UCSB Road Race
March 6, 2006 on 10:44 pm | In Uncategorized |I entered my first road race yesterday in the Mens C category (read: the easiest category). Two good things happened: 1. I finished and 2. I managed to not crash. The race was hosted by UCSB and held in Santa Maria, about 35min south of SLO. The Mens C race was 4 laps on an 11 mile loop, don’t worry about doing the math, it’s 44 miles total 
44 miles is not that long for a leasure ride but seems like forever during a race. The first lap went slowly with the peloton only moving about 15MPH. I can sum up the first lap in one word: frusterating. It’s impossible to move towards the front of the peloton because there are 50+ guys blocking the road and you are disqualified by crossing the double yellow line in the road. Everyone in the peloton makes jokes about how slow we’re going, partly, I think, since everyone has a bunch of energy at the start of the race. There were two crashes on the first lap in front of me but I managed to avoid them.
Over the second lap the pace picked up a bit and the thought of the race only being half over started to hit me. I made a few moves in excitement and got towards the front of the peloton but always got pushed back towards the end after a while. It takes alot of work to guard your position.
By the third lap my strategy changed from trying to place in the top 12 to trying to stay with the peloton. I just hung towards the rear and drafted not worrying about trying to move up in the pack. There was a break away at this point within eyesight.
On the fourth lap I realized how tired my legs were getting. I got dropped from the peloton a few times in the begining but only for a few seconds while I caught up. Finally I accepted it and got completely dropped with only 7 miles to go. I bonked (ran out of calories). I managed to eat most of a cliff bar over the 2nd and 3rd lap but it wasn’t enough. My strategy changed once again from keeping up with the peloton to finishing the race. It was tough and all I could think about was “peddle peddle and keep peddling.” Luckly there was a Bearkly guy who also had no energy left so we chatted the remainder of the race at an easy pace and crossed the finish together. About 200 yards from the finish was a big sceen with an ambulance and fire truck. Apparently there was a huge crash in the final sprint to the finish where a guy flew over the devil guard and off the road. Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t stay with the pack until the end.