Snapple Tri Team

1st road race…Giro di Coppi.  I had no expectations.  Well maybe not to get dropped.  I actually prefer “dropping out.”

The CAT 4 women would do 3 12.5 mile loops…for 37.5 miles total.  We went off at 1pm.  WTF.  This would be a dripper for sure.  I woke up at 7am and went for a warm-up swim.  Cycling just would not seem right without getting wet first and I was a little anxious and swimming is what I do best in those circumstances.  Headed out to Barnesville, MD around 10:30am.  I arrived with plenty of time…registered and got ready to warm-up.  I found Matias who had just crushed the Cat 3/4 men’s race (6th place).  He went for a warm-up/cool-down with me.  My legs felt stale as ever.  It was HOT.  Rode EZ for about 20min.  Then the ladies started to gather near the start.  There was maybe 30 women in the Cat 4.  I hung with Shauna and Meg while waiting for the go.  And we were off.  I was told to position myself on the outside but closer to the front.  And was told the pace would feel slow.  I held a decent position a few rows back on the outside.  I am never too comfortable on the inside or middle.  Hmm about the first 2 miles were slow and then the pace began to quicken.  And this was NO flat ride.  14 or so might have gotten dropped.  There was only a few behind me now.  I felt like I could hang on.  Felt strong on the climbs.  But then all of the sudden on a climb about mile 10 got the hurt dropped on me.  I “dropped out” at that point.  BEEP.  guh.  junk.  Soo bust.  3 other had also “dropped out.”  The 4 of us played yoyo for the last 2 miles of the 1st loop.  One of the women was done at the start.  The other 2 and I kept going.  What the heck…I may as well get a good training ride in.  I was so HOT.  One of the other women, Melissa Tallent, and I were going back and forth…I pass on the uphill and she pass on the downhill.  She told me we should work together.  I agreed so we rode together for the 2nd loop and chatted a bit.  We wondered if we should continue on for the 3rd loop or not and decided we would unless they pulled us off.  Which, we were not supposed to be pulled unless we were lapped by the field.  No one had passed us or caught up.  We could finish 12th or so?  Coming into the 3rd loop I was hoping Matias was in site with some water.  Saw him and he handed me some water.  A ref told Melissa and I we were done.  Later found out this was not because we had dropped out BUT because I had gotten water outside of this “feed zone.”  DQed!  Big time BUST.  At least I made some new friends   What a BEATER.

After the race found out the Cat 4 women lead group had caught the Cat 1/2/3 women, who had gone off 5 minutes before us.  Some very FAST ladies out there!

Up Next: Lost River Classic, July 24, 2010

Halfway through the first of six laps, I remembered advice on how to ride cobblestones from when I was watching the Tour de France on tv.  I had no idea it would ever be useful information.  ”Keep a loose grip on the bars, let the front of the bike go where it wants to go,” I remembered hearing.  I opened my hands, relaxed my arms, tried to follow the bikes flow, and was amazed by how much smoother it felt.

Having been too slow to pull the registration trigger for the Giro di Coppi, but itching to race, Zack and I decided to race the Oxford Road Race in sunny southern PA (it was 900 degrees at the race start).  The race had limited entrants, so the race director decided to combine all categories into a single field.  The course was 6 10K laps with a roughly 2K lollipop stick for the start and finish.  There were two decent-sized climbs per lap, but more significantly, there was a 2 mile stretch where the PA Department of Transportation had ripped up and milled the road surface.  Hands loose, teeth rattling, body shaking worse than it did in the area’s recent earthquake, I imagined I was pounding the cobbles in Belgium as we attacked the milled roads.

2 miles, 6 times of PA-style cobbles

My legs had been slow to recover from the three races last week during the Lord of the Flies races, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Zack and I had time for a brief warmup before the race, and I was glad my legs seemed to be responding.

As always seems to happen, I found myself losing a lot of ground in the pack during the supposedly neutral rollout (neutral rollouts, I’ve decided, are really just racing while you’re pretending to not be racing).  On narrow roads, I had little choice but to hold my position and move up incrementally through the first few flat to downhill miles of the course.  When the race first hit the unpaved road, the group collectively seemed alarmed by the severity of the road surface.  The diversion caused a split that divided the field into nearly equal halves.  I found myself in the back.

I sat in hoping the back group would organize.  Several miles later–with the gap only seeming to grow–I decided to bridge.  I jumped across.  One rider followed.  The rest of the back pack fell off the pace and never recovered.

I more or less sat in this group until the fourth lap when I decided to test the field with a few attacks.  I attacked solo and got dragged back a few times.  Finally I got away and had a strong break partner with me.  We rolled hard into a climb.  A quick effort over it and I was confident our break would stick.  Then I looked down and my chain was wrapped around my bottom bracket.  I screamed obscenities.  My break partner rode away.  A chase group road away.  What was left of the peloton rode away.  I screamed more obscenities.  Finally, I got things sorted out.  Took a push from neutral support, and started turning myself inside out to chase.

(Incidentally, I hope I corrected this problem for good.  The Bicycle Pro Shop in Georgetown set my bike up with a chain catcher that will hopefully keep the chain wrapped around the gears where it belongs).

I chased for several miles before finally catching back on to the main field.  Once there, I sat in and recovered a little, but my former breakaway partner was still up the road.  As we moved through the 5th lap, I worried he might stay away and started to get annoyed that no one would chase.  Finally, I came around.  I tried to bridge, but didn’t have the legs to get away and wound up pulling the group back together.

Once back together, I was pretty fried, but a little inspired by the fact that no one chased the other guy at all.  So I decided to attack again.  This time a strong looking riding came forward and pulled me back.  When he caught me, I was like “What the f*#k?  you didn’t help at all when the other guy was up the road.”

“That guys my buddy,” he said.  The two riders weren’t on the same team–subtle politics of local bike racing.

The rider who bridged stayed on the front as we came through the unpaved stretch.  He set a hard tempo up the unpaved climb and was keeping it rolling through the flatish stretch on top.  I was sitting comfortably behind him–honestly pretty glad at the work he was doing because he was shredding what was left of the field.

Then he found some paved road and instantly opened a gap.  It was impossible to cover the move on the shredded pavement, so the 5 riders left in the main group just rode for damage control until we turned back onto a paved road.

One rider tried to bridge.  I followed and we wound up with a 3 man chase group.  I tried to get people to work to pull him back, but no one would.  I thought I could get him, but if I was the only one who worked to do it, I knew the result would be me finishing 4th in a four man final sprint.

Instead, our 3 man chase more or less soft pedaled as we jockeyed for position.  The least patient man in any group, I of course wound up in front.

About .5K to the line

I tried to jump, but there wasn’t a ton left in my legs, and one rider wound up coming around.  I took 3rd overall and promptly proceeded to drink every ounce of water I could find.

Soon after, the race director handed me an envelope full of cash.  I won’t be retiring any time soon, but it covered gas and lunch for my teammates (Zack riding, Mindy cheering and snapping pics).

I hate to say it, but it’s almost a shame that PA will ultimately pave the roads.  The milled asphalt made a tough race epic, and I’m glad I had a chance to race it.

Thanks for reading.

Bart

In an effort to give athletes a chance to represent Snapple at road, mountain, and cyclo-cross races, we are pleased to announce Snapple’s inaugural year with USA Cycling.

“We’ve had a wonderfully successful run in our first four years, and we’re looking forward to representing Snapple at USA Cycling events,” said Bart Forsyth, director of Team Snapple. “Our athletes train hard, race hard, and embody the sport’s best characteristics – all of which is made possible by the support of our sponsors.”

“We want to show those roadies triathletes can hang with the best of them,” says Matias Palavecino, VP of Snapple Cycling Team. “To be accepted on the Planet of Roadiness, you have to dish it out a bit and we welcome the challenge.”

As Snapple ambassadors, the squad promotes the sports of triathlon and duathlon, the healthy lifestyles that come with them, and encourages friends and competitors alike to get outside and race.

Club information can be found here.