No. 22 Fort Davis HAMMERFEST Stage Three Road Race: Report

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