A rough start to the season. That’s the simplest way to put it.
No one is to blame; all of us are to blame. We messed up. We were complacent, didn’t race to the best of our ability, and let the strongest riders in the race go, almost from the gun. It was a disappointment, a huge disappointment. But we learned a lot that day – mostly what not to do – lessons that we will take with us to the next race, the Valley of the Sun Stage Race, in a less than two weeks.
It’s not fun to share our disappointments, failures, and rejections…but I think it is important. It shows that nobody is perfect – we are all human. Most people reserve social media for only their bright and shining moments. But I’m not a huge fan of that, it’s too fake. We all have our struggles, internal or external. I write about mental health because it is important to me, and it has affected me in ways that I never expected. And I know that other people have or are experiencing the same thing, sometimes worse.
So, long story short, we all messed up, we’re all disappointed, but I think it’s important to maintain our perspective. We’re not perfect – nobody is. Project Echelon isn’t going to win every race; there will be some we won’t even finish. But that’s life, that is cycling, and I don’t regret any of it. Sometimes the worst days are also the most important.
We learn more in failure than we do in success.
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Race Day Preparation
We drove north to Oracle, Arizona on Saturday morning, February 3rd, 2019. It was quite the trek, but it was worth it. As we neared Arizona Zipline Adventures – race HQ for the day – we were gifted with the most incredible view across the desert and up into the mountains. I don’t know where we were, or what I was looking at, but it was beautiful (cover photo).
We piled out of the Project Echelon Racing Team van with an hour-fifteen to ready our bikes, wheels, gear, nutrition, and feeds. This year we are equipped with top-of-the-line race gear from Specialized Bicycles (Allez Sprint Comp), Reynolds Cycling (AR41 X), SRAM, Tifosi Optics, and fresh-new kit from JAKROO. On top of that, we are lucky enough to have GQ-6 and CLIF Bar for our hydration and nutrition needs, as well as Amp Human Performance and Normatec for performance and recovery gains.
(I must say that I have never been on a team that is this well-supported, and I am incredibly grateful to each and every one of our sponsors for all of their support!)
The Race
The first 25 miles were downhill. So we thought it’d be easy. We thought the early break was a suicide mission. We thought that everyone attacking off the front was crazy. We were wrong.
We let the strongest riders in the race ride off the front in the first few miles. Mistake #1.
25 miles later, we entered the first steep climb of the day. Riders blew sky-high as another one of the strongest riders in the race attacked right at the bottom. My teammates did everything they could to stay with him – even setting some power PRs in the process – but they couldn’t quite make it. I didn’t have the legs either, and I was hunched over the bars, gasping for air as we crested the steepest part of the climb. I managed to recover quickly, and got into a move of 6 or so riders that attempted to bridge. But without my teammates, I was in no position to work. Not for the first time that day, I got yelled at and pushed a few times (nothing too cynical, that’s just racing). Based on the low-level abuse, I knew I was doing it right.
With all the strongest riders up the road, we knew we had messed up. My teammates and what remained of the field (~25 out of 50+ starters) caught my failed-bridge group with about 30 miles to go. The winning break was gone – they still had a 4-minute gap – but my teammates and I were still determined to salvage something from the day.
The Finale
The last 25 miles were uphill. (Remember when I said the first 25 miles were downhill? Now it was time to climb back up to the finish). The steepest part of the climb came first, and right at the bottom, a touch of wheels took down my teammate, Evan. He was pretty banged up, but with nothing broken, bike or body, we were happy it wasn’t much worse.
The field exploded on the steep pitches, and by the top, there were only eight of us left, including two of my teammates, Matt and Tim. Now that we had numbers, we knew we needed to attack. With one of us off the front, the other riders in the group would be forced to chase, and the remaining two of us would get a free ride in the draft.
Matt was the first to go. He didn’t last long, but then he did the ‘superman attack’ – countering himself, he accelerated again as soon as he was caught. This time, it worked. We spent the next 20 or so minutes watching Matt dangle out in front of us. He was motoring, but never got more than a 20 or 30-second gap, as the group was still chasing hard. As we turned left on to the steep-ish pitches of the final climb, the group split again. I ended up off the front of the group with two other riders. Tim was tucked in the draft in the group behind. I sat-on as much as I could, frustrating my breakaway companions. But they were smart, they knew the unwritten rules, and they accepted my refusals to pull.
With just a mile to go to the top of the climb, we rounded a corner onto another steep pitch, and I attacked as hard as I could. By my standards, that means a 725 W-peak sprint. Pretty massive. I didn’t look back for a minute, and when I did, I saw that I had a big gap on the two riders behind. I was bridging across solo to Matt – that was the deepest I’ve gone, the most pain I’ve been in, and the most suffering I have experienced in a long, long time.
It took what seemed like an eternity (it was about 3 minutes in reality), but I made it across to Matt, and he pulled me all the way to the finish. We never saw the early break, who had already finished a few minutes before us. Matt and I were 7th and 8th.
It was a great way to end an overall-crappy race. We messed up, but took it as experience. This was the first time that many of us had ever raced together, and it’s only February. We still have seven months of racing ahead of us.
***
My race on Strava
Next up: Project Echelon Racing Team Training Camp – Tucson, AZ