I was tired after the City Park Crit., more so from lack of sleep than the actual race effort. We got home late and I had to be at work early the next morning with an hour drive to get there. It was a rough couple of days with working so much, but I still felt good when Wednesday evening rolled around. It was a hot day at 96 degrees, with little chance of rain this week. Lucky for us, some cloud cover moved in and at least kept the sun off of us while racing.
Winning break in the Cat. 5 race
Cat. 5s in the right hairpin
My legs were junk in warm-up. I couldn't get them to go hard enough to even get my heart rate up. Then I felt a little sick on the start line, maybe from the heat. I was dreading the race, but once it got going, I felt great. Crossroads gave me a new perspective on crits. I am getting used to hammering all-out at 34 mph. Riding 28 mph here at the Speedway seemed like a breeze. I was working hard, but nowhere near as hard as I worked at Crossroads. There were a bunch of attacks from the gun as usual, but nothing got away. I was aggressive in the group, but stayed protected to make sure I was warmed-up before I got crazy. I was very comfortable in the turns tonight, making many passes through the hairpins. I even got into the wall once and thought it was fun. That's when you know you are getting too comfortable in crits! I tried to stick my wheel up on the outside at the finish line and the group just came over on me. I had nowhere to go except into the wall. It was nobody's fault. They didn't know I was there. I was being sneaky.
Got a white scuff on the outside of my shoe from getting into the wall near the finish line
I waited until the 15 minute mark before moving to the front and taking a dig after a break. The break I went with never really got a gap, but the counterattack split the field. At first there were three up front, then, like many other times this year, riders kept trickling across the gap one and two at a time. I was blocked in and unable to follow until there were eight riders up front, including all three of the big dogs I was watching tonight. I knew I had to go and as soon as I got an opening in the pack, I took off after them. Two riders jumped at the same moment I went, so I had wheels to follow at first. The hairpins shuffled things up a bit. I was too smooth exiting the turns and found myself gapped by three riders that were attempting to bridge to the break. I hit the gas as we rolled onto the big racetrack. The group was glued to my wheel, but I had good legs today and by the time we hit the backstretch I had ridden away from them all. I caught the three chasers, who were hesitating a bit too much for my liking, so I punched it again and went right by them, setting sail alone for the break ahead.
The gap to the break was bigger than I can cross and I knew that. But I had to try. If I didn't go now, the break would be gone. I completely buried myself the rest of the lap, rolling 32 mph all the way to within five bike lengths of the back of the break. Then they accelerated out of the hairpins and my legs just wouldn't do the same. I started to feel sick again and all I could do was watch them ride away. I was so close! I have never felt that strong when trying to bridge or attack. It was a good feeling, but I wish I could have made it stick. I had given my all and I mean that. I was toast. I soft pedaled for two laps, getting caught, dropped and lapped by the group. I felt awful. Just as I started to feel better, I got pulled. It was weird to get pulled because it happened so early and the group right in front of me was left in the race. The official was a bit pull-happy and left just 16 riders in for the last 30 minutes of the race. There's something wrong when you get pulled at 30 minutes and get 18th place. I have a video posted below that highlights my race from my GoPro handlebar cam.
Highlights of my race at Music City Crits #10
There was a big scene as I was pulled. First off, let me say that they have been pulling riders this year only when we get to 5 or so laps to go. So, you can understand why I asked the official what he said when he spoke at me before I got to the finish line. I wasn't close enough to him to hear what he said, so I asked him to repeat it and he went off on me. I was expecting to hear "stay out of the group's way" since it was only 30 minutes into the race. But no, he was pulling me and he thought I was giving him slack. He proceeded to yell as I went off the track, calling me a "dummy" and saying I did not deserve to be in this race. As bad as I wanted to, I did not mouth back. This is a prime example of why I cannot support my local bike racing. Officials in Tennessee are ridiculous. They seem to be on a power trip most of the time and would rather pull a rider than breathe air. I guess he was expecting me to give him slack, but I wasn't going to. I just couldn't hear! I totally deserved to be pulled, but was not expecting it since they have not been pulling this early all year. I don't understand why you would pull on this course anyway. We had 29 riders and the course never gets more narrow than three lanes. If you can't pass a slower rider in a Pro/1/2/3 race then you shouldn't be riding. As long as a rider isn't being dangerous, he should be left in the race, in my opinion.
I've had a reputation as being whiny and a has-been for the past few years. And I've never had a good reputation with the officials. Here's some history as to why. At my first ever race, I did not know the rules. I was riding in the parking lot without a helmet on and an official asked me to go get a helmet. I said ok and he walked off. Another official, who happened to be the head official that day, heard him tell me that. She followed me to my car and proceeded to chew me out for a good 20 minutes while I was trying to put a helmet on. She said I was to get off my bike and walk to the car. The official never said do that so how I was I supposed to know? She was downright rude and nasty to a 14-year old. Sometimes I wonder why I even kept racing because that was an awful first impression. It's a good thing I really love my sport. Things have never been good since that day. Everybody saw it and those officials are still the ones out there officiating today.
As for the rest of the haters in Nashville, they got all bent out of shape over a blog post I wrote about five years ago. I was kind of the bad boy at the time, the mountain biker that was also road racing and doing well. For some reason, roadies don't like mountain bikers, especially one that is coming over onto their turf and giving them a beating. I was fine with the bad boy image at that time. I was young and didn't care what anybody thought of me. I won a local race, making a last-turn pass on the local hero sprinter from the biggest team in town. The team was not happy about it and tried to take me out the following week. I ended up going down that night, totally of my own making. I was bridging to a break and the break crashed. I reacted by grabbing the brakes and I went down too. It was my own fault. But the rest of the night they were a bit over aggressive, doing things like getting on your inside before a turn and then not turning. I mean making no attempt to turn. It was deliberate and it pissed me off. I confronted them after the race. The bystanders took their side and labeled me as whiny. I tried to talk to the race promoter about it because it was his team that was doing the dirty racing, but all that did was cost me a friend. I lost a lot of friends over that incident. That day, I feel like the Nashville bike scene turned against me. I got so many nasty comments on my blog that I had to delete the entire blog and move over here to Blogger. I no longer promote this blog because I don't want all that attention anymore. This is for family and friends, not haters.
I stayed out of the spotlight for a few years. This is how I got started in traveling to bigger races. I just had to get away from middle Tennessee. There were too many bad feelings among everybody in the race scene here. Heck, even the Clarksville group rides are not a welcome place for me. I started back doing these Wednesday night crits this year for training. I have tried to be as nice as I could be at the races, trying so hard to change my image. I go out of my way to talk to people that would rather not talk to me, just to show them I am not what they think. But the reaction I got this week was the same old thing. I was portrayed as whining for being pulled and giving the official slack. I heard a few more times about how I don't deserve to race the Pro/1/2/3 race. I've heard that many times this year. I don't see why people would think that. Sure, I have not won a race, but I have had some decent results. And I am competitive within the group. People are so quick to label you a failure. It's win or don't even try in the mind of most people. Even if you did think somebody was a bad bike racer, why would you go out of your way to tell them?
So, after years of trying to shake my image with no changes seen, I have decided to embrace it. I've spent too much time worrying what people think of me. I wanted to get on a team and still nobody is interested in me. The old excuse was that I was too focused on mountain biking to be on a road team. For three years I have focused on the road and still nobody wants me. I am back to not caring what people think of me because people are just people. I am happy to be the villain once again. This blog may get everybody all tore up again, but so be it. It will just fuel my fire. The old Super D is back and he's angry for the end of the season.
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