Deja Vu With the Squirrels

     The Gateway Cup continued on Saturday with the Tour de Francis Park, which has been one of my favorite courses since the first time I raced here in 2011. It can be a frustrating course if you want to get in a breakaway, but it's hard to beat the just flat-out speed the wide, fast course provides. And the community really gets behind this race. There are always plenty of families lining the course that goes around Francis Park, which features historic churches on every corner. It's just a cool place to race in my opinion.

    Shannon and I went for an easy spin in the morning to loosen up the legs. My legs felt tired, but at least the knee was not sore at all. We rode part of the Schoolhouse Trail Greenway in Collinsville, IL. We were able to ride right from our hotel out to the greenway, go down 20 minutes toward the town of Maryville and back to get in a nice hour. We didn't have room to bring both of Shannon's bikes, so she was on her mountain bike with slick tires. She definitely worked harder than I did on this ride.

    During the ride, we saw a sign for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site and decided to check that out on the way to the race. It was a really cool place with many more features than either of us expected. Cahokia Mounds is the site of an ancient city that was located along the Mississippi River back in the 1200s. The city had an estimated 40,000 people living there at its peak. It was actually larger than London at one time. The city featured 120 mounds which were built to raise important buildings above the rest of the city. The park has about 60 mounds in it today and you can hike around many of them. There is also a museum in the Interpretive Center that displays many artifacts found in the park and teaches how the people of Cahokia likely lived. We had just enough time to tour the museum, then had to head over for the race.

Cahokia Mounds Interpretive Center

Marsh area in the park

     It was another hot day when we arrived at Francis Park. The course was the same as in years past. It's a big square with four 90-degree left turns. There is a fast downhill from Turn 2 down to Turn 3, followed by a short climb out of Turn 3. The course descends slightly through Turn 4 then begins a slight rise for the final 150 meters to the finish line, continuing gently uphill to Turn 1. As I said before, the course is very wide and fast. I actually thought the race was slow today. Everybody must have been feeling it from last night's furious race at Lafayette Square. Or maybe I was just having a good day.

Francis Park Course Map

2 laps to go in the Cat. 3/4 race

     I had a good start spot and stayed up front most of the race. It was a slower race, but that did not cut down on the sketchiness of the group. Again, people were doing crazy things. And again, many riders left with less skin than they came with. I have never seen so many people blindly weaving through the middle of the group. There was a crash at the end of the first lap and I just managed to get through it. I had the camera on so you can see the carnage in the video clip posted below. I thought I was going down, but then I saw a small hole and I shot through it just before it closed up with bodies and bikes.

Crash starting. Guy in the orange on the right is plowing into the rider ahead of him.

Video: Crash on lap 1

     Two laps later, the pit was releasing all the riders from the crash and one of them shot across the road right into the middle of the group and caused another huge pile-up. Luckily, I was ahead of this one, but Kyle Tiesler, a young rider from Nashville who just got his Cat. 2 upgrade and has been racing great, was caught up in it. Jason Tatum also went down in one of the crashes and was out for the rest of the weekend. He too has been racing really well lately.

Cat. 2/3 Men in Turn 1 with one of the historic churches in the background

Tree-lined streets around Francis Park

This is the way the front of the Cat. 2/3 race looked all day. Wide across the course.

Cruising 26.9 mph from Jeremy Stitt's camera

     I got shuffled back at one point and had to take some chances with the sketchy guys to get back up front. At one point, I shot up the left at the start/finish line right as the group slowed down. I had not intended to go all the way to the front, but I had a head of steam coming by the group right before Turn 1. I did not want to cut under everyone going into the corner, but I had a line of guys behind me and if I had checked up to get into line, I am sure I would have been run over. So, I took a chance and trusted myself over those behind me. I knew I could hang that corner tight, so I went for it and we all got through safely. Of course, I got fussed and cussed at for the next lap, but I stand by the decision as being the safest option at that point. The slower pace up front caused that and other incidents during the race. It was ridiculously slow at times.

     After that scare, I was determined to stay up front. Sometimes that meant getting on the front and pulling, but I did what I had to do to keep from getting blocked in. All went well until two laps to go and a surge from the left came by at the one moment I had no chance to get out of line. After that, I could not seem to get out of the mess to move back up. I had great legs and felt I needed to be up there in the last lap. I could do something today!

Me sprinting from Curtis Luckett's camera

Rider attacking at 2 to go

The group at 2 to go

     The last lap started off extremely slow as we slowed under 20 mph after Turn 1. It was so spread out that I could not find an opening to move up. I was trying to go left, but nobody on the left side seemed to want to move up even though they had the opening to do so. What more of an opportunity could you possibly dream of?!!! That slow pace lasted until just before Turn 2. I was stuck in about 60th as we went down the hill to Turn 3. Finally, a hole opened up as we topped the climb and I let loose, picking up a lot of spots before the line, but I could only get up to 39th. I had such good legs today and wasn't even breathing hard when we hit the line. That was definitely an opportunity missed. It was hot today, but with less intensity during the race I handled it fine.

     Despite the slow start to the last lap, it was still the fastest lap I have ever turned on that course according to Strava. I guess I really did turn it on that last quarter-lap. I felt it was a slow and easy race, but nobody I talked to felt the same way so maybe I was just on a super day. I've got to be better about holding my position in those last two laps, but a lot of times these big Cat. 2/3 races just seem like Russian roulette with positioning. I'm not sure how much skill is really involved. Sometimes you just pick the right line and end up at the front at the finish. Highlights of my race from the handlebar cam will be posted soon. We averaged 27.3 mph for 52 minutes, which is a shame on a fast course like this. If we had raced as hard as last night we should have averaged over 29 easy. Highlights of my race from the GoPro are posted here. There are also videos posted from other onboard cameras in the Cat. 2/3 race here (Jeremy Stitt) and here (Curtis Luckett).

    The Pro races were again very entertaining. The Schneider sisters, Samantha and Skylar, went 1-2 for the ISCorp Cycling team in the Women's race. In the Men's race, there was a big crash early in the race that took down a lot of the favorites, including Dan Holloway and Brad Huff. Both were able to continue and contested a fast finish. At one point in the closing laps, there were three different trains spread out across the front of the peloton as United Healthcare, AltoVelo-Sea Sucker and Astellas were locked in battle for their sprinters. This time it was UHC coming through with Carlos Alzate taking a close win over the battered Holloway, who crossed the line in a tattered, bloody stars-and-stripes skinsuit. There's pictures posted below along with a clip of the Men's finish. A video of the day's racing is posted below under the pictures.

UHC stringing out the Pro Women up the hill

My view for the Women's race

Pro Men

Two riders on the attack in Turn 4

Andy Reardon of Sonic Cycling finished well today

Brad Huff had a few scrapes after the early crash

Fast racing for the Pro Men

Single-file

Turn 2

Two laps to go and the trains are fighting!

Video: Finish sprint won by Alzate

Video: Tour de Francis Park

    The Gateway Cup crew also livestreamed the race using a still camera at the finish line. They covered over five hours of racing, including the Cat. 2/3, Kids, Pro Women and Pro Men races. Watch it below.

Livestream of the Francis Park races

    After the race, we cruised back to the hotel and made some fajitas in the parking lot while listening to the first college football games of the season and battling some of the biggest mosquitoes I have ever seen. I may not have been drug tested at the race, but I definitely lost some blood tonight!

Mmmm fajitas!

     Next up is the Giro della Montagna on The Hill. Then we wrap things up on Labor Day with the technical Benton Park Classic.

Racing With Squirrels

     The week leading into Labor Day was a bit crazy. I had five races in six days prior to us leaving for our vacation. We had to get things straight at work and at home for being away for a little over three weeks. In between mowing grass, picking peppers and packing clothes, I headed down to Nashville for the final race of the Music City Crits Series. I was a little nervous to race just two days before my biggest race of the year, but I wasn't exactly on the best form for Gateway Cup after the knee injury so I figured I had nothing to lose. Maybe it would open my legs up and have them ready for Gateway.

Working in the garden under a rainbow. Still no rain for us though.

     I expected a fast race for the finals, just because it was the last chance to get a win at the speedway and most of the guys were not going to Gateway. My plan was to save myself the whole race and sprint at the end if I had anything left. I did not want to waste any energy or dig too deep. The course for this week was the layout known as "the kidney bean." From the air, it looks like a kidney bean. You start on the small oval then go onto the big oval at the end of pit road, follow the big oval back to pit road and take the chicane back to the small oval. You basically have two chicanes: one before the start/finish line, one after. It was a fast course, and was actually more difficult than I expected. You carried so much speed into the chicanes that they were tight at times in the group. There were lots of spectators for our race and we raced mostly under the lights with the reduced daylight the late summer is already bringing us. People were grilling food and eating. The smoke and smell of burgers made it feel like a big event. I loved it!

Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville

The "kidney bean" race course

Getting underway in the Pro/1/2/3 race

     As for the race itself, it was fast yet again. With a less technical course, it kept things a little more together at the back, which is where I was early. There were several big moves up front, but I did not want to be part of them, so I stayed back and saved my legs. My patience was rewarded as we all came back together at 15 minutes. I started to move up, but did not get to front in time to see a big break go up the road. Initially, there were five riders off the front. They got a sizeable gap in a hurry and then the chase groups started to form. Riders in the chase group shuffled around for a few laps before two riders got between the leading break and the peloton. I wanted to stretch my legs at 30 minutes and bridged to a group that was trying to catch the two chasers. I did great on my attack, but once I got halfway across the gap I realized this was more effort than I wanted to make. But I could not back down now and put my head down to complete the bridge to the group. There were six of us up there for a few laps, then the peloton pulled us back. Our effort did little to gain on the lead break as they had over half a lap on us.

Patrick Walle

Me in all black with Josh Lewis on my outside during our short breakaway

The camera was not liking the dark tonight

Still shot from my GoPro following Shannon Williams through the first chicane on course

     Things calmed down after one more attack, then four riders lapped us. They dropped one rider and he was eventually caught by our group as the pace cranked up for the finish. With the four leading riders back in the group their teams could now help them. John Carr was one of those four. He is a good friend of mine and I always try to help him whenever I can, so I worked for him the rest of the race, assisting his Treehouse Racing team. I didn't do anything major, but I did help chase back a big attack from Jason Tatum, who was also one of the four a lap up. I then put in a big pull with three laps to go to discourage any other attacks. I came off the front with just under two laps to go. I tried to hang on the back after that, but Tanner Hurst was also doing a big pull to keep the pace high and I finally popped at one to go. Tanner finished his pull on the backstretch and we soft-pedaled in together to the finish. John wound up in third behind Tim Henry and Patrick Walle.

Jason Tatum launches an attack on the right

Matt Schupp attacking

Me coming to the front

Me on the front at two laps to go. You can still see the pain face through the blur.

     I ended up 23rd on the night. The result didn't matter, but I did use much more of my legs than I had planned. We averaged 26.3 mph for just over 49 minutes as they shortened us a bit tonight for some reason. I don't think we raced the full 60 minutes at any of the races I did in this series. I was feeling it after the race, mostly from the heat. It was definitely the hottest race I have done this year. My legs were tired, but not awful and my knee was less sore than the week before. The knee had me nervous for the weeks ahead. I was going to be racing hard all weekend, then riding a lot on my mountain bike with no ice packs to help with swelling. Hopefully it will hold up.

     Race videos are below. The first was shot by Dina during the Pro/1/2/3 race, and the second one is highlights from my handlebar cam. I also posted a third one of the crash during the Cat. 3/4 race that took out some of the Clarksville guys that have started racing this year. Zach Solomon caught this on his onboard camera. My buddy Paul Carter went down hard and ended up with some cracked ribs and a punctured lung. Heal fast Paul!

Video: Pro/1/2/3 race clips

Video: Highlights of my race from the GoPro

Video: Nasty crash in the Cat. 3/4 race from Zach Solomon's onboard camera

     Two days later, we were up early packing Shannon's car for our long trip. We had more stuff with us this year as we planned to camp for at least one week, and we had extra wheels and clothes with me racing the Gateway Cup. We've taken a vacation out west for the last few years. Usually, we come home after Gateway Cup, then leave for vacation a week or so later. But this year Labor Day fell a week later and it just made more sense to head west from St. Louis since we would be four hours into the drive already. You have to be careful with going west later in September as the snow can bring you a chilly surprise.

     After a few minutes of packing, it became painfully obvious we did not have enough room. I was in the process of weeding out what we could leave behind when my Mom came by to pick up some tomatoes. She was driving their truck. I made a joke about how we needed the truck, then I got to thinking that it actually would solve our problems. After some talking and looking over the truck, we made a last-minute vehicle change. At the time we were supposed to be pulling out for St. Louis, we began unloading Shannon's car and loading up the truck. The extra space allowed for an extra bike so I could take two mountain bikes. I had been trying to decide all week which bike I would take. The Remedy is fun on the downhills and at the bike park, but I have been in XC mood lately and really wanted to take the Racer-X. I had decided on the Remedy just because I was afraid I would break the Racer-X doing something crazy, but the truck allowed me to take both!

    It took a while to get packed and get on the road. We were over an hour late leaving, but still had plenty of time to get to our hotel and check in before time to head over to the Tour de Lafayette. Some bad directions on a detour and a traffic jam in Nashville, IL cost us almost another hour, making us pushed for time. We had to go to the hotel and unload the back of the truck. We had way too much stuff in there to be able to leave it on the side of the road at the race. Lafayette is not a race where you can park close to the course and keep an eye on your stuff. At one point before we reached the hotel, I thought I might miss my race. But we made it to the hotel with minutes to spare and unloaded the truck like lightning. It pays to call ahead and confirm your room. They gave us a room on ground level right next to the door which really helped with unloading.

    Traffic across the river into Missouri was significantly better than our last trip to St. Louis thanks to an extra lane added to the I-55/I-44 exit. We made it to the race right on time! I was a little nervous for this race. We had a big field and it was sure to be a fast group in the Cat. 2/3 race. My legs were not great. I was still feeling Wednesday's race and knew I was lacking my form still. We had 118 riders on the start line for a race under the lights around Lafayette Square for the first of four days of racing at the Gateway Cup. The course was the same as in the past with the exception of moving the start/finish line to Park Ave. which was previously the stretch between Turns 1 and 2. The layout is a big square and we had nice, new pavement. No more potholes to deal with on the backstretch. The pavement was very new and could have been a problem had it rained, but it was a hot, dry night in STL.

Tour de Lafayette Course Map

    Calling the group sketchy is an understatement. It was the worst group I have ever ridden with. Guys were making dangerous moves, weaving their way through the pack with complete disregard for others around them. Somebody chopped the inside of every corner. It didn't take long before riding like that sent people to the ground. I heard a big crash behind me coming off Turn 4 just a few laps into the race. The pit was completely full the next time we came around so I guess many riders went down in that mess.

On the start line at Lafayette.

Photo by Kyle Tiesler

Video still of the early crash starting, from Mike Bobelak's video which is posted below.

Crash getting bigger from Mike Bobelak's point of view.

     There were two pinch points that proved to be a problem. We lost a lane off both Turns 2 and 4. After a few laps, you would think everyone would realize it was there. Nope. That's what caused the first crash and nearly caused several more. At one point, I saw a rider coming off Turn 2 in the pack, riding with no hands, and had his skinsuit unzipped with his head stuck inside. He ran into the barrier and nearly crashed. It was an insane night. I was surrounded by a bunch of squirrels.

    To make a long, sketchy story short, I stayed upright and kept my skin. I did not have the best legs this night, but I hung in there and finished with the main group. I got up front about 20 minutes into the 55 minute race, but some of the crazy moves got me shuffled back towards the end and the pace was too high for me to ever get back into a top position. Positioning is soooo important here. The straightaways are not long enough for you to move up a lot of positions at one time in a big group like that. At five laps to go, I could tell I did not have anything left to fight with, so I dropped back to a safer spot and just got to the finish. I was actually just off the back of the main group at the end after the back of the bunch splintered the last three laps and I had a lot of gaps to close down. I finished 80th and felt terrible after the race, again due to the heat. We averaged a fast 28.3 mph for the race. It was a diverse group for a Cat. 2/3 race, with 16 of the top 20 riders coming from different states. With my legs feeling off and everybody else looking to be on, it was looking like I would have a tough weekend ahead of me. But at least my knee felt ok!

     I ran my handlebar cam and the highlight video is posted below. Then there is a crash video from Mike Bobelak, one of the riders involved in the early crash.

Highlights of my race from the GoPro

Crash video from early in the race

     In the Pro races, the women were flying! It was the fastest women's race I have ever seen. It was a good field with this being part of the National Criterium Calendar this year. Leah Kirchmann got the win for Optum. On the men's side, the United Healthcare train was rolling in the late stages of the race, but they were overcome by AltoVelo-Sea Sucker on the last lap as Dan Holloway was delivered to the win over Brad Huff. The top UHC rider was Luke Keough in 5th, which is rare. They are almost always in the top 3 when the blue train gets set up and usually they get the win.

    Up next was the second day of the Gateway Cup at the Tour de Francis Park. More about that race coming soon!