TST (Tayhua - Seabeck - Tayhua)

Our own little spring classic - 62 miles, nearly 4,000 feet of climbing, no cobbles but hellacious chip seal!

I went to this race last year and it is the only race that I ever have not finished. The weather was VILE, it couldn't have been more than 42 degrees, it rained, it snowed, it hailed... I had my reservations about this year, so I did not pre-register. This year the weather was beautiful - I don't think it could have been nicer. Now, not only is this a pretty hard race its a combined field (cat's 1-4) and the climbing starts at around mile 4. I was really hoping that I could stay with the main field over that first climb, but it was not to be. They took off at a speed that I doubt I could have sustained plus I got stuck behind some people and had to just about kill myself just to claw my way back up to to my teammate who was a bit ahead of me at the bottom of the climb. I can't remember if we caught up the the other two gals or if they caught us, but the four of us formed a little chase group and were off. We were joined in a little while by a gal, who had a low number (this means she was a cat 3 or better), but was not in team kit. She was squirrely.... she was really disrupting our paceline and we dropped her again on the little hill before the first left hand turn. Unfortunately she was strong and persistent...... A little while later there she is again, sort of hanging off our back a bit. She asks if she should join in and we let her, but we had to basically teach her how to paceline. She said she used to race and had been a cat 3 (hence the low number), but had been out the game for a while, because she was ill. At least she seemed to be getting the idea and with a little instruction she was integrating better. When a race official car came up behind us we thought that we were being passed by another field, though that was a bit confusing, since we were the last to go, but it just turned out to be our follow car and a few of the other survivors of the first hill. We all fell into a paceline and started working. The corner official on the third corner was a bit asleep when we came through and a bunch of the people we were with missed the turn. There was no point in not waiting for them so we soft pedaled it a bit until they caught up and sort of organized again. Some of the people must be pretty new, since one of the women from another team who caught up wasn't getting it that she was supposed to take a turn on the front and then pull off, so just a couple of people were rotating up front, she was sitting behind them and no one else could get by... once they told her what to do we got a fairly smooth paceline working again and off we went. We saw the main field coming out of the loop just about the time we were entering it. I was surprised that with all the messing around we had done that we weren't further behind. From there our little group was whittled and whittled. We lost one or two up Seabeck Hill, maybe one or two more up Holly Hill (THANK YOU SO MUCH - Karen for the bottle! saved my bacon since I dropped one of my original ones). My team mate and I had a little gap up Holly hill, but decided to wait, which I think was a good decision - the ridge between Holly and Duwatto was windy and long. We got caught in a little passing shower at the top of Holly, but it was gone in just a minute of two and I barely even had a chance to feel wet before the sun came back out. Just about at the base of Duwatto Karen caught up to us in her van. She and her husband were our personal pace car for a little while ;-). My team mate , one of the original two in our chase group and I dropped everyone else left in our little group and never looked back. Just as we were coming to the finish (I swear it was after the 200 meters) since I had already decided to sit back and just watch the othes sprint (matter of principal for a sprinter she said). The woman in black popped up - I have no clue where she came from, she must have totally turned herself inside out to catch up.... squirrely, but strong. She pipped me since I wasn't at all expecting her to be there, but what can I complain about losing 19th place - it still means I finished in the top 20 in a combined field and a hard race. I haven't seen the full results, but I think only two other cat 4's finished ahead of my team mate and me so that feels pretty good too.

Good job!! Keep going girl. that would have been really great placing had you not had 123 's to fight. It seems as female racers we get the bum end of the deal. I mean how often do you hear of a cat 5 man having to race against 1&2's? And as a 4 we are essentially the same skill level in comparison to a 5. That's got to be part of the reason so many women stay 4's you can't beat the 1's and 2's to get the points we need to cat up. Unless you are really strong or have enough years racing you should be a 1.

Fortunately around here most of the races do have a separate cat 4 field and the 1,2,3 field is growing at a rate that someday we may actually see a 3 - would be very cool. This race is just a little different. The hard/long/climbing races historically seem to attract far fewer women of any category (43 total were pre-registered, and probably only a few did day of race) so often the fields are completely combined. Even though I know that I can't keep up with the 1,2's, I still intend to upgrade this year. The 4's fields can be a bit too squirrley and I would prefer the challenge of being off the back of the higher fields to being a consistant high finisher in the lower one.

Must be the difference between the West Coast and the Mid-Atlantic/Mid-West where I live. Here the biggest field I have ever been in was 10 or 12 the smallest 3. 95% of which were higher. We have a very hard time getting women's fields to the point that we usually have to go with the guys 4&5.
You almost make me want to move to Washington. Women cyclist are an endagered spieces here.

The west coast does seem to have a fairly large number of women who race. I would say probably California followed closely by Washington and then Oregon have the largest fields and the highest levels of competition. We generally have fields around 25 to 30, though in the early season when everyone is still raring to go they can be much larger. Last year we maxed out some races at 60 and our first stage race of the season always fills up (field limit of 50) in the cat 4 field. Even the 1,2,3 field is going to have more than 50 this year, which is pretty amazing.

Wow Eden... just your first sentence made me feel tired!

Hellacious chip seal is what most roads are here in NZ... very little smooth anything anywhere...

But what a race... well done, girl. You rock.

Eden, what a great recount of your race! Sounds very exciting and gruelling too. Good work, keep these reports coming.

From a non-racer's perspective, I rode Sunday 25 miles round trip and noticed that perhaps MORE than half the riders I saw out there were WOMEN!

Wow, great report! Sounds like a tough race. That's sweet that you finished in top 20 and so well amongst others in your class!

Loved reading your report. It made me feel so excited about getting into bike racing. So far I've only done a time trial. Sounds like you did a great job! Congrats!!!