OTB at Hodges - The Hell of the La.

The infamous Hodges Gardens course lived up to its reputation this weekend, reducing otherwise capable cyclists to dehydrated cramping lumps of expressionless meat. I should know. I was one of them.

Arriving at the course around 1 p.m. after a 5-hour drive, I spotted a space underneath the hay shed near the start where there was a bit of shade. Although a number of our key guys were missing, by the time everyone arrived we had a decent-sized contingent of NOBC masters, and the combined 35+/45+ field comprised about 25 riders. For a course in the middle of nowhere with dangerously bad asphalt and a reputation for abject brutality, this was a pretty good showing.

I immediately discovered that I had left my water bottles at home, but scrounged around and found a couple rolling around in the car. All bike racers have two things in their cars: water bottles and safety pins. I did a little warmup spin and didn't fail to notice that Russ W. was looking particularly psyched for this race. I also noticed that I was not, but often I get more into the race after it has started, so nothing to worry about there, right? We watched the end of the Cat. 5 race in which our teammates took 1st and 2nd, and then lined up in the sweltering heat for our start. We were due for nine laps of punishment on this course, which basically means nine climbs of the "big hill." This course is all about the big hill that comes up once every 5.4-mile lap. There have been times when I've looked for to those climbs and the inevitable attacks that they provoke. This was not one of those times, but nonetheless I was feeling OK and was ready to respond to whatever the other guys might throw down. Well, throw down they did, and on the very first time up the hill. The initial part of the climb was brisk, but not too bad, but when we hit the false-flat section I had a feeling something was about to happen. Sure enough, Russ attacked hard. I went with it, along with a few others, coming over the top I guess in the top 4 or so. As we rounded the curve everyone shifted into the big ring. Well, almost everyone. You see, when I went to shift, the lever would not budge! The combination of dry air and accumulated grunge must have played havoc with my shifters, and as the lead riders pulled away, I was left fiddling with my shifter. Finally I got it into the big ring, having drifted half-way back through the string of riders. Up the road were two riders who were pulling away and I could hear Russ on his radio encouraging his teammate to keep the pressure on. The rest of the pack seemed to be in a state of shock and confusion, not having expected an attack within the first three miles. A couple of my teammates came past and made sure I got their wheels. I remember Russ being at the front of the group letting the gap open between the two escapees and the pack. He could see that I was struggling and radioed ahead to his teammate, telling him to punch it. I started to chase, but I knew what was about to happen. Once the gap had widened enough, Russ jumped hard to bridge. I wasn't surprised and tried to go with him, but couldn't hang on. All this time I'm conscious of this awful unfamiliar noise coming from my bike. The rest of the pack started to come back together finally, but there was little effort being made to mount a serious chase.

I started looking for the source of the noise and discovered that my rear brake was so loose it was about to fall off the bike. The caliper was literally bouncing back and forth off of the rim. I thought perhaps the bolt had broken, and fearing that the whole thing would end up in my rear wheel, I dropped back where I wouldn't kill anyone if it did.

As we went through the feed zone, I asked Jason, who was feeding us after having just won the Cat. 5 race, for an allen wrench. The next time up the hill, I went to shift down to a small cog after the climb, and found that now the rear shifter was locked up. Geez! I was really about to just hang it up at that point. I guess it was the third time through the start/finish that I got the allen wrench and dropped off the back in order to try and tighten the brake bolt. It took forever - I probably should have just stopped and gotten off the bike to do it - and by the time I got going again the pack was pretty far ahead and the brake was rubbing lightly on the rim. I chased the all the way around the bottom of the course and made up a lot of time the next time up the climb, and then, of course, couldn't shift into anything smaller than the 19 tooth cog. Well, that was it! I was about ready to just quit at that point, but as I went past the start/finish Jason was there handing me up a cold water bottle, so I just settled down into an easy pace.

Every time I would come up the big hill and try to shift back down to a small cog, the shifter would hang, leaving me with a choice of either the 23 or the 21. If I kept fooling with the shifter sometimes it would eventually work. After a while, I tried spraying water from my bottle into the lever, and discovered that once it soaked in a bit the shifter would start working again UNTIL I got up to the top of the big hill. Over the remaining laps I gradually caught and passed a few riders who had blown up and ended up finishing 9th. Both the break and the field ultimately shattered before the finish. Thanks to Jason for all the water bottles. I would definitely have quit without them! Now I just needed to decide if I wanted to even start the Cat. 1,2,3 race the next day. That evening as I was eating dinner with Shane, I saw Woody and asked him if he had any spray lube, which luckily he did, so later that night I straightened out the offending brake caliper and sprayed the hell out of the shift levers. They were still sticky, but seemed a little better.

Sunday morning felt nice and I decided to go ahead and register for the Cat. 1,2,3 race with the intention of doing maybe five or six laps of the 16-lap race, basically for the exercise. At the line there were only 14 riders. Rather sad, actually. Things started out OK and the shifters were baulky but mostly functional, so I hung in until there was an attack the third time up the hill that strung things out rather badly. I wasn't really interested in going with any breaks, since I had my eyes set on that cold Coke waiting in my ice chest, and as we came over the top a little group of five riders formed. The real race was up the road, so this little group cruised on for a while, eventually dropping first one rider and then me. Having done this race before, I knew I'd never finish at their pace anyway. After a few solo laps, I eventually got together with Josh from Baton Rouge and Woody from New Orleans. Both were in pretty sad shape like me, so we kept it easy with no more of a goal than to finish. It wasn't easy. Thankfully the officials had taken on the task of feeding me water bottles! We lost Josh a couple of laps before the finish. By that time Woody and I were climbing the big hill at maybe 5-6 mph. and struggling to maintain 17 on the rare flats. I hadn't put the bike in the big ring for over an hour. On the second-to-last lap we could see one of the riders ahead of us walking his bike up the hill. When we caught up to him he said he had been cramping up on the climb. He stayed with us for a little while, but when the road flattened out a little bit he rode off, intent on snagging that placing, I guess. On the last lap we could again see him walking up the hill. So I guess we accomplished two things. We didn't have to walk up the hill, and we weren't last!