Tour of America's Dairyland Day 1

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.

2010 SUCKED

The year is almost over and I for one am putting it all behind me. Here is a quick breakdown of why it sucked:

1) Lost my job in April. (Not too upset about it since I wasn't happy there in the first place. Just a plain crappy company, think Initech.)

2) Since losing my job, I couldn't really race like I wanted to. 

3) Had to really tighten the purse strings. 

4) Didn't find work in my field until October.

5) Pretty much threw the training schedule out the window.

6) Had to get a new washer.

7) Had to get 4 new tires for the car.

What didn't suck about the year:

1) Had a job working at a bike shop, Bike Pedalers. Definitely a dream job.
2) Got to ride my bike a lot. Started commuting every day and am still doing it.
3) Raced all the local races, except the Time Trials, I really hate those. Money was tight but I wanted to race.
4) Found a great job at the end of October. No bike shop but it pays the bills.
5) Hanging out with great friends.
6) Raced Jingle Cross.
7) Doing the yearly Christmas puppet show.

Ok, so there were an even number of likes and dislikes. However, most of the dislikes carried a greater burden and made the year tough instead of tolerable. That's all behind me now.

Also, I'm going to do my best at getting back to blogging. Mostly because it's easier to type than to write in my journal. The journal will be left for the more abrasive and emotional writing.

What I will concentrate on will be cycling related things like product reviews, race reports, training points, and just plain fun stuff in general. The hiatus is now over.

The Third Brake

The pinnacle of summer racing in the Midwest is the Tour of KC in Kansas City, KS. This is usually a three day race consisting of 2 criteriums (KCK twilight crit and the Overland Park crit) and 1 circuit race (Cliff Drive Classic). Due to construction near Cliff drive this year the Cliff Drive Classic was cancelled and the KCK twilight crit was moved to Saturday.

Since Saturdays races didn’t start until 3PM, sleeping in was a welcome luxury to a race weekend. We hit the road around 10AM and was able to make the three and a half hour drive with no stress and arrived around 1:30PM. Plenty of time to walk the course, warm-up, and carb up.

My race went off at 6:15PM. For those who don’t know the course it is a simple square course with a steep climb (8 degree grade) from the start finish to a fast and furious downhill with a 90 degree right hand turn at the bottom of the hill. Shortly after the hill there is a 2 block 2 step stair stepper hill (8 degree) with a right hand turn at the top of the hill. Then it’s flat for about 4 blocks then a right to the start/finish.

The race was off (50-60 starters) and I was feeling good even with the 20mph south wind and 101 degree heat index. The hills were starting to take their usual toll on me but I just hung in and stayed in the top 15 throughout the race. With 6 laps to go my body was just wanting to shut down and pedal easy and let the pack get away but I wasn’t having any of that. I dipped into my bag of tricks and shut the pain out. With 3 laps to go I knew I needed to move myself up to be in good position for the last lap. At the start of the last lap I was sitting 8th wheel. Only a couple more minutes of hanging out in the pain cave and I would be happy. Going up the hill my legs were starting to shut down. Slowly I was falling back, 10th, 12th, 15th. “Dang it, I’m not waisting this effort!” Made it to the finish in 19th with the pack. Very happy. This is how an A race is supposed to go. Now it was time to recover in the next 16 hours for the next days race. I knew I could do this.

Sunday morning had a great breakfast at our host house. (Thanks again for your hospitality Sherri and Rick.) I didn’t want to overdo my warm up so I made sure not to do too much like I did at the Papillion Twilight Crit.

Another 50 to 60 of us lined up and were ready to go at 10:10. I had a good sound strategy and it was paying off throughout the race. My legs were feeling the best they have been in a long time. I was staying in the top 15 for most of the race. With 5 laps to go I started moving up in position. With three laps to go I was in 8th position. Now I was in the position I wanted to be in. If I could hold this out for 2 more laps I would be able to enact my final part of my strategy. My legs were feeling great. I had plenty more in my energy store and could pull this off for a podium or top 10 placing. Three quarters through the lap we had a downhill with a left turn. A rider who was two places ahead of me locked his brakes and went down in the turn. Being in a turning position I had no choice but to keep straight. In the blink of an eye my front wheel smacked into the rider on the ground at 28mph and I went over the bars and used my face to halt my progress.






I didn’t know the extent of my injuries at the time. My side was hurting and I was spitting blood, so I didn’t want to move unless I made matters worse, so I made the smart decision to just wait. Here you will see pictures of my face which we took while I was at the hospital. I could feel my face being swollen and the blood dripping all over the place. Ended up with 8 stitches in the chin, a black eye, 2 avulsions which will need a plastic surgeon to take a look at, and a chipped tooth. Thankfully no bones were broken in the accident.



Upon leaving the hospital I saw my bike and almost broke down in tears. Yes, Shaniqua was beyond repair. She has gone to the great bicycle rack in the sky. I don’t know what I am going to do at this point in time about a bike. More than likely it will be another Madone 5.2Pro or greater. The components look in good shape and it appears that it is only the frame that broke.


My overall thoughts on this is this….That’s bike racing. These things happen and there is nothing one can do about it. I will race again. I am hoping to have a replacement road bike and be ready for the Gateway Cup races in St. Louis on Labor Day Weekend. By the way, the Tour of Missouri starts in St. Louis on that weekend too. Nancy gave me the idea of printing out a picture of my face next to Jens Voight and see if he will autograph it. I think I will do that.

Thanks to everyone who has sent well wishes and offers of help, I greatly appreciate and it makes me happy to know each and every one of you kind souls. A special thanks goes out to DaTerm, without whose presence and help the weekend would have been miserable. I owe you BIG.

For now I will be riding the Grinch. Hey, cyclocross is only a month away.