The Road Challenge:LA Circuit Race 3/5/2006

Road racing is a challenge for me. Granted, I do most of my training for mountain bike racing on my road bike. I get more consistent intervals on the road bike just on the riding routes alone. Also, I train with a PowerTap, a mechanism that measures my pedaling wattage output. According to my coach, it is much more accurate than training with a heartrate monitor. According to my legs it is a lot more painful and more mentally challenging to be consistent with power training. With heartrate training I can get my heart pumping fast early on in an interval and then kickback and relax until it starts adjusting to the intensity. With power, there are no breaks.

[Above Picture: I am warming up on the trainer before the race with teammate, Tina, (on my left) and Frank, (on my right), Bicycle John's Serious Cycling women's team mechanic getting my race wheels ready.]

Anyhow, I have entered the road scene this spring to warm up for the mountain bike race season. It is always good to get the first searing lung and leg burn under my belt before it counts. Somehow, I just do not manage to torture myself enough on my training rides. Unfortunately, I have never done enough road races to upgrade from the beginner's field (Category 4) to the next level of Category 3. For me it means that the beginner races are filled with a plethora of bad and beginner riding skills-aka crash friendly races. And road crashes are not as easy to get over as a mountain bike crash. You leave more skin behind on the road than in the dirt. Just think of playing baseball in a parking lot vs. in a grassy park and sliding into second base. Which one feels better?

Yesterday, Sunday, was my third road race of the season. It was a circuit race. Circuit races are usually loops that are longer than a mile. So you ride in a pack going around in circles for however many laps your category is assigned. Category 4 women had the luxury of riding the four mile course six times. The turns were left-hand hairpins. Now imagine the first time you rode your bike-did you go in a straight line? Probably not. Now imagine 30 or more women, with half or more doing their very first road race, riding really close together and trying to make a tight left turn. Scary.

The first couple of laps were uneventful. I tried to stay toward the front as much as possible. I pack drifted toward the middle or the back of the pack to take a break a couple of times, but there were some ladies who did not have good experience with pack riding and were all over the place. Dangerous. I figured the front was the safest even though I would have to work harder. As you can see in the picture on the left, I am towing the field.

I had a good time up front. I chatted with some of the other ladies, I announced when some of the gals in the back decided to jump out of the pack and take off, I chased everyone down who thought they might get away from the pack, and I, too, made a couple of attempts to leave the field behind. It was a great workout. I was impressed how my legs felt. Although I worked hard, it was not too painful.

I was even more impressed that no one crashed. During the sprint finish, one gal bumped my right side hard. I figured she was crashing or she did not know what she was doing. So I took off a little to the left and a lot forward. Then I managed to avoid another crash when some wobbly wheeled rider almost locked her back wheel with someone else's front wheel right in front of me. By then, I missed my opportunity for a good top five finish. Still, I managed a seventh place finish by gunning it around the almost locked wheels and passing a few racers right at the end.

So the challenge for me road racing is that not the strongest or best racer wins, it is the racer who uses the field of riders to her advantage so she has enough energy to sprint to the finish line for the win while staying out of harm's way. Since I want to upgrade to at least a Category 3 on the road, I must master these techniques. Until then, 27 more days until the mountain bike season starts!