Tour of the Catskills Stage Race Cat. 4

This was my second time doing this stage race, although last year’s event was cut short by a stomach virus that only saw me complete the prologue and barely complete Stage 1. The race was moved from the third weekend of September to the last weekend of July/first weekend of August and the courses for the two road stages were changed, with stage 1 being run in reverse from the previous year and stage 2 changing the route, adding some miles and including the insanely stupid Devil’s Kitchen Climb.
As Dave wrote in his report I drove the two of us over to the Catskills area for the race early on Friday morning. My goals for this race were 1. actually complete it this time, 2. not die on the Devil’s Kitchen climb and 3. see Floyd Landis in person. I accomplished all three goals so overall the race was a success.

Day 1
Prologue – 2.2 miles, average grade 4%, maxing out at 11%.
This course was exactly the same as last year but for some reason I forgot exactly how long it was thinking the course was 2.3 miles, it was listed at 2.19 in one section and 2.16 in another area of the race website. The course was actually 2.13 miles so it left me wanting in the finishing department because I started my final kick a bit too late. The course was pretty tough for a max effort, you started on a slight inclined road, then 100 meters after the start line you took a sharp right hand turn up a hill that was about 150 meters in lenght and topped out at 11%. That little effort, even with a significant warm up for my standards, left me breathing heavy and with the effects of cooler air, a slight burning throat. I didn’t think much during the ride and only tried to ride as hard as I possibly could. When I was approaching two miles or so I kept thinking that the finish was at 2.3 so I wanted to start sprinting in the drops at 2.1 or so. Unfortunatley I forgot that the course is shorter than listed and I was thinking it was longer than it was even printed otu to be so as the road beared to the right I see the finish line, realizing I was almost there and not sprinting I launched a little dig and crossed the line, breathing very heavily and thankful that the ride was over. My throat was burning and I was spitting alot, meaning I had put out a decent effort. I finished in 8:40 which was slower than my time last year despite being sick. I was 36th on the day out of 69th, but would have been 23rd had I been left in the 4B field which I was originally in before they rearranged everyone to put teammates together. Apparently my field was much stronger than the other field.

Day 2 – Stage 1, 51.6 miles, max gradient on the day 12%.
Although this stage was run in reverse of last years, which was the hardest 51 mile course I have ever done, this version did not disappoint in the pain and suffering meter. I started off first on the line and as usual found myself out the back as we rode neutral down a decently steep hill to leave the Windham ski resort area. The course was basically flat to rolly for several miles, followed by a massive section of really fast descending that led into a valley type road and then the first KOM of the day which was 4 miles, maybe more of steady climbing, follwed by more rolling hills, another decent kicker to the next KOM and then several miles of fast descending with a long drag to the finish which eventually was a flat road at the line.
I rode pretty much exclusively in the back and felt fine except when the fast descending started. I have been so nervous this year in races with all of the crashes that I was off the back and then suddenly found myself having to practically chase down a super fast descent to catch back on. We were on a pretty wide road but speeds were hitting close to 50mph and I’m sure some guys were going faster. I kept thinking that something horrible would happen, fortunately it did not, but unfortunately I wasted a decent amount of energy “chasing” to get back to the group before the road flattened out. It didn’t help my nerves to see one guy start shimmying on his bike and nearly lose total control at like 45mph. Thankfully I made it back on but was kicking myself for wasting energy. We rode through some really beautiful areas and the roads were in pretty decent condition. After one sharp descent we made a hard left handed turn and I saw a wall staring at us in the face. I yelled out really loudly “NOOOOOO!!!!!!!” as a joke and the volunteers guiding us through the turns started laughing. The climb started and stupidly I was starting it in the back. The first section was the steepest at a steady 10 to 12% but not very long. The problem was that the climbing never stopped and once you crested one little section and thought the pain was over you saw another steep section to go up over. Seeing the 5k and 4k and 3k to go markers on the road did not help me, they just made me realize how much more suffering I had. I was passing guys who were blowing up, but unfortunately the front of the group was climbing too fast for me and I found myself losing touch with the main peloton. I knew my overall chances were shot but I wanted to redeem myself so I calmly continued to ride along at my own pace to make sure I didn’t lose massive amounts of time. Eventually I made it to the KOM line and found myself with a local racer Kevin Hays [good guy] and he commented that we needed to stop running into each other on long climbs at the back. I was riding with him and another guy for a few hundred meters when they suddenly started to ride away from me. I found myself needing too much time to recover and by the time I realized that I was alone and needed to get back up to them it was too late. The road never really flattened out and too many rollers were breaking up my rhythm. I had taken off my arm warmers by now [it was about 58 at the start] but my vest was overheating me [I couldn’t take it off because my numbers were pinned to it]. I kept trying to get back up to the little group in front of me and I was upset with myself when I soon saw that they had attached themselves to a much larger group of around 12 to 15 guys. I tried valiantly to get up to them, twice almost making it but there were too many hills and I lost them by the next KOM about 9 miles later. By this point I thought maybe I had a chance when the fast descents started but it was not meant to be.
I passed a couple of riders on my way through the feed zone and several miles later after the fast descents, which were somewhat technical with one full on switchback in the road, I found myself with a little group of guys, one of whom was Kevin Hays again. I was upset at the 4th guy with us because he claimed earlier to be cramping and told me to go ahead that he would be no help in trying to catch the larger group. I don’t like when other riders claim to be in pain and suffering when they are clearly not and there is no reason to pull a Lance Armstrong fake out on me when we are way off the back in a Cat. 4 race. We were working together for several miles toward the finish, I still thought we finished up the climb that went to Windham mountain so I was trying to prepare myself for that. I was not aware at the time that we actually finished in the town on a flat road. I was third wheel at one point going up a slight roller when I decided to attack my little group because I don’t like riding with other guys at the end of races and I wanted to beat them. It took a minute or so but the three riders caught back on, my goal of dropping the cramped guy was not successful. A couple of miles later I launched my final attack from the back of our group, this time managing to drop the supposedly cramping rider. It took a while longer but Kevin and the other rider caught back up to me. After a few minutes I saw the banner for the finish line and suddenly realized that we were not riding up the hill so I jumped from the front and beat my two companions, my one little victory for the day.

Overall I was 40th out of 67 riders, 8:16 back of the winner. When I saw the results I was kicking myself because the group I was trying to latch on to was larger than I thought, comprising riders 21 to 39, which left me wondering what would have been had I caught on with them and then tried my attacks at the end when I had recovered and felt fresher, I might have been in 30th or even 21st place.

Day 2 – Stage 2 – 56.8 miles, max gradient 22%

After resting the night before and running into Floyd Landis in Tannsersville where Dave and I were eating [he actually came into our restaurant with a friend and sat a few tables down from us outside, Dave was able to get a photo with him], I felt somewhat rested and mentally prepared for day 2. I can now say that overall Stage 1 was overall a harder day than Stage 2, there was more climbing and it was more relentless. Stage 2 was pretty much small rollers with a KOM in the first 20 miles, followed by about 10 miles of massive descending, then 15 miles or so of nice rolly and somewhat flattish roads until the big monster of the day – The Devil’s Kitchen Climb, so named by Raul Alcala after tackling it during the Tour de Trump in 1990. The race page has it officially listed at a 1.7 mile climb that averages 14% and maxes out at 22%, in reality its about 3 total miles of climbing, with the actual proper climb as bad as what I just wrote above.

My goal was to get to the base of the climb with the main pack. I was riding in the back of the group most of the day, chatting with a few different riders, one a friend of Kevin Hays, named Mike Golay, another good guy, and my other riding companion from Stage 1, a younger rider from Michigan, as well as George from NYC, a fellow Cannondale rider. There was not much to discuss about the first 45 miles or so of the race except for the fact that at some point a small group of about 4 riders got away at some point around mile 15 or so, perhaps sooner because I could not tell, and we never saw them again the whole day. I launched a little attack before the massive descending section happened because I wanted to ride it by myself with no fear of a massive peloton around me and at one point I think I made out the little group far off in the distance but I had no hopes of catching them. I didn’t realize how hard it is to keep up a distance on a long fast descent with a large peloton behind you but now I do. My attack lasted a few miles but eventually the peloton came back to me and I move over the yellow line because I frankly got too nervous that they would not ride properly around me, and seeing as how we were going 45mph plus I didn’t want anything bad to happen. We continued with the descending and then starting the rolly/somewhat flat section of the course for about 15 miles before the big climb. The roads were nice, I was feeling ok, opting this time to not wear arm warmers and a vest was smart because the sun stayed out despite the threat of rain and possibly even thunderstorms. At one point on this section I tried another little attack, mostly for fun, just to see what would happen. Unfortunately I didn’t get very far mostly because I was too tired to really get very far and also because we had a little headwind going that crushed my hopes of getting anywhere near the climb before the group. As I was caught, Kevin made sure to ask if I was happy now that I had tried my little fun for the day, to which I replied that I was because it wouldn’t be a proper race this year if I didn’t.

We rolled along at a decent pace for the next several miles, with the group chatting mostly about the upcoming climb, how hard it was, how some had driven it and been amazed at the steepness, etc. I was nervous seeing as how I only had 39×25 gearing and this would prove to be too big in the end. Eventually we made a few turns and started the approach to the climb, which is mostly covered with trees. At last we saw the proper base of the climb and it did not disappoint at all. I immediately was into my 39×25 and I never left it except for two times when the road slight eased up and I wanted to get out of my saddle to push forward. The pack instantly blew up, the stronger riders going ahead, guys who weren’t that strong struggling immediately. I tried not to panic and just pushed up the hard grade at the beginning which started in the neighborhood of 12 to 14%. People had written things in chalk on most of the climb and there were several groups of fans throughout the climb which really made me feel as close to being like PRO in the Tour as I ever will. I half-unzipped my jersey and continued to push along as the gradient never really eased up in the first kilometer or so. I stood up one time at this time and realized it was difficult to ride like that so I tried to stay seated for most of the climb. I looked to my left once and saw how far the drop off was, even through the thick foliage and trees, so I promptly rode over to the right side of the road. Fans were ringing cow bells and cheering and I was overheating so I fully unzipped my jersey, a move that would cost me several places later. The rest of the climb was brutal, I was sweating profusely, I saw a couple of riders stop and then start walking, I was muttering curse words every so often to keep myself angry and motivated to not stop despite my obviously too large of a gear ratio. The climb was relentless and every bit as nasty as described, I would say that as a stand alone climb it is the hardest I have ever done and certainly harder than Appalachian Gap at the Green Mountain Stage Race because the overall average gradient is steeper and more consistent and there is no downhill section in the middle to break things up. A couple of sections shot up to 20-22% and I looked down and saw that I was only going 4.5mph. I tried standing again and felt my back tire slip a little so I promptly sat down and kept grinding. I saw handwritten chalk signs for 4k and 3k to go which made me realize that this climb was longer than 1.7 miles, I assume that is the proper climb and our markings were including a stretch before the base and after the base where the KOM line was. I passed several riders at the start of the climb and a few on the climb itself, letting only one guy get by me that I eventually met at the top.

After suffering for what seemed like an eternity I reached the top and tried to gather my thoughts and focus on the last 10k or so of riding until the finish line. I eventually found myself with two other riders and we were together but not really working as the road was windy and mostly downhill with a few little kickers to add insult to injury after all of the climbing that we had done. It was after seeing the 10k to go sign that I realized I might have a problem with my jersey fully unzipped in that they wouldn’t be able to see my number at the finish line unless I was by myself and had time to pull my jersey over for the camera to get it. Because I am not a PRO at all I cannot ride no handed for that long, certainly not long enough to zip up my jersey, although one of the guys with me was easily able to do it after we crested the climb. I started to get more nervous about this fact and I tried several times to do it no-handed only to panic and have my bike swerve. I thought about giving up and not doing it but then I also realized that because the USAC judges at our races tend to have no qualms about yelling at riders and making our lives miserable that I should just stop and zip up. Very stupidly I did just that, watching the two riders I was with go off without me. I started up again and realized I couldn’t catch them and eventually I saw that they were now with a little group of 2 to 4 other riders. After a mile or so I looked back and saw a large group of about 10 riders barreling toward me. I was upset at myself for stopping and then even more upset that this group would potentially catch me and beat me even though I had made it to the climb ahead of them and should have been about 45 seconds ahead of them at this point. I resolved to hold off this group and I rode as hard as I could in between the two groups on the road as the course went through a decent descending section before flattening out some. We turned onto the main road that led to the finish and the group was still behind me as we were in a super fast descent. I had held them off for about 3.5 miles and I had about 1.5 miles to go to the finish line. I was riding all out and as the road flattened out to the finish line I was nearing the end of my line in terms of holding them off, I couldn’t really go faster than the 30mph or so that I was doing in the finishing straight. I tried a little sprint and was nipped on the line by 3 of the riders from the group behind me. It was upsetting to me that I couldn’t have held them off but when I told one of them about me stopping he seemed impressed that I had held them off for that long because in his words “they were working super hard for the last 5 miles.” In the end I was 45th on the day, 7:57 back, but if I had been with the group ahead and launched an attack I could have finished 35th. The what ifs will always be with me from this race because 25th and 35th were realistic opportunities for me, yet I finished 40th and 45th on both road stages.

The final GC standing was 39th out of 61 finishers, 17:22 back. If I had made the group in front of me on Stage 1 and not stopped to zip up on Stage 2, I would have been somewhere between 20th and 27th overall, which in my book would have been a successful weekend.

Overall I would say that this race is well worth the trip because the courses and the climbing are very memorable for a lowly Cat. 4 racer, and I would highly recommend anyone who hasn’t done it to do it. The area is beautiful, the hotels are nice, the food is good, the race is well organized and the stage race format is the closest to feeling like a PRO that most of us will ever taste or feel.

My lesson learned are two -

1. Don’t allow yourself too much time to rest and recover after a long climb or sustained effort, especially if a group is reforming on the road ahead of you. If you have to go back into the redzone, even for a little bit, do it, that way you will be with a larger group and have a better chance of recovering on the road with the help of a draft and in the end you might finish with a higher placing. I should have dug deeper on Stage 1 to get to the other group, or more accurately I shouldn’t have hesitated to recover after the first big climb because that slight hesitation killed my chances of getting up to the group ahead of me, even though they were only a few hundred meters in front of me at one point.

2. Don’t stop for any reason on the road, unless you absolutely have to, i.e. natural break or mechanical issue. The real lesson should be to learn how to ride no-handed in a race, but seeing as how Cat. 4 races are dangerous enough I might never be able to master that, so instead my lesson is I shouldn’t have stopped to zip up, I should have kept on with the two riders I was with, then I would have latched on to the other group. My motiviation to have my number seen would have been there so I would have attacked like a mad man at the end to finish ahead of my group with enough time to reach over to my right side and pull my jersey down so that it could be seen. I would have rather done that and finished 35th rather than 45th on the day.