I ended the Peace Race in 2008 by hitting the pavement and consequently smashing into a house.
I ended the Peace Race in 2009 by laying on the pavement thoroughly exhausted after finishing the last stage in the lead group.
The Peace Race is often called the "Tour de France" of junior racing because it is long, hilly, and extremely fast. After my ordeal last year, I came in to the race with the mindset of holding on and finishing. This strategy did not work especially well and I ended up finishing in the main group every day, never giving myself the chance to move up on GC. Below is a stage-by-stage description of the race: I apologize in advance for the length, each stage was very interesting!
Stage 1: Litomerice-Litomerice; 90km, 1540m of climbing
After a short 20 minute ride in the morning, stage one started at 2:30 in the town centre of Litomerice, Czech Republic. The roads were wet and rain was threatening all race, but that did not stop the 120 rider field (comprised of 20 national teams, 6 riders per team) from drilling it at the gun. There were three KOM sprints on course, one per lap, the first coming 15km into the race. Going up the first climb (a 5k drag with some steep pitches), I felt terrible and was at one point terrified of being dropped. I concentrated on spinning the lightest gear possible and once over the climb, I made sure I ate and drank regularly to try and recover for climb number two. My conserving tactic worked and I felt better up the second climb and as we hit the third and final climb, it was gruppo compacto. I followed a move by an Italian at the bottom of the climb, but we didn't get anywhere because I was still in the conserve mindset and didn't want to work too hard. Attacks were flying from all teams, but the tempo was fast enough that no one got away. With 1km to go to the top of the climb, a Czech rider attacked and got a gap with 10 other riders. I jumped hard with 500m to go and bridged the gap with a Belgian rider and all of a sudden we had 15 guys off the front and a 30 second gap. The Russians and Portuguese drilled it at the front of our group, but with 10-15km to the finish, we were brought back. Soon after the peloton was back together, a group of six riders snuck off the front and finished 30 seconds up on our chasing peloton. I should have anticipated the counter and I had the legs to follow, but none of the USA riders were in position to follow the move and we were unable to bridge. It was a hard stage, but all 6 USA riders finished in the group and none of us blew fuses for day two.
Stage 2: Most-Most; 93km, 1405m of climbing
Wow, what a stage. After 18 flat and rolling kilometers, the road turned up and climbed close to 600m in 9km. There was an intense and sketchy battle for position on the run in to the climb. I was sitting in the back third of the pack throughout most of the 18k run in, which I knew was terrible position, but I managed to hop onto a sidewalk and jump up to the front just as the road turned up. A break went from the bottom of the climb with the polka-dot jersey and a Russian, so I sat in the top 5 riders and rode as steadily as possible. The climb just kept going and going, but I had good legs and managed to stay in the front group of 25 riders over the top of the climb. The rest of team USA was missing in action, however, and unfortunately my teammate Andrew Barker, who had been riding strongly, crashed 10k into the race (going 65k/h!) and was out of position going into the climb. Since I was alone, I sat in and did no work, until Ian Boswell managed to catch back on to our group which eventually ended up being 42 riders. I followed some moves in the rolling section of the course (the course rolled after the climb before dropping back down to the start city), but again kept holding back from overly exerting myself in the breaks. Looking back, I was too focused on feeling good rather than racing hard. I had much better legs than I thought and even after a hard stage and following a lot of attacks, I was relatively fresh. Like yesterday, a group rolled off the front with about 10km to go and USA missed it. Boz and I finished in the main field, moving up to 27th and 44th overall. A good time trial could put us in the top 20.
Stage 3a: TT; 12km
Unfortunately we did not put in great TT's. I went out too hard up the climb and finished 34th, 56 seconds down on the leader. My time was decent and last year I would have finished 13th with my time, but the field this year was much deeper than last year's. I moved into 29th overall though and was really happy with my improvement from last year at this time, when I was 79th, 19 minutes down! There were still opportunities to move up with three more road stages left.
Stage 3b: Roudnice-Roudnice; 100km, 1100m of climbing
Not a hard stage, but it was the afternoon of the TT and I was tired. I tailgunned most of the race because I knew it would not split up and, as I said, I was tired and with this field it was always a struggle to be at the front. I finished in the main field, but unfortunately a gap opened up in the field and I lost 5 seconds; I thought nothing of it at the time, but now I'm kicking myself for losing focus and not being at the front! Keep reading and you'll see... Another important part of the day was that I cramped really badly in the last 500m, which made my legs really sore for the rest of the trip. It was my only cramp of the whole race, however, which I see as an accomplishment!
Stage 4: Decin-Teplice; 91km, 1800m of climbing!
I would not hesitate to say that this was the hardest 2.5 hours of my cycling career. Copperopolis was hard and getting dropped on a similar stage last year was hard, but this stage crushes all of those. The stage started in Decin, a city in a ravine, and within 1km we were climbing out of the ravine. 5km in to the race there was a KOM sprint (3km of that 5km averaged 12%!), but after the sprint the road kept climbing and gaining elevation for 25 more kilometers. Also after the KOM, the road turned westward and we were plummeted with a brutal crosswind. Uphill+crosswind=suffering in the gutter. I was completely red-lined for that first 30km, hanging on for dear life. At 30km into the race, we dropped back down into the ravine; the decent was crazy: smoke flew up from brakes on carbon wheels, guys crashed everywhere, and we hit a max speed of 90km/h! At the bottom of the 5k decent, we looped back around and climbed back up 400 vertical meters back to the top of the ridge. I was hanging on to the back of the 40 man group by the top of this second climb and was definitely suffering after three days of racing and a cramp. Similarly to the first climb, after this second KOM, the road kept climbing and the crosswind picked up intensity for 25 more km. Finally, with 20km to go, we descended back down to the valley. The descent was again completely insane. The road was dry and a break of 12 was up the road, so we bombed down the descent, reaching a top speed of 93.4km/h! Once at the bottom of the descent, there was an unmarked climb that split the field. I made the front split of 10 guys and my heartrate went through the roof as I hung on for dear life. With 4km to go, some riders caught back on and the group was 40-50 strong. I attacked with 4km to go, but I saw 3km to go while I was solo off the front and I knew I couldn't hold it. I slowed slightly and the pack caught me. The group had 4 USA riders, so we covered as many moves as we could and Jake finished 6th in the sprint and I finished 34th. Really tough day, but I moved up to 25th overall. Considering I was "on the rivet" from kilometer zero, I was very happy to have survived and it gave me new confidence going in to the last stage that I could do more than just finish in the pack.
Stage 5: Terezin - Litomerice - Terezin; 101km, 1850m of climbing
If Stage 4 was my hardest 2.5 hours on a bike, then Stage 5 was certainly close behind, but the course had more short climbs rather than the long crosswind "rollers", which offered more rest after the hard efforts. We did four laps of a circuit consisting of a 2k climb at 10% and a 5k climb at 5-6%. Like yesterday, I felt like crud for the first lap and a half, but my legs started to come around as the laps got harder. On the third lap, with three climbs to go, I took the right hand turn onto the 5k climb in third position and then punched it. Since that turn went from a larger two-lane road to a super narrow, steep, and gravel-covered section of road, the pack had to come through two at a time, stringing out the peloton. My attack out of the turn was followed by a Dutch rider, but the rest of the peloton had no reaction. Noticing our gap, I finally got over my fear of expending myself and stomped out the fastest tempo that I could. A Pole, Italian, and Portuguese rider bridged up to our group and, with 1km to go to the top of the climb, those three riders attacked and built up a 15 second gap. I was just riding my tempo as fast as I could and was unable to lift the pace and follow their attack. Little did I know that the Polish rider was 3rd on GC, so the pack was now hard on our heels. I made up time on the descent and had 45 seconds on the field (putting me top 10 on GC on the road), so I chased hard on the penultimate climb to catch the leaders. My little group still did not make contact with the leaders after cresting the climb, so we kept chasing. The Russian who was 2nd overall at the beginning of the stage then came roaring by us, screaming in Russian for us to help him get to the lead group. I did not do any work and let him pull me up, but the field was hard on our heels. Right at the moment I though we had been caught, the Russian and the Dutch rider jumped our group and managed to bridge to the leaders. I was pissed at myself for missing that move, especially since their group finished 51 seconds ahead of the peloton. However, I don't know if I could have made it over the final climb with the leaders. The last climb in the peloton was a struggle; a battle with my bicycle. I dug really deep and was very pleased to stay with the peloton even after my 15km breakaway attempt. I ended up finishing in the pack, but a crash split the group into three pieces. I was in the middle portion and lost 3 seconds to the front of the peloton. I ended up dropping to 26th on GC, missing out of top 25 and the prize money by 2 seconds! That's why I'm kicking myself for missing that 5 seconds on stage 3! USA finished 26th, 30th, 47th, and 55th on GC with 2 DNF's. Not terrible for such a hard race.
That's the main moral of the story: every second counts. I lost focus for awhile and looking back it's really easy to second guess and wish I had done things differently. Overall, though, I am excited about my form and learned a ton about stage racing and about my own limits. Stay tuned for a race report on 3-Etappen Rundfahrt this weekend! Thanks to Specialized for supplying my bike, helmet, TT helmet, shoes and sunglasses and SRAM for the components. I did not have even a trace of a mechanical!
