Sept 2 - Challenge Challenge (a Road Race)
Race info

News coverage

Photos: Maurice Evans

Report: 45+ report by Rob Schott, Webcor/Alto Velo Bicycle Racing Club

45+ report by Rob Schott

Challenge, CA September 3rd, 2006 Teammates: Kevin Susco (1st), et al: John and Linda Elgart, Rich Herms, Ron LeBard

Ouch, ouch. This course, perhaps the sharpest arrow in the Velo Promo quiver, was as advertised: incessantly undulating, with about 3000' of climbing per lap.

This wasn't so much a bike race as a V02 Max contest (there wasn't a lick of strategy for most of us). In our race, Snow White (Susco) bared his teeth early and the Seven Dwarves were sent scrambling. I'm on the wrong side of the Bell Curve with respect to whatever parameter best captures hill-climbing capacity, with numbers I'm sure more appropriate for full-contact Backgammon. Yet I persist (and actually enjoyed the morning).

But it didn't start out pretty. I woke up just ahead of my alarm, shortly after 4 a.m. feeling tired and drugged (which in fact I was- I took something to sleep at 10 p.m. and it was still sloshing around in my blood stream at 4 a.m.). Thursday night was a "call" night with fragmented sleep. (Call for me is as mood elevating as a cage match with a pack of rabid ferrets.) I laid in bed, the cruel hour projected by my alarm clock in angry blood red numbers onto my ceiling, as I wondered just exactly what sort of mental malfunction compels me to subject myself to this sort of recreational misadventure when I'm achy and leaden with fatigue, and the activity isn't otherwise required to feed and clothe my clan.

But I promised Rich Herms, who hasn't done a road race in years, that I'd meet him in Roseville at 5:30 a.m. for the ride up. So I rolled out of bed for the next round of pharmacotherapy: caffeine. I caff'ed up with some strong brew, titering to the cusp of nausea and then jittered out in the still dark morning toward the foothills.

The race took place in a lightly travelled area of the foothills that I hadn't previously visited, to the east of Marysville. I was vaguely aware of the scenic beauty during the race (in that blunted cognitive state that comes when you're attempting to function at 95% of your aerobic maximum).

The race started near a small school, with a brisk "neutral" 3 miles, a forced regroup and then the main event. I bobbed along in the pack watching my heart rate monitor drift north into the 170's, weathering the first Susco led acceleration. The road continued to tilt up and with the 2nd acceleration I separated from the front half of the pack. Not too far ahead I saw an AV trio form: John, Ron and Rich. It looked like a bridgeable gap but I yo-yo'ed around behind them for maybe 10 miles. It was quite an incentive, and at my closest I was perhaps 50M back- certainly within hailing distance. I came closed by hanging it out on the descent up to the sharp left hander about which we were warned at the start at the start of the race. I came into that corner quite fast- the flag guy looked like he was having a seizure- jumping around with his bright orange flag flailing above his head as I dove the corner (only to confront yet another steep pitch), with John et al. just ahead. But I lost them for good on the very few miles of flat section where they were able to form a rotating paceline with a couple of other guys while I chased alone. In fact, excepting the first couple of miles on the first climb, I did the entire race without sitting on, not that it matters much on this type of terrain.

After failing to gain the group ahead and not seeing anyone behind I settled briefly into a more comfortable pace. I did pass the occasional completely thrashed solo rider or small clumps from races ahead of mine. It was then with some surprise that I heard a faint voice behind me, actually calling my name. It was Linda Elgart, who was having a super day (given that she was racing with the guys and had been dropped early). We rode together- she would inevitably drift back on the climbs as I reflexively chased down riders ahead of me. (It was perhaps pointless, but in the Vast Universal Pointlessness, it gave me disproportionate satisfaction.) I would ease a bit over the top and without fail I would begin to hear gurgling and churning as Linda would claw her way back, like some sort of Zombie Biker Chick who couldn't be put down. It was a little scary in a way that added to the day.

I ended it with a big ring sprint at max effort up the finish hill, desperately holding off some nut case that was in turn attempting to chase me down. I fear we're all sniffing from the same bad tube of glue....

Rob Schott

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