Yesterday I did my first bike race of the season and my 3rd in total. It hurt, and all those people who say that Cat 5 riders are slow in general are lying bastards. Yes, you know who you are and I’m not going to point it out much. I’m kind of getting used to being misled by statements like “oh, it’s a Cat 5 field, they suck. They can barely turn their pedals over and you’ll have no problem keeping up with them” (I lasted approximately 10 minutes in that particular ‘race’), or “You’re much stronger this year, you’re not going to get dropped”. So I suck but whatever, I’m a beginner triathlete and we’re allowed to suck and think we’re great.
Being the slow, unskilled riders that we are, we only got to do 3 laps of the 11 mile circuit for a total of 33 miles. Apparently we’re not good enough to do more, a fact with which I’m not going to argue because, like I said, it hurt. Anyway, we started the race with some 45 or so riders and from what I recall during the 1h30 of torture that rapidly commenced, we lost the back 25 or so on the first lap. Of course this could be incorrect because all I was focused on was trying to stay near the front, which I did right up until the last lap where I got dropped.
Heading into the 2nd last climb of the day I managed to get stuck in the middle of the back of the lead group and discovered the meaning of “sketchiness” – that’s the technical term for Cat 5’s who have no freaking clue how to select a gear, hold a line and not brake on a climb so that the person behind you (that would be me) has to stop pedaling, almost come to a stop to avoid you, and then get dropped enough so that when you hit the top you see the lead pack of 10-15 riders slowly edging away from you and after trying to chase back on, you realize that your race is done.
So that was basically my race at Turtle Pond – stick in the lead group for 2+ laps, get stuck behind some people who can’t climb on the 3rd lap, watch the lead group drop me, and then whimper my way to the end. Yay for bike racing. Can’t wait for the next one.
April 26th, 2009 | 
