This past Sunday was the final day of racing for the Rocky Mountain Omnium. It was going to be the longest day of racing, the road race. This race had an interesting dynamic from the start. It was the Colorado State Maters Championship Road Race and because of that there were a lot of new racers that had not raced the previous days. You see, as an omnium it’s like a stage race but the biggest difference is it’s not a requirement to do all of the races. As a result the number of racers at the road race was going to be double what had been racing all weekend. This made planning a strategy for the race, interesting. It also made for races within the race. There was the race for the overall omnium win and there was the race for the day, which happened to be the state championship. Not all the racers are going for the same ‘race’, so you can see it was a little complex.
After losing David in the crit, Tom and I had to think this one through. Tom was in second place overall for the omnium but of course wanted to win the state championship. Dane, the guy currently in first place for the omnium had demonstrated his strengths all weekend. He did a fantastic time trial and won the crit. He was sprinting all over the crit and no one had an answer to that. The road race presented us with an opportunity; about half way through there’s a 10% hill followed by a longer 5-6% hill. Dane is a big strong guy that’s gravitationally challenged, he even told us about his Superior RR troubles with the “Wall”. So, we had to exploit that weakness and get Tom free.
At the beginning of the race a number of the other racers came over and asked about Dave’s crash during the crit. It was nice and very appreciated. People were genuinely concerned. Most of us are fathers and have a day job making accidents something we all want to avoid. The race started slow, my legs were tired before we even got started. We had 50+ miles to go and no one was in a hurry. I was happy to set the pace for a lot of the outward ride. I stayed near the front and when the pace slowed I would move up and keep things going. About 10 miles in the road turned to dirt. The dirt was smoother than the pavement and not a factor at all. I continued to patrol the front, chase anyone thinking about getting away and kept the pace moving.
Before the right hand turn towards Burns I took the front. The climb was only a few miles away and I begin to push the pace. There were a couple of turns and I drove through each of them. I continued to push but not too hard, I wanted everyone to chase. I wasn’t trying to get away. The plan was to get the pace high so that when we hit that hill the gravitationally challenged would already be at their limit making the hill harder. I hit the hill and continued to keep the pace as long as I could, then I pulled off and watched the field shatter into three groups. Tom was in the lead group and Mike another teammate for the day was in the second group. Low and behold, Dane (first on the omnium) was in the third group and hurting. The gaps were opening up so I jumped on his wheel and let him pull away. I wasn’t going to help chase until that lead group had some distance.
The gaps opened up and once we got back down to the river valley I was comfortable that the race lead was too far up the road so I started to pull through. We were rolling down the river valley picking up racers that had obviously over exerted themselves on the hill but managed to hang on a little while longer. After the weekend of racing and the effort going out I was quickly running out of steam and ended up getting dropped. I found a new friend and rode in with my new partner in pain Kurt. It was more of a parade to just get it over with, we worked together so we didn’t have to be out there any longer than necessary.
I struggled in about 8 minutes after the finish to see Tom holding up his second place prize. Amazingly Dane did catch the lead group in the final miles, which blows me away. It’s a real testament to his strength. That effort however totally neutralized his killer sprint as he had given everything to get back in the group. So, sadly the strongest finisher may have not won but in the end but the strongest team did. Tom got second on the day but it was enough to win the overall in the omnium. I finished 15th and managed to get enough points for 5th overall in the omnium. The winner was someone that had not raced all weekend. Too bad, he missed out on a lot of fun, loser. (I’m just sad I didn’t get a chance to meet him)
Looking back it was an emotionally interesting weekend. The time trial on Friday was a lot of fun even if I didn’t have the right equipment. I feel like I did well coming in 2 minutes behind people with professional grade time trial equipment while I was full on retro (that’s right Merkx style, no aero equipment). The crit was hard both physically and emotionally because of my teammates crash. By the morning of the road race I had no idea how my body would react. In the end it did what was needed, maybe more. I really enjoyed racing with the team and meeting everyone else in our category. I’d also like to tell Dane, sorry dude but there’s an opening on our team for you anytime, you’re a hell of a strong rider and a great guy. J
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