Not According to Plan

An 80 mile time trial wasn't quite what I'd been expecting, but sometimes these things happen, I guess. This is going to be a long one, so you might want to go refill your coffee cup at this time.....

The alarm had gone off promptly at 4:10 am Sunday morning, leaving me just enough time to dress, eat, make coffee, and load up the car for the trip to St. Francisville for the twelfth annual Rouge-Roubaix. I picked up Mignon right on time and we were on the road by 5, just as planned, and even with a stop for coffee in Baton Rouge (the Starbucks on College opens at 6:00!) we arrived with plenty of time to register and transfer the LAMBRA equipment to Ricky. This was partly because I latched onto the draft of Woody's truck as it flew past me at 80 mph on the interstate. It was 39F when we arrived, but the sky was clear and I knew it would warm up quickly. Most riders were going without even knee-warmers and I followed suit on that, although I still pulled on my arm warmers and an old jersey as base-layer. It was still pretty chilly for our group's start, around 8:20. The combined Women/Masters field was a nice manageable size (58 rides), the pace was moderate at best, and I rather was enjoying the novelty of having so many good women racers in the group. Right after we end of the neutral section one masters rider rolled off the front and since I happened to be on his wheel I followed. He wasn't going all that fast so I figured it would help me warm up a little. Eventually he looked back and realized the whole pack wasn't behind him. We took a couple of pulls as we waited for the rest of the group to wake up.

So things were going along according to plan. Than, when we were just 17 miles into the ride and I was starting to think about the first gravel section at 22, I felt my front tire suddenly go all squishy. Damn. I raised my arm so people could go around me as I dropped back. It was a bit of a challenge to control the bike on the rough pavement with a flat front. I glanced behind me and saw a following car, so once I got to good spot I hit the brakes, pulled over and removed my front wheel just in time to see the following car drive right past me. Huh?? I stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then I realized it wasn't the wheel truck. In fact, the wheel truck was nowhere in sight. --Game Over-- So I put the wheel back on and got rolling again, thinking I'd at least limit the damage until I could get a wheel. Unfortunately, I had to go really slowly and almost lost it a couple of times as the flat tire squirmed around on the rim. After a couple of miles of that the following car finally showed up. Someone else had flatted just before me and so they had been attending to that. The following car wasn't the one I'd put my wheels into, however, so although I got a perfectly good wheel, it didn't have a magnet so I'd have to ride the rest of the ride in Retro mode - no computer, no speedometer, and most importantly no odometer. Oh well. By then I guess I was at least ten minutes behind, so it was going to be a training ride for me.

Shortly after I'd gotten rolling again I passed the follow car pulled off to the side and noticed Jorge and Rich just getting back on their bikes. I thought one of them must have flatted and the other stayed to help. There were a couple of other guys right up the road, so I caught up to them and started looking back for Jorge and Rich. I could see a few more riders back there, including Jorge and Rich, chasing. I backed off and waited for them and pretty soon it was just the three of us. I thought, "Great! Now at least I'll have a couple of teammates to ride with." So we got a nice little paceline going for a few miles. Just before we got to the first gravel section I heard Jorge say something about the gravel, and next thing I knew he was way off the back. I think Rich dropped off just as we started the gravel, so I was on my own again. At least I was able to pick my own line! This section of unpaved road was OK, but I swear the gravel rocks were bigger than usual. They must be using a cheaper grade! As I neared the end of this 7 mile stretch I started picking up some of the riders who had lost contact with the main pack, but none of them stayed with me when I went past, so once I was back on the asphalt I was alone again. After a few miles a rider came flying past me on the left so I got out of the saddle and latched on. I thought it must be a strong rider from our group who had flatted. No such luck. I saw his number and quickly realized it was a Cat. 4 rider from the race that had started 15 minutes behind us, so I backed off a few bike lengths so I was out of the draft and just tried to hold the gap. This was good because I didn't have a speedometer. After another few miles he sat up to wait for the lead Cat. 4 group that was closing in on him, and once they passed me I figured I'd pace myself off of them too, so I positioned myself four or five bike lengths off the back alongside the motoref, and that's basically how it stayed for a long, long time. They weren't going particularly fast so I wasn't having any trouble holding the gap, but I knew I'd eventually pay for the effort.

After a while I could see a small group about 45 seconds ahead of them that had to be one of the masters/women groups. We were slowly catching them, so I figured it would be pointless to try and make the bridge solo. Once we caught, the masters were relegated to the off-the-back position like me, but at least I was back among my own kind again! A few miles before the second gravel section, two of us went past the Cat. 4s and started working together. This was probably the nicest part of the whole ride for me, but it didn't last long. We were still ahead of the 4s as we made the turn and crossed the old wooden bridge, but just as we hit the gravel I heard the lead Cat. 4s coming up fast from behind. Halfway up the long climb there was what was basically a sand trap and everyone had to dismount and walk. I had already let most of the Cat. 4s go, and since I was hopelessly off the back of my own race I wasn't really too motivated to kill myself on this section just to stay with a group I couldn't work with, so once again I was all alone. This section wasn't too bad except that between my failing eyesight and the vibration I really couldn't focus on the road on the downhills. I may as well have been riding the downhills with my eyes closed and there were more than a few "Oh Shit!" moments, but somehow I survived and emerged on the other end all alone once again. The long time trial was starting to wear on me now and my troublesome right foot was really hurting despite the $45 Specialized footbeds, but I was otherwise rolling along at a respectable enough pace. Just before the start of the last gravel section at around 80 miles I passed the guy with whom I'd been off the front at the start.

Maybe it was my imagination, or perhaps exhaustion-induced delirium, but the rocks on this road were huge! Just as I started up the impossibly steep climb in my 39x25 (all I had) I hit this section of washboard that almost knocked me right off the bike. Right after that the big rocks knocked my front wheel sideways and since I was barely moving at that point I figured I may as well walk it up the rest of the way. There was one guy who had been behind me who came past and made it all the way up. I rode the rest of this gravel section alone, coasting down the downhills and using the guy who'd passed me to keep me motivated. Toward the end of the gravel he pulled ahead and I lost sight of him. I spent the next fifteen miles or so in a very dark and lonely pain tunnel. The legs were still working OK, but I really had no idea what my speed was and didn't really care much anyway. This section of the course is theoretically paved, but some sections definitely stretch the definition of "paved." Without an odometer, I kept trying to figure out how far I had to go, but there really aren't many landmarks along this stretch. At one point I really thought I was on the last stretch until I came to yet another turn arrow. Damn, that was demoralizing.

The race crosses a low-water bridge that's maybe five miles before the finish and just before I got there a small group of Cat. 4s with two masters tagging along caught me, so at that point I latched onto them for the last few miles to the finish, putting in a little sprint up the last hill just for show. All-in-all, it was pretty disappointing to have missed out on the real race, but it was certainly a worthy training ride nonetheless. It was the first time I'd ever flatted in this race, and although I haven't done an autopsy on the wheel yet, I think it must have been a pinch flat because I'd whacked a pothole pretty hard about a mile before it went flat. I think if the wheel truck had been available at the time and I'd gotten a reasonably quick wheel change I could have caught before the gravel because the pace hadn't been particularly fast.

After the race I had my fill of Pastalaya and Shiner Bock, and found out that the reason Jorge and Rich had been stopped earlier had been to attend to teammate Dave Patterson who had crashed and landed in a barbed wire fence! I talked to him that night. He had gotten pretty cut up and needed some stitches for his face and superglue for his ear, but at least he hadn't suffered a concussion when his head whacked the fence post. Note to self: avoid barbed wire fence when crashing. It's around noon on Monday right now and my quads are still pretty sore! Today is going to be a revovery day.