Tales from Superweek Race Reports 1 and 2

Day One-Race Report # 1: The Tim Hart DDS/Rainbow Jersey Shorewood Criterium

After arriving Wednesday night in Mequon, I awoke Thursday morning eager to race my bike. The pro race was not until 6:00 that evening so I tried my best to conserve as much energy as I could throughout the day. I watched a few races earlier in the day but for the most part, stayed out of the sun and even took a midday nap.

The race was running a little late due to a severe crash in the women’s field and as a result, our race did not roll out until 6:30.

No matter how many years I keep coming to this self-injurious tour of mayhem I never quite get acclimated to the extremely overwhelming feeling of lining up with some of the best crit riders in the world, representing 20 different countries.

This year, some of the notable teams and riders included the Rock Racing team, Kelly Benefit Services, Jittery Joes Cycling, The Columbian National Team, The Virgin Blue Pro Cycling Team, a handful of Olympic Medalist, Jonathon Page, Jelly Belly, South Australian National Team, IS Corp, and many other accomplished riders.

I say it every year and I’ll say it again…there is something strangely gratifying just knowing how “over your head” you really are. It’s a beautiful thing that cycling can offer. Who am I? A schoolteacher from Michigan who loves to ride his bike copious amounts of miles. And now I am lining up with guys who are literally at their 9 to 5s.

Before I left, a friend of mine sent me a quote from Percy Cerutty that read:
“You only ever grow as a human being if you are outside of your comfort zone”. The quote was quite applicable for this situation.

The Shorewood Crit was a fairly easy course. It was essentially a flat course with six turns. However, this simply meant it was destined to be insanely fast.


The field contained about 150 riders. As the race started I did not get good positioning. I ended up about 100 spots of the back in “the danger zone” where riders have a high probability of getting dropped and pulled from the race.

The first 30minutes was brutally fast. A few instances occurred where the fleeting thought of throwing in the towel passed through my mind but thoughts of “you don’t know how to suffer” and “you only grow as a human being if you are outside of your comfort zone” enabled me mentally to get my focus back and realize that I did not drive this far to get dropped.

The next 30 minutes of the race was also brutally fast. I kept thinking to myself that any minute this race will let up. Each time I rolled through the start/finish line I glanced at the lap counter and watched roll down. I tried to segment the race and keep myself getting to lap 30, then lap 25, and so on. Eventually we rolled down to 10 laps to go and the pace from there on out was the fastest the race had been the whole day. From there on out everything was a blur. The race finally ended and I rolled in with the hardest 71st place I ever had to work for and the gratification that I finished my first 2008 Superweek race.

As I rolled around the first corner on my cool down lap, I was disillusioned and in a bit of a fatigue induced euphoria. I then saw an angelic figure in the distance reached out and handed me the coldest, best tasting beer I had ever had. It was an excited spectator who said to me, “This ones for you man, you earned it”. The whole situation had classic beer commercial written all over it.


Day Two- Race Report # 2: The Ripon Red Hawk Criterium

Joined by my teammate Allen Smith who slept in his car the previous night in true W.C.I.F. fashion we headed up to the campus of Ripon University for one of the craziest courses I have ever saw.

The Ripon course consisted of three significant climbs with four downhill turns jammed into a 0.6 mile course. The course was initially supposed to be 1.6 miles long and winding through the downtown area but after the business owners found out that the streets would have to be shut down they pulled out and made the promoters shorten it. So the Pro field was required to jam 150 riders into a 0.6 mile course…the situation was a true recipe for cataclysmic disaster of epic proportion.


*Side Story* As I was warming up a girl from the Hub Racing Pro Team ran up to me frantically and said, “See that guy with the yellow hat, he just rode of with my bike”. Being the heroic man I am I chased after him. However, being the non-physically-confrontational man I am, once I caught up with him I asked the guy if that was his bike. He seems startled and quickly responded, “yes”. I replied, “Well, it’s a girls bike and it doesn’t fit you…I tell you what, I’m going to ride next to you for awhile…you can either give me the bike now, or you can deal with the four really angry team director guys who are chasing you right now”. He made the very bad decision of continuing to ride off. He most likely regretted this decision when the team director grabbed him from behind, threw him off the bike onto the cement and held him in a headlock as I grabbed the bike. For an instance, I thought I was in the special lycra edition of Cops. The guy eventually broke free from the headlock and booked away yelling “Take it easy man”.

Back to the race. Unlike day one, I obtained great position off the gun in this race sitting in the first third of the field. We had 100 laps to endure. I rolled the first 7-8 and continued to hold position. I actually felt better in this race initially than I did at Shorewood. However, coming into the downhill turn four at 35mph or so I felt my bike leave from under me and found myself sliding about 15 feet. I immediately curled up as guys started toppling over me. Everything happened so quickly. Fueled by adrenaline, I jumped up, ran to the pits and waited for my shredded bike to be rendered ride able again by the mechanics. After about 3 laps they got it back together. However, when I crashed I was in the lead group, but the official made me jump back in the third group back; the group destined to be pulled. I argued with him for a few seconds, all the while losing more and more spots. By the time I was pushed back in I was way out of contention, our group only lasted about 5 more laps before we were pulled. My race was over and I had very little skin left on the left side of my body.

I went from elation to defeat…and that’s bike racing.




I always knew I looked good in fishnet.

Leap of Faith

No real plan...no exact lodging arrangements...small fish in a very large pond..."Who cares? I'm Flying"...Tomorow the 2008 Superweek adventure begins, reports to follow.

Masochism

Warning: This entry was composed while in a state of delirium induced by a 6hr solo night trail ride. The thoughts and expressions, while open and truthful, are a little more revealing than that of most entries.

It’s 2:00 am in the morning and I just got out of the shower after a 6hr night ride in the trails. With the looming 24hr event around the corner I thought it would be beneficial to sharpen my night lap skills.

Let me begin with a brief description of the events leading up to this evening’s endeavor. I spent the day with Angela’s family celebrating her birthday. I had ridden to her parent’s house in the morning (45 miles with some ancillary trail stops). The goal of this ride was to get the system adjusted to riding in a state of exhaustion. The day consisted of a barrage of beer, sun by the pool, consumption of three different animal meats, and an ice cream cake with some coffee to wash it down. Essentially, it was a recipe for an epic bowel battle!

At the end of the day as I rolled out to begin my excursion, I kissed Angela goodbye, wished her happy birthday and explained that 97% of the time I love riding my bike. However, this ride was not going to be one of those times.

For those of you who have never ridden trails at night, it is great! Get a few of your friends, roll to your local trail head with some lights and you can make any memorized mundane trail system feel like a completely new experience. The best part is, you can ride the trails backwards whereas during the day it would normally be a big MTB no no.

So riding with your friends at night=fun; riding by yourself at night=a bit downright frightening. That’s right, my first lap was terrifying…I’ll admit it, I’m man enough. The nighttime in the woods is incredibly quiet. Your sight becomes complete tunnel vision and things come up on you very quickly. Couple that with the reflective eyes of assorted night time woodland creatures (raccoon, deer, fox, sasquach, etc.), and the ever present looming threat that there will be some misguided teenagers under the influence of whatever inhalants and pills they were able steal from there local Walgreen’s having a bonfire at the top of Mescaline Mountain and completely lacking sensible judgment. If that is not enough, your thoughts of different scenarios that could happen consume you. For instance, one of my biggest fears is paranormal life. If I told you that the thought that I could rip around a corner and whoosh right through a transparent haunting image of Tara Grant and have her chase me the rest of the lap was not running through my mind constantly, I would be telling a lie!

Before I left for the ride Angela’s mom asked me, “Aren’t you afraid of riding in the woods at night?”. I conjured up the quickest tough guy response that I could think of in my deepest voice, “Not really, I am most afraid of going into this 24hr race unprepared” than I puffed up my chest and walked away on my tiptoes. Although my response was arguably award winning, whom was I kidding, I was terrified.



Perhaps it was nerves, or pre-race anxiety, or the eclectic collage of food dancing around in my gut, but after a few laps in the trails, something happened. My stomach started making noises similar to a clogged garbage disposal. Severe abdominal pains started consuming me and every time I stomped on the pedals I took a risk of a sharting (i.e. combo of shiting and farting) blow out! I tried my best to dismiss the pain and mentally overcome it. Mind over matter can only go so far; at a certain point your intestinal discharge will become involuntary! I began to realize what action was in the cards. Luckily, in college I read the literary masterpiece How to Shit in the Woods by Kathleen Meyer. I was prepared and knowledgeable of how I could make this move go effectively smooth. So I rolled off to the side of the trail, found an inviting tree to lean against, striped down, and began my business…it was not pretty. As I squat, and looked around for the most optimal leafs to complete the paperwork with, the true reality of this entire 24hr tour of duty/vision quest started to really sink in. Call it masochistic perhaps?

In the film 24hr solo, Chris Etough explains that there is no where to hide in a 24hr race, at one point you become face to face with your soul. Well, tonight I caught of glimpse of my soul and left a pile of it lying in the woods.