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Sparta Road Race, Sparta WI, Saturday, July 30th. Probably one of the best wins of my cycling career…certainly the biggest payday! This should give you an idea just how little money is in the sport for riders; I snared $150! Of course I split it with my teammates so it wasn’t much more than a free entry to the event but at this level it’s not about any money. Heck, when I start to think about it I’m pretty sure it isn’t about the winning either!! For me, it’s about continually trying to push myself to be a little bit better than I was the year before. If that means first or last and I’m actually improving while getting older then I’m pretty happy! I should mention that my life isn’t all about bicycle riding and racing and I do have a job I really love and the best wife and daughter I could ever have dreamed of and they are both major priorities long before I even get out on a training ride, yet alone lace them up for a race. You do have to have some balance in your life with whatever you enjoy or the road will get rocky. Look at Lance Armstrong and his failed relationships. He does a lot for the cancer community but do you really believe he’s cutting back on his schedule to spend time with his kids? I’m a fan of the guy but I don’t think that’s the case no matter how many times he says it. He’s consumed with what he does and that’s not being a husband or a father, obviously. With that in mind I’ll tell you why this was such a special day for me personally. First off I had to take off a Saturday from the shop and leave Gary and Kalon to our busiest day of the week. Secondly, I had no intentions of winning or even doing well. My single goal was to get as good a workout as possible in preparation for the following weekend’s major goal the following weekend; The Firehouse 50 Individual TT. Knowing those two things I warmed up with Garrett Ping, Ross White, Chris Ripp and Mike Bobusch and while doing so Ripper gave me some advice on the run in to the finish as he’s from Sparta and had done the race a few times. I was actually planning on a mass finish and leading out Chris so he could hopefully raise his arms in victory. Once warmed up we all amassed at the start line and as we collected there I got a chance to talk with Gordy and Lance Niles a bit. I also noticed Mike Johnson (Gordy’s Spring Street Sports teammate) warming up too. I knew that there was some formidable competition today but felt confident in myself and teammates who were there, even though we weren’t at full strength. Shortly, the gun sounded and we were off. The lead car took us through town and then out of the city and into the country where the real racing would begin. We all knew that there was a hill prime approximately 11 miles into the racing and it was our aim to get someone up that climb first. Chris was aggressive on the front along with Ross and me. We would either attack or get in a counter move and try and get off the front some way or another. About 3 or 4 miles in there was a slight lull after a flurry of action and I decided to go into a headwind. I was about 30 or 40 yards off the front and basically redlined when I glanced back and saw a couple people come across. I didn’t mind. I was flat out and only doing about 24 miles an hour as the head wind here was pretty stiff for sure! I just kept my head down and kept plugging away. Soon the two lone chasers were on my wheel but it had taken them longer to get to me than I had thought and in hindsight guess it was due to the wind. It turned out to be a kind of slow motion break where no one was really going fast but everyone was flat out. Weird hu? Once the other two got up there we tried to talk and coordinate some rotations and once I saw they were willing to work and begin to pull through I was happy to see that one of my breakaway companions was Lance Niles. We all took some turns on the front but soon it was apparent I was feeling the best of us as my turns were longer than theirs. I didn’t care as I would rather try to get to the climb with two than 120! As it turned out there were a bunch of rollers between the actual climb for the cash and I started to gap my two breakaway companions there. Well, if I could get to the top that would be great and as I started to put some distance between myself and the others I glanced at my computer and it showed a heart rate in the lower 180’s. I can’t go any harder than that so I backed off a bit on the climb and thought I’d save something for the sprint at the crest, if they caught me. As it turned out they didn’t and I won the first objective of the day. I glanced back and could see the entire pack on the climb about 300 yards away. They looked close but I knew from past experience that I would be going down hill for a while at 40 to 50 miles per hour and they would still be climbing at 10 to 15 miles per hour. With that incentive in mind I proceeded to bury myself for as long as I could last to try and get to the sprint prime which had another $50 bonus hanging in the balance. I forged on and soon saw the 2 mile to go sign. Of course this had to start on a false flat and into a headwind once again so the two miles seemed like forever; to the point I thought I was in the ‘Twilight Zone’! I finally crossed that line and collected the next $50 so now I’m starting to think about actually holding off the masses and continuing on for the victory. That was the carrot but to me it’s really bad luck to project those kinds of thoughts so I tried to think of the action behind me as well as concentrate on the little things which would keep me going the fastest and most efficient. I knew I had to get some food and drink so I tried to take those things in as much as I could. I also knew that the way this course was laid out I better hit all my shifts right and not throw a chain or lose momentum going up one of the endless rollers we were encountering. On one section I could look back and see 4 chasers and thought I saw a friendly uniform in the group so that actually put my mind at ease somewhat as I knew if I got caught we would have some numbers. As it turned out we would have had 3 of the 5 because behind me was Ross and Chris riding with Gordy and Mike Johnson. They had some good time on the field and were trying to close the gap. I managed to dig deep and soon I was within the finial few miles which we had warmed up on so I looked back a few more times to see if they were close and eased off a bit as well as zipped up my jersey…I wanted to savor the moment as I’ve mentioned before, they don’t come too often and you never know when it may happen again. Looking back I’m glad I did because I can remember every intersection with every face of local volunteers who were blocking traffic and cheering for me and the other participants. It was cool. I came down the final meters and held my arms aloft with a big grin on face. I managed to go through the finishing shoot and record my number and then head back to the line to watch the action unfold. Chris lost a close sprint for second to Mike and finished 3rd with Gordy on his wheel for 4th and Ross coming in a close 5th. It was quite a good day for team BBS and afterwards at the award ceremony it was really nice to see all the guys come away with age group medals. Garrett Ping and Joe Beran both won their age groups too! Not bad for a few hours of suffering? Thanks for reading!
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This site was last updated on: June 28, 2010 01:56:30 PM -0500 |