felt and I had to slip backwards. I recouperated and hung on near the back over the top onto Keyes Road. I was hoping I would have something left to get back through the field for the last rollers, but I was popped up the Snelling feed zone hill and that was race over for me with about 1.5 miles to go.

I wasn't too unhappy as I rolled through the finish. I had done my job - working to keep Ziggy near the front and getting him to the rollers in a good position on the final lap. I stopped my computer a little late, but I had still averaged 24.5 mph for the race. This was much faster and harder than Snelling and I rode a much better race despite finishing off the back. A great day of bike riding!

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Category: 4/5
Result: Did not finish

So, Chris, German, Jorge, and I decide Friday night to meet up at the park-and-ride off 680 at Mission Blvd at 5:45AM Sunday morning. I arrive at the park-and-ride at roughly 5:50, Jorge and Chris are already waiting for me. We hang around for 10 minutes complaining about how cold it i Finally, Jorge gets a call, it's German, he just woke up. Jorge proceeds to curse German out and tells him to to get to the park-and-ride as fast as he can. It takes him 20 minutes to get to meeting spot so we go to Mission Coffee and get some Mochas in the meantime. On our way back to park-and-ride, I learn of German's punctuality handicap and actually get the opportunity to experience it first hand (sorry German :)). He finally arrives and we get on the road headed to the land of cow pies.

We get to the race a little after 8am (slightly worried about being late). However, start times are behind 30 minutes, so we have time. We all walk to the registration booth, which was about 3/4 of mile walk...and get to see lots of neat/expensive bikes along the way. Chris, German, and I register for the race and Jorge waits for his name to be called because he is on the waiting list. We walk back to car and change. Jorge finally arrives back at the car and he has a number, cool. Once everyone was ready, we ride up to the starting line and weed our way through the several hundred-or-so other racers milling about blocking us from getting through. Oh yeah, we all decided to use the first 5 miles as our warm up instead of a real warm-up. Bad idea!

Chris and I are next to each other at the front of the start line on the side of the road slightly in the mud waiting for our promenade to begin. A minute before the promenade starts, we all hear, "pssssssss", the sound of a tube going flat. The racer with that bike flips the it over and is about to change his flat in front of about 100 angry cat 4/5 racers. Needless to say, he puts his bike over his head and walks to the side of the road to change his tube. I don't know if he ever made it back to the group because as he was changing his tube the promenade started.

The race starts and we are going 24-30 miles an hour, and I'm dying because and I'm at the back working super hard to stay with group because every 30 seconds I hear "Braking", and then do mini sprint to get back up to speed and the group. I just couldn't believe we were touching 30mph in the flat for extended periods of time.

After about 20 minutes of this, a crash happens. I was so thankful, because it gave me about 10 seconds of bliss by not having to pedal like I'm running from the cops or something. People are trying to get around the crash and I'm all the way in the back, so far in the back, that I never heard the front racers yell, "Attack!". I get around the crash and the pack is already about 10 meters in front of me, damn. I try to catch up, but I couldn't keep 28mph up for more than a minute in the wind and soon realize I'm dropped. However, I did keep pounding in the hopes that there might be some more crashes and I might get to catch up. As a result, I have the pack in sight for another 5 miles. I kept pounding till about mile 20, when the next group (cat 3) passes me. Not knowing the proper etiquette for letting a group pass. I stop on the side of the road and let the group pass. The funny thing about it is, as I was being caught, I heard the front guys of the group ask if I was attacking. Someone says I'm a cat 4 and that was all I could hear them say before they pass me. I get back on the road and hear, "psssssss", flat, darn. I change the flat and notice how nice of a day it is turning out to be. I change the flat leisurely and get back on the road and ride at a nice pace towards the finish line.

Going over the first roller after the bumpy section, there are a couple of downed riders from what looks like a pretty bad crash getting attended to by some EMT personnel. One rider was on his back in the grass and another was on a stretcher and had a neck brace on. I hope that rider is all right.

I get to the feed zone uneventfully and see Jorge. We talk about our race and wait for Chris and German to finish the race.

Overall, I had a blast, but wish I could have stayed in the pack longer. The funny thing about being dropped so early, is that about a mile before the crash, Chris came back next to me and told me get in the middle of the pack because I'm doing to much work staying at end of the pack...should've listened.

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Category: 3
Result: Back of pack

Or more importantly, a reason to carry on for Copperopolis.

Team 3 rendezvoused at Chez Birch at 06:00, the Volvo team bus was soon loaded and 1 hour 45 and some change later we rolled into the parking lot, which is in fact the verge of the road, the farmyard being reserved for the pro teams and the registration crew. We had plenty of time, so spent it well with a good warm up and better banter.

The assembling of the various categories prior to roll out was a joke. The late start meant many riders began to congregate at the start point earlier than scheduled and the resulting melee was difficult to push through on the single lane road. Several Cat 2's missed the start in the race ahead of us, and I was standing beside cat 3/4 women and masters racers as I made my way forward. Anyway, enough of the bitching and on with the good stuff.

We had 3 laps ahead of us, a total of 71 miles and 111 of our closest friends for company for the next 3 hours. The basic plan for the team was to do zero for 2 1/2 laps and then move in to positions of contention, which in reality actually meant move into the top 10 from the top 30, because we all had it in mind to remain in the top 25% of the field. This we did with relative ease. Brian Ziegler was the protected rider, with RB his wingman and me riding shotgun on the other side of the pack in case the field swirled and movement happened on my side. This meant that RB and Zig mostly rode on the left side and myself on the right.

The first lap was reasonably swift. From the start we had a cross wind on the left shoulder that turned in to a headwind on Bledsoe and Looney roads. Following the left turn onto Turlock Road the wind was a cross wind from the right that was at times a tail wind and then turning left onto Cox Ferry road we had a tail wind to propel us over the roughest section of pavement and up the three main rollers. A couple of abortive breaks made efforts on lap 1, with RB covering one and me the counter attack when it came back, but nothing really got far, the pace was a deterrent.

Lap two saw a break away of three eventually make some serious time, with a maximum of about 45 seconds, but 3 was not enough horsepower on the headwind section, and following some chase work in which I happily joined (I forgot to follow the plan) they came back. The was no real counter attacks, so I was happy with that.

Lap 3 and and another scream through the Snelling RR feed zone hill and through the official feed zone. The feed zone at MacLane is virtually flat so taking bottles at 25-27 mph is really difficult and water was flying. After the jog between Bledsoe road and Looney road a couple of guy's, one from Team Spine and the other from AV went up the road. RB had just pulled to the front and I swung through and Richard shouts '"GO". Now I have to admit, I did think about it, but not too long, The riders were still only 100 yards away, they were in well supported teams and we were getting into our zone of action, so I went and bridged up.

A couple of minutes later we were joined by two other's, Will Roberts of Solano and a tall skinny guy from Eastside Bikes. Good stuff I thought and we settled down into a good rhythm. Good, but not good enough, and despite some blocking from the boys back home, we were reabsorbed after maybe a total of 10 minutes of freedom, Bugger.

That was quite an effort, so I slid back to about mid pack and tucked into the remains of my picnic, Cliff Bar surprise, Gel and washed down with some Chateau Revenge Sport....yummy. A 10 minute regroup of mind and body, some meditation on the move to get the head into the right space again and it was time to rock and roll. I was just behind Zig, who was following wheels down the right hand gutter. Our speed was down to about 23 and the whole field was gutter to gutter. RB was top right and working hard to stay there, awaiting Zig's arrival.

Last time onto Cox Ferry road, 2 miles of bumps followed by the 3 rollers. RB had pulled Zig into the top 10 but was feeling the effects of being Zig's bike whore all day, and going up the first roller was going backwards. Some words of encouragement and then onwards and upwards.

I was still in mid pack going onto Keyes Road, powered with the pack over the Snelling FZ hill and through the hard right, hard left and then it was generally uphill all the way to the finish. I was following Nate of Garden City, he has good instincts, but he kicked forward and my legs said 'you gotta be joking", so I stayed were I was, hunched down and pushing really hard to stay on the field. Up the final little ride and the elastic rope between my handle bars and the pack snapped so hard I was knocked back with a vengeance, several riders who had dropped behind came past and I groveled over the line, a glorious 77th out of 111 starters.

So, not bad, not bad at all. We all rode well, especially RB in Zig's service, we got into the significant break, covered a few moves, stayed up front and delivered Zig to the finale as fresh as we could. Lessons to learn, maybe that I do not have the depth of strength for the breakaway's just yet, and should have followed the plan more closely. I could have maybe given Zig and RB more help as well.

My stats for the day are 70.6 miles, average speed 24.8 mph, only 23 minutes in z4 and even more surprisingly a paltry 1:45 in z5. Average HR was 144, the lower end of my Z2, so lot's of cruising.

Copperopolis, your mine, do ya hear, MINE!

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Category: 4/5
Result: Mid-pack

Once again, a beautiful day, we couldn’t ask for more. Temperatures were in between 65-78 F, clear and sunny day. In this case, we saw more beautiful girls compared with the Snelling race, so, we were very pleased to see those beauties around, that motivates me a lot and I am sure it was the same for the others.

In the cat 4/5 we were supposed to be 8 riders but eventually, only 4 of us showed up, with one in the waiting list, so the team’s strategy had to be adjusted accordingly. Our captain was supposed to be Matt I, but his plans changed since he was in the waiting list and he wasn't assured a spot in the race, so, he decided not to take the risk of driving 3 hours, especially if they didn't confirm a spot in the race for him. We really missed him for sure!

At this time, only cat 5 racers showed up to represent the combined cat 4/5 race. These riders were Chris, Tim, Jorge and German, with Jorge being in the waiting list as well.

The course was made of a 24 miles lap with a pavement of different qualities starting from bad to good, however, the bad sector wasn’t too long, I would say of about almost 2 miles or less. Total mileage 48 miles composed of rollers and flat sections, designed to be a FAST race as I was expecting it.

Lap one (24 miles):

I started with Jorge in the middle pack and Tim and Chris were at front. The pace was fast right from the beginning, I remember seeing speeds going from 28 to 32 mph until the 5th mile, until a crash happened. At this moment I was in the middle pack in the left side shoulder and the rest of my teammates were in the rear pack. At this point, I was forced to go into the bushes in order to avoid being involved in the crash. At that moment, I hear some rides say "Attack" and I say to my self, I am gong to get dropped!! No way!!! Certainly, they started to attack; I was in the middle of the bushes, didn’t get a flat and continued to try to catch up. I notice that at this point, Tim wasn’t with the pack anymore and I didn’t know the reason just after the race (He got a flat), so that was a shame not being able to count with him anymore.

I continued hunting the pack until I was able to catch them after a great effort of facing the wind at a high speed. I positioned in the middle of the pack and saw that Chris and Jorge were still in the race; that made me feel good. At this point, I ate some gels, drank water and recovered energies. The pace was still high, in between 26-28 mph. I decided to save energies and ride near Chris most of the time in the middle pack. The end of lap one was about to arrive and Chris was next to me when he started to make a move to the front pack, so I followed him and we both ended up in the front of the pack for about 1 mile or so. First he went up front and I was second, then I went first. We both set a good rhythm but, eventually by the end of lap one, ended up in the first 15 riders.

Final Lap (24 miles):

After the end of lap one the pace was really high, maybe 28 - 30 mph, I started to look for Jorge but didn’t see him in the middle pack, so I decided to look for him in the rear pack. I looked and looked and asked Chris about him and he didn’t know where he was, so I started to think that something happened to him, maybe a flat or got dropped. I knew that he was sick so I assumed that he was not longer in the pack, Damn!! What a shame again I thought!!

So, I decided to go back and look for Chris and finish the race as closer as possible to him. Found him in the middle pack again and told him that about mile 35 we should start moving up to the front pack because I knew that the road was quite narrow and we didn’t want to get stuck at the sprint. I could hear many people saying, that this race was going to end in a sprint since none of the previous attacks were successful and it looks like the pack was not allowing nobody to escape.

Half lap had passed and all of the sudden, I felt not noise at all, so I turned my back around and I realized that I was in the very rear pack!!!! I didn’t even notice that the pack was actually rotating and pulling well-positioned riders to the back!! I got upset and made my move to the front, not wonder why I was doing much more effort than in the middle!!. So I learned my lesson, I had to be awake and concentrated most of the time because the actual pack rotates back and forward and definitely, the rear pack is not a good place to be since wind can still hit you.

So I made my move to the first 25 riders and realized that only Chris and myself were the only ones from our team at this point. Got closer to Chris and asked him to save energies for the final sprint, but that we should start moving up to the front, since there were at least 8 miles left. Sure we moved to t he front pack and did nothing else and waited for the last 3 miles to start doing a move. 3 miles left and Chris and I were in between the first 25 riders, the pack was going faster and faster, I heard team captains giving instructions to teammates to start moving up, several attacks started.

At this point Chris was a bit ahead of me; 2.5 miles to go and I was in the left shoulder getting ready to move up; all of the sudden, a McGuire guy cuts my way!!!, I skipped him to the left of the uphill curve and again a bigger McGuire guy pushes me with his shoulders to the bushes and got me out of the road. At that point I was very angry!!!! Because they basically got me out of the race!! But luckily, I didn’t get a flat and didn’t crash, but I had to work very hard once again to catch up with the rear pack.

Eventually, I caught the rear pack but ended behind it. Disappointing result for me since I could have done better, I felt great and strong all the way, this is my type of race!! In the case of Chris, it looks like he got stuck in the front pack and couldn’t do a final move to become a win contender. He ended in 22nd place.

I lost a good change of being well positioned due to my accidents; but overall, it was a learning experience for me and I will make sure this kind of discrepancies don’t happen again in my next races.

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