Sunset Road Race - A Rider's View

The last stage combined all the fun of a hilly road race with the technical challenges of a criterium. What fun. Seriously, it would have been a blast if this was a one-day race. I would have loved it if I had had fresh legs, if I didn't feel like someone had packed my quads full of cement and my gluts full of napalm. The neutral lap was full of more aggressive shuffling, but once we hit the first climb, it was clear who had recovered and who was shot.

Genevieve took off immediately and was gone. Gaps opened up on the climbs and through the technical sections, and on the first time through the steep downhill switchback, I got caught behind someone who is worse at descending that me and was relegated to third chase group.

I spent the next three laps hoping to get pulled, hoping to be rescued from having to suffer up that climb again and again. No such luck. Our little chase group was joined by some riders from behind, one of which was my teammate Natalie. They caught up to us halfway up the climb, and Natalie was breathing really hard. I decided that I was strong enough to give her a push. I gave her a little help, then had to steer away from another rider.

Near the top of the climb, I came back next to her and pushed her up to the wheel ahead, a little too hard and pushed myself off the road and into the ditch! A concrete retaining wall held me from falling over, and I was able to put a foot down and get back on the road, but when I tried to get back on the bike I was so tired and weak from exhaustion that I simply fell over. TIMBER. I lay like a turtle on my back, foot still clipped in. Not a scratch on me, I got back up and chased back on and we all stayed in the race until Genevieve lapped us on our 7th loop. Our little group was struggling up the climb, barely ticking 10mph when Genevieve passed us like we were standing still. We were pretty close to a stand still, actually, but the fact that she could go that fast at the end of such a hard week was awe-inspiring.

We finished. Kele, Natalie and I all made it through. Of the 105 registered riders, only 68 finished. And our team was not last on the team GC! One entire team dropped out and we were ahead of one other. Ah. The little victories. We celebrated with big greasy hamburgers and piles of salty french fries. We survived, and now that I know I can survive, I hope I can come back and actually RACE next time!

Until next time...

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