Day 1 - Mineral Wells Stage Race
Road Race 07:30 - We roll out, and it is still raining. As you can imagine, getting out of the car, getting dressed, in puddles, really starts to make you question the decision. Tim, Craig, Jason and I were waiting for the first one to say "let's leave"... but no one did so we donned our along with about 40 others. We are old enough to know better.
Rolling enclosure, great roads, scenery, wonderful host town, the list goes on and on. If they can continue to pull off this race and catch some good weather, this race will be phenomenal. Anyway, the racing starts and we are about 10 miles into it and the first climb of the day goes. It's about a 1 mile climb, with a steady grade. Nothing too punishing, but a little ringer. Small gaps keep opening and I'm able to jump each of them from about mid-pack. As we crest the hill, we have about 12-15 guys in the group, but unfortunately no other Williams guys. Craig was at the back ( bad positioning ) at the start of the climb and never caught up. Jason and Tim also got put into trouble on the hill...
A few miles later, both Jason and Tim have bridged back up to the front group. Impressive.
We're riding along for a bit more, enduring what is now a piercing rain storm with winds blowing the group across four lanes of the road. There are probably 20 of us. I'm sitting at the back, and Jason is near the front, then slowly he starts drifting back. As he gets next to me, I as, "Are you OK?" He responds with a "yeah, I'm fine." Then proceeds to continue in reverse, right off the back and apparently just had no interest in riding anymore. This was confirmed at the end when he said he had no interest in riding anymore. Now it's Tim and I... and a hill. As we start the climb, three guys go off the front for the KOM points. I am sitting at the front of the pack with one guy in no mans land, so I'm about 5th on the road. Points for first 3. This will come back to haunt us... As we crest the hill, I turn to find that Tim is not with the group, and actually not even in sight of the group. Come to find out, he dropped a chain at the bottom of the hill and chasing up a climb in this weather was not going to happen. He ended up rolling in a respectable 21st - Jason and Craig rolled in 26th and 27th.
The group had whittled down to about 15 guys and with the wind and hilly roads, it is probably going to stay this way to the finish. At this point, I'm freezing again - Fayetteville-ish, just not quite so bad. I am shaking and having a hard time going straight. I do my time at the front since everyone is quite content letting the three guys go off the front. I do not like rabbits, so I chase. At first being nice, but then I drift right until I am glued to the shoulder, guttering the entire group. I tuck and drill it, bringing the break back.
5k to go, I am cooked. I know exactly where I need to be, but I am unable to get there. It goes with about 1k to go, and I have nothing. I'm in and out of the saddle for the next 800 meters, unable to produce any significant power, and come across the line 5th.
Great!.... This is a points based stage race. 25 points to the winner, decrementing each place by 1 point, I got 20 points for the stage.
Time Trial 15:12 - It's a TT... It's not very fun putting on wet gear to go ride into a headwind as hard as you possibly can for a shot at some points. With the day that the others had, there was only one of us dressed for the TT. Jason is already home. Craig and Tim are awesome getting the bike ready and everything organized and ready for me to go. I hit the starting line, drill it for 5.5 miles, then ride up a hill for another mile. The boys are in the van at the finish line... I cross, turn around, get off the bike which Craig and Tim quickly disassemble, get in a car, and we drive home. Unfortunately I did about how I felt and rolled in with an 11th best time.
Day 2 - Weather winning this weekend.
4am alarm, pick up my feed zone chick (aka Tim) at 5, and off we go. Finally the rain has let up and the wind is barely blowing; it was nice getting ready to race without getting completely soaked. We roll out at 7:30 this time to conquer the loop 3 times for about 72 miles.
The first few miles are s l o w... Which I'm pretty happy about because my legs feel horrible. After having nothing in them yesterday for the sprint nor the TT, this is going to be a long day. We keep rolling and two guys wander off the front, none of which are jockeying for my GC so I let them go. Some others that are close went a few times and I jumped on their wheel. As you can imagine we get reeled in after a few miles.
The "hill" was nothing on the first lap. Figured we would drill it and blow up the group on the second lap, so I sat in as much as I could. Knowing that I was on the edge as it was, I needed to save what I had left. The break is a few minutes up the road and now one of my GC competitors attacks, and I let him go. That's a huge gap to cross, but he rides away quite easily and I think "whoops". I began the day in 7th in GC. I put some tape on my top tube with the guys that were within striking distance or ahead of me, and I had 9 names on there. This is going to be a long day... We cross the start/finish line and the three guys up the road take the three point primes, which again is still OK for me. As we start the second lap, in comes the storm and along with it we get pounded by rain and wind.
I have no glasses on because I was too lazy to get them out of my bag this morning, and now I am paying a dear penalty ( see Jason's blog on wearing glasses in the rain ).
The miles tick off and as we are coming into the hill again, the P1/2 field is closing on us and the neutralize us, which is fabulous. Now no one drills it up the hill again, the points primes are taken from the break, and I can enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery, and freeze. As we get over the hill, they let us go back to racing and the break is now about 3.5 minutes up the road. We finally decide to go after them. Some of us start working together, but then the other half can't figure out what a pace line is and keeps getting in the way. I say forget it and go back to the back to absorb some more road grime. As we are coming up to the start/finish line, Clayton (Univ of
Texas) has sat up and comes back to the group. He could have passed me in GC, but I'm fairly confident I'll take him in the sprint and he got no bonuses on the road.
We pass the start finish line... A number of people have quit at this point and our field is probably down to 30 riders. There are a few teams with no one up the road, so this is going to be difficult to get away. A three man attack goes, so I go after it and we stay away for about a half of a mile and get brought back. Shortly after that, and with about 15 miles left in the stage, a two man break goes with Nick Boulle and Josef Garcia(currently tied with me in GC). This one is going to stick. Sean (Mirage) goes after this but can't make it and is in no mans land, I go next and bridge up to Sean and he hops on my wheel. He has two men in the field and I know they will work for him to stay away. In addition to that, one of his teammates is one point ahead of me in GC and the other is three points... We are closing down the gap to Nick and Josef as we approach the hill for the final time.
I know Sean is in trouble at this point and he says he'll work with me once we get over the hill. I now have two options. I have no doubt I can attack him on the hill, drop him, and make the bridge to Nick and Josef. I also know that if I drop him, he will either get picked up by the group and his team will come after us or once we get over the hill, he will recover and catch us, then I'm in trouble. I opt to set a steady tempo up the hill and let him stay on my wheel so we can work once we crest the hill. He is a monster TT guy so I'm fairly confident we'll get away. Unfortunately we watch Nick and Josef ride away once they get over the hill... Sean and I start working together into the wind and within 8 miles, the group is now out of sight.
At this point, I am already thinking how I am going to beat this guy at the finish since I need the points. He already has a solid 2nd place locked up. As we roll through the 5k to go, he says "you can have the sprint, you need the points more." Well OK, that solves that one. I opt to pull as much as possible into the finish since he was nice enough to give me the points. We roll across the line in 6th and 7th respectively.
Being a points based GC, there were a number of shakeups on the road.
The GC ended up as follows:
1. Nick Boulle (Park Place)
2. Sean Daurelio (Mirage)
3. Alan Good (Tulsa Wheelmen)
4. Josef Garcia (Factory Goodness)
5. Todd Delany (GS Tenzing)
6. Todd Farrell (Williams Cycling)
7. Jason Jacobs (Mirage)
8-40. others...
Weekend results for Todd:
Sat RR - 5th
Sat TT - 11th
Sun RR - 6th
GC - 6th
