Its all about teamwork

To the lay person cycling can seem like an individual sport, one person on the bike, and only one winner of a race. What most fail to realize is all of the work can go behind keeping that one person on the bike and getting that one person to the podium.

Whether in the the 'Tour or racing on a local amateur level your teammates do a lot to help each other out to get the win. Blocking wind, retrieving water bottle and food, lead out for a sprint, launching an attack to weaken the field, keep the pace high thin the field; all are good examples of teamwork in cycling. But like most instances in life this only works well with communication, experience, and cooperation of your teammates.

Yesterday was Jefferson Cup Road Race down in gloomy, raining and cold Charlottesville, VA, I only say that because that is what greeted Luis, Tods, and I as we rolled in the C'ville, yesterday morning for our first road race. It was suppose to be a high of 53 or so, with a 10% chance of rain at the start of our race, but as we arrived at 10:30 we had already been rained on by a few passing showers that would linger over pretty much all day with what a temperature that never seemed to get about 45. Talk about ultimate conditions for racing, especially for our first road race. I'm not going to lie, we went in there with great expectations, we knew we were strong enough and we could work together well enough to pull something off. We had multiple strategies planned out for virtually all types of scenarios and lots of information about the course given to us by teammates who had raced here in the past and videos post on the web of the course.

We arrived early enough to scout out the course and get a good look at what was to come, this was vital. All of the videos we watched, mainly Luis, didnt show much elevation change, hard to portrait that on a helmet cam, and driving the course just behind the Masters race gave us a good idea of what speed to expect in the race, especially with wet roads and tight turns. We drove the course once noting just about every knock and cranny, every apex, every roller, and most notably where to try and launch what I call a faux attack, something to break the field up separate the real racers and the kling-ons that can typically cause mass confusion in descents and sprint for 45th place while taking out as many people as possible.

After the course preview we headed to the school parking lot to register, setup and start getting warmed up. With a drizzle we decided to be wise and park close to the front of the school and setup our trainers under the awning so we could stay dry while warming up. This was a wise decision after there were a couple little showers that passed many fellow racers followed suit setting up next to us as well. For whatever reason I wasnt feeling the warm up, not big on riding on a trainer to begin with I new it was a necessary evil to get the legs moving and blood flowing. I think Luis was having similar thoughts as well, but he was pushing himself. I just kept my HR in high zone 1 and power near zone 2 just bs'ing with some of the Cat 4 riders that finished earlier.

After about an hour or so we were finished, finished getting ready and packed the car up and headed down to the start. There were three groups starting with in a few minutes of us, Cat 5, Cat 35+ and Womens, 3/4 or 4, cant remember. It was a lot of people that's all I know. We had a neutral rolling start of about two miles, one mile to the course and then a mile to the start finish line. Luis and I positioned ourselves to be the in the top 10 or so and Tods just behind us. Once the race started it was almost like a group ride, pace was mellow for the first mile or so. I worked my way to front setting a comfortable tempo for myself and hoping to pick up even more to drop some people off on the little climbing there was. Majority of the leading pace was done by a handful of guys, no one wanted to do any work. It was myself, a guy named Marcus and a couple NCVC guys, who incidentally didnt know each other and havent ridden together, this where team work comes into play.

The first lap was pretty uneventful same goes for the most of the second lap, until last 1/3. On the bottom of the triangle Tods attacked on the rollers. As he went out I saw all of the NCVC guys go after I just yelled "GO TODS" get it, I wasnt sure if he was attacking to break things up a bit or to go off on his own. It didnt last long, but it sure did use a lot energy from the NCVC guys th reel him back in, just like what Luis and I talked about, burn them up.

We cross the start / finish line and I am noticing some pain in my lower back, I mean it is hurting pretty bad but I stick through it. Besides if I am pedaling hard enough how will I notice pain anywhere else except my legs. Back to the task at hand Luis was making it way up the outside getting ready to attack the final "climb" if you will and I knew exactly what he was doing. As he rode past me I grabbed his wheel. We took the turn and out he went. I held on for as long as I could without burning myself up and then let the NCVC guys get him once again burning themselves up. At the top I moved back to the front as they were spent and wanted to burn them up a bit more with a fast pace descent hitting every apex possible carrying as much speed as possible.

As we made the turn on to the final straight, I kept in mind what a teammate had told us to do. If its a group finish TT it up the false flat and just burn as many people off as possible, and this is exactly what I did, from the final turn to the 200m mark. I just got low and pedaled as hard as I could at an effort I could maintain. I pushed, we got to the 1 kilo mark, push even harder, holly shit, almost there just a few hundred meters. I see cars, I hear people holly shit, 200m mark. Where the hell is everyone, no trains? no lead outs? I kept going and going, pushing everything I had. I was so low all I could see was asphalt and my top tube looking for wheels to come around me. None, do I go for it, F yes, go go go, I stand up and just give it everything I have I look up and I see the tent, almost there, no one next to me, keep pushing almost there. My quads hurt so bad, I could feel them burning like they have never burnt before. I had no idea what my power was, didnt care I just wanted to get to that line as past as I could. As crossed the line I let out a sound, cant describe, probably a painful sound, I shot, completely shot. Luis next to me, he did well, he said he got 5th, and awesome job. Had he a bit more room he probably would have sprinted past me. The finish chute was rather narrow and didn't provide a lot of room for the field sprint.

The ride back to the school probably took twice as long as it did to get to the race and it was downhill. I had no energy left what so ever. I was excited for the win and really happy Luis was able to 5th as well, I know he has a strong sprint so if he can sit in he can pick them off one by one at the end. But to go full circle it all comes back to the attacks that Tods and Luis did to break up the field and burn up the NCVC guys. If it werent for them the field would have been much larger with a completely unpredictable finish.

Also over hearing the chatter of the NCVC guys, they were introducing themselves at the begining of the ride, told me a couple things here, they didnt have experience riding and or racing together and most importantly they didnt have any strategies, again team work. We may only be Cat 5 but what we build now together will go with us as we upgrade together and continue to race together. Thanks again Tods and Luis.

And a special thanks to Heather and Christian for putting up with my addiction. You guys are the best!