Montana Race Musings: In Which I Learned to ride in the Snow

Riding in Montana is like nothing else I’d ever experienced. All the college road races are in the sticks, but Montana was really out in the middle of nowhere. And all the college road races in the Pacific North West are beautiful, but Montana was absolutely gorgeous. Let’s be honest, the entire state of Montana is kind of the middle of nowhere. Race staging was at Lewis and Clark Caverns, about half an hour from Bozeman. We raced 1.5 times around a 40 mile loop for a total of 60 miles of two lane roads, finishing with a 3 mi 6% climb up a mountain. 

Blustery and as cold as the previous week’s race at Bellingham, I’d made sure my pockets were filled with Clif Bars and my bottle filled with electrolytes in order to avoid a repeat of that delightful experience. The race was jumpy—a couple minutes of balls to the wall all out effort, then back to our normal race pace for a while. Repeat ad nauseum…or until Whitman attacked on a hill and we dropped half our field (aka 4 people.)

Once we split the pack, WSU took off down the hill and managed to put a good gap on me, Whitman, and my PSU buddy from last week. This is when the wind that had been knocking my bike all over the road for the last 30 miles (and covering me in my opponents' snot every time they cleared their noses. Pretty certain I had as much mucus on my jersey from Whitman and Portland as I did from myself), worked to our advantage as we got a rotating pace line going (and Whitman and Portland taught me how to echelon properly) and reeled WSU back in.

That was pretty much it for the attacks. Partly because we had an unspoken agreement to work together and grow the gap on the rest of the field—and partly because of the weather. We’d been dealing with strong winds all race but that wasn’t epic enough for a race on the outskirts of Yellowstone that we’d driven 10 hours to ride. So the universe decided to help out. At about 35 miles in, the skies opened up and started dumping. The water built up on the roads so quickly that it wasn’t long before I’d abandoned my sunglasses in order to see through the spray of my opponent’s wheels.

As the rain turned to hail and we tore through the two lane roads with the wind at our backs, the part of my brain that wasn’t desperately trying to keep from crashing on the slippery pavement was trying to figure out if racing in these conditions meant I was incredibly hardcore—or incredibly mental. Jury’s still out on that one. 

Soaked to the bone and covered with a nice coating of grit, I made the final turn up the mountain…and right into a headwind. Up the slope and off the back I went for a solo trek up the last three miles. That’s when I noticed my black gloves were now covered in a fine white powder. You’ve got to be kidding me. A year ago I wouldn’t take my bike out if the ground was wet, now here I was racing in a snowstorm. 

Despite the conditions, I was working hard enough that I didn’t feel cold until I crossed the finish at the top of the hill and slow pedaled around the parking lot for a little bit, trying to put off the unhappy (and in my case dangerous) prospect of riding down the icy road.

Thankfully, just like last week, my opponents took pity on my pathetic state. While my team abandoned me to the mountain, the other teams sent cars up to rescue their Women’s A riders. Which is how I found myself in the backseat of a small SUV next to Portland holding onto our bikes, so they didn’t go out the back. We couldn’t shut the hatch due to the fact that we had somehow managed to fit Portland’s bike, my bike, and WSU’s bike (as well as the three of us) inside the SUV. To this day I have no idea who drove us down the mountain (reinforcing the fact that 1) I am terrible with names and 2)I was incredibly cold and really not focusing on anything except when I could get out of my wet kit.)  

Sunday. Crit Day. After a two hour drive from Bozeman to Missoula at o’dark thirty, we arrived on campus and saw the brilliance that was the Montana Crit.

Full disclosure: Not a fan of crits. Crits are dumb and I don’t like corners. But the ones I’d done so far we pretty non-technical and on well paved roads, so I wasn’t overly put off by them. Then came Montana. Montana was the exact opposite of my previous crits: technical with potholes, manhole covers, and gravel galore. Watching the morning races, my stomach dropped; every race was marked by crashes, culminating in my teammate crashing out and breaking his collarbone in the Men’s B race. I did not want to race this course.

And yet, of course I did want to race it. I wanted to test myself against the girls I’d come to know and respect over the last few weeks. And I wanted to get better. So when the whistle blew I took off like I would’ve in any race. But between missing my pedal trying to clip in and taking the first corner a bit cautiously, I found myself chasing the front pack of WSU, Whitman, and Portland.

If you know nothing about bike racing, know this: getting dropped sucks. It is no fun fighting the wind by yourself trying to catch people who are working together to stay ahead of you. My mind, as it is wont to do during bike races, starting arguing with itself. I could work my ass off for the next 45 minutes, take the corners at the edge of my ability, maybe MAYBE catch the front pack…and end up in 4^th or I could ease up, take the corners cautiously, give up trying to catch the front pack…and end up in 4^th.

While my mind was trying to convince me to take it easy as the results would be no different, my pride was telling my mind to shut the hell up as there is no fucking way I am giving up. So I dug deep, manned up, and got to work chasing the pack.

Occasionally being a stubborn jackass comes in handy as my pride refused to let me give up and I chased for about half the race. 20 minutes of hammering, legs screaming, lungs burning, heart hammering around corners until I got close enough to grab Whitman’s wheel and stay with the front three for the rest of the race, before losing the final sprint and ending up in 4^th. (To be fair, the front three weren't going as fast as I know they're capable of. WSU crashed early and thus drove a slower pace then normal. Hence I was able to catch them.)

What a fantastic weekend of racing bikes. Next up: Whitman and Week 6.

WWU Race Musings: In Which I Learned the Necessity of Carrying Calories

Bellingham was cold. From the second I stripped down to my spandex, removing jeans, warm up pants, a flannel shirt, a hoody, and my North Face jacket, to the second I finally stepped into the shower that night, I was cold. Waiting for my race to start? Cold. Sleeping in the trunk of a car while the boys raced? Cold. Riding the tt? Cold. Cold cold cold cold cold. On the plus side, it wasn’t raining.

Bellingham was weird. From the second I arrived at the course, things progressed differently then I was used to. The two PSU girls in my field approached me and asked if I would be ok racing with the Men’s B field. 1) They are obviously much better with names and faces than I am as I have absolutely no idea who they are, but they picked me out right away. 2) No, no I do not want to race with the Men’s B (wanting to be diplomatic about it however, I said I’d go along with whatever everyone else wanted. Thankfully, my boys backed me up and said no way was I racing with the B’s. We did increase the distance of our race by a lap though.)

Bellingham was hard. Six and a quarter 8-mile laps with a steep climb at the beginning of each lap, a steep climb at the end of each lap, a small rise in the middle of each lap, and one sketchy right hand turn with gravel on the road. Once around wasn’t bad. Twice around was fine. By the third and fourth laps, my legs were really feeling the hills.

Bellingham was surprising. As I’ve said consistently, I’m used to getting dropped on hills. So I was pleased when I stayed with the 5 others on the front when our pack split on the first hill of the first lap, proud when I stayed with the Portland and Whitman riders in the middle when the other two in our pack went off the front on the start of the second lap, and SHOCKED when Portland and I dropped the Whitman girls at the start of the fifth lap AND stayed ahead of them for the rest of the race.

Bellingham was painful. This was my first real road race with the A’s (last week’s double flat didn’t count) and I was not prepared. Portland and I broke away with roughly 15 miles to go. We rotated pulls for a while and aside from some comments about whether I ever actually let my legs spin instead of always pushing a big gear, things were OK (And yes, I am aware I keep too low a cadence most of the time.)  But  things just went downhill fast. Usually, when I climb hills, I stand up and try to push it up the last few yards over the crest. When I tried to do it on this lap, my legs buckled in a mass of painful cramps. I literally could not stand up. Portland was watching me, telling me to sit down, spin up the hill, keep a count in my head. I couldn’t figure out if she was helping me because she was concerned, or because she needed me to keep working with her so we could stay ahead of Whitman. Didn’t matter. As long as she was helping me, I didn’t much care why.

Bellingham was humbling. By the start of the last lap I was having trouble moving in a straight line. My brain was fuzzy, muddled, like I was drunk. “Hey,” Portland’s voice intruded into my haze, “Have you been drinking your water? Do you have any food?” Dumbly I shook my head. I’d eaten everything I’d brought with me (which admittedly wasn’t a lot.) “Put your hand out.” Reflexively, I did as bidden. Next thing I know, a half-eaten bar is being shoved into my hand as Portland gives me her food, telling me to eat it. For the rest of the race, she kept an eye on me, reminding me to drink, talking me up the hills, and basically just making sure I didn’t die. I honestly think I would have ended up passingout in a ditch if it wasn’t for her.

Bellingham was AMAZING. On the final hill of the last full lap, Portland turned to me with a grin, “Hey, we freaking did it!” Exhausted, I retorted, “I play rugby. We just say fuck.” She laughed. “Oh, we’re going to get along fucking fantastically then.”  On the next downhill, Portland took off, trying to drop me before the final push for the line. I found it ego-boosting that she actually thought I had any chance of beating her if it came to a sprint. There was no way I could sprint. I could hardly keep moving my bike forward, let alone sprint. She finally ditched me on the next up hill, but we were so far ahead of the Whitman girls, that I could just stumble to the finish without worrying about being caught. Weaving up the final hill, barely able to push the pedals as I still couldn’t stand up without my legs collapsing, contemplating getting off my bike and walking up the damn hill, I finally crossed the line. I have rarely been as proud of myself as I was during that race (likewise, I have rarely been in as much pain as I was during that race.)

Next up: A ten hour drive to Montana and Week 5

Central Washington Race Musings: In Which I Learned What Happens WhenYou Flat (Here's a Hint--You Don't Win)

Things I learned from my first race with the A’s

1.       Racing with 5 people with way different from racing with 25 people
2.       The A’s neutral roll out is faster than the average speed of the B’s race
3.       The A’s also take racing way more seriously than the B’s
4.       Being able to sustain a 5 minute acceleration is vital
5.       Getting not 1, but 2 flats kills my race and puts me in a surly mindset for the rest of the day
6.       My nemesis from Whitman jumped to the A’s with me

So my first race with the A’s didn’t go how I would have liked and as I result of flats ended up doing the last 20 miles or so as a solo tt. (Our field split into three groups and I was with my nemesis and another Whitman girl in the second group, when my back tire went flat. Waited for the wheel car, saw the two girls in the third group go by, got a new wheel on and worked my ass off to catch up to those two. Then the back tire went flat. Again.)

After being a general pain in the ass for the rest of the afternoon, skipping the ttt, and driving back to Seattle early (race was just in Ellensburg, so we didn’t all homestay), I managed to get my thick head into a place where I was ready to race the crit on Sunday. 

You know what Ellensburg is well known for? Being really fracking windy. And hell if it wasn’t living up to that expectation during our crit. I’m nervous again. I don’t want to get lapped. Even though this is all of the third crit I’ve ever raced (and yesterday I got an inkling of how much faster my competition was), my pride cried out that I not get dropped. I’m a stubborn jackass like that.

This crit is fast, flat, and non-technical. The wind makes it so that on the back half, I’m barely pushing the pedals and still hitting 27-28 mph. Two left hand turns later and WHAM! Every time we rounded the corner into the side wind, the paceline would shift over to the very edge of the road.

“Oh hey, they’re totally guttering me. That’s cool. I’ve never seen anyone actually do this before.” 5 LAPS LATER…”No wait, guttering is not cool. In fact it sucks. Please let me draft off you again?”

(For the uninitiated, “guttering” is a tactic used in racing when there’s a side wind. Cyclists get a big benefit from drafting (or letting the guy in front of them block the wind.) so when there’s a side wind, you want to position yourself to the side of the guy in front, instead of straight behind him. Smart cyclists will move all the way to the edge of the road in a side wind so if you try and draft of them, you end up in the gutter. Hence the name of the term.)

I pretty much kept getting yo-yo’d off the back only to catch the wheel of one of the three Whitman girls and let them pull me back to the main pack (and by main pack, I mean 4 people.) so when the crit was half over and I still hadn’t been dropped yet, my stubbornness kicked into overdrive and I became determined to finish the race with the pack. (I should note that while I may have avoided getting completely dropped, I definitely did not take a single pull on the front and was comparatively doing less work than the rest of the field that was rotating pulls.)

Fun thing about crits (and by fun thing, I mean extremely painful thing) is that scattered throughout the race are “prem” laps where the race official rings a bell signaling that whoever wins the next lap gets a prize (in collegiate, it goes 4 deep, but all you win are more points.) In the A’s I quickly discovered prem laps mean mad dash sprints for the line while I invariably went off the back and had to work my way back on.

And that’s exactly what happened for the first 5 prems in our crit. On the last prem however, one of the PSU riders wasn’t sprinting as fast as she had the previous laps, and I was sitting close enough to her wheel that I decided, “fuck it” and went for the prem, stealing the 1 point from PSU.

Inside I was doing an internal happy dance. You have no idea how ridiculously proud of that one point I was. Portland must have noticed because as she passed me I heard, “Hey Washington, you can pull too you know!”

Aw, hell. I did not want any attention on myself. I was just trying to survive the race without embarrassing myself. If I had a tail, it would have been tucked between my legs. Unconsciously, I hunched my shoulders and ducked my head—trying to make myself as small as possible as I situated myself at the back of the pack once more. Hoping to go back to being invisible. Inwardly though, I was still smirking a bit. (I’d picked up on a bit of rivalry between some of my teammates and some of the Portland kids—we were fighting it out for first place in the team division—so I wasn’t too upset about pissing her off.)

With a couple of laps to go, one of the Whitman girls went off the front and the rest of the back just let her go. Eventually, WSU started a chase, but with no help from PSU, Whitman kept her lead and won on a breakaway.

In the pack sprint, I dug deep, called up my last reserves and channeled my best inner Cavendish to take 5^th by a couple of inches.  

What a fantastically fun crit. There’s something immensely satisfying about going toe to toe with the big dogs and surviving.

Bring on Montana and Week 4