Banana Belt Race Report

The Banana Belt race series finished on Sunday. BB#1 was the first hilly race of the season, and it was a conservative and defensive race. Four pretty easy laps then a windup on the last hill followed by a downhill sprint. My fitness was good enough to stay with the group to the end, but not good enough to contest the sprint. I finished 20th. All in all a boring race. It didn’t even really test my strengths of endurance, just my weakness of sprinting.

For BB#2, I worked out a tentative plan with Matt to attack after 3 and a half laps and open up the field to launch him for a long jump. It was a harder race from the start, and I did three or four attacks at the end, which burned me out before the final climb. I finished 28th. The tactics were not successful because the field was too fresh at the end, so Matt’s long jump didn’t work. It was a more interesting and fun race and more of a workout.

For BB#3, we included more allies in a new plan. I planned to keep the effort level high for the first lap and three quarters then launch a series of attacks to set up a break by Matt, Greg and a couple of other guys up the last big hill before the finish, with two laps to go. I was sacrificing my chances at the finish in order to enable a break by my teammate and allies. The plan worked perfectly. At the start I went to the front and pushed the pace up immediately. When other people pulled through I’d let them, but if they dropped the pace to the point where people could talk, I’d go back to the front and push the pace up again. I knew I could hold a TT effort for an hour, so I used my HR monitor to keep my effort at that level, not giving the field a chance to recover on the downhill sections. I’d planned to make my first attack from four wheels back immediately after the S turns onto the dam. On all the previous races, and the first lap on this race the group got strung out on the downhill and sharp corner onto the dam and then regrouped and ate and drank on the dam, the only level section of the whole course. I was in a perfect position on the downhill, and through the s turns, and just as the leaders sat up I attacked. I pushed the pace up over 30 on the dam, my teammate Pete took a short pull, and then I sat up to recover slightly on the corner off the dam. I let the Peleton catch me, slid back about 5 wheels, moved to the shoulder, got an ally and attacked again. It was a slight uphill now, and they caught me again after a 30 second effort. I drifted back slightly on the steeper portion of the hill and then when the pace slackened over the top I moved to the front for the downhill and around the corner with the bridge. It was the lead in to the last steep hill, so I kept the pace high downhill and attacked up the hill. I knew this was my last attack, so I went all out. Matt told me later that the pack went wild with this attack, every man for himself trying to catch me up the hill. I went too hard to sustain the effort all the way to the top, so I drifted toward the shoulder as the Peleton started to swallow me up. I was on the white line as Matt and Greg started their breakaway on the shoulder from 10 wheels back. Everything had gone exactly according to the plan up to this point, but Matt grazed my handlebar as he was coming by. It turned my wheel 90 degrees, and I immediately went over the handlebars. I crashed hard on my hip, shoulder, elbow, knee and , with a half second delay my helmet smacked the ground. The group continued up the hill and out of sight as I picked myself up. No road rash because I was going uphill and slowing down, but plenty of bruises. As I slowly pedaled toward the finish line to DNF, somebody from our group that had been dropped (because I’d forced the pace) passed me and said “It sucks to be off the back doesn’t it?” I don’t think he recognized me.

The break I’d facilitated got away, but Matt wasn’t quite able to bridge up, thwarted by somebody who sat on his wheel and wouldn’t work. Our ally, Greg, stayed away and ended up with 3 and a half minutes on the field. The rest of the break members eventually got swallowed back up by the Peleton. Matt said the field was really tired by the end of the race, due to the high initial pace, the attacks and chasing the break. It was great to see the tactics pay off; it would have been even better if my sacrifice had been a few positions in the race and not a pound of flesh, and if my teammate would have been able to capitalize.