Race Report: Ride Sally Ride, Cat 4

First and foremost, I want everyone that was at the race today to comment on my blog with your take of this races happenings. Please, as I'm doing now, tell us all how you feel.

My team had an insanely, stupidly large roster for this event. Thankfully we had a bunch of no-shows and a good core 6-8 of us really worked together a plan.

Now... rant on.

Ride Sally Ride Cat 4 race was a sh*tshow. Big mistakes on the referees' parts ruined the day. Here's my take of the Cat 4 events, obviously mixing fact with opinion:

Best clip-in I've ever had. and immediately set myself up at the front. Perfect. About 2 laps in the pace is still slow. I look at Martin (Bike Rack); him and I are trying to speed things up.

A WWVC guy finally makes an actual attack, so I jump in a break of 4 guys including another tall NCVC dude I had never met in my life (who was that?!?!) and didn't even warm up with the team.

Being in the break was pretty cool, especially because my parents were there. That meant that they could at least see me race, instead of watching 90 spandex-clad buffoons play ring-around-the-rosy on bikes.

As I'm in a break, a kid (literally 13 year old) got taken out in the peloton. Someone ran him over and gashed his head open with their chainring. Real bad stuff.

The race SOMEHOW continues even though they'd called an ambulance and EMTs are blocking the right two lanes after the turn, in everyone's line after bombing that fast turn #2. In my opinion when the ambulance was called, this should have been neutralized (think Tyson's cat 4).

On turn #2, we now have to turn from four lanes to basically 1.5 lanes and they're blocking the outside line out of the turn. They're "protecting" the kid by aiming the other 89 guys right at him at full speed out of the turn. Dumb. (The first time around, surprised, I nearly took out a guy who was flagging us away from him.)

The break gets caught after a few laps, of course. It was futile, but I'd done my job to cover the front at the begining.

So after about 5 laps of that nonsense breakaway, I'm back in the pack and an idiot next to me, wearing a black kit, gives a guy who was slowing down in front of us a shove forward so they wouldn't rub wheels.

Luckily it didn't affect me. However, some people wearing black kits need a physics refresher on Newton's third law: for every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction.

The dude swerved back and left, and 2 or 3 guys crash from that mayhem. Honestly, it sounded like 30 guys went down, and as I looked back a second later I saw a bike in the air.

Now we have a crash between turn 1 and 2 and still the kid with a gashed head blocking the right side of the road immediately after turn 2. I didn't know I'd signed up for a kermesse.

Personally, I did a decent job with positioning and following good wheels. A few times I found Josh Flaxman, the sole Cyclelife rider, and held his wheel. The guy has posted some good results so I knew it was a good wheel to hold. Other times I'd try to find the big WWVC guys and the bigger Coppi guys so I could get a break.

Throughout this mess, NCVC did an incredible job of being in or neutralizing the breaks. We really did well here. Kudos to my entire team. To paraphrase my teammate Geoff:

I can't help but feel really crappy about how [the race] played out... But actually the more I have thought about it I think we actually were riding really well... We had at least 5 to 7 guys in the first 15 or so at all times, we covered every move except one, and Chris did a hell of a job chasing that down when it started to get organized. That was our general plan and we executed it for half a race I think. Maybe a little more organization would be good, but that is tough in a race that is so wide open and lends itself to a lot of attacks.

The race continues, although the guys in the more recent crash get out of the way quickly. After a lap or two, we pass the start/finish and they announce through the bullhorn, with 17 laps to go, that we have actually ONE lap to go in the RACE.

The bell's ringing. What was once severe but not uncommon Cat 4 mayhem has now turned to all-out swine-flu pandemic panicked "bring out yer dead" anarchy.

Everyone is all over the place, no teams are organized for a sprint. This is Hains Point with turns, at its worst. Nobody is ready, so at least it was an even playing field, but the pace went from 26 to 34 in 100 meters.

Unlike tons of sketchy riders today cutting the inside line (some folks never learn), I easily bolt up the outside of turns #1 and #2. I'm riding like an amphetamine freak overdosed on a red bull. I somehow find Dan Schwartz's wheel with half a lap left. Schlomo and I work great together. This is good news.

I take about two and a half seconds to breathe, but it's not enough time.

Having gassed myself to get up to the front in 1/2 lap. I let Dan know I'm there. He starts hammering me up around the outside and I yell "go like a motherf*cker!).

Dan lead me out to perfection. Going through the final turn we were 1-2. When I came around Dan, this is when my legs sent up the memo.

That inevitable memo. The pink slip of bike racing. Sorry Dan - but I had burnt my matches scooting up the pack and keeping up with you.

In the wind on the final stretch, I was the carrot for the other asses. I got passed by 5 guys for the sprint, including my former GW teammate Brian Cheung (Evolution). I "finish" 6th, Dan takes 7th behind me.

But wait, there's more...

After this, about ten minutes pass and they clear the course. People are taking team pictures and getting undressed, kissing their children (thankful to be alive). The finish line judges had asked for me to come over to verify the numbers and identities of the two NCVC guys in the top ten. That's me and Dan, of course. No sweat.

Then moment of stupidity #2 occurs. Through a bullhorn, they call the Cat 4s back to the line to re-start the race. They're calling the last sprint a "prime" and everyone lines up again. They tell us we'll race 10 laps for the finish.

Somehow, the 17 laps we just raced (and they did say "one to go" for the race, not prime) are now going to count as nothing compared to these 10 laps they're adding on. Everyone that got dropped jumps right back in.

I was covering a break for the first four of those ten laps. I wasn't doing much work because I know it was futile, and I had little energy and less water left.

As we got caught, they rang the prime bell. One WWVC guy bolted ahead and nobody chased. As we came around the final corner, I jumped to catch him but missed about by about a wheel's length. We sat in front of the field for 1/2 lap and were swarmed.

I then re-found my positioning with 1-2 to go. On the last lap I was getting swarmed but was still near the front. In the last corner, an idiot from BBC (black/pink kit?) takes a turn wide and nearly puts me into the curb while Geoff was behind me.

I pedaled across the line softly, pissed off at the entire situation. I finished 25th because I wasn't going to add to the mayhem sprinting for umpteenth place.

If you didn't race today you missed nothing. I'm sorry for the WWVC guys because it's a great event, but as soon as the ambulance was called and the course was blocked, refs should have neutralized it (think Tyson's, we took a neutral lap, then restarted after the course was clear).

I understand there was a miscommunication because when the chief ref asked how many laps were left as the ambulance arrived, he heard 7 instead of 17 and called the race. That was too late to save anyone anyways (in fact creating more chaos on that first final lap). Then they added more laps for some reason, but either way, the distance wouldn't have been enough. Both parts of the races total 14 miles.

I talked to the ref and they basically are neutralizing the results, everyone gets credit for a mass-start but no upgrade points, and the first race will count for BAR (so he says, whatever, no Cat 4s care about BAR). In hindsight, although I decided to be more polite to the refs, maybe I should have actually protested so my top ten counted for something.

I'm really sorry for guys like Brian Cheung (he placed 4th in the first race) that should have been in the money on the first race. Then him and some others get screwed in the second race. WTF. They counted the first race for BAR points, but nobody cares about BAR points anyways.

If you are ever a ref and have to call an ambulance, and you know it's going to get on the course, neutralize the darn race immediately. Any other strategy will cause more danger.

On a good note, one of my good friends and newer NCVC teammates turns 21 tonight. Time to ease off the grumpiness and have a cold beer.

Thanks for reading, and again, please tell me how you guys felt about these events (leave comments!).