Two Days, Two Races

This weekend was a big test of fitness for me. After years of being away from the race scene, I decided this winter that I wanted to race again, and began to train accordingly. Working at Homewood Cycles I was able to ride into work just about every day thanks to the fact that our shop has a shower. I've done a couple of races this year, but this would my first weekend racing on both Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, I left work at around 11:00 to head downtown to the crit course for the Cyclismo race being put on by Red Mountain Racing. After registering for the race I borrowed a pump from Jonathan Mitchell(RMW sprinter extraordinaire) and began to warm up. The course was FAST. No, actually, it was very fast. Not because of downhills or tailwinds, but because of silky smooth pavement and four-lane wide corners.

This being my first year back in racing, I'm racing Cat. 5. I lined up for our race at 12:45 and scanned the field. All the usual suspects were there. A few Red Mountain guys, some Steel City guys, a few folks in Bike Link jerseys and ten or so unattached racers. We were also lumped in with the Junior racers who were forced to start at the back of the pack.

Right off the bat, one of the Juniors(who is also a Cat. 3) jumped off the front and took off. None of the Cat. 5 racers followed since he didn't count toward our results. The first 10 minutes or so were typical of a Cat. 5 crit. Not too fast, not too slow, but pretty sketchy. After those first 10 minutes, Jason Carroll of the Red Mountain Wheelman jumped off the front and led the race for a lap or so. I honestly didn't think his attack was well-timed but I began to notice that none of the racers wanted to work to pull him back. So I moved to the left of the pack and began to sprint.

It wasn't long before I caught Jason. I passed him and told him, "Let's go." I was worried he might be too tired to keep up the attack but he got on my wheel and a half lap later, he was taking over pulling duty and we were growing our gap. Five or six laps later we caught up with the Junior racer who jumped off at the beginning of the race. Now our break had a real shot of working.

The three of us worked hard for the next 15 minutes and our gap only grew larger. Long story short, on the last lap, Jason Carroll won the race and I took second. I felt dead by the time we reached the last lap, but being in a working breakaway was very rewarding.

A few things that helped me do well in the race were my new wheels and tire setup. I rode a pair of Race X Lite wheels with Michelin latex tubes, a Michelin Pro-Race 3 tire on the front and a Vittoria Open-Corsa Evo KS rear tire. The combo works out great...it was awesome. The latex tubes are very light, super puncture resitant and make your tires feel like tubulars. The Pro-Race 3 is a great front tire because it operates with much lower tire pressures than other high end tires - making it hook up well. The Vittoria rear tire is very high-performance and runs a pressure comprable to many tubulars providing low rolling resistance and fast acceleration when standing out of a corner. Most road racers don't think of running different tires which run different pressures, but coming from a mountain biking background I knew it would work well...and I was correct.

Day 2 - Attack on Swayback

On Sunday, my wife and I went got up super-early and packed up to go down to Wetupmka, AL for a small mountain bike race known as the "Attack on Swayback". We arrived at the race about an hour before the race and after registering I played with my tire pressure for a while. I was running Geax Barro Race TNT tires and I have had good luck running super low pressures with them (about 18 psi front and 22 rear), but I decided to run something a little higher this time (25 psi front and 25 psi rear). These tires are ridiculously fast....actually scary fast would be a better description. They roll faster than any other tire I've ever been on, and I've long been a fan of semi-slicks.

While pre-riding the course I soon realized that this was a very technical trail. Constant turns, short steep climbs, frequent roots and creek crossings were the story of the day. I only got to ride about 1.5 miles of the course before getting back on the road leading to the start/finish.

I was very nervous when the race started. It was my second race as a Cat. 2 and there were 14 racers in my category. But, the race started and I hit the trail in third place. Right away the guy in the lead crashed and I passed him. I stayed on the wheel of the guy in the lead for about 4 miles and we got a big lead over most of the riders. But, just as I began to get comfy in the saddle, I looked back and saw someone catching up with us. I told the guy who was leading that I needed to pass. I put it in the big ring and began hammering. I immediately opened a gap, but after about a mile I began to suffer and stopped concentrating on bike handling as much as I should have. I went down on a corner...hard. I rode another couples, still hurting...I ran into a tree at high speed. A couple miles later I clipped a tree with my shoulder going fast enough that it spun me all the way around and flung me to the ground.

All in all, I ended up crashing about 8 times by the end of the race(I'm really more of a roadie, I don't handle a bike well). However, despite the wrecks, I continued to lead throught the second lap. When I passed through the feed zone, my wonderful support crew(my wife) handed me an Enervitene Cheer Pack, probably the most effective gel on the market(at Homewood Cycles, we call it 'crack-in-a-sack'). It wasn't long before I started feeling better and I started going hard every chance I got, especially on the climbs.

8-hard miles of leading the pack later I came across the finish line in first place, my first win since racing as a junior about 7 years ago. It felt great to win and it was even better because I had my wife with me to share in the fun. I've been wanting to upgrade to expert and now I feel that I'm fit enough to do so.

Next race on the docket is the Xterra race on the weekend of the 23rd of May followed by the Bump and Grind on the 31st.

Keep riding everyone,



Andrew Boyd - Homewood Cycles