Rough Stuff at the Rouge

At 4 am the alarm went off and the first thing I thought was "it's really 3 am." As if 4 am wasn't bad enough, we'd switched to DST that morning, losing one badly needed hour of sleep. Fortunately I had spent some time the day before getting my act together for the eleventh running of Rouge-Roubaix. I had even primed the coffee maker with some decaf, set to click on at 4:15. I was picking up Mark and Vivian along the way, and didn't want to be late since parking is always a bit of an issue at this race (it starts at a hotel parking lot). Things went remarkably smoothly and the Volvo with three bikes on its roof hit the interstate right on schedule, tucked safely in the draft behind Lawrence and Mignon. We arrived just in time to snag what were probably the last couple of parking spots in the front lot, so that was good. It was warm and humid this year - shorts and a jersey weather. This was a good omen for sure.

There were lots of NOBC riders here for this race, so we rounded up most of them for a quick group photo about ten minutes before the A race started. The bulk of our riders would be doing the "B" race (Cat. 4 and Women), so it was just Keith and me in the A race. The Metro VW team was there in force, so I knew things would get rough at some point. My usual plan for this race is to stay safe and save everything for the second gravel section at around 65 miles. Usually, the first gravel section is fast, but I've always been able to come out of that one with the main pack.

Twenty-five Miles: Well, until yesterday, that is. Gravel road #1 was really loose and dusty this year, and with the front guys pushing the pace at around 25-27 mph it felt much harder than usual. Luckily I had been able to get a good position near the front going into the gravel. We were probably less than half-way through that gravel section (it's the longest one at maybe six miles or so) when a gap opened up one or two riders ahead of me. I made the crucial mistake of not going around and closing it while I could. It was one of those gaps that doesn't look too dangerous at first but then just gradually starts to widen and before you know it, it's too big to bridge. So I found myself sitting behind this one guy who was rolling pretty well and picking good lines through the sketchy gravel, but going just a bit slower than the riders ahead of us. I guess there were about thirty ahead of us. So I took a pull at one point, dropped back behind him again and discovered there was nobody else with us. Damn! When we finally got back to the asphalt I looked back and saw a few riders chasing, so we rather quickly established a group of five riders that included Diego. Way up the road, about a minute up, we could see another group of about a dozen. The lead group was gone, gone, gone. Now the real work was about to start.

Usually I count on this long stretch between the first and second gravel sections to recover in the draft of a nice big group. This time, though, we were in full-on team time trial mode for about twenty miles until, with a final surge, we finally closed in on the other group. We were only five miles away from the second gravel section and I was quite worried that the effort of the chase might have taken too much out of me for the upcoming climb. At this point I think our group constituted the second group. There were three (or four?) Herring riders in this group and they were still focused on the lead group that was apparently still visible occasionally way up the road. The lead group must have had twenty to twenty-five riders I guess. (Haven't seen the results yet.)

Sixty-five Miles: We hit the second gravel section with its long steep climb and as usual things shattered. I was absolutely thrilled to make it over the top of this one without blowing up, and for the rest of this section I was riding with a few other riders. At one point I got kind of forced out of line on a sketchy downhill and got into the really deep loose stuff near the edge of the road. I came about as close as you can come to going down without actually doing it. In fact, the guy who was in the following car, which at the time was right behind us, found me at the finish line to comment on how he was sure I was going down and couldn't believe I'd managed to save it. When we got off of this section the group I was with was down to maybe seven riders and right away it got organized into a nice smooth paceline where everybody was pulling. My legs were feeling reasonably good. The last gravel road, with it's impossibly steep climb, was coming up fast.

Eighty Miles: Although the first gravel section had been really loose and sandy, the last one was excellent this year. Much of the road was kind of hard-packed dirt with random patches of gravel and sand, so at least there were places where you could get some traction. As always, this was the hardest effort of the race for me, and there were a few times where I was right at my limit in the 39x25, but somehow I made it over the top and fell in with a few other riders. When we had hit that first climb, Woody made one last effort, said something to Frank, and lurched to a stop. After having chased down the early break and working at the front protecting his remaining teammates, he was done for the day. We exited this section with, I think, four riders, one of whom didn't last too long, so for the last fifteen miles there were just three of us - Frank Moak, me, and another rider (who was looking relatively strong). Once again, it was team time trial mode for me and we quickly got a nice even rotation going, passing a couple of stragglers from the lead groups along the way. It was clear, though, that we were all starting to fade. Our speed, which had started out around 23 mph, was steadily dropping, and with ten miles to go we were struggling to hold 20-21 mph on average, and the climbs were really starting to hurt. Somewhere around 90 miles in I started skipping a pull here and there to try and recover. I didn't care at all how I placed among this group, I just wanted to avoid at all costs having to ride the last stretch solo.

One Hundred Miles: When my computer showed 100 miles I was starting to get some cramping on the inside of my legs. I was sitting on Frank's wheel and as we went up a little climb he looked over and apologized. I told him I was starting to cramp up myself and was just trying to hang on to the finish. As he slowed, I rolled slowly past him. The other guy who was with us was already a few bike lengths ahead of us, apparently focused on catching a lone rider who was hovering half a minute up the road. I thought I might be able to gradually pull us back up there. Well, I think Frank kind of sat up at that point, because the next thing I knew I was alone and I was definitely not catching either of the two guys ahead of us. There were only a few miles left to go, so I figured I'd just try and maintain a steady pace. When you're that tired it's almost as hard to slow down as it is to speed up. You just get kind of locked into this one speed. So I finally finished somewhere in the 4:42 neighborhood, I think, which I guess was respectable.

I waited with Keith, who finished not long afterward (he crashed on the second gravel road) at the finish line hoping to see Ed and Brady and Steve and the rest of our Cat. 4s finish. There was a little sprint for the lead Cat. 4 group, but none of them were there. What really impressed me was to see Casey Gale from Metro VW finish third in this group. She can't weigh more than 110 and looks like she's barely old enough to drink. The future of U.S. women's road racing is looking pretty good. Anyway, as it turned out, Ed and Brady had made an early break and I guess were going pretty good until Ed broke his chain on the second gravel section. Not much you can do about that except to climb into the follow car. I'm not sure what the finish order was for our guys in the Cat. 4 and Womens races were. I know Ed K. had to drop out after an asthma attack (the pollen and dust were pretty bad), and of course Ed. N. couldn't finish.

So we're all back at the finish line trading stories about who crashed (a lot of people) and who flatted (even more people), and eating pastalaya and drinking beer and I'm still looking for Vivian who hasn't shown up yet. After a while I spot the officials, who had just arrived back at the hotel parking lot, a mile or so from the finish line, where the awards were being done. I walk over and ask about Vivian and just get this blank look, when I hear someone talking loudly and look up. It's Vivian rolling into the parking lot asking "where is the finish line?" Well, it appears that the officials decided to shut down the finish line at like 7 hours after the first group had started, so when Viv came through a short time later there was no finish line, no officials, no clock, etc. She was left wondering if she'd missed a turn or something. Anyway, the official looked up and wrote her name down on the results sheet, so at least she didn't get DNF'd. As it turned out, Viv had flatted in the first few miles of the race and had ridden most of it alone. On the way home she asked me to remind her next year that she never wants to ride this race again. Yeah, right.....

Addendum: Full results