Working Man's Stage Race

This is my first year of racing on the road, but I have been doing reasonably well, and have kept at it over the season. I decided that I would try my hand at a stage race - something I've never done before.

Working Man's (WMSR), is a three day event held after working hours. Here are the reports that I posted to my club page. Note that I raced in a combined women's 3/4 field.

Stage 1 - 6.6 Mile TT

Today was viciously HOT. OK, maybe hot is an understatement - it was 97 degrees when we started after 6:00 p.m.!

The TT is my specialty, and DH and I had pre-ridden the course on Saturday. It was a 6.6 mile loop with some stinker hills, VERY technical corners (including one at 120 degrees!), and one KOM/QOM hill climb. Also some really fast descents.

Besides my teammates, I didn't really know what to expect from the other women in my field, but they are definitely strong riders. I was somewhat irritated that the woman in front of me had a cheering supporter - in a car on the course! On one technical corner, where I was about to pass her, I had to yell for them to get out of the road. I don't think it slowed me down too much, but I did lose some time, and it was VERY distracting...

I am pleased with my result. My goal was to finish in 18 mins, and I bested that by quite a bit, finishing in 17:17. This was a great result for me, placing me in 4th on the GC after the stage.

Stage 2 - Circuit Race - 8.8 mile loop, 3 laps

It took me some time to evaluate this race in my head. It was mostly frustrating. It seemed that NONE of the women in the field wanted to do any work, all saving themselves for the QOM hill. A Cat 3 racer from another team and I ended up doing most of the effort, but not by choice - we were literally slowing, taking drinks, etc., but NO ONE would pull through to take a turn on the front. At one point, we actually joked about stopping - might have been the right thing to do.

The pace in the first lap was fairly mellow, and most of the group styed together going into the climb. I got dropped some going uphill, but there is a long downhill immediately following, and I managed to quickly bridge back to the pack at about 35 mph, towing a couple of other stragglers back with me.

In the second lap, there was an attack on the flat, so I chased her down to shut it off, trying to protect both my and my teammate's GC standings (she was in first after the TT). Unfortunately, that put me in the front two, with the same Cat 3 rider pulling. I stayed on her wheel as long as possible until she yelled for someone to come through. After that, the two of us ended up on the front doing all of the work for the second lap. I got caught pulling into the hill, ad got dropped like a hot potato (this lesson is forthcoming). Spent the entire downhill, back through the start/finish TT'ing back up to the pack (TT skills come in handy ;)).

In the third lap, I decided I needed a break, and hung out towards the back of the pack for the entire first half of the lap. The same Cat 3 racer was on the front AGAIN, along with a woman from another team who had done "some" effort as well. At that point, both complained to the whole field that this was getting ridiculous. Agreeing, I moved up to talk to them.

Here's a great lesson for me - the Cat 3 rider (keep in mind she was a competitor, not a teammate) told me to stick to her in the final stretch. I commented that the hill was really getting the best of me, and that I wasn't sure that I would be able to do that. She told me just to spin up the hill, at which point I naively asked, "Well, are you climbing in your big ring?" Her facial expression told me everything I needed to know - note to self, drop into SMALL ring going into final hill.

We worked together going into the climb, I shifted to my little ring on the front (woohoo!), and stayed with the pack going up and over the climb. This was the last lap, and my teammate was sitting on the front. I thought I could attack and make it stick, so I came screaming up the right side of the pack down the hill, pedaling as fast as I could go, yelling at her to come with me as I went by. Afterwards, she told me that she actually worked to slow down the group to give me a gap, since I was going so fast.

Sadly, I went a little bit too early, and couldn't hold the jump. Was in 5th or 6th position going around the final corner, and got passed by a big group in the final sprint. Good job by all of my teammates tonight.

After the second stage, I moved down into 8th in the overall classification (finishing 11th in the stage).

The Cat 4 men's field had a number of bad crashes, one of which involved DH just before the finish (he was also in 4th in GC in his category, and had felt he could contend right through the end of his race - not to be). Thankfully, he is mostly ok - some scrapes and bruises and some good road rash. His bike needs a new shifter cable, and a part for his front brake, but came out not too badly. He was lucky - one of his teammates took a ride in the ambulance for a broken collarbone. Sounds like their race was much more sketchy than ours!

Stage 3 - Points Race - 13 miles

The points race was the hardest thing I have ever done on a bicycle! I felt great going into tonight - good legs despite the effort of the past two days. We talked as a team beforehand, and I was really hoping to move back up in the GC after faltering yesterday. I thought I had some good sprints in me, and could manage to take some points.

The race was run on a 1/4 mile speedway oval. That meant that we had to circle the track 52 times. The winner wasn't determined by who finished first, either - every 5 laps were sprint laps, and points were awarded to the first 4 riders across the line, with double points coming on the 1/2 and final laps. If you lapped the field, you gained 20 points, and if you got lapped, you lost 20 points. Kind of confusing, but we started off anyway.

This was a VERY STRONG field of sprinters! I stayed with the front of the group through the whole race. On one pre-sprint lap, my teammate offered to pull me through, but we both got stuck behind a lapped rider riding the pole. That didn't work out. The next time around, I hopped on her wheel and managed to come across the line with some points - WHEW!

With the sprint points coming every 5 laps there wasn't a lot of time for recovery, especially with the attacks coming in those laps. Since I figured I had nothing to lose, I decided to try an attack of my own at one point, but these women were shutting down everything that went.

On the final lap, I was really well set up and heard the eventual winner on my left side telling me she was on the inside. Instead of forcing her to get around me (and blocking effectively and saving my own race), I kindly let her through - OOPS! Oh well - live and learn, right?

Not sure I'm going to sign up for this track racing business, but it was a fun ride. The 52 laps went by in a snap.

I ended up slipping one more place tonight, finishing in 9th in the GC. I am extremely happy with this result, given the strong Cat 3 showing in our field (the top 7 places in GC were all Cat 3 women - I am a Cat 4 racer!).

Overall, I really enjoyed this race, both for the racing, and the cameraderie between all of the women. It was fun to meet some new folks, and the support and encouragement from teammates and competitors alike was awesome.

I have attached a couple of pics - first is during the TT, and the second show me at the front of the pack in the points race (with the pink bar tape...)

SheFly