The View From The Back (of the peleton that is)
Last Sunday (3/11/07) was the Murrieta (which happens to be the home town of Floyd Landis) criterium bike race. I decided to go to this race well over 2 months without really looking at what I was getting myself into. I went online, signed up and completely forgot about this race until a few days before.
Since a few of my team mates were also going to this race we decided to carpool. Through all of our emails we forgot that we had to turn the clock forward by one hour. So for our race that was starting at 7:30am (which was really 6:30am before the time change), I had to get up at 4:00am. I also did not go to bed until 12:00am, which gave me a whopping 4 hours of sleep. Not the best way to start a race day.
Once there I felt fine, but not great. My goal, to hang in the pack and finish with the group. Well, you know what they say about your best laid plans. As soon as the race started my all ready sore hips started to get fatigued and it took all of 3 miles into the race to know that this was going to be a tough day. The race was going to be 10 laps of 3.5 miles each with some big ring rollers. Except the rollers felt more like out of the saddle hills.
I lasted 2 laps before I got dropped on the biggest/longest roller at the beginning of the 3rd lap. Which is where I had the view from the back.
At first I was pissed to get dropped, but once I came to the realization that everyone has a bad day, I resigned myself to the view. For the next 5 laps I could see the back of the peleton. I worked with 4 other dropped riders and really enjoyed the practice of being in a pace line.
As much as I tolerated watching a bike race from the back. I do not plan on making it a habit. So in two weeks my goal is to only have a view of the bike tire 4″ in front of me.
Categories: Humor, Races
Tags:
Leave a Reply