I’m sitting on the plane heading home from Toronto. I’ve got six hours to kill and my computer battery says I have 5 hours and 1 minute of power so sit back relax, get a beer or soda and settle in for some reading. As distasteful as my lack of brevity is to Mick, I’ll encourage him to read on because he gets some honourable mention at a point in my missive (notice the Canadian spelling in honour of my citizenship and in recognition of July 1st, Canada Day, the 144th).
After winning the time trial on Thursday, some might consider the pressure off but I dearly wanted to do the double so I set about readying myself for the somewhat considerable task at hand. For me that meant course reconnaissance to plan strategy and the continued commitment to Kevin Metcalfe’s tried and true process of resting for championship events. In other words none of that Rob Anderson nonsense of five to six hour rides in the days before a big race. I tried Kevin’s approach starting a year ago and I am a true convert and disciple of it with the best results in such events in my career since embracing it.
So it was fourteen laps of the road race course in the two and a half days since the time trial. That’s only about six hours of easy recovery riding in that 72 hour period between races, the equivalent of a few minutes more than my daily training rides back home. It leaves me itching to race.
I had pretty much every inch of the race course memorized; 11 ½ kilometers, the first 5 ½ climbing the roughly 500 foot ascent to the top of the course and the last 5 ½ descending to the finish line. There was a hill near the end of the climb that probably averaged about 3% to 4% for 2 kilometers, a brief respite of 200 meters and then another kick at about 3% for another ½ kilometer before topping out. Of potentially major significance, especially for me, was the final 500 meters before the line, a sweeping descent that did a left/right chicane and then a 150 meter kick at about 5% to the line. I also realized on my reconnaissance that the wind was likely to be a factor and come race day it was blowing about 20 kilometers an hour.
Another item of note that needs mentioning is my cool new Specialized S-Works Roubaix SL3. Chris DeLusio blessed me with it about a month ago and it is the perfect bike for me, geometry and size seem custom made. I also decided to treat myself to an exotic present, something I hadn’t done for four or five years. Mick and I used to find all kinds of trick stuff and test it all. Some worked and some didn’t but since Mick went back to work and as the economy has taken its toll, I make do with what I’ve got, until now. With levels of guilt I haven’t felt since that first time I lied to my mother, I graced the Roubaix with Di2. I tested it in a race for the first and only time at Pescadero and, like I told my embarrassed teenage daughters, it was like having sex, not a feeling you usually get from riding a bike.
When you’re all by yourself with days between races and you’re as annually retentive as I am, everything is checked with a fine tooth comb and no stone is left unturned in preparing for a National Championship. I was ready to race!
It was a hot one, nothing like Louisville last summer but at race time it was about 89 degrees. Because the course was close to my hotel, I did my usual warm up in my air conditioned room. Then strapped on my new ice vest with the special attachment for cooling the hypothalamus and headed for the start.
I had a plan. One that was part related to words of guidance from John Hunt and also those from Mick. After getting my ass kicked in the finale at Pescadero two weeks ago by Chris Wire because I lollygagged up the first 1 ½ kilometers of Haskins even knowing I couldn’t respond to Chris’s finishing kick and getting a miserable third, John Hunt told me told me something I never considered in a bike race, “remember who you are!” He reminded me again on Thursday after the time trial, it’s my new mantra. Mick’s advice on how to win was more familiar and something that comes natural to me, “make it hard, hurt them every chance you get!”
Sixty three guys at the start, I was friends with a few from Canadian Nationals over the past half dozen years and had familiarized myself with a few key others. It’s the benefit of having the time trial before the road race. I had the numbers taped to my top tube of anyone who was within a minute of me in the time trial.
I waited until the first time up the 2 kilometer kicker and went to the front and went hard. I didn’t want to get away alone, just wanted to “make it hard”. It left half the race behind at the top of the course. We screamed down the descent, it was a little bumpy. These roads suffer tough winters in eastern Canada and the surfaces reflect it. As the descent flattened a bit I shifted from my biggest gear… Wait a minute; I shifted from my biggest gear? No I didn’t. My drive train wasn’t shifting! My drive train wasn’t f*#@% shifting!
Now for those of you who know what happens when your Di2 battery dies, you probably know what’s going through my mind. For those that don’t, the derailleurs automatically shift to the biggest gears and stay there, permanently! To almost coin a David Bowie song lyric, it was panic near Detroit (you see Detroit is just across the lake from Toronto). What do I do now? Can I ride the entire race in my biggest gear? No frickin’ way. Can I see any wires hanging loose? Nope. Press the button to see if I can get any response, nothing. Press it again, and again, and again…, nothing.
We’re now getting to the 150 meter kicker near the start finish line. I’ll give it a try. I can barely turn the cranks by the time I reach the line, then I am swarmed by the pack. How can I possibly make it up that 2 kilometer climb in a real bike race? My friend Sylvan, who won the road race last year, rides past me and knows what’s happened. He offers his condolences.
All kinds of crazy thoughts are going through my mind. One lap into the championship and am I headed for home. No way in hell. I’ve got to figure this out, and quick. I put my hand up to signal for neutral support. Surely they carry a spare Di2 battery. They pull up beside me and I ask them. They look at me like I’m speaking Russian or like I’m kidding. Of course the answer is no. I decide to remove the battery and then put it back while I am riding, but to do so I have to get rid of my bottles. I can’t ditch them in this heat with another 2 ¼ hours of racing to go. I ask the neutral to hold my bottles while I try to remove the battery, no easy task when, with every pedal stroke, the crank arm crushes my hand.
I can see the peloton heading out of sight so it’s now or never. I get the rhythm down of turning the crank and working the battery between strokes. I get the battery clamp loose and pull the battery away from its contact and snap it back down. I put the clamp on and joyfully see a green light on the console. I try a shift. It works!!! I am back in business baby!!
I call the neutral support back and they see a big smile on my face and know what’s happened. They give me my bottles back with some sage advice, “don’t panic, they’re not far up the road, you can get there without killing yourself”. My response with all the adrenaline cursing through my veins, “I’m going to win this f*%#ing race!”
Slowly I pull them back. I reach them just before the start of the crucial climb. I catch my breath for 30 seconds and then attack with everything I’ve got right from the back. They can’t respond and I get a good 200 meter gap by the top of the climb. On the descent, I get my senses back and realize I’ve got 6 ½ laps to go and it’s windy. I need some help.
Somehow I need to draw a few guys out and have them bridge up to me, so the next time we hit that climb I tempo it. I look back and see a yellow and black jersey coming across. Now on the podium of the time trial, the bronze medalist, who was 10 seconds behind me in the time trial, wore the same jersey I see coming up behind me. If it’s him, this would be perfect, a strong man to work with me. I let up and he catches on. Sure enough it’s him. He asks me how I feel and I say “I feel great, do you want to work with me?” With a strong affirmative, we begin the task of putting distance between us and the rest of the race.
He was a perfect partner, pulling as long and as hard as me, never missing a turn. He’s strong too. Keeping in mind Mick’s advice, I push it hard every time up the climbs. I test him a few times, he loses a few feet from my wheel when I do but always fights hard not to lose contact. I still need him so never hit it so hard that I discourage his work.
With two laps to go, we get a time check, it’s three minutes. The race is now just between us two. How do I win?
This being Canada, fair play is the norm. After all, we kick the crap out of each other in hockey games and shake hands immediately after and go drinking together. I’m torn with this in my upbringing. This guy is playing fair and so should I.
On lap seven I decide to go really hard up the climbs but not pimp him by sitting in just before and attacking him. From what I’ve seen so far in our break, I think I just might crack him. If it doesn’t work, I also think the finish suits me. He bends but doesn’t break. I can get no more than maybe 10 feet on him then he comes back on over the top. Same plan on the final lap, same result.
Okay, now it’s time to execute the finale, I need to be second wheel coming into the chicane. Job done.
He kicks at the last part of the chicane. I hold his wheel easy. He sits up. I sit up. Cool, he doesn’t seem to have a plan. He starts to go again at the bottom of the 150 meter climb to the finish. I’m having an easy time on his wheel.
It’s time to go with everything I’ve got! I pull off of his wheel away from the wind on his right and start my sprint. I hear him shift gears but it sounds like more than shifting gears. It doesn’t matter. Head down going as hard as I can I look under my left arm and see nothing. With 20 meters to go I take a chance and glance over my left shoulder and he’s not there. I cross the line with the color commentator screaming my name, my first Canadian road racing championship; I am fried but feel no pain.
I wait for him to come across the line and he tells me he dropped his chain going to the small ring. Bummer, I feel sorry for him, I’ve been there and done that.
So from going from the devastating thought of having to quit with a mechanical to winning a strange finale, it was a good week in Canada. I took deux!!!
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