By Bryan Holloway, Atlanta Cycling Men's Cat. 4 Team
Race: Highland Rim Classic
Place: McMinnville, TN
Date: 5-11 and 5-12-2002
Men's Cat 4
for those of you who have been enjoying these cycling reports, here's another long one. because i don't get enough abuse in my life, last
weekend, i cruised up to the sleepy little town of McMinnville, Tennessee to
compete in the Highland Rim Classic stage race with two fellow teammates, James and Patrick.
the day before we headed up there, i told Stouf how tough it was going to be, and he offered to kick me in the ribs a couple times in order to save me
the trouble. in retrospect, i wish i'd taken him up on the offer, because
it would have been far less painful! it turned out to be one of the most brutal, painful weekends i've ever seen on a bike. but it was awesome.
they say, "that which does not kill you makes you stronger", right? these days, i find myself constantly trying to remind myself those words. i think
i might have said that ("most brutal") after the last race, too. these
things just aren't getting any easier, are they?!
the whole trip nearly fell apart on friday. our team captain, Manny, backed
out because he got sick, and then a couple other teammates followed his lead and backed out as well. James and I were on the verge of backing out when i
got a voicemail from Patrick. in a colorful way, he encouraged me not to back out. hey, i really wanted to do this race anyway, and was thinking
about just cruising up there by myself. so since he was definitely going
and wanted me to go, i was in.
so the three of us representing Atlanta Cycling, (James, Patrick, and i) met
at NRG studio friday evening, loaded up 4 bikes (yes, Patrick brought 2. you never know when a spare bike may come in handy), and hit the road for
McMinnville. after a quick stop in Chattanooga for dinner at a cool blues-flavored restaurant/pub called Sticky Fingers, we rolled on into
McMinville around midnight. this place was in the middle of nowhere. if you draw a triangle connecting Chattanooga, Nashville, and Knoxville (not
much unlike the Bermuda Triangle! The Bermuda Triangle of bike racing)
McMinnville is right in the middle. it's a small town with a crazy one-way road network facilitating traffic flow through the 3 blocks that comprise
downtown.
since we still needed to register for the races, it was up and at 'em bright
and early at 6am Saturday morning. in a staggered wave start, the Cat 4 race (Patrick and me) would roll out at 8:40am, and the Cat 5 race (James)
would follow at 9:05am. (several other categories rolled out before and inbetween our races). The Road Race course went something like this: 55
miles long, it was one big clockwise 55-mile loop. the race started with 15
miles of flats and rolling hills through beautiful farmland countryside. then it turned skyward, up a huge mountain, for a stair-step climb of about
3 miles in length and incredible steepness that just went up and up and up.
upon reaching the summit, we didn't descend immediately, but rather rode along that ridgeline (nearly flat; small, rolling hills) for 30 miles. then
a right turn onto another highway, and a huge decent down the mountain back
to the start/finish line. after the 3-mile steep decent, there was only one
more small hill and one mile to go. it was comparable, i guess, to climbing Monte Sano, riding along the ridgeline to Green Mountain, and then
descending
Green Mountain. except the Highland Rim mountain was a tad bigger...
it was a beautiful day in McMinnville, Tennessee. clear skies, warm temps, 80 degrees. felt good. i replaced a tube (faulty valve stem), and we
suited up. good day for a race! at this point, i'd like to give huge props to all the workers and volunteers who put on the Highland Rim Classic. it
was one of the best organized and well-run races we've ever seen.
everything ran on schedule, results from each race were posted very promptly,
and they assigned individual start times for the time trial, so that you didn't have to wait in a long line with no warm up.
but first thing's first. before the Time Trial came the Road Race. so the 4s rolled out to start the Road Race at 8:40am with a field of 74. the
first 15 miles were great! easy, rolling hills, comfortable pace, through beautiful, scenic countryside. i rode near the front of the pack, ate a
Cliff bar and got ready to put on my climbing shoes.
the 3-mile climb caught me a little off guard. i thought someone told me it
started at mile 19, but it started at mile 15. so when we started to climb at mile 15, i thought, "this must be another small roller before we hit the
big climb at mile 19..." but it never leveled off... "uh, what's going on here?!" (i was desperately looking for a little recovery...) i just tried
to keep pace with the leaders. a couple minutes later, i finally gave into the idea that we were into the climb. "uh, ok, i guess this is it..."
holy mackerel. this climb would have been difficult at a leisurely pace. at race pace, it was brutal. it didn't take long to separate the men from
the boys, as the leaders never slowed down. someone "set off a bomb" in the
middle of the peloton that blew the pack apart. big hills tend to do that. i hung with the leaders for about half the climb, and then started to fade.
i glanced down at my heart rate monitor. i could have sworn i saw a typo.
i was looking at a new max heart rate of 190. it shattered my old max heart
rate of 181. uh-oh! not long after that, against my will, my legs decided they didn't like this pace, and the leaders pulled away from me like a
red-headed step child. afterward, Shige asked me, "do you think you got psyched out when you saw your heart rate?". no, i don't think it was the
mental aspect of seeing a new max heart rate, but rather the heart rate itself that was responsible for the fade. my cadence slowed, my speed
slowed... in the minutes that followed, i struggled to press on with all my might, but so many guys passed me that i was sure i slid all the way to the
back of the field. oh well. some days are better than others. i just kept peddaling best i could manage. the suffering lasted about 20 minutes(?), i
think
finally, i crested the summit, and it was Straggler City. guys strung out both in front and behind me, i just hoped they were all breathing as hard as
i. well, it didn't take long for us to recover and get organized. someone exclaimed "10-second pulls, and we'll catch 'em!" and the chase was on. our
little pace line soon grew, one by one, as we passed more and more stragglers. anyone with legs left was welcome to join our train. at that
point, all team affiliation was thrown out the window, and everyone was working together. every single guy wanted to catch back up to the
peloton, and everyone knew we all needed to work together to stand a chance. at one
point, we had 20 guys in our chase group. we had a big, long rotating pace line going, and we hammered all out.
at this point, i had no idea how many guys were in the lead pack, how far ahead they were, how many chase groups were chasing, which chase group i was
in, etc. all we knew was we had to get busy quick if we were to stand any
chance of catching the lead pack. the good news was that we had a long time
to work it (30 miles before the decent. we needed to catch them before the decent). the bad news was that we discovered massive head-winds on the top
of that ridge line! not to be deterred, we found strength in numbers, and kept the pace high, about 25mph, even in the face of brutal head-winds. for
the duration of an hour, our only mission in life was to catch the lead pack. bottom line: i've never worked as hard, for as long, on a bike
before in my life. a full hour HammerFest. it brought new meaning to the
word "suffer" for me. in retrospect, i don't think it was the climb that trashed my legs, but rather the full hour-long chase.
well, as it turned out, there were only 7 guys in the lead pack, and i was in the 1st chase group! i was very surprised. on some of the longer,
straight-away stretches, we caught a couple brief glimpses of the lead pack
up the road. they looked to be about a minute ahead. i was too busy hallucinating
to think about timing the gap. but catching a glimpse of them
was encouraging.
by the time we turned right onto Hwy 8, about an hour had elapsed since the climb, and we still hadn't caught the lead pack. we knew we needed to catch
them soon, as the decent was coming up. ah, ha! as luck would have it, a
small pack of riders appeared in the distance. and this time, we were gaining on them. slowly but surely, we closed the gap and finally caught
them. they turned out to be a dropped pack of Cat 3 riders from the race that started 15 minutes before ours. Doh!! my heart sank. the Cat 4
leaders were still out of sight, and probably starting the decent. i was
officially cashed now, and just fighting to hang onto the back of this chase
group, which had by now dwindled to about a dozen riders.
but then came The Decent!!! a 3-mile-long, no brakes, wide-sweeping right turn decent with beautiful wide-open panoramic views of the valley below.
it was a beautiful view, but i quickly decided i should focus my attention
on the road instead. everyone went into an aero tuck, and we zoomed down the mountain at unbelievable speed. no peddaling necessary, it didn't take
long to hit 40 mph.
finally, i found an advantage to being a relatively big guy in the world of cycling. i passed everyone on the downhill! i glanced down at my
speedometer. 45 mph. a couple seconds later, i glanced down again. 48 mph. this sport is so much fun. my cheeks were rapidly flapping in the
breeze like when you skydive. i was curious to see how fast we would get
and was tempted to keep watching the speedometer. but again quickly decided
the speedometer wasn't the thing on which i should focus my attention at the moment. i decided i would wait until the end of the race and check the "Max
Speed" captured: 50.8 mph!!! Woo-hoo!
the decent lasted several full minutes! my bike performed like a champ and stayed solid as a rock during the entire decent. man, that was a blast. and
check this out - when we bottomed out at the base of the hill, we nearly
caught the lead pack! finally, they were within sight again. but there was
one more mile and one more slight uphill to go, and they were cresting it. so close, and yet so far. (we never did catch the lead pack). even though
i was now in front of the chase group, the others quickly caught me and we re-assembled into a pack for the final mile. only a mile left, i kicked it
one last time and was very happy to see the "1K" line (to go) spray-painted
in white across the highway. then 500M, then 200M... 200 meters to go is typically where most people start their sprint, but i didn't have anything
left for the sprint at the end and only beat one guy in the chase group.
when i found out i got 18th (out of 74; 63 finished), i was ecstatic (top-20
finish!), especially given how poorly i though i had done after the climb. guess i wasn't as far back as i thought. i plan to do this race again next
year, and the year after that, as long as it takes, i hope to be in that lead pack someday. it amazes me how many strong cyclists there are in the
world...
so that was the Road Race. final stats: 55 miles. 2 hours, 21 minutes, 51
seconds in the saddle. 23.1 mph average pace. and total exhaustion.
the weekend was far from over. next came the Time Trial. i was slated to start at 4:27pm, and Patrick would follow me at 4:27:30. we had about 4
hours to recover and get ready. we grabbed a bite for lunch and went back
to the hotel to rest up. we tried to nap for a couple hours, but none of us
found much sleep. Patrick's heart rate wouldn't settle below 100. my right hamstring cramped as i lay there in bed. a couple hours later, we were back
out there on our bikes, warming up.
the Time Trial was an all uphill time trial. remember the decent where we reached 50 mph? that was the same hill we got to ride UP for the time
trial! this thing was an 8% grade. 8% is the maximum steepness at which they build highways through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. whoever
decided this was a good place for a time trial is sadistic. it was 2.5
miles long. of the 74 Cat 4 guys who did the road race, only 26 signed up to do the time trial...
alright, time to get this over with. it's 4:27pm, and i'm at the starting line. before the weekend, i was actually really looking forward to this
time trial. i know i'm not the strongest climber out there and probably wouldn't win it. but i really enjoy climbing and hoped for maybe a top-10
finish. well, it didn't take long for all hopes of a top-10 finish to go
flying out the window. the dude said go, and i started in my lowest gear (23) with a good cadence. i don't think my comfortable, fast cadence lasted
more than 30 seconds. immediately, it hit me like a brick wall. where did
the lead weights come from that someone just tied to my legs? i couldn't believe how quickly i started suffering. this was going to be a
long time trial. my cadence plummeted. i looked for a smaller gear to shift down. i couldn't find one. next year, a 12-27? i may not have gone
any faster, but it may have been a little more comfortable to spin a lower
gear at a higher cadence. anyway, grinding up a tough climb at a low cadence is painful. my thighs burned. i prayed for a recovery that would
never come. i watched my speedometer. 7.5 mph. i clicked over to distance. 1 mile down, 1.5 miles to go. i immediately clicked it off
distance, because watching the sight of 2.5 miles elapsing so slowly was
painful in itself. just keep climbing, i pressed on... it was 14 of the longest minutes of my life.
after all the suffering was said and done, i had climbed the 2.5 miles in 14
minutes 36 seconds and took 16th out of 26. hey, i was happy with that, and just happy it was over.
at leat we got to ride down the mountain one more time.
after the time trial, the 3 of us grabbed dinner at a pasta place and pondered whether they could have made these races any tougher. (i guess
they could have sent us around the course twice for a total of 110 miles,
like the pros!) what a long day. despite the time of 6pm, we felt like it was 10pm. back to the hotel to rest and eventually crash, but not before a
"late nite" muchies run to Dairy Queen at 9pm. the Extreme Chocolate
Blizzard rocks.
on Sunday morning, we were back up bright and early because James' Cat 5 crit went off at 9am. the crit course circled the perimeter of a campus of
a high school. exactly one mile in length, it had several shallow turns and
several sharp 90 degree turns. it was a really good course, but the location was wide open, no trees, which meant no shelter from the wind. and
it was windy. Patrick and i set up chairs next to the start/finish line and
watched/cheered James on. he got 5th! awesome.
the Cat 4 crit was last and didn't start until 2:30pm, so we had plenty of time to grab brunch at Shoney's.
back to the course. it was another great day in McMinnville, still beautiful weather and clear, but it was warming up. mid-80s? the winds had
picked up, and by mid-afternoon, they were fairly strong. i was glad our crit would only last 30 minutes.
like an idiot, i lined up too far back (i've learned this lesson before, but
i guess i needed to learn it again). the field was 45, and the leaders took off like bats out of hell (did they not do the brutal road race and time
trial the day before?!?!) The whole field immediately strung out and I found myself fighting to hang onto the back of the pack.
the best story from the crit came about 10 minutes into the race. a huge orange and white construction barrel (lots of them lined the course to mark
it) blew into the road like a tumbleweed, directly into the oncoming peloton! before the race, Manny told us "watch out for the barrels!" we
didn't realize he was being literal. some dude smacked the barrel head on
and ran over it. i couldn't believe it. he hit it and it crumpled underneath him. he rode right over and then it popped back into shape and
kept on rolling. i was amazed and impressed he didn't crash!
that broke up the peloton as everyone scrambled to dodge the thing, and i never quite caught back on. within another lap, i was officially dropped.
and at that point, the crit turned into a 20-minute time trial for me. doh!
the lead pack dwindled to about 2 dozen by the end of the race as they dropped half the field. i salvaged the race by linking up with another dude
who was dropped. i asked him if he wanted to work together to help get this
thing over with, and we chatted a little bit along the way. his name was Ben from Cookville, TN. we did the 2nd half of the race together and with
one lap to go, he asked me if i was interested in a friendly sprint at the end. i said sure so he layed down the ground rules. we wouldn't jump, we'd
just start sprinting after coming out of the last turn. it was a very long straight-away to the finish line. basically, we were going to sprint for
25th place. alright, here we go, 1 lap to go, final turn, GO! we started sprinting and Ben was on my right. he took the early lead by about a wheel
length. but i started to close the gap and was gaining on him as we approached the line. when we got to the line, i threw my bike and it was so
close, neither of us could tell who won. whoever won only won by an inch. man, that was FUN! we congratulated each other and couldn't quit smiling.
(after checking the official results, i beat him! :) ) 25th place, baby!
i own it!
so there you have it. a very full weekend of challenging but fun cycling. still got a ways to go before i'm competitive at Cat 4, but i'm actually
enjoying the abuse. i'm done racing for a little while - next race will be a month or so away. plenty of time to rest, recuperate, and get ready for
the next one...
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