2004 Espoir/Under 23 National Championships

by Tim Henry (AG Edwards/Nalley)

The Under-23 National TT, RR, and Crit were held in Park City, Utah this year along with Junior and Masters Nationals. That is a pretty ambitious schedule considering there are so many different age group races to run and the whole event took over a week. To make it easier for the organizers this year, the bar for quality of racing at National Championships has been set very low. Park City did not dissappoint. Please keep in mind I am very grateful to the city and the countless volunteers that made our National Championships possible, I only wish to critcize those in charge of certain aspects of the event that I found poorly planned. My main problem was course selection. The Espoir RR was at between 6,000 and 7,000 feet of elevation with two three mile climbs each lap (3 laps for my RR) and a 5 mile climb to the finish for a total distance of 122 miles. I think 'death march' accurately sums it up. The finish of the RR involved climbing back into Park City on the only major road into town. On a course that difficult, the field is going to shatter. Only the first few groups of riders had a rolling enclosure and the rest had to deal with backed-up traffic caused by the rolling enclosure. The Crit course has got to be the hands-down worst crit course I have ever seen! It is a 2k loop around Deer Park Ski Resort. There was plenty of room to put the start/finish line on the road but the organizers decided it better to put it in a parking lot. So the first turn had lots of broken pavement and the road narrowed down to less than half the size of the front straight. On the back side, they could not close the whole road so the peloton had only traffic cones to seperate us from oncoming traffic. Finally, the last turn was the turn into the parking lot which had a nice curb to hop every lap at an odd angle about 50 meters from the finish. The curb was not particularly rough as curbs go but this is not acceptable for a National Championship. Now, on to the races...

The RR was tough and I still cannot climb so I got dropped along with Brian Bibbens and John Muphy, so the three of us rolled into the feed zone and dropped out on the third lap. I would have been more inclined to finish if we did not have to climb 5 miles back into town. As it happened, our teammate Mike Wolf was with the leaders through the feed zone on lap 3 with about 20 miles to go but his feed bag broke as he grabbed it and he did not get any bottles. So he ended up like 38th. A good ride for Wolf but below his potential. Mike has plenty of time to develop and will spend the rest of the season in Europe with the National Team.

John, Brian, and I basically came to Nationals for the Crit because it suited us much better. The major team to beat was TIAA-CREF, Jonathan Vaughter's team based out of Colorado. You might remember some of them as the "U-23 National Team" at the Tour de Georgia so you know these guys are no slouches. The plan was to get John to the front at the end and let his legs do the talking. It was obvious that the first rider to the curb turn on the last lap would win and I had complete confidence that John could do it if I did my job. Being at altitude affects recovery from race efforts so I did what I could to keep John from working too hard early on. I covered a few moves in the first several laps until I had to take a breather and John took over covering moves for a bit. Just as I was wondering if Brian was having difficulty he came shooting by me up to the front to take his turn covering moves. About halfway through the race I covered two moves in quick succession and took myself over the edge. I was forced to sit in and try to breathe for about 15 minutes. I was consoled by the knowledge that TIAA-CREF was not going to let anything get away from them and the rest of the field would not allow TIAA-CREF to get away so it was going to be a field sprint. At 5 laps to go I moved back to the front to get John into position. Then I saw a three man break just up the road a bit that no one was chasing. After looking around, I knew I had to chase. I knew this would blow my leadout but John couldn't win if there were three guys up the road. Besides, Muphy has a great ability to be where he needs to be in a field sprint. So I went to the front through the start/finish and drilled it for a lap to bring back the break. Satisfied that I had at least ruined someone else's day, I sat up and drifted through the pack and latched onto the back. Two laps later I recovered enough to move up the side of the group and move John up onto Tyler Farrar's wheel. Tyler rides for Healthnet, won the National TT, and I later found out had won the Manhattan Beach GP the day before this race and flown back to Park City late the previous night. So I was sitting about 30 deep as we went through the start/finish and heard the bell for one lap to go. TIAA-CREF was on the front and the speed was high but the field was bunched up as riders fought for wheels. Coming around the second turn I could see John on Tyler's wheel and I was already smiling and getting ready to throw up my arms. With about 200 meters to go, around a slight left bend, John jumped and hurtled full speed towards the last turn. He took off on the left side of Tyler with another rider going on the right. John was first to the turn by half a bike and seemed to be in good shape, until Tyler squeezed between John and the other rider while going over the curb. This forced John and the other rider to the barricades on either side. John tapped his brakes to avoid hitting the barricades and immediately lost positions. He got back up to speed and sprinted in for 8th. I rolled in on the tail of the first group for 24th and Brian narrowly avoided a crash that made him come to a stop with 3 to go. So Tyler's move was extremely savvy and won him the race. It is pretty impressive for anyone to get by John Muphy in the last 200 meters of a race so I tip my hat to a great bike handler. As for John, his only mistake was jumping on Tyler's left side instead of his right. If he had jumped on the right, he would have closed the door for that other rider and been able to take a faster line through the turn than Tyler and probably have won the race. But that's bike racing and as I always say, he'll never make that mistake again! I am completely satisfied with the way our team rode the National Crit. We were present and active througout the race and came very close to winning it. I have complete faith that John will win this race next year. Unfortunately, this is my last year racing in the U-23 age group. Word has it Nationals will be back in Park City next year so I won't miss it so much. This was an exciting National Championship week of races and I hope I conveyed some of my experiences so you can get an idea of how much fun bike racing can be.
 

Thanks for reading,
Tim