Tripleshot Cycling

Alex, Evan, and I pre-road the course for the road race. The shade of the trees that creeped over the road was chilling, but the rolling open farmland road was the perfect canvas for the sun to paint us with its warmth. We met with Jim and Brenna and continued to scout the last part of the race. A sharp corner cut into a direct uphill that shot to the finish line. The hill wasn’t steep, wasn’t long, and not particularly hard. But this corner and hill would be my undoing.

We finished our ride and lined up in the C group who stood behind the B’s, who were behind the A’s. There was a large number of C’s more than 20 by my eyes, so I pushed up as far to the start line as I could, eventually settling between my cousin Andrew, and McLovin. We were told the race would be 8 laps, and other various details.

Rolling across the start line the pace was immediately fast, possibly generating from the sandbagging track riders who race A at the velodrome. The group ripped along the flat roads, but nearly coming to a standstill at every corner, each rider fighting to be first through. After clearing the bends, a full gas sprint would begin, as a means to catch up with the lucky riders that made it through before us.

The pace began slow down to a calm group ride feel once we emerged onto the country roads, but the sprint pattern repeated through every corner, like a great spandex accordion. By Lap 4 I still felt good, and was riding well in the first half of the front group. Then we made my way through into that sharp corner that turned into the hill.

As I was about to turn I heard the sound of scraping metal, racers screaming crash, and the loud gunshot of a tire blowing up. I entered the turn, and then swerved to avoid the fallen rider. Before I knew it, the group had disappeared up the hill. I hammered along the flats with some dropped riders, yelling at them to organize ourselves into a pace line to fight our way back. But the group crumbled, and it was only myself and another rider left.

We worked for 2 laps together, but then on that same hill he said it was useless and he was done, I guess it was the straw that broke the camels back. I encouraged him to keep going, and that we could do it if we worked as a team. He laughed and muttered “yeah right” at me, then pulled to the side of the road and quit.

But I kept riding, leapfrogging from piece to piece of the shattered back half of the C group. Eventually I made my way to the second big C group, the one directly behind the first group. We raced half a lap together, and then got the bell, 1 lap to go, we could do it.

We hammered through the last lap and came to the hill, people began there sprints, and I waited till halfway up the hill then made my move, going clear off the front. I crossed the line with a sizeable gap, but it was merely a shadow of what could have been if things had gone differently. Oh well, that’s bike racing, and plus, I had a lot of fun.
-Duncan Grant
2012-03-25