Lake Sunapee Road Race Cat. 4

I will start this race report off by saying that I am seriously considering giving up racing bikes altogether. It seems that every Cat. 4 race has crashes, most of them near the end of the race because people are doing stupid things to try and get themselves into position to sprint for 40th position. Maybe it was because I got dropped so much from the previous Cat. 4 races that I have done the past two years, but I was not fully aware that this division of racing has so many crashes each week.

I did this race last year and of course was dropped sometime after the first loop when I went into the red zone after one too many rollers and I couldn’t catch back on. I vowed to finish with the group this year, my goal for each race that I do now. That and stay alive too.

The course was a 23 mile loop that had 4 specfiic climbs, 2 main long one and 2 leg killers that came after the longer climbs, mixed in with some super fast descents, more than 40mph and some nice flat sections to keep the legs from completely dying. The weather was nice and warm, for New England that is, it was above 65 at the start and probably 72 by the finish. Not alot of wind so the day was perfect for cycling. I tried to line up near the front as I always seem to never be able to do that. That goal quickly died when I went to pee again, just to be safe and avoid any more Quabbin natural break disasters, about 2 mintues before the start. By the time I got back to the line up I was on the last row, where I stayed pretty much the entire race. Although the roads were wider at some points I never had a good chance to move up safely in my view. The descents were pretty fast and the roads were not that smooth so after awhile I was content to just hover on the back even though I knew I was wasting a lot of energy not being directly on someone’s wheel and having to play catch up when the hills started and the turns caused us to spread way out on the road.

I made it through the first lap, the last two hills almost got me dropped but I was able to recover and get back on after a short violent effort so I felt proud of myself for that fact alone. At the start of the second lap I told myself that I needed to try and move up, if I wanted to have any chance to even just launch a solo pointless attack, just to see what would happen. We only had I believe two attacks which were nothing mroe than a guy or two riding off the front for a minute or so and then being brought back in. A few miles into the second lap after one of the major climbs we were neutralized by the Masters 45+ race. I’m still not sure why they start the Masters races only 5 minutes behind the Cat. 4 race when we will almost always be caught by them, seeing as how they are usually populated by a bunch of Cat. 1 and Cat. 2 veterans. A quick comment about neutralization, screaming at the top of your lungs from a van that is moving while we are all riding wtih the wind blowing and causing lots of noise is a recipe for us not hearing you. I love how the USAC official, no names mentioned, continued screaming for a full minute or two, as no one ahead of me could really hear her or understand what was going on. Why anyone thinks that they would be heard screaming from BEHIND the riders is not just silly, its embarrassing to them. After we were slowed down, the rest of the people who were off the back caught on s o we were pretty much a full field for the rest of the loop.

There were a few more hills that I suffered to get over but thankfully did each time, reminding myself 1. not to get dropped and 2. try to move up. Number 1 happened and Number 2 did not, although this time around I think it was for the best.

As we were approaching the finish we were riding on a major route which was flat, with a long slow drag up a hill and then a flat/downhill section into a traffic circle. On the first loop there were no problems as we stayed to the right and basically went straight through the trafic circle. On the second lap you could hear people yelling and riding aggressively to get to the front, mostly coming from the left side of the field, I assume so that they would be up front going into the circle, which this time around we were ride almost all the way around and then shoot up a long steep climb to the finish. I was in the back of the pack so I had plenty of time to react as we went from about 12 to 15 riders riding abreast on the road and the full shoulder that we had. This was going to narrow down to maybe enough space for 6 to 8 riders abreast at most, so trouble was almost inevitable. I first heard sounds of yelling and bike parts on the ground to the front and right of me. I saw some people going down and immediately braked to slow down, we were probably going around 28 to 30mph at this time. There was the accordion effect that always happens with riders swelling in the peloton to avoid the riders going down. I then heard and saw people directly in my line going down. The image that sticks in my head is of a rider lying in the middle of the road perpendicular to the other riders, his bike to his right side and a rider trying to brake hard but not being able to stop and riding his front wheel directly into his head, doing a near 360 degree flip in mid-air and coming down hard. I was going slow enough by this point to survey the scene and ride through the carnage on the road. I then rode hard through the circle and started the climb. I was riding near my limit and I passed a few riders, but I couldn’t quite catch one rider that I had my eye on passing near the finish line, mentally I sort of quit because I was still thinking about the accident that just happened. In the end I couldn’t catch the guy, and since I slowed down I pretty much let a rider on either side of me pass me right on the line. This last mistake caused the race organizers to miss me in the final results because the guy to my left must have blocked the judges and the race camera. I’m still awaiting a response from the race organizer to fix this problem. Granted this was for a roughtly 33rd finish, all due to an accident, but I would like to get credit for finishing.

After discussing the race for a few minutes at the finish, a small group of BRC riders decided to ride the course loop one time backwards for a nice cooldown. It was going back down the hill to the race start that we saw one of the two riders taken to the hospital, this one was an NEBC rider with a neck brace on a backboard being carefully dealt with. Needless to say it did not look good and I am still thinking about that image today.

In short, Cat. 4 races will seemingly always be marred by crashes because USAC allows the organizers to field 100 rider fields on only one usually narrow lane, in addition to squirrely riding habits from a lot of Cat. 4 racers to just plain stupid mistkaes as people try and do dumb things to get themselves into a position for a probable 30th placing. The finishing climb was so long and steep that the stronger climbers would have shown themselves regardless of where they went through on the traffic circle. There was almost no need for such aggressive riding as what happened on Saturday. If I do continue doing these races, the goals are to get to Cat. 3 sooner rather than later, where I presume less stupid riding takes place, and more importantly if I’m not hanging off the back then I HAVE to be right in the front, the first 15, maybe 20 riders or something bad is likely to happen. I have been up there a few times, but I’m so used to riding off the back that I know its something I have to change. Its my nerves that need work, and seeing the crashes on Saturday does not help. I have also been mid-pack on the outside and the inside, but I know that I need to get used to riding mid-midpack in the coccoon of the draft, although that is where everything that went bad happened. To the front it is for me, perhaps I can just try and solo attack every race and avoid everything behind me.

Julian, congrats on your progress. It sounds like there are extra crashes happening this year. The general thinking is that it’s safer to be up front of the group. Even so, you are never guaranteed a safe ride to the finish. Q couple years ago I was top 5 going into the last couple laps of the concord crit when the guy in front of me went down. It is a dangerous sport for sure but it seems to me that serious injuries are not too common. I hope the nebc rider has a safe recovery. The emts put a neckbrace on you if there’s even a chance you have a neck/spine injury so hopefully it was just precautionary.
Dave