Two Days

Team Half Acre, by Julie
from left to right: Adrian Silva, Tim Strege, me, Kevin Clark, David Bowers.

Two days spent exploring everything I both love and hate about cycling; Saturday spent riding up to Whitewater, Wisconsin to Dan Labovitch's lake house; Sunday out at the Burnham Super Crit at Blackhawk Speedway in South Beloit, Illinois. One weekend away from Chicago, out in the sun, out on the bike, and with the burned skin and aching legs to prove it.

A couple of days ago, I was out with Kevin Clark and Kevin Warwick at Handlebar, after helping Warwick move in to Casa de la Kevin, when plans for the weekend came up. Warwick was going home to Cincinnati, but K. Clark was planning on a trip up to Dan's place to ride and hang out on Saturday, and then race on Sunday. I was planning on spending the weekend in Chicago proper, maybe go for a ride on Saturday and then do a time-trial on Sunday or just ride around for fun. Nothing exciting, but that's kind been my motto as of late: boring, unexciting, tepid. I feel like that's how things ought to be. But that's all beside the point and material for another blog post, I suppose.

Friday night, Allison, Amy and I walked up to Heartland Cafe for dinner and after upon our return home, I went to the Burnham Racing website, filled in my info and registered for the 3/4 race. Confirmed with Ben and Julie that I had a spot in their car for the ride up, and then crashed. Woke up bright and early on Saturday, got Allison up and then went to Ben and Julie's place, whereupon Ben, Julie, Kevin Clark, Molly the Pitbull, and myself all crammed into Ben's Jetta, and drove north. After a stop at Woodman's for food, Taco Bell for unfood (where Kevin and I did wind sprints and got yelled at for trying to climb a lightpole), we met up with Tim Strege and drove another 40 minutes to Dan's.

Got to the lake house, ate a bit, and then got kitted-up, aired up the bike tires, and got out onto the road. Ben had planned a real kicker of a route, saying "This thing is going to be brutal. The closer the topographical lines were, the better." The route had us circling the lake, climbing out onto Territorial Road, and out along some access roads, into Whitewater proper, back out onto Bluff Road, up a Connery road, and back to Dan's: 48 miles, lots of climbing. Kevin and I attacked each other up nearly every single climb, no matter how small. One of us would wait for the other to draw near, downshift a cog or two, and kick it upward, leaving the other to scrounge for remnant of a draft. This constant battle never got old – it felt great to push myself in challenging terrain with a rider of comparable strength. Ben and Tim were pushing things hard as well – Ben's building-up for 'cross in the fall, so he wasn't inclined to hurt himself to the same extent that Kevin and I were, and Tim's strengths lay more in sheer power and flatland speed, but both were keeping things on an even boil at nearly all times.

Everything went fine until it came to make the turn onto Connery. The problem was, was that Connery seemed not to exist, so we continued on Bluff for a number of miles, turned around and ran into Dan, who was out on an icecream ride (the best kind), at a bike shop/restaurant. Tim split off to ride back with Dan, and Kevin, Ben and I knocked out another 15 miles over even hillier terrain. After our return to the house, a well-deserved shower and a couple of oranges, we grilled out and knocked back plenty of beers. Dan's wife, Lisa, Kevin and I built a fire and told stories about our hooligan years, BBQed fruit, and enjoyed one of the more pleasant nights in a long time. For the first time in a while, I could actually see more than three stars in the night sky.

On Sunday morning, we all woke up at 8AM, had breakfast together (I had oatmeal, of course), cleaned-up after the previous night's excitement, and got out onto the road to South Beloit. Kevin discovered that Taco Bell for a late breakfast is not nearly as pleasant as Taco Bell for lunch – the food is marginally edible already – adding eggs to a beef taco in the guise of a 'breakfast' taco is just asking for gastronomical hellfire. We made it to Blackhawk in short time, registered and scoped out the course. A long straightaway, swung right, chicaned, and then went east, where it swung back upon itself, made a bend to the right, to the left and then straightened out for a 1/4 mile, where it turned right again for a long straight before the home stretch. 1.7 miles, lots of wind, and flat as a board. It was going to be a fast, hard race from the getgo. Since my race wasn't until 2:55, and we'd arrived at 10:30, I had plenty of time to hang out, spectate, and just take things easy in the sun.

At 1PM, the 4/5 race went off, albeit with a bad start, as Adrian managed to snag his jacket in the front wheel of his bike and endoed right in front of everyone. He and his bike were fine, albeit not for long. A couple of laps left into the race, he slid out and banged himself up pretty badly. His thigh, elbow, and brand-new Sidis taking the brunt of his fall. Oh, and his new Half Acre kit is trashed, too. While Adrian was the only Half Acre to take a spill, there were several other crashes in the 4/5 field, one of which caused by a rider who dropped his chain, and tried to put it back on while in the middle of the pack. I counted 6-8 riders who went down and went in to the officials' area to protest and/or get their free lap.

Kevin, Tim, and Dave Bowers had better races, especially Kevin, who finished with the main group. He didn't contend for the finish, which was understandable considering the sketchiness of the pack. And those guys wonder why I punish myself with the 3/4 race. Speaking of that, after warming up, I rode the course and settled next to Ed White, who was racing the 3/4 race with me. He wasn't feeling the competitive spirit, nor was I. I've made no secret of the fact that I don't like crits – I'm not aggressive enough, nor do I trust my fellow racers enough for them to hold their lines through sharp corners. I prefer hilly courses where my strength and climbing ability comes more into play than luck and peloton/breakway tactics.

This race was less a crit and more a circuit road race, albeit at a crit length. Strange, I know. As I said before, I predicted that this race would be fast and so it was. As we set off from the starting line, I was in my 53x13 by the first corner and it stayed in that gear for most of the first couple laps. At lap three, a break of guys went off down the front stretch and one took a spill for some reason (Ben said it looked like he just fell off his bike), as I was near the back of the pack, I fell off and struggled like hell to catch back on. It then became more apparent with every single second that I'd been dropped. I'll spare you (and myself) from all the cliched euphemisms for being dropped, but whatever it's called, it still sucks and is incredibly demoralizing.

However, since I'd paid my $20, came out all the way to this corner of Illinois, and had friends watching, I made a determined effort to keep from being lapped. I went into time-trial mode, practicing the artful skill of riding at the cusp of LT or whatever they call it (I need a powermeter badly), and fended off the pack for six laps or so. With two laps left, the breakaway and main field finally reached me, and I came back into the infield where I changed, loaded-up my stuff, and rode back into Chicago, just in time for the Half Acre meeting at Black Rock.

So, while I have yet again DNFed in a race, I feel that things are going to start swinging my way soon. I wasn't plagued with the jitters and utter sense of dread that I experience before the start of Hillsboro Roubaix, which is a major plus, as one reason why I didn't race much through 2007, besides 'cross, was that I was utterly scared of racing. I know I'm strong enough for 3/4 races; now I just need the guts to go along.