The week prior was a little nerve racking as we had been waiting on a headset race installer to finish the Focus. But come Tuesday, three days before the race, it hadn't shown up! Eric being the awesome guy he is, decided to let me be the lucky one to break in the brand new Marin Stelvio Ultegra demo bike! We built it up so I could have a couple days on it before the racing began!
Quick product review.....it friggin rocks! It's quick, snappy, easy to maneuver and gets the power to the ground fast. I was loving it!
Day one of the Classic consisted of a short circuit with two laps on a 18.5 mile loop. It had some gentle rolling hills with two prominent climbs 2/3 of the way into each lap.
The weather was absolutely beautiful, sunny and warm and I didn't have to wear ANY warmers!! I was stoked to get the ride underway! I was able to settle in nicely in the peloton, luckily being towards the middle back when a guy went down up front so I had plenty of time to dodge the carnage. I was feeling strong playing around up front a bit but when I hit the first climb, my legs were not happy! I ended up waterfalling back through the group and popping out the back along with several other racers. This was not going to work, so after a little bit of a self pep talk and some heavy hammering on the descent, I was able to latch back onto the peloton and recover during the last lap! The finish was a nice right hand corner and then about a 1/4 mile gradual uphill to the line. Two guys popped off the front followed by another and then myself. I snuck by on the inside and put the pedal to the metal and was able to take a 3rd place! It was my best road race finish to date and man did it feel good!! I got stand atop the podium but the best part was the $10 gift certificate to Big Jim's a famous burger joint in The Dalles!
Day 2 came about with a TT in the morning and a crit downtown in the afternoon. The TT was crazy windy, after the 3 block starting stretch full of sidewind, there was a right hand turn that threw me into the wall of wind for the out and back course. I just stayed as low as I possibly could on the drops and just feathered the throttle, I knew I was not going to be tearing it up so I should save the legs a little bit. Everything went according to what I thought, I didn't burn the legs out and lost a good chunk of time, but hey the Crit was coming up and that's where the REAL fun happens!!
After some amazing food at the Water's Edge Bistro, I highly recommend a trip there, I napped in the sunshine as my car was buffeted by the brutal Gorge winds.
Luckily by crit time, the wind had mellowed down a bit and I was excited to burn rubber! For the majority of the short race (20ish minutes), it was pretty much a big group just flying around and around the town to some awesome cheers from the locals. There were a couple attacks but nothing really amounted to much until with about 2-3 laps to go a little dude from Boise took off and put a good sized gap on the field. We didn't think anything of it, thinking he'd fade away and get eaten, but he was able to hold it going into the last lap. With the amazing nimble handling of the Stelvio, I had been loving the corners, taking them ridiculously close, hanging my inside knee and even pedal over the curb. Coming into the last corner, I decided to utilize that awesome grip and handling and take an uber inside line to the straight away. It worked like a charm and suddenly I was out front in no man's land between 1st and the field. I put the hammer down as much as I could and was able to hold off the charging pack and take a 2nd place! Whooo hoo!!!
Afterwards, I booked it back to Petersburg School, the start point for Stage 1 and setup the Subaru RV and hit the hay in anticipation of the last stage.
With a good 4K feet of climbing in 40 miles, the last Stage was looking pretty daunting, especially after the previous two days of racing sitting in the legs. The climbing definitely lived up to what it looked like on paper, painful! The field splintered out pretty fast with a bunch of mini groups scattered throughout the course. I settled in and worked on keeping a good steady pace up the climbs. Although painful, the climbs really let me enjoy the wise saying, "What goes up, must come down....". Oh yeah! After climbing up the gravel road to the top, the descent was SOOO epic! 20mph corners (for cars) are super fun on a bike, especially with a clean swept road! Cruising through the smooth corners, I averaged 36mph for the entire trip downhill. SOO awesome!! The rest of the race was pretty uneventful, I was able work with a small group almost to the finish but then my legs catastrophically blew up so I had to slowly climb the hill to the finish, but luckily had only lost about 4 spots or so. I was still stoked on the day, mainly from the awesome high of getting to rally that awesome descent and also the quality finishes in the earlier stages!
I was super stoked to have gotten a chance to race in such a high quality race. The Dalles is a wonderful town! I'll definitely be back again soon!!
Quick product review.....it friggin rocks! It's quick, snappy, easy to maneuver and gets the power to the ground fast. I was loving it!
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| Looking out over the school and some of the course. |
The weather was absolutely beautiful, sunny and warm and I didn't have to wear ANY warmers!! I was stoked to get the ride underway! I was able to settle in nicely in the peloton, luckily being towards the middle back when a guy went down up front so I had plenty of time to dodge the carnage. I was feeling strong playing around up front a bit but when I hit the first climb, my legs were not happy! I ended up waterfalling back through the group and popping out the back along with several other racers. This was not going to work, so after a little bit of a self pep talk and some heavy hammering on the descent, I was able to latch back onto the peloton and recover during the last lap! The finish was a nice right hand corner and then about a 1/4 mile gradual uphill to the line. Two guys popped off the front followed by another and then myself. I snuck by on the inside and put the pedal to the metal and was able to take a 3rd place! It was my best road race finish to date and man did it feel good!! I got stand atop the podium but the best part was the $10 gift certificate to Big Jim's a famous burger joint in The Dalles!
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| Camping setup at the school! |
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| Water's Edge Bistro....yum!! |
Luckily by crit time, the wind had mellowed down a bit and I was excited to burn rubber! For the majority of the short race (20ish minutes), it was pretty much a big group just flying around and around the town to some awesome cheers from the locals. There were a couple attacks but nothing really amounted to much until with about 2-3 laps to go a little dude from Boise took off and put a good sized gap on the field. We didn't think anything of it, thinking he'd fade away and get eaten, but he was able to hold it going into the last lap. With the amazing nimble handling of the Stelvio, I had been loving the corners, taking them ridiculously close, hanging my inside knee and even pedal over the curb. Coming into the last corner, I decided to utilize that awesome grip and handling and take an uber inside line to the straight away. It worked like a charm and suddenly I was out front in no man's land between 1st and the field. I put the hammer down as much as I could and was able to hold off the charging pack and take a 2nd place! Whooo hoo!!!
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| Crit podium!!! |
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| Cooling down after the crit along the Columbia River. |
I was super stoked to have gotten a chance to race in such a high quality race. The Dalles is a wonderful town! I'll definitely be back again soon!!
that's what I like to see, you on the podium where you belong! Congrats!
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