Having been a regular over at MTBR.com for quite some time, I've found myself drifting over here once in a while to 'browse' misc. road topics. Since having gotten serious about MTBike racing this year, I've been training on the road bike a lot. I raced this past spring in a very cool local race, "The Galisteo Spring Classic", both a TT and a RR. I was fascinated by the pack mentality, having been used to the predominantly solo aspect of mtbike racing. We basically rode the entire 1st 2/3rd's of the race before the last turn, then WHAM! Drag race! In that one I actually charged off the front to initiate an initial chase to then get the stronger guy on our team out there. Came in 10th or so, after being dropped with a tailwind, fast rolling hills, and 52-12 gearing! Doh.... I'm a CAT4 this year, and in NM usually race in teh "B's" with much stronger folks. This was the case this past Sunday out at the Prison Loop.

The course is on the south end of Santa Fe and winds it's way around, umm, the prison out there! The three sided triangle of a loop consisted of the I-25 frontage road (start/finish here) north, to HWY 14 south, to "Bonanza Creek Road" west back to I-25 frontage road. Unlike my MTBike race reports, sadly, this one included no photo's. I can tell you it was classic NM terrain, and some light winds heading down rte. 14. Overall lap was about 19 miles. A's did 4, B's 3, C's, D's & E's did 2. The prettiest leg was the one across Bonanza Creek Rd., but also the roughest pavement. Not too bad, but old is all. It's a rolling road through the wild west, and looks like something out of an old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, replete with a windmill, cattle, grassy/rocky hills and miles of barbed wire.

Anyhow, went out to the venue with a team mate/mtbike buddy who's way stronger than I, and more experienced. He has a spare set of wheels to boot! Who knew..... the neutral wheel car thing would have been cool, but there just not quite enough wheels today, despite a huge turnout (100 or so riders?). The A's rocket off, and us B's line start lining up, and PING! as I was turning around to head to the line, a spoke nipple snapped on my rear wheel!!! Zip back to the truck, do a wheel switch, head back to the line. *whew*. Wait! A fellow next to me points out there seems to be ar leaking out of my (open) front tire valve..... and now my tire is 1/2 full and squishy. Argh. Zip back to the truck, air up, and CLOSE the valve. Now I'm ready! Our group is about 40-45 strong it seems, and our team has 4-5 guys in the mix. We strategize to reel in ALL attacks. I volunteer to contribute earlier on, as I know toward the end of 3 laps I'll be toasted. We head out and get up to a moderate tempo pretty quickly. After about 10 minutes I feel pretty damn good! This is a surprise as I rode way to much the day before, out on a 4 hr. mtbike mini-epic, and thought I'd be toasted! It's right about here the first acceleration happpens, legs feel great and I respond fluidly. Problem was, the front of my bike felt weird..... DOH! Phucking Phlat!!! drop back through the field, have my front wheel off and wheel-guy is right there. Change the dang thing as fast as is possible, and wheel guy offers to try and pace me back on. I say OK, and proceed to draft him, get in sight of field, but once they turned onto 14, with a mild headwind, I'd been redlined for about 6-8 minutes and wave him off, DOA. I stay at my LT for a long while, but the group seems to accelerate at the base of each hill, working together. I figure I'll ljust bury myself and try to keep them in sight until we turn off the head-wind stretch and across the rolling nice stretch with some steeper rolling hills. I figure I'll stay just at my LT, attempt to recover and then blast one of the hills and hope to reel 'em in. Well, while they are still in sight, we turn onto Bonaza Creek Rd. and they dropped the hammer! On the first hill, I execute my planned "attack", accelerate, hit 98% MHR cresting the top and they have DROPPED me! At this point I all but sit up, vow to ride through the race. Other folks have to pop eventually, right? Maybe we can regroup and mount a come back.... maybe not though.

Cruise through the start/finish area, and on one long stretch of road, I can just make out the main field in the distance..... and no stragglers. Another 16-18 miles later, I'm just riding the course now, and pfffffftttttttttttttt....... another flat! Ack. Have a CO2 cyclinder and tube, repair wheel in a remarkably smooth and efficient manner, though it doesn't make a difference, and continue on. A few minutes later it occurs to me to look back, and sure enough, about 1/2 mile back is the C race! I feel a little better as I figure I can fall in.... but vaguley remeber reading something in the rules about that.... One of the strong C's on our team seems to FLY right by me, but he's opened up a good gap on the field, and I think I may have helped mess up the fields' reaction, and make a yet more obvious drop back through them to the trailing vehicle/official/wheel mobile and ask 'em what thje policy is... and sure enough I'm not allowed to hop in work with the group at all. I resolve to finish lap 2 and pull out, as it's pointless to ride the 3rd lap completely alone, possibly screwing up the A's as they come through too......

So I roll into the now sweltering hot start/finish area and change, return the spare wheel lent to me, and head for the finish line as a spectator. It's about a 20 min. before I see anyone coming. The A's are in a big group still! First, our monster A rider flies by about 1:05 ahead of the big group. I yell encouragement and check my watch. When the group rolls through I yell to one of our guys that Dave is about a minute ahead. Looks like there's some group schenanigans going on and there are some unhappy exchanges as they blow by.... so it goes in RR I've noticed! Then a little while later the B's round the last corner and the lead guys head up the slight hill to the finish. I see in the group of 5 up front, one of our fellas has survived! 1st place came through about 20 seconds ahead of the other 4, but the 4 were all close. It was about another minute until the next groups come through, then the rest of the field. In talking to some of the guys, there was an interesting fiasco out on the road..... the guy that won our group had been pulling the fornt for a while, including plucking a group out of the field, when he flatted. Got him fixed up and the wheel car paced him around the group TO THE FRONT again! Soem folks though that was a little odd, but given the strength of this guy, and how hard he worked, no one was overly P.O.'ed. He dropped the lead group shortly after anyhow!

Next time: triple check tires. Doh! Would be nice to contribute to the team after all!