5/18/98
This past weekend was the Mutual of Enumclaw stage race. A stage race is basically more than one race rolled into one. The local stage races tend to feature a criterium, a time trial, and a road race. Your time is added from all three races, and bonuses are earned by winning individual events. The lowest elapsed time plus bonuses is the winner.
This particular race is one of the more popular ones around here. There were 58 people entered in my division, Category 4/5. Most of the people I knew from the Seward Park races and other local races were there. Robert Anderson from the team was in my category, but most of the others were in the Masters (Gordo, Don, Michael Petty, Mark,Bart), and David Sarruf was in Cat 3.
The toughest part of the races was waking up at 4:30 AM in order to drive out to Enumclaw in time. Lucky for me, Rob was driving and agreed to take me with him.
The first day had a criterium in the morning, and a time trial in the afternoon. The criterium was a figure-eight course, but we didn't actually criss-cross. From the start, there were 3 left turns, a right, 3 left turns, and another right to the start/finish line. It was basically going around two city blocks that were kitty-corner. The roads were pretty smooth and completely flat.
The last time I did a flat criterium was in Burien, and I was lapped there three times. This time, my goal was to finish the race and not get lapped. They were stopping lapped riders, and giving them a pro-rated time for the GC (general classification, or your grand total score for the whole race).
The race was pretty fast, since it was flat. After a rather slow beginning, the pace quickened, and after a few laps, the pack was being spread, and I was at the front of the part that was slowly losing ground. Luckily, there were 4 or 5 of us in the same position, and we formed a small pack, which is quite effective in keeping up. We caught up to a few people that were dropped from the main pack, and these people joined our pack for the most part. We were able to finish without being lapped. I was not going to sprint for the finish, since there was no point, since unless you were in the first three positions and contesting a time bonus, you get the same finish time if you finished in a big pack of bikes. But one person who wasn't doing much to help the little chase group decided to sprint a bit before the last turn, so I jumped after him, and passed him at the finish. A little moral victory.
It was a long wait for the time trial. The race finished before 9AM, and my time trial start was at 3:02 PM. So we bummed around and watched the other races. The Master's race had a lot of our team members. Mark and Gordo were dropped along with a couple other riders and were in a small chase group, much like me in my race. Unfortunately, there were really fast riders in the Master's grouping, and 6 of them formed a breakaway in front of the main pack, which caught the chase group about a third of the way into the race. So Mark and Gordo had to stop. Don and Michael were looking fairly comfortable, drafting other riders right at the end of the main pack. That's were they were pretty much from the beginning of the race, and that's how they finished.
Talking to Alan and Mike (of Hedonspeed), I heard about the race I was in. Apparently, there were crashes that I never saw, since they cleaned it up by the time I got to that part of the course. During the race, I was kind of surprised to see Alan drifting back, and joining our chase pack. Before I said anything to Alan, I noticed why he was back with the slow people. His rear wheel was badly bent, rubbing his brakes (and maybe his frame). Later I learned that a errant junior rider (who apparently also road erratically at the Seward Park Spring Classic) clipped Alan's rear wheel, causing about three spokes to break. He couldn't get a replacement wheel because his bike was running a 7-speed cassette, and there was no wheels of that kind in the wheel pit.
Mike also was also affected by the junior rider. Apparently the junior rider crashed, and Mike's front wheel had someone's handlebar go through it, putting a big kink in one of the spokes. But he was able to finish. He was complaining afterwards about the fact that he worked hard for a pack sprint for 7th place (I think) when in the scoring, everyone in the pack, 4th place to around 30th, all got the same time.
Luckily, Mike and Alan were able to get their wheels repaired by a local bike shop. It both cost them $15, although Alan had three totally mangled spokes, and Mike had one kinked spoke.
The time trial was interesting. There were quite a few special time trial bikes, with disk wheels, special handlebars, and aerodynamic helmets. I think next time I do a time trial, I should get a set of aerobars. I wasn't the only one without them, but it seemed like all the people with good times had them.
The time trial was a mostly flat 6.5 miles, with one short hill in the middle. I had only done one previous time trial, and that was a hill climb, so it was very different. I just tried to keep a constant 180 bpm heart rate. I thought I did okay, being passed by only one person that started 30 seconds behind me. It turned out I had a pretty bad time, but not quite the worst.
On Sunday, the second day of the race, was the road race. I had heard before that this course had a fairly long steep hill. They were right. The weather was a bit cold and very wet, and either misting or raining most of the race. I was dropped pretty much right at the first hill. I managed to finish most of the race along with a rider from the Raleigh team (whose name I think is Loren). He was just getting back into racing, and said he was still heavier than he should be. He had pulled his team captain back up to the pack after the team captain had to pee during the beginning part of the race. I think the team captain eventually won the GC. I was pretty much able to climb as well as he did, although I think he was stronger than me on the flats. I tried to take my share of pulls, but I think I was in his draft most of the time.
At the beginning, a Recycled Cycles rider caught us from behind, and tried to work with us. He had apparently had a flat. It almost worked, but every time he took a pull, he went about 3 mph faster than we were going, so we couldn't keep up, and he took off the front. After a while, we saw him on the side of the road, with another flat.
During the third and final way up the long hill, I kept hearing a strange clicking and rubbing sound. The rear tire looked okay, and I kept going for a few more minutes, until I finally got off and checked. Loren kept going, and the last thing I said to him was "Shit! A flat!". A sharp stone had poked right through the center of the tread.
If I was with the pack when this happened, I would have turned off to the right, and raised my hand. The truck following the pack with the spare wheels would have gave me one, and I would have been on my way. Unfortunately, I was around 30 minutes behind the pack. I walked up rest of the way up the hill, where they had no spare tires, and walked 2 more kilometers to the finish line, since I really wanted to finish this race. I totally wore out my cleats. I finished 19 minutes behind Loren, but from the calculations, even if I did not flat, I would have finished last of all the people who actually finished all three stages of the race. Loren finished right in front of me.
I definitely need to work on hill climbing for extended periods. I should keep going up Juanita Drive at a high pace. And perhaps lose a few more pounds.
Click here for official results.