Spring Valley (Ohio Spring Race Series)

Yet again pre-race instruction from Mr. Blair Fraley, Marty and Joe gave me everything I needed for the race. I did more than my far share of pulling during the race trying to get the tempo up. Than I sat in on the last climb while everyone tried to breakaway early and sprinted around the leader with 50 meters to go.
Although the follow and lead cars for the juniors got a little in the way it was awesome to see them racing around the same course, I wish I had started road cycling that young!
I think it maybe time to upgrade and I'm really looking forward to racing with my teammates!

PS I have no control over nicknames inserted in my name. But, you can just call me RD for short.

Fortunately the rain held off until right after the race, although the headwinds were challenging at times. I enjoyed this course, low traffic, nice sweeping "S" turns and a challenging climb at the finish. The Cat 4's did 5 loops our first 4 felt like a Sunday ride to the Der Dutchman breakfast buffet. Not much racing just everyone cruising along and then the pace would grind down as we headed into the wind. I stayed in the middle of the pack just cruising and staying out of trouble. On the climb as we started the bell lap, the pace picked up and the race was on. I got into the lead group and slowly moved my way up the pack. With about 4 miles to go there was a big pile up coming out of one of the "S" turns. I quickly moved left and avoided the crash. Two riders got off the front and I was able to get in the chase group. We made the hard right to begin the final climb, I held my position up the hill and then passed 3 riders over the last 50 meters to the finish.

First race after a crash a few weeks ago. I felt good the entire race. My fitness is coming. The roads were a little narrow for the Cat.3 field. If you were anywhere but the top ten when an attack launched, you were screwed. The "blocking" by some of the larger teams was a joke. If you're not going to ride hard and race, please move to the right and wait the women's field and ride around with them. It is a "bike race" and not a bike ride. 14th is a guess.
Nice Job Tony "Real Deal" Viton on his third straight win out of 3!!!!

Relatively small field on Sunday, probably due to the weather forecast, though the rain held off until the very end of the race. As has been the pattern this year, a break got off the front relatively early, though it was only two guys this time. One of them was a Wheelie Fun guy and the rest of the WF team shut down the race at that point. There was really only one other team there, Michelob Light, that had enough guys to organize a chase but they were apparently nursing a hangover because they just sat in with the rest of the crowd till the last time up the climb. I felt great all day and saved my efforts till two laps to go when I went off the front with Joe Hall, but nothing was going to get away from the Wheelie "No Fun" team. I made one more effort on the last lap, bridging up to one guy off the front but again we were shut down before we could even start to breathe hard. It was a frustrating day for anyone who wanted to race, rather than sit in on a Sunday ride. Last time up the hill I had to measure my effort to keep the legs from locking up. Blair and I finished together somewhere between 10th and 15th I think. Another typical Cat 3 race. That's what happens when you only have two or three big teams and when only one of those teams is willing to work.

Kudos to Tony for another win yesterday. Time to start dominating the Cat 4 races with Marty! Once we get you two racing with me, Blair, Mitch and Steve, we'll have a team that can challenge the Wheelie "No Fun" juggernaut.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my helmet during this outing. It wouldn't stay put on my head in the fashionable high in the back and low in the front fashion any self-respecting Euroracerwannabe prefers. In one particular straightaway stretch into the 30mph+ wind it kept lifting like an airfoil right off my head. I determined this to be the result of a perfect storm, an unfortunate confluence of personal shortcomings. For one, I was born with and continue to have a pinhead, the probable result of being the first born via normal vaginal delivery from a very frightened mother. Now anyone who has ever tried to tighten a ring around a conical thing knows that the ring will simply slide upwards upon tightening of the ring, and therefor I find the Giro Roc-loc (trademark yada yada) or whatever they call their ratcheted ring to be a flawed design principle. What about the helmet straps you say? To that I refer you back to my personal shortcomings-I can sooner figure out the solution to a Rubics Cube (trademark) or a Chinese fingerlock than I can the straps to a plastic velo chapeau. So I wear my straps very loose and dangling, pretending again that I am simply emulating my Eurostud heroes and that a sense of style has been covering for my inability to adjust those damned straps. So I found myself experiencing the hitherto unknown sensation of actually feeling the bottom of those pesky straps against the soft underside of my chin as that cradle was the only thing kept my airborne helmet from lifting away altogether like a kite rocketing away from a broken string. I further pondered that my occipital lobe was clearly deminimus, for if it were more prominent the Roc-loc would surely work better despite it's defective design perameters. Oh how I wish I had a more prominent occipital lobe.
The race? Well it was a race. Where is Valley Spring OH? I still have no idea. No stop light, no intersection, no town. As far as I can tell, our parking lot to Bean Bag City was in fact the city-burg center. The local denizens of Bean Bag City nee Spring Valley clearly don't care much for bikers. Rather than slow down and pull over, most oncoming cars as we descended the cool descent sped up and hugged the center line as if to say, "Let me show you what happens when my Korean built plastic covered Hyundai meets your Taiwanese built carbon fiber (insert flavor of the month bike brand here)! Also, I am all for promoting Juniors racing, but shouldn't the race organizers warn the cute kids' morbidly obese parents that it's bad form to trail their cute offspring in their full size vans at 10 mph while us adult and post-adult weekend warriors are trying to pass at a somewhat greater rate of speed? But with all that said, the course if as good as they get for OSRS races with a little bit of everything including a real hill and it was once again well deputized and organized. Good to race with three teammates and Steve Caminati saved my day by bridging me back to the group early on when said morbidly obese parent in full size sag-van interrupted our race.

The course dried up pretty quickly from the pre-race drenching, but the 20-25 mph wind was tough. I was feeling very strong sitting in the back and very confident to make the attack on the last hill. Then it happened...the one thing all racers dread...the sensation that your bike's not responding to your cadence. Then you look down and see the flat tire. Arrrrgghhh!