#17 Ronde von Manor: Race Report

Hey everyone,

This is a race report of Ronde von Manor, a single-day race hosted by Velossimo Racing on the 27th of March. It’s been a while since I last posted, so my memory is kind of hazy with this one. My participation in this race was pretty much on a whim, especially since the Texas State collegiate race, which would have coincided with this race, was canceled the week before. This was the first USCF race that I’ve participated in besides the Driveway series, so this would be a pretty good way to test myself against the more serious racers participating in the Texas Cup and regional competitions.

The race was held at J. Lorraine Ghost Town

I entered the race as a Category 5 rider, which is the lowest possible level rider you can be at these races. In order to move up to Category 4, you need at least 10 mass-start races, but most people chose to move up after they’ve done reasonably well in Category 5. When I was at the Texas Cycling meeting a couple of days prior to the race, my teammate Ken said that in his experience, all of the Category 5 races started out really fast, slowed down in the middle, and then picked up speed towards the end. So he told me that if I felt like I was hurting during the beginning, all I had to say to myself was “just a little longer, just a little longer…” and eventually the pace would slow down so I could take a breather.

The P/1/2 pack contained Peter Carey.

So, on Saturday morning I headed out towards Manor and arrived a little later than I would have like, 15 minutes before the start line. When they called out the Cat 5 field, I lined up and scoped out the riders. I was very surprised at the equipment they had, as I seemed to be the only rider who wasn’t riding on a $5000 all-carbon bike with deep-rimmed wheels. Thus, I was a little intimidated but I would have to learn how to keep up nonetheless. The race officials told us the usual rules, such as no crossing the center line, and what to do if we needed mechanical service. Then, the race was off. The field was neutral for maybe a couple of miles but the pace picked up quickly. I would say that once we hit the fourth mile, the field was going very fast, about 28 mph.

Riding in the pack was incredibly intense. For the most part, I was in the rear and it was very hectic as the pack kept speeding up and slowing down for some strange reason, and at one point of the ride I even had to unclip my pedals since we came to a full stop. Also, the pack always accelerated through each turn in order to lose inexperienced riders. I managed to stay in contact through each turn, thanks to the practice I had at the Driveway the Thursday before.

After about 5 or 6 miles we hit a small hill and everybody seemed to be in a rush to get over it and drop a few riders. A couple of riders were dropping back so I just maneuvered out of their way and stayed in contact. I could tell that there were a lot of riders that were very inexperienced, and they couldn’t handle their bikes smoothly so I was a little nervous riding next to them, in case they bumped into me. Anyways, after we finished riding up the hill we turned right into a crosswind, so I made sure that I was on the right side of the pack. We took another right-hand turn to the finishing straight on the lap, which was mostly downhill. The front of the pack must have been charging downhill as I recorded speeds of over 40 mph easily, and I wasn’t even pedaling on my bike on the way down a not-too-steep slope.

I finished the first lap without any problem, and the pack seemed to take it easy the second time through. We crested up the hill a second time, but a few riders crashed which caused a split in the peloton. I reacted by accelerating hard and I inadvertently ended up at the front of the pack exposed to the crosswind. Since it was as crosswind, riders started being aggressive and every time someone tried to break away the pack chased them down hard. In my opinion that was NOT smart racing. If you let a few riders get away instead of chasing them down, you’ll save a lot of energy. Plus, we would soon hit a downhill section and a tailwind so it would be very easy to catch them then. I think maybe 5 or so riders tried to break away successively and I think we were going about 24 mph into a crosswind, and since I was on the left side of the pack this time I was completely exposed. I suddenly ran out of steam and dropped from the front to the back, and then off the back.

It was at this point that I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch back on. After about 5 miles of riding solo, I saw a couple of stragglers behind me and I sat up to wait for them to catch me. As soon as they caught up, we formed a paceline and we tried to catch up to another guy riding solo about 15 seconds in front of us. As soon as I saw the gap closing, I upped the tempo until we caught him. Unfortunately one of the guys in my group couldn’t hold the pace and he dropped back. Incidentally, the new guy we caught happened to be the same guy I ended up with at the Driveway! What a coincidence. We worked together for the rest of the race taking turns pacing each other. When we crested the hill we saw a spectator dressed in a Death costume, which I found mildly amusing.

I dropped the two riders on the climb unintentionally so I waited for them to catch back up to me as I didn’t want to finish the race alone. It was then that I realized I would probably be able to beat the two riders once we headed to the finish line. The rest of the race was uneventful and consisted of us taking turns in the front. When we reached the downhill we called the alliance off as we would be trying to beat each other at the line. The Driveway guy opened up the the sprint, so I responded, but at the finish line I saw a whole group of guys walking their bikes and I was quite perplexed and I didn’t want to hit them while I was sprinting, so when I was dashing down the street I yelled, “watch out!” and easily outsprinted the other two riders.

It turned out that in the sprint to the line, there was a huge crash and maybe 10 or so riders went down. I don’t think it affected my placing as I think there’s a rule saying that if you go down at the line you’re accredited the same time as the bunch you finished with. There happened to be several crashes that day. I witnessed one of them, but I heard a more serious crash happened off the front soon after I dropped back where three riders went down, one breaking his femur and another breaking his hip…since the crash happened near where I was riding in the pack, I’m kind of glad I got dropped as I didn’t get involved, but it would have been a valuable lesson had I witnessed it. As for the things I did badly I think I shouldn’t have overreacted at the time of the first crash to catch back on, and I should have positioned myself properly on the right side of the pack as we headed into a crosswind. Positioning makes a HUGE difference in the amount of energy you’ll spend and it just takes a little bit of mental calculation. Furthermore, I probably shouldn’t have spent so much time in the back of the pack and probably should have stayed in the front. As for the things that I did well, I stayed in contact for a longer period of time then at DFW, and I recorded the fastest ever 33 miles I’ve ever done at 20.2 mph, which was only slightly slower than that of the Criterium, but over a much longer distance. The pack riders recorded 23mph and I heard from another rider that it was a harder than usual Cat 5 race. Personally, I would have only expected 21 mph from the Cat 5 pack, and 23 mph is kind of ridiculous given that we’re beginner racers…that just goes to show how seriously they take bike riding here in Austin. Anyways, I had fun and I was looking forward to the race the next day…

Mens' 3/4 pack containing Dalton, Hogan, and Varela