Tales From the Back Side

A race report by Cycle Logic team member, Ken Sallot

We started out with a pack of 115 in a mixed p/1/2/3 field. Within one mile into the start the peloton was screaming down a descent at 45mph, rubbing wheels and bumping elbows. Mike Starr and I were at the back chit-chatting and he casually mentioned something about how three years ago there was a bad crash at the bottom of the hill. As if on cue, a bunch of guys in front of us locked up their brakes and Mike had to go rolling around in the grass. While he did catch back on, it made for a great start to the day for everyone.

After the start of the first climb I sort of dangled on the back of the pack. As we approached the second descent I let a huge gap open up knowing that once again we'd have a bunch up. We made the second climb and hooked the right, then we were off while a wicked wind pummeled us from the right.

I moved up a little, but with over 100 guys in the field it was difficult to make much progress. But that didn't deter some folks, and guys were blowing the yellow line rule left and right, pissing off cars in the process. I kept thinking to myself this was a little on the nuts side, and settled in for the haul.

We hooked a right onto a twisty road. With the wind still screaming at us, the pace at this point picked up fast enough that we were stretched out single file running around 28 or 29. And with that wicked wind coming, and the group stretched out, there was no room to hide.

We came through an area where there was deep sand on both sides of the road with a turn in it, and only about 5' of clearance, and sure enough a bunch of guys are laying down in the grass picking themselves and their bikes up.

At this point the pace was still high and I'm holding on for dear life. We hit the first really long climb at "College", and this is where myself and about a dozen other guys got sawed off, including my team-mate Carlos. We organized a chase group, but two of the guys wearing Rock Racing kits were convinced we could never get back on and that we should just continue to roll around to pick up our FPS points, and they refused to drill it to make the jump back onto the pack.

The next two hours we spent rolling around in a pack ranging from as little as 4 to as many as 12. Most of us were just 3's, but we had a few cat2s in the initial group. We continued to pick up guys here and there, and dropping them here and there, as the day continued to wear on.

There was one guy who wore a rock racing kit and would only take 3 second pulls but kept bitching if we pulled less than 30 seconds. Myself and an Aerospace guy named Donald started getting annoyed with "The Badger" and we colluded to try and drop him on a few of the climbs. But like a tenacious badger he kept hanging on to us.

Near the end of our second lap we were caught by the 5's. We decided to go ahead and just hang out in the 5's pack, but staying near the back, and roll with them for a bit. But when we got close to three miles from the end of our third (and their final) lap, we agreed to drop back so we wouldn't get caught up in the excitement of a cat 5 field sprint.

After we dropped off from the cat 5's, the remaining cat 2 destroyed a zip wheel by having a rear derailer take out all of the spokes. A part of me died right then. I hope he was picked up by a wheel truck because he was a nice kid.

A few miles after the destroyed wheel, we picked up Andy Bittingham from VeloBrew. He was ready to drop out, but I convinced him to finish the race with us. And of course, about a minute later I threw my chain on a climb. Doing my best Mike Arena impression, I managed to get it fixed and catch back on.

The ORC guy who had been with us decided to bail at the conclusion of lap three, and so we were down to just four of us -- myself, Andy, Donald, and the Badger. I figured the Badger was going to try and sprint us for 30th, and I was getting more annoyed with him as time went on, so as we made our first descent and first climb of the last lap I started pushing a hard tempo to see if I could finally saw him off. Andy started taking a strong pull, and I let a few gaps open up between us and then jumped them in an effort to surge and weaken the badger. Finally, when we got to the second climb of the lap I attacked.

Now keep in mind, these are just Florida power climbs, and the longest hill of the day only took about 2 minutes to ascend, but the Badger was probably about 215-220lbs, and he looked weak on every climb. So I popped up the pace to the high 20s, visited anaerobia briefly, got some separation, and the minute we crested Donald countered. I had enough juice to jump on his wheel, but Andy and the Badger were gone.

Please also understand, I fully realize this was like Jerry's Kids beating up on each other. But, there were FPS points on the line, and this was a race, so although I like Andy a lot, I didn't feel too much remorse over it. I really only wanted to dispatch the Badger, but this made it a little easier for me.

Donald and I kept the pace high for 5-6 minutes, and when we finally eased up we saw the other two guys were probably close to 1/2 mile behind. We worked together in a nice smooth two man rotation until we picked up a cat 2 (Velobrew guy) who had gotten popped. We asked him if he wanted to roll with us, and he joined us, but after a few minutes he dropped off.

With about 6 miles to go to the finish, I decided to go ahead and attack Donald and leave him behind. We hit the longer hill (College), and I gunned it. Donald cramped, and dropped off. I continued on, just cruising in solo mode. I passed a few other cat3s who had also dropped off on the final two miles before the long final climb which crests at "Duggan Road". I found bitter irony in that street sign, because Kerry should be world famous for digging deep on every climb in an effort to inflict damage on the people behind him, and I definitely was starting to feel it in my legs as I slogged up for the last time at a measly 14mph.

I finally rolled into the finish about 18 minutes after the main peloton. That's when I also found out I was the only guy from my team to finish the race -- the other four had better sense than me and abandoned.

As for those fabulous FPS points, I should be somewhere between 23rd and 25th for cat3's and somewhere in the 70s overall. But the preliminary results had me down a lap (even though I finished a minute or two before Humberto and Andy), we'll wait until next week to see the final results.