Author Archives: Gene Dan

Hey everyone,

The final race of the SCCCC 2010 season took place on home soil on the outskirts of Austin at Manda, and on the UT Pickle Research Center north of campus. It would have been nice to have the race directly on the main UT campus, but logistical problems like cost and scheduling prevented us from doing so. It would have been great publicity for the team if we could have had a campus crit around the Darrell K. Royal Stadium, so if any of the officers happen to stumble across this post, I would suggest that you do everything in your power to stage this race in a location visible to our fellow students!

The team met at the CPE parking lot.

Anyway, I got to wake up slightly later at 6:30 AM for today’s race since it was held in town. At 7:30, the team met up in the CPE parking lot and we headed out to the Manda area for the race. The course would be the exact same as the one at Ronde von Manda, so I knew we would have a lot of wind, just like at Manda. When we got to the course, we signed in, set up our bikes, and warmed up. When I was signing in, I tried to downgrade to the D category, but I wasn’t allowed to because of the Conference Championship rules. That would rule me out of the D category TTT, which I really wanted to do because I had been training with Marc and Chi-Che the whole season. Anyway, my registration would put me on reserve for the C category TTT, with Stephen Salazar, Matthew Stottlemyre, Trent Boyd, and Robbie Booth.

Jacob loads the bikes onto the trailer.

After warm-up, we lined up at the start line, along with teams from Texas Pan-American (a team I had not raced against before), Baylor, Rice, Texas A&M, MSU, UH, and an assortment of other minor teams. I didn’t have any lofty goals for this race, mainly because I knew I would get dropped eventually because of the strong crosswinds during that day. Thus, I had a simple goal in mind, to make it further than I had at Manda, at which I dropped after five minutes of racing.

Steve, me, and Chi-Che before the start.

Immediately after the start, Trent took a flyer but no one chased him because the race was still neutralized, and the headwind reeled him back in shortly afterward. I stayed near the front drafting behind Matt and the Texas Pan American team. At the fifth mile, things started heating up and there were some accelerations at the corners in attempt to drop the weaker riders. My cornering had improved slightly but I was still not brave enough to tilt my bike to the limit, so I ended up wasting energy at each corner when I had to accelerate after the apex. Anyway, as soon as we hit the tailwind section of the course, a rider from Rice rode the gutter too aggressively and crashed headfirst over his handlebars. I’m not sure if he finished the race. For those of you who are unaware of the term “riding the gutter,” riding the gutter is a tactic in which the rider riders close to the edge of the road in order to make it hard for others to draft behind him, or “suck his wheel.” Drafting behind a person riding the gutter is somewhat nerve-wracking, not only because you can’t see anything in front of you, but also because you have no place to maneuver if an obstacle emerges. Riding the gutter, although a useful tactic, carries risk because it’s harder for the rider to handle, and increases the risk of crashing. I was glad that I wasn’t behind the Rice rider when that happened, but I know a crash will happen to me eventually, given enough miles.

At the start…

After going 35 mph+ in the tailwind section, we made a right turn into a crosswind, with Rice leading the pack. The pace had slowed down considerably to around 16mph as we were all playing cat-and-mouse with each other. At this point, Trent attacked the pack and Robbie chased him down, as did the rest of the pack. I heard a rumor that Trent was a Cat 2 Track rider, but only a Cat 4 road rider, which allowed him to race in the C category. Thus, the viciousness of the attack was not surprising, and the pack broke apart into about five different groups. I happened to be in the second-to last group with another rider from Texas A&M, and after catching our breaths, we knew the race was over. However, I still had some other priorities, one of which was to finish higher than last, which had happened at DFW. I knew the UH guy who outkicked me last time was still behind me so I wanted to finish ahead of him.

The Texas A&M rider didn’t help very much, however. He didn’t pull or make any effort to keep us ahead of the guys who were trying to catch up to us, so I suppose he knew that our race was already over and he wanted to just take the rest of the way easy. Somewhere during the middle of the second lap, we saw a battered and bruised rider from Rice walking in the opposite direction – I suppose it was the Rice rider that had crashed, or maybe another rider with mechanical. During the tailwind section my legs started to cramp up from my former injuries, and they gradually got worse as the race went on. After completing the second lap, I saw Trent on the sidelines because he had dropped out of the race. I was somewhat upset because he was the one who broke up the pack and dropped his teammates, only to drop out of the race later because he wasted too much energy. If he had spent his efforts helping Robbie or Matt, we would’ve had a chance to win. On the third lap, or at about mile 36, the UH guy caught us, and another guy from Rice shortly afterward. At about 1k from the finish, I had cramped up so badly that I dropped behind, but I still managed to finish. My legs were cramping up so badly that I had to ask Chi-Che to catch me as I rolled in at the finish. The results showed that I still finished ahead of another rider, a slight improvement over my last C category race.

After the race, Matt asked me if I wanted to take his place in the TTT. Since I could barely walk, I declined. Before the TTT, the team went out to eat at subway where I talked to Marc and learned what had happened in the D race: Three Texas Tech riders broke away from the pack and Marc followed them, but they eventually dropped him. Marc found himself in no-man’s land with another rider from Baylor, and managed to finish fifth, a personal best for him.

Since I wasn’t racing in the TTT, I volunteered to be a corner marshall, making sure riders didn’t turn where they weren’t supposed to. The job wasn’t hard, I just had to stand at an intersection and point in the direction of the course. I felt kind of bad because Trent dropped out of the TTT race, leaving the C-team with only 3 riders, one short of the customary 4. Had I aggravated my injury, I would have been able to help. For those of you new to the TTT, or Team Time Trial, It’s an event similar to a regular time trial, but with each team starting together, but separately from other teams. You have 4 members in each team, and each teammate can draft off of each other. Teams are released 30 seconds apart. If one team should catch another, they cannot draft off the team they catch, and vice-versa. The team that gets caught must let the team that catches them pass them, or else face a penalty. The team with the least cumulative time wins. Anyway, while I was volunteering I managed to take some pictures of the race:

Texas Pan American D

Texas Tech

Texas A&M C

Texas C

MSU B

MSU Women A

MSU A

Today wasn’t really a good day for Texas, except for Marc, who finished 5th in the RR and 2nd in the TT. We were down on manpower in the A team, because a lot of the officers were on that team and had to host the race. And furthermore, Tokarski crashed out of the A race, and his injuries were so bad that he had to go to the hospital. He has since recovered, however. The Crit the next day wasn’t much better, but Marc again had good form and finished 5th in the D race. I had to stay home because my legs were inflamed, and I had to take a week off the bike to recover. On the bright side it’s been about three months since this race and I can say that I’ve improved a lot. I’ve been doing intervals and I’ve regularly had averages of 21mph over 60 miles and my highest average was 22 mph. I haven’t raced since the close of Collegiate season, but I’ve had my sights set on the Metro Park Crit next week and a few more late-season races next month.

Hey everyone,

The final day of Fort Davis began at 5:30 AM when I woke up to get breakfast. Dalton and Varela would start later in the day so they got to sleep in for about another hour. After getting ready, I walked over to the main building where the race officials kept the spare wheels to look at the results from the previous day’s races. It turns out that I got 36th, which wasn’t great but fell into my expectations. Dalton got 4th in the Men’s 3 and Varela got 2nd in the Men’s 4, putting both of them at about a minute and a half down on their respective GC’s. With a good effort, both of them had a chance of taking the GC.

At breakfast I had scrambled eggs, potatoes, a biscuit, bacon, and some sausage. I made sure to eat a lot in order to have enough energy to be competitive at today’s stage. I would be going over the same hill climb as that of the first stage so I had to keep my expectations realistic. Thus, I simply aimed to go further than I did last time without getting dropped, so I wanted to make it over the first two tough gradients with the pack.

After breakfast I headed back to the cabin to get dressed. I brought along three gel shots and a power bar to eat at breakfast, hoping to get about 1,000 calories in before start time. Luckily, today’s stage would start right outside of Prude Ranch so I wouldn’t have to do any riding in order to get there. As soon as I got ready I headed out to the gate to sign in.

Mt. Locke looms in the distance, we had to climb over it during the race…

It turns out that a handful of riders called it quits but most of the peloton remained intact from the previous day. The weather was somewhat cold at the mid 50’s so I decided to bring my arm warmers with me to stay warm. To my dismay, the guy I had talked to yesterday had abandoned after the time trial, and I hoped he would stick around for the road race. After the start the race went at a more sensible pace than that of the day before. Most of the riders knew that we would have a hard time getting over the first climb so we didn’t have any attacks on the rollers, giving me an opportunity to conserve my energy.

I made sure to stay in the front of the pack to keep out of trouble, I maintained 4th-10th position in the pack to make sure I didn’t have to do too much work, and the ride to the climb went by smoothly, and I felt much better in comparison to the day before. I saw that John Guidry, the guy who finished right in front of me on the previous day’s hill climb and passed me in the time trial, also positioned himself near the front. I knew from the previous day’s results that I would probably be able to keep up with him on the climbs so I made sure to stick around him (it turns out that he’s a much better flat rider, scoring good results in the early season races). As soon as we hit the climb the pace went up rapidly, however. I made the selection after the first upward gradient and knew I could do at least one more. When we hit the first false flat (a false flat is a section of land that still goes upward, albeit at a lower gradient) I looked behind me and saw that a couple of riders dropped back which made me feel somewhat good about myself. The second gradient was tough, but I still managed to hang on at mid pack for the next false flat. What really killed me was the third upward gradient. As soon as we hit the slope John started to fall backward and I fell with him. After I started seeing other people pass us I decided to pass him and try to catch on to the back. I made it back to the front of the peloton, but my effort was too much, and I waved to the others to get past me.

I saw a guy from TCU pass me up and I knew I had beaten him at Tunis, so I made sure to keep him in sight for the rest of the race. After taking some time to catch my breath, I caught a group of two riders, but dropped one of them immediately. The other rider and I took turns pacing each other until we caught another rider, and one other rider from Texas Tech caught up with us.

After we reached the summit of the climb I hammered our group forward in order to gain some time on the short descent. In doing so, I dropped one of the riders and the three of us who remained took turns pacing. We went through a series of steep rollers and hit a long descent at 50mph. The Tech guy was a fantastic descender but the other guy who was with us couldn’t handle very well and I ended up lagging behind him because I didn’t want to pass him up. When we hit the bottom we caught up to the Tech guy and the rider who was with me apologized for descending slowly. Soon afterward we caught the TCU rider.

We saw another Tech rider ahead of us, so the Tech rider lifted the pace to catch his teammate and dropped the three of us. The TCU rider then dropped us. We took turns pacing each other until we hit the halfway mark at which we had to turn around. After the turn around point the guy I was with dropped me and I found myself alone for about the next five miles, after which I was caught by a group of three riders and we took turns pacing each other. We dropped one of them before we hit the main descent at which one of the riders in our group took a daredevil descent to the bottom. We were going faster than 50mph and I got dropped on the way down.

Fortunately I saw the TCU guy about a mile in front of me and I made it my goal to catch him before the finish. I was caught by a group of about five riders and a man in a neutral support vehicle was following us. Every now and then he passed us and pulled over to the should and started yelling at us to catch the guy in front of us (the TCU guy). Right before Heartbreak Hill, the finishing climb, we saw the TCU rider in our sights so I decided to attack the group and after riding past the TCU guy, I sprinted up the hill and finished ahead of my group.

The P/1 bunch sprint.

After the race I went back to the Cabin, grabbed a soda and drove back to the finish line to pick Dalton and Varela when they finished. I got to see the endings of the rest of the Men’s races, the P/1, Category 2, Category 3, and Category 4. The Pro/1 pack was very impressive and they finished as a group. When I saw the Cat 3 pack coming over the horizon I got out of my van to watch the finish. I saw Dalton in the group so I cheered him on in the bunch sprint. He ended up getting 10th in the Road Race and 6th in the GC.

The Cat 3 bunch sprint.

After meeting up with Dalton we waited for Varela at the line. Unfortunately Varela blew up near the end of the race and finished 20 minutes back. Considering that he got 2nd on the first two stages, however, I would say that he had a good race. When I checked the results I ended up getting 24th on the Road Race and 28th out of 50 starters in the GC, moving up about ten places. I can’t really say much about how well I did other than that I’m improving, but I still have a long way to go. I had a great three days out in west Texas and the experience was very good for my development as a cyclist.

Daniel crosses the line.

Clay and Daniel taking a breather after the race.

One last photo before heading home.

For photos of my adventure, click on the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038340&id=1529070024&l=72bb6381a7

Hey everyone,

I haven’t updated in more than a month so I won’t have the most accurate race report available. The second stage of Fort Davis Hammerfest consisted of a short 16 mile out and back time trial on the outskirts of town. The course went uphill for the first half into a headwind, then downhill for the second half with a tailwind. The start times would go in reverse order of the general classification, so the riders who finished last during the hill climb would go first at the time trial.

Meanwhile, after the hill climb, Clay, Daniel, and I rested for about an hour at the cabin before heading out to lunch. We stopped by a local deli and got a few sandwiches, while Clay got a salad for himself. The 17% gradient at the hill climb certainly took a beating out of our legs, and the four hour interlude between the two stages gave us a small respite before we had to go full blast for the TT. For those of you who aren’t familiar with time trials, time trials test the athlete’s ability to go nearly all-out at a heart rate slightly below lactate threshold for an extended period of time without the benefit of drafting behind anything. Strong riders who can push through the wind and sustain a large power output tend to do well during time trials, while lighter riders may get pushed around by the wind and may not have the ability to generate enough power. Knowing this, I knew I would have a disadvantage to the larger riders during this stage. Equipment would play a role, too, since the wind would favor those who had time trial bikes made especially for these types of stages. As a new rider, I did not at the time, and currently still do not own a time trial bike, but I plan on getting one eventually. Riding the stage with a standard road bike would probably put me behind 5-7 minutes on the stage. Nevertheless, I told myself that I would just have to try my hardest.

Dalton's Cervelo P2 TT Bike.

After lunch, we headed back to the cabin to let Clay and Daniel prepare their TT bikes. Clay had recently gotten a fit on his new Cervelo P2, a bike from a company that has a good reputation for aerodynamic bikes, while Daniel had a Blue T-14. Daniel also brought along a 100mm deep section front wheel along, but he feared that the cross winds wouldn’t allow him to ride with it, since they might’ve blown him over. For those of you unfamiliar with bike equipment, a 100m rim means that the depth of the rim is 100mm. Cross winds will alter the handling of the TT bike since the increased surface area of the front wheel will create a greater amount of wind resistance to a cross-wind, adversely affecting handling (you’d get blown sideways).

Varela's Blue T-14.

You can notice from the pictures that TT bikes have different handlebars. If you look closely enough, and compare the handlebars to those of a standard roadbike, you should also notice that the handlebars are in a much lower position as well. This allows the rider to obtain a good aerodynamic position on his bicycle, since wind resistance plays a large role in the force a cyclist must overcome.

After we got the TT bikes ready, we headed out to the other side of town to the race course. As soon as we stepped out of the van we could feel the strong winds blowing against us. I held out Daniel’s Blackwell wheel in front of me to see how it would move in the wind – it moved like a sail, so Daniel opted for a shallow rimmed wheel instead. After we looked at the start times, we saw that Clay would go first, Daniel second, and I last. We took out the equipment and Clay warmed up on his trainer, while I sat in the van and waited for my start time to come up.

The waiting area for the stage.

After Clay and Daniel started, I used the trainer to warm up myself. My legs felt dead tired from the hill climb earlier in the day, but I knew I would need to put in a hard effort to keep up with everyone else. In a little less than an hour, Clay came back and told me that he put in a hard effort into his ride, and had hopes of taking the stage. A few minutes later Daniel came back and told me he had passed five people, but unfortunately got passed himself by the leader of the GC, putting him further behind. However, with Daniel’s strong ride, he would likely remain in second place and in contention for the overall GC.

Varela in his skinsuit.

When my start time came up, we lined up in reverse order of the GC. There were about fifteen people in front of me, and I would be starting in the first third of the start order. Fortunately, most of the people came without TT bikes so the race would mostly be fair. However, I did see a few riders decked out with TT bikes and they would definitely have an advantage. Why would Cat 5 riders have $2,000-$10,000 bikes just for time trials? It could be the case that some of them came from triathlons and were new to road racing, or maybe they had TT bikes for some other reason. I had my own clip-on aerobars but I’ve never ridden with them so I decided not to use them.

Dalton warming up.

As soon as I started I could feel the crosswind blowing my bike to the left so I had to try to keep myself upright lest I be blown over. So, I kept my hands on the hoods of my levers instead of in the drops, which in retrospect I should have kept in the drops as to maintain an aero position. Before I made the first left hand turn into the headwind I happened to be passed by my 30-second man…he would go on to have a respectable ride.

A rider on the course.

Even though the wind was blowing at 25mph into my face, I was able to maintain 16mph and I decided to keep the rhythm until the u-turn. Looking back, I probably could have done 17 or even 18, but since it was my second time trial, I hadn’t yet fine-tuned my pacing for these types of races. Anyway, after about a mile I saw another rider over the horizon and I used him as a carrot. At first I thought it was the rider who caught me, so I didn’t think I would catch him. However, as I got closer it appeared to be my 90-second man and I passed him easily. As soon as I passed him I saw another rider on the horizon and it seemed that he was going even slower than the rider I passed, so I passed him about a minute later. After that, I immediately saw another rider so I paced myself to catch him before the tailwind, as I knew that I would probably lose a lot of time in the tailwind.

As we took the roundabout at the u-turn, I passed my third rider…so I knew that I at least wasn’t in last place! At the halfway point I had been passed by one rider with aerobars, and I passed three riders, which exceeded my expectations (my goal was to pass one). The wind was so strong that I was able to ride at about 34 mph on the way back! I maxed out my gears and was spinning at a cadence of about 100 so I really couldn’t go any faster (my max gear was 53/12. Immediately I knew I would lose time to those who had higher gear setups, such as 50/11, 53/11, or even 55/11 on TT bikes.

On the way back I was flying, but the riders on TT bikes were flying even faster, and I got passed by four more riders on the way back…all on TT bikes. I was puzzled at first, but after a little thought the situation became clear. Air resistance increases exponentially with the velocity of the rider. Therefore, at higher speeds (such as in the tailwind), the aerodynamic benefits of aero equipment are much greater. Anyways, I didn’t get passed by any riders on normal bikes, to my relief. One of the positive things about the race is that I recorded my fastest ever solo 16-mile effort at 19 mph. The only bad thing about the race is that I stayed in the hoods the whole time and I could have done better if I had stayed in the drops. However, I know that I am getting better through looking at my data. Thus, so far I seem to be on track.

After the stage I was a little giddy that I actually passed a person, though a little dismayed at getting passed. I talked to one of the guys who finished near me on the Hill Climb and he told me that he had also gotten passed by all the riders on TT bikes, to his astonishment. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t show up at tomorrow’s road race. After I said goodbye, we drove back to the cabin to clean ourselves up before dinner.

For dinner we ate at a place called The Chuck Wagon, and I got a full barbecue plate with brisket, roasted chicken, sausage, ribs, Texas toast, and fries. It had to have had more than 2,000 calories in it. However, it was the best barbecue that I have ever had and it was rich and smoky in flavor. After eating dinner we went back to the Cabin, hit the hay, and awaited the results that would be posted the following morning.

Hey,

This is a race report of the first stage of Hammerfest, the hill climb up Mt. Locke to the McDonald Observatory. This route would take us up the highest paved road in the state of Texas! This would be a real test of my climbing abilities since it’s the only race in Texas that has a climb longer than five miles in length (the hills in Austin are more like “bumps,” nothing much longer than half a mile). Today had two stages of racing. First was a 16 mile hill climb that went uphill the entire way. The second stage would take place later in the day, a 16 mile time trial that went uphill for the first half, and downhill for the second half.

So, the morning of the race, Daniel, Clay, and I woke up at 5:30 to catch breakfast at the Ranch mess hall. I hadn’t slept well that night for a number of reasons, mainly due to the excitement of the next day, but also because I drank a lot of coffee to keep me up the while I drove the day before. I ate a big breakfast, and came back to our cabin to see Clay warming up on his trainer and Daniel getting dressed, as the two of them would start about an hour earlier than I would. After about half an hour Daniel and Clay both left the room for the starting line, which would happen in town about five miles away. After they left, I got ready, spent about 20 minutes warming up on Clay’s trainer, and then left.

Clay warming up before the hill climb.

As I worked my way downhill, it was quite chilly since it was still about 8:00 in the morning. Since I was heading east, the sun was shining very brightly and it was kind of hard to see. This was actually one of my favorite parts of my time at Fort Davis since the ride to town was quiet, peaceful, and the landscape was beautiful. About halfway to town I saw Daniel’s group, Category 4, headed uphill on a small roller. Daniel was in front and looked good.

Daniel getting ready to leave.

When I reached town, there were a lot of cyclists there warming up. Most of them were Cat 5 like me, and there were some Masters and Juniors wandering around as well. When I lined up, I chatted with another Cat 5 rider who had a Pinarello Prince, one of the bikes I was looking to buy for my graduation (I ended up getting a Gary Fisher Cronus Ultimate, if anyone’s curious).  He asked me if I had done the Texas 4000, to which I responded that I hadn’t. I asked him if he had done it, but he told me that he hadn’t and that it was his girlfriend who had ridden it. It turns out that he had gone to UT and graduated four years ago, and now works as a real estate consultant. He told me that before he rode his prince, he had a Galileo and an FP2, so I guess he was a Pinarello fan. Since it’s only been 4 years since he’s graduated, this gives me hope that I’ll be able to buy a fancy bike in four years time, too.

My numbers.

When the race started, I tried to make sure to do most of the things that Daniel and Clay told me before the race: stay in front, and react appropriately during selections (selections are when some riders get dropped for various reasons). The entire 16 miles would be uphill, though the first 10 miles would be at a shallow gradient. So, as we headed out we reached a few rollers. Unfortunately, some people tried attacking on the first little hill and the pack reacted by accelerating and chasing them down. Stupid move! If people hadn’t chased them down, we would have conserved our energy and the people in the lead group would tire themselves out, as 45 people working together are better than 5 people working together. It’s typical for a Cat 5 race, however, as most people are on edge and unaware of pack dynamics.  Thus, I was already somewhat uncomfortable after the first acceleration.

After the pace had calmed down somewhat, I noticed that the pack was only taking up a fraction of the road, so I went down the left side of the pack and made my way towards the front of the peloton. A rider let me in and I was in a perfect spot in about 5th position. It was about that time that I saw Clay heading back downhill as he had already finished his race. He was smiling and I took that as a good sign. A few minutes later, we in the front were taking turns doing work and I made sure I didn’t do any pulls that lasted longer than thirty seconds.

I noticed that racing at the front had several advantages. First of all, it’s much smoother at the front and the accelerations and decelerations are much less dramatic. I’m not sure if this were the case because we were taking it easy before the gradients got tough, or because I was in front. Nevertheless, being in the front was a pleasant experience and I’ll be sure to stay up there in my other races.

About 2 miles before the big hill, I saw Daniel coming back after he had finished. As I took my final pull I didn’t really up the pace much (I kept it at about 21 mph), but I looked back and I had accidentally gapped the peloton. They had slowed down! So I waited for them to come back up and the guy who caught me said that he thought I was attacking. I laughed and I got behind his wheel.

About 200 meters before the big hill, a small rider charged away from the pack and climbed up the hill at a very fast pace. He looked as if he were 16 years old, and I’m guessing he came from one of the youth squads. Unfortunately for him, however, he had a pedal malfunction and pulled over as we crested the first hard section of the climb. The pace was intense. I had lost about 10 places after the first hard section, and we regrouped during the false flat (a section of pavement that’s not flat, but has a shallower gradient that riders use to recover). However, during the second hard section I cracked and I found myself dangling off the back. I knew I had enough energy to stay with the pack, but if I had gone into the red zone, I was scared that I would blow up.

So, I slid back and took a breather, and climbed the rest of the way at my own pace. A group of about four riders caught me and I got on their wheel so they could pace me. The rest of the way was absolutely grueling. If any of you are familiar with the hills in Austin, it’s like putting 10 Mesa climbs back to back, and then adding two Jester climbs on top (For those of you from where I’m from, it’s like multiplying Kemah bridges 15 times, with the last two at twice the gradient).

I was hoping that the four of us would work together, but that really wasn’t the case. Aerodynamics don’t play as much of a factor uphill, so most of us were just swapping places in an unorganized fashion. To be honest, my legs really weren’t hurting at all in terms of fatigue. Most of the riders I was with had compact cranks and they were spinning with a higher cadence than I was. I was in the lowest gearing on my bike and I was spinning at a cadence of around 60 rpm. I could have spun at a higher cadence, if I actually had the gears to do so. If I had a compact crank, I probably would have been able to go a little faster.  Excuses aside, I told myself that I only had a few miles left and that I’d be done in no time.

After about 15 miles, 5 miles of uphill suffering, I had reached the final mile, which was the climb to the McDonald observatory. The gradient was a whopping 17%. This is the same as Jester Hill in Austin, of which I did repeats in training, but I had never done a climb of this gradient on top of a much longer climb of a slightly less gradient.

There was a shallow section right before the climb, so I took a drink of water and dug into my suitcase of courage. I was surprised that some racers actually gave up and started walking! I told myself that I did not come to Fort Davis to be walking my bike in a race, so I used the opportunity to gain a few spots on the GC (the “General Classification,” which is the competition to have the least cumulative time over all the stages).

As I worked my way up with a ridiculous cadence of 40 RPM, the spectators on the side of the road were cheering and telling me that it was worth it. So, I just kept telling myself that it’d be over soon. When I reached the final 200 meters I knew I would make it, but that was the hardest 200 meters in my life. I saw another rider about to finish so I dug deep and sprinted past him to gain another spot on the GC, and finished.

At the top of the hill I took a few minutes to catch my breath, and then headed back 16 miles to Prude Ranch. It turns out that I finished 34th of about 50 starters, so I did finish in front of a handful of people. I was kind of dismayed as I wish I had stayed longer with the pack. However, I knew that I had two stages left and had I blown up, I might have been out of commission for the other two stages. I’m suspecting that I may not be a pure climber, but since I’m light I’m sure that as I get stronger I will find myself to be one of the better climbers during races. Of the things that I did poorly, I can’t really say I did anything wrong race-wise. It was simply a matter of conditioning. I’m just not that strong of a rider…yet. Of the things I did well, I stayed in the front for a good amount of time, so my positioning was very good for the beginning of the race. Also, I felt much more comfortable riding in a pack, so my handling skills have improved. As for the others, when I got back to the cabin, Daniel told me that he got 2nd, and Clay got 10th, not bad for a 180 lb. rider! Daniel and Clay were both about a minute behind on the GC, so they were in a very good position to make up time in the TT, since they’re both strong while racing against the clock.