Since I didn't get into Leadville this year, I wanted to do an exciting bike race. What could possibly be more exciting than doing 10 straight days of road racing in Wisconsin at the Tour of America's Dairyland? Eight criteriums, one road race, and one time trial. The answer to that resounding question is NOTHING.
I opted to enter the Masters 3/4 field for the entire 10 races. One reason for this decision is that the fields can be as large as 120 riders whereas the Men's 4/5 is limited to 75 riders. You may be asking, does that really make a difference? If you are an adrenaline junkie such as myself, you betcha. Nothing taxes the adrenal gland more than rider wheel to wheel and shoulder to shoulder with other riders at speeds of 25-40 mph on two wheels.
The first of ten races was in the town of Thiensville Wisconsin, a suburb on the northern side of Milwaukee. This course featured six turns, with turns three and four being very short and narrow which made it very technical. There road between turns four and five featured a false flat, with turn six leading into a small downhill to the start/finish.
There were seventy-two riders who lined up for the masters 3/4 race. Once the whistle the race was off to a very quick start which didn't seem to let up. There were some riders who wouldn't hold their lines in the turns and almost made it ugly for a number of riders. Thankfully though everyone kept the rubber side down for this race.
Knowing that there were mostly cat 3 riders in this race, my plan was a simple one. Stay with the pack, second plan was to stay near the front. Halfway through the race four riders broke away from the pack. One of the riders belonged to a team that had 10 riders in the race. That team knew they had to shut down any attempts at bringing the breakaway back, and they did an excellent job of it too. Any time riders would get to the front and begin a hard charge, up from both sides of the field this team would come to the front and shut it down. There was no way we were going to bring them back.
With five laps to go I worked on moving myself up in the pack. Three laps to go and I was in the top 20. Two laps to go everyone was jockeying for position and the pace was extremely high. I pulled from dead inside myself to hang on. People were doing some stupid and dangerous stuff; I was just hoping they wouldn't take anyone out. I didn't have much coming into the finish but I had a respectable finish in my book.
A major goal has been accomplished, I finished with the pack. 47th overall and 23rd in the 35+ age group. I'm definitely looking forward to the next races to see what I can pull off.
It's been a rough year so far with 2 crashes, one of them bad enough to ruin my brand new bike three hours after picking it up. I've been dealing with some serious mental issues about crashing too, which I think I'm almost over. This has made me overly cautious in the pack, especially when riders do stupid stuff. I may go into more detail about that at a later date.
So far, the Tour of America's Dairyland is a great race series to participate in.
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