Ok, here’s my painful race report. Nothing to write home about :’)

I did the Bariani road race just north of Winters. First RR of the season and it cooked me. Well, I cooked myself actually. It was cold and windy (25mph steady gusts). Got there a little late for a warm-up and only had about 5 minutes to get the blood flowing. I’ve done this race before and knew that it would be important to be ready for the first lap attacks.

Sure enough, from the start there was a hard surge. Typical though of the M35+ 1/2/3 cat races. Each lap is 10 miles and we had 6 to do. Just after the start is a 1.5 mile stretch straight into the wind. This section drains any sense of power. Just after that is a right turn onto a 4 mile flat section. Here the cross wind made you ride leaning the entire time. And riders kept hugging the road side so it was fun trying to fight the gusts and keep from being bumped off into the dirt.

This then veers right and up over a small rise. Really just a little bump. But this is where I made my critical error. I wasn’t paying attention and a few guys in front of me let a gap form. I spotted it about half way up and surged around and past. But the pace and the wind was enough that I could not close the gap. The lead group dropped over the top and I dangled about 25 yards back. So close yet so far!

I ended up chasing and dangling off the back for half the lap until we hit that evil headwind section after the start finish. The group was only 200 yards up at that point but triple that by the end of that section.

It was at that point I decided I might as well get a good workout. So I kept up the effort and rode as hard as I could. About 3 laps later a group of 5 caught up to me and I jumped in and started pace lining with them. But I lasted about half a lap as their pace was a hair too high and my legs were a bit cooked from the solo effort. So I fell back and continued on my own.

On the 5th lap, riding through the evil headwind section, I could sense my body would not like the final lap. The gusts were increasing and the thought of having to do one more time through was not calling me. So as I rolled up to start the 6th lap I looked over at my car, looked at the road, and then turned back to my car.

I was fried. But I did get 50 miles of hard riding done. And about 40 miles of that solo. A really good workout! 🙂

Cheers!