Lindsey Wilson Road Race

AHHH BIKE RACING!!!!!

Its finally here! We got our collegiate season underway Feb 22 with the first road race of the year down at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY. After everyone got out of class we hopped in the vans and made the trek down to our cabins near the course. After getting settled, opening up our new kits (and coming up with as many puns as possible), we hit the hay to get ready for the racing in the morning. The TTT was ridiculously expensive, so we skipped that and set our sites towards the road race.

I was somehow convinced to upgrade to the collegiate B category for this season, so I'd be doing 50 miles on a fairly hilly course. GPS/elevation data below:

The course. Click to enlarge to readable size. 

The race started off pretty mildly with no one really wanting to take up the work at the front of the field, which was partly due to the fact that the first climb was coming up at mile 4-ish. On the way to the first climb we had a twisty, gravel strewn downhill that saw an Indiana guy blow the corner and ride through a field. To his credit it was a nice save and he made it back to the field.

Start of the RR - Photo cred to the folks at Murray State

The first few climbs were pretty uneventful, but a few guys snuck away form the field. We let them go because we figured they were "stupid solo break away guy" and kept it at a smooth pace. After all, the final climb of each lap was going to be a bear.

As we grew closer to the big climb you could feel the tension in the field. Luckily Danny eased this tension by "breaking wind" and subsequently getting called out on it by another team. Before too long we hit the bottom of the big climb and things got real.

I was never really expecting to make it over the climb with the field, and this was somewhat true as a small group of 10 or so put a good sized gap into us on the climb. About a mile and 300 feet of climbing later the suffering wasn't over as we had some work to do in order to catch back up. Stephen and I worked together to bridge up to the main field, and eventually we made it! We were a mix of surprised and incredibly happy that we'd made it and not gotten dropped. But our work was not done.

Those "stupid solo breakaway guys" were still up the road and no one seemed interested in pulling them back. Danny is our climber extraordinaire, so we wanted to catch these guys to give Danny a chance to win it on the final climb. Accordingly, Stephen and I went to the front and pulled the field along as fast as we could. We were hoping one of the other teams without a guy up the road would help us (I'm looking at you IU), but alas no one wanted to. We got a bit of help from a Lindenwood guy, but not nearly enough.

About 40 miles in we hit the 3rd climb of the 2nd lap and my legs said no more. I sat up, let the field go, and accepted that my race was essentially done. All that was left to do was putt towards the finish with Stephen and hope that we had done enough to allow Danny to catch the guys in the break.

Unfortunately he wasn't able to as no one wanted to work after we got off the front. He did win the race from the main group though and ended up taking home 3rd on the day. A great result, and just a bit of foreshadowing for the rest of the weekend.