Spring Prairie

Four days after the race and I'm now just talking about it. I already missed inclusion on CBR's write-up of the race, and now my memory of the whole affair is a rather fond one.

For all sorts of reasons mostly due to injury and surgery, I haven't raced road as much as I wanted to this year. I was registered for Hillsboro, but I could hardly walk, let alone ride my bike. I was planning on doing Snake Alley, but plum forgot. Now spring is over and I've raced four times, counting Spring Prairie, the Wisconsin State Road Championships, that I raced this past Sunday.

It's no secret of mine that I love riding and racing hills, even if I don't do as well on them as I'd like. I started my amateur racing career racing hills and it's what I prefer. Flatland freaks me out -- I like some terrain to string things out and shatter the field than hurtle toward a bunch sprint surrounded by 50 Cat. 4s. I may be turning out Cat. 3 power, but I don't have results or talent yet for upgrading.

Adrian got me all psyched-up for Spring Prairie, though. Lots of climbing on a 10-15% grade, albeit short, with lots of rollers. Count me in. Even if I bagged out, at least I'd do so safely and practice my climbing and descending (going 8 mph uphill and 45 mph downhill is difficult in each its own way). Race day, it was me, Adrian, Isaiah, Sean Fitzgerald and his girl Jessica, who I rode up with. All of us got to the registration at the same time, and I was reminded again that I need to print out or find my 2009 USAC license before next race I enter.

We all got suited up and went and did a reverse lap of the course to see what it was all about. Yeah, it was bumpy, alright. Ate some food, spun around and tried not to get hit by a car, and lined up in the field for the neutral roll out.

At the top of the big climb, the race was on and at a hard pace. I was pushing big numbers in the draft, with a tailwind. These 4/5 riders love to start stampeding, I guess. Two laps in, I fell off a little in the back stretch on one of the rollers, cramping up something terrible. I rolled back on on the descent and stretched my legs out while safely in the draft. Starting back up the climb again I popped, my calves just killing me.

And there I was, by myself, some people, nay lots of people behind me, but the pack, where I really wanted to be, was going up the road faster than I could muster. So I just pedaled as hard as I could and was joined by a WDT rider named Reed who worked with me. We were by ourselves for a bit until we caught up to Sean and a TATI rider who got popped off the back, too. Our little foursome worked well together, riding hard, but not killing each other with the gentleman's agreement to keep it tempo until the last trip up the sharp climb, of which there was seven.

Up the hill, Sean and I attacked hard at the bottom and he pulled away to finish about 3-4 bike lengths ahead of me. Reed and the TATI guy were rolling up at their own pace, just content to have finished. Isaiah and Adrian informed me that we finished maybe 2-3 minutes off the pack, not where I wanted to be, but not horrible considering that the race was a peak race for many riders.

Since the race started at about 5:15, it was already about 8 when we finished packing up and got ready to leave. We stopped at Culvers on the way out and I enjoyed a chicken sandwich, fried cheese curds, and a milkshake. Gotta replenish those calories with delicious, artery-cloggin' food.

End result? 25th or something out of 50 something. Eh.

Why I Ride

Why I ride: from here.

Nightbucks

From here.

Crushed Gravel

Thanks to Luke and crew for the awesome photos.


It's funny that I've not ridden over 100 miles in over four years, not since I rode to Dayton, Ohio from Cincinnati in 2004 shortly after I got into cycling as sport. I've come close dozens of times, 89 miles, 96 miles, 97 miles, but never edged over the straight 100 mark. Time was the only reason why, because I've always carried good enough fitness to do 100+ with no problems and no preparation other than my usual training.

Scott from Team Hungry told me that I was an all-rounder when I went home last week. Maybe that means I'm kinda OK at lots of things, but not really great at anything. Makes sense, but I digress.

A while ago, drunk on Grolsch at an art opening in the West Loop with Allison I ran into Luke Batten, photographer, bike collector, and casual wearer of Rapha, and he told me something about a "Gentlemen's Race" of a century he was planning for the weekend after Memorial Day on the crushed gravel Fox River and Prairie Path trails. I was in, naturally.

Day of at 10 AM, at Luke's girlfriend's parent's place in Glen Ellyn, we congregated, slathered on chamois cream, and got ourselves ready to go. The group contained Luke, Ben Gill, Brooklyn Man, and Half Acre riders Patrick Kenny, Joe Schubert, and Isaiah Jay. Joining us for a few miles were some ladyfriends of our gruppetto, who turned off to buy Dairy Queen. At some points of the day I wish I broke off with them.

The first loop was at a moderate pace. As the group consisted of riders of varying abilities, things were kept at an even tempo. The trail traffic on the first loop was pretty bad, at least worse than I've seen out that way, which kept our speeds down a bit. We stopped at Sammy's Bikes in St. Charles for espresso and a chance to gawk at some CF Cioccs -- I may give up on steel yet.

With a KOM jersey in contention, I went after the two hills, both basically sprints up out of the Fox River valley. The first, I was impeded by strollers and caught second place; the second, a potholed Koppenbergian climb, I captured first.

One loop down at the trailhead, the girls brought along our "musette" bags, i.e. sandwiches and sodas that we'd brought with us for a picnic in the grass. Too soon, we were back on the bikes and split into two groups: HACT in one, and the artist crew in another. I felt exceedingly good and set tempo for much of the second loop, along with Isaiah. Took both KOM hills again -- the first, I outsprinted Isaiah and eased-off half way up the hill thinking he was out of gas. Turned around and saw him gaining ground, so I stepped back on it and rolled over the top with him coming up only seconds behind me. A bit closer than I like.

Coming back into Glen Ellyn, with about 15 miles to go, Isaiah and I put in a hard dig and broke off by ourselves, both working together. I still felt strong, likely due to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Hammer Perpetuem. Isaiah and I rolled off the trail and as I lacked directions back to the house, I followed closely behind (plus, I was getting kinda tired at this point). I kept asking, "Are you sure we're going the right way? Are you sure?" I'm a doubter, my apologies.

Eventually, with house in sight, I sprinted to roll into the driveway first, thought I had it in the bag, but Isaiah cut me off to roll over the curb ahead of me. I'm no sore loser and I took comfort in knowing I had the KOM jersey, whatever it would be, wrapped up nicely, tied with a bow.

The rest of our ragged crew rolled in over the next few minutes -- everyone sunburned, sore, and covered in dust and sweat crust. But the best time was about to commence: a BBQ held in our honor, prizes, and kisses from our group of four lovely podium girls.

And funny enough, I managed to set my 5s, 30s, 1minute power records on this ride in my sprints up the hill, and 107 miles, 6 and 1/2 hours of riding, and 3,800 calories later, I'm surprised I felt as good at the end as I did.

Now I can't wait for next year.