Fields of yellow ahead
Lots of canola fields around here these days
Cemetery near Springfield. Some of the headstones dated back to the mid-1800s.
Found a new one-lane backroad with a wooden bridge and nasty climb. And I thought I new every road around here!
Work has been killer lately. It always seems to be a bear this time of year. Most of it is my own fault as I've been really trying hard to save us some money for a house. I overbooked myself a few times and it's starting to feel like the old days when I was overworked doing therapy. Work is usually fairly easy, but I seem to be in one of those stretches where I have many stressful days. The kind where you come home and are destroyed and have no desire to do anything. Bad for getting chores done at home. Even worse for training. The kind of days where you expect to work four normal hours and end up working your tail off for 11 hours.
I was worn out come Friday, but Athens and Roswell were on the agenda. You can't help, but get a little excited for this weekend of racing. I was kind of over the Athens hysteria, but the new course rejuvenated my spirit. I was hoping things might be a little more controllable on this course versus the previous one. We were to race the new course for both the morning qualifier and the evening finals. I was even more pumped for Roswell. The course there has scared me in the past, but I am starting to like it more and more every year as I get more comfortable diving into tight turns at high speeds with a group of maniacs. The weather was the only thing holding back some of the excitement. The forecast was for a cool, rainy day at Athens. Roswell looked ok, but Athens had the potential to be a complete wash-out.
I squeezed in a quick ride after work on Friday, then we made the trek to Georgia, rolling into Athens just before 1 am. It was a late night, but we got to sleep in as our hotel was just a few minutes from the downtown race course. It rained all night, but the rain stopped before 10am and the course dried quickly. We took a quick walk around the course and it was a little intimidating. It was still a four corner rectangle, but now was all left turns. I liked that as I just feel more comfortable turning left. The hill was way bigger than I expected, climbing two full blocks from Turn 4 to the finish line. Turn 3 was the sketchy corner, coming at the bottom of a downhill, slightly off-camber and narrowing on the exit. The stretch between Turns 3 and 4 was narrow in general. I was not excited about that section of the course, especially considering people seem to ride more crazy at Athens than anywhere else.
I felt great in my warm-up. The legs felt strong and I was able to hit the highest warm-up heart rate I have seen this year, Usually, a high max in my warm-up is a sign of a good day. I figured the qualifier would be brutal this year, just because we were on the downtown course. That would up the adrenaline a bit. I fought my way up to a second row start for the 45-minute Cat. 2/3 race. I knew I had to get a good start because the hill would likely cause some gaps near the back. My goal was to stay safe and finish in the top 45, which qualified me for the Amateur Finals later in the evening. The Finals are what I came to Athens for.
The course was fully dry by the time we started racing. I was right about the fury of this race. It was FAST from the start. The field was strung out from the end of the first lap until we were stopped after about 8 laps due to a nasty crash in Turn 3. The crash happened near the front and split 10 riders ahead of the group. I was well behind the accident as I had faded back from the high pace. I felt fully ready, but my legs were not liking running my max heart rate the entire lap every lap. There was no rest on this course with the long climb on the front stretch and another small bump on the backside coming off Turn 2. I dodged the crash. Just after I went through I heard that awful sound of carbon snapping as other riders piled into the mess. One rider was seriously hurt, so the officials neutralized us and eventually stopped us for a complete restart.
Me in the group early in the race
We stopped for about three minutes, then restarted with the 10 riders still off the front by five seconds. The restart was just as fast as the initial start. Actually, I saw higher heart rates in the first three laps after the restart than I did int he first start. Everyone wanted to bridge to the break. I was now towards the back and having to pass a lot of riders who were exploding. I managed to get my heart rate under control during the stoppage and was now feeling strong up the climb. I was suffering most on the small hill on the backstretch. I kept getting gapped slightly because I just didn't have the legs to sprint off Turn 2 after going up the hill at 26 mph.
I closed a lot of gaps, but eventually I ran out of steam. The entire group was single-file and busting up. There looked to be a group forming ahead of me, but I just couldn't get to them. I chased on my own at five seconds for about four laps before getting pulled. Eventually, the group I was chasing became 11 riders. I was the next-to-last rider to be pulled before that group was pulled. I was given 49th place, four spots out of the Finals! I felt bad for the group of 11 because they were pulled without given a chance to sprint which meant the last two guys in the group did not even have a chance to sprint for the Finals. The pace slowed near the end and a group of 30 riders formed to contest the finish. That was all that finished out of about 90 starters. It was crazy. My GPS malfunctioned so I have no stats on speed, but I know I held the highest heart rate I have seen all year. That was a hard race! I hate missing out on the Finals, but I was not completely disappointed. It was going to be a dangerous Finals with narrow Turn 3, so I was happy not to die today. And I dug very deep in this race, deeper than I have been able to push in a very long time. You don't realize there is another level to dig down to until you do a race this hard. I needed that!
Lead group on the backstretch
Me in a chase group of three
Video: Cat. 2/3 Qualifier at Athens Twilight
One nice thing about missing the Amateur Finals was that I had time to enjoy all the other festivities. There were BMX competitions in the afternoon, both in Flatland and in Park. They were part of the TransJam BMX Series. If you have never seen Flatland before, check out my pictures and videos below. The video is worth your time. The guys do balance tricks on their bikes while rolling around a small, flat area. The goal is to do these tricks without putting a foot on the ground. No ramps here. If you get air, it's because you did a bunnyhop on your own. And we did see a guy do a bunny-hop and tailwhip in one move.They have amazing balance and put on a great show. The last video in this section is of the kids taking to the Flatland course. They already have good balance. One of them is just five years old!
Video: Pro Flatland Finals
Video: Kids During Amateur Flatland Finals
The Park competition was awesome too. They had more quality riders present this year and we got to see bigger air and more difficult tricks. As in the Flatland, the kids were amazing. A different five-year-old dropped in on the giant vert ramp. That's amazing at that age. He crashed a few times, but was right back up there trying again. He definitely has the mindset to succeed in this sport. Crashing is a given with any discipline of BMX so you might as well accept it.
Flare on the vert ramp
Video: Pro Park Finals
We took a seat in Turn 3 for the evening races. I figured that's where the most excitement would be. The Amateur Finals backed up my assumption, having a big crash there midway through the race that forced them to roll neutral for a few laps. At that moment, I was glad I was not out there, but it still sucked to be watching instead of racing.
To my surprise, the Pros had few crashes. I expected a big one in each race at Turn 3 just because of the size of the groups trying to funnel down at the exit of the turn. The Women had no crashes there and the Men had just one, which was a rider leading a breakaway. The Men had a few more crashes, mostly in Turns 1 and 2. I think the difficulty of the course kept the field strung out and that made the narrowing less of a factor. Both races blew apart early on. There were only 20 women left for the sprint, which was won by Tina Pic. The Men's race saw a break of eight lap the field, then two of those riders went up the road again and nearly lapped the field for a second time before settling the win among themselves. Dan Holloway was the race winner. Overall, I felt the crowd was big as usual, but the new course was less exciting after a few laps when half the group had been shelled and pulled off.
Video clip: First lap of the Pro Women's race
Pro Women come off Turn 3 by the mountain of hay bales
Women in the sunset
Video clip: One lap of the Pro Men going down the hill into Turn 3
Originally, this was supposed to be a one-time course, but I heard rumors that make it sound like this may become permanent. The city seemed to like it more as the businesses on what is the normal front stretch said they felt having the road blocked off cut down on their business. I don't see how as surely some of the 10,000 people walking around the course went inside and bought something. I heard lots of riders praising the course too, but I did not care for it. In my opinion, it was more dangerous and less exciting. Athens will lose some of its excitement for me if this course stays. I will actually have to think about coming here in the future rather than going no matter what. This course takes no prisoners and you better be ready for it, physically and mentally.
You can watch the livestream from all the evening races here. Race reports from CyclingNews are available for both the Men's race and Women's race.
More on Roswell in the next blog post.
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