Race report

Most of the people I train with are racers. That is what happens when you join a bike club. My club, the COBRAS, is known as a drinking club with a cycling problem. The men and women are all very nice, so nice in fact, that I was enticed into racing this year.

Our club sponsors a seven-race time-trial series that starts in mid-April. The races are on Wednesday night. For the first six weeks, you could count on Wednesday being the worst weather of the entire week. The first four Wednesdays were in the 40s. Week 5 saw heavy rain and 37 degrees (only 1 out of every six riders showed up and I was one of them). Week 6 was even worse and the race was cancelled. Finally, week 7 had temperatures in the low 70s. There was much rejoicing at the start line that night. Riders go off every 20 seconds from 4:30 until 7:15. That accounts for nearly 500 riders!

The competition is strong in Colorado. I typically finished around 15th of 21 in my age group. I was about 45 seconds behind the rider in front and up to three minutes ahead of the next age-group rider behind me. I felt good about my results this year. I do not ride a time trial bike whereas most riders do. That accounts for about a minute over the 9.5 mile distance. I did get an aero helmet for the last race and recorded my best result of 20.9 mph average for that race.

Today was the Rocky Mountain Senior Games, what I call the Geezer Games. Most of the top riders competed on Saturday at the state time trial championships. Some of today's riders were doubling back from yesterday. The senior games had a 5K TT and a 40K road race. I placed 3rd in each race within my age group, averaging 22.2 mph for the TT and 21.4 mph for the road race. The road race course was a double out-and-back with 3 180 degree turns. I lost position each time we turned around. I stayed with the peloton, some 25 riders in all, for the first 20K but they took off after the first lap was completed. I worked to get back into the second group, now constituting eight riders. I took off with about 12K to go and only one rider went with me. We worked together, well, it was me doing most of the work with his pulls at the front noticeably slower. I told him with 3K to go that I was going to go for it. I gained 20 seconds over this distance and placed tenth overall.

I have enjoyed my first season of racing. I plan to do two hill climb races later in the summer. Most of the races are now criteriums and I have no intention of mixing it up like that.