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Mineral Wells Stage Race

We were hoping the rain wouldnt be bad, maybe it would even hold off. It was supposed to rain hard on Friday and it had just sprinkled, maybe Saturday would be the same. We awoke to wet ground and a slight rain. By the time we were headed out to the course it hadn’t changed too much. Shawn and I were riding to the course to get a decent warm up in our legs. We arrived the course to find Corey Ray off the front of the P1 crit. Not too bad. He would stay off for the remainder of the race for the win, with Adam taking third.

The rain seemed to picked up towards the end of their crit and during the 15 minutes between races. We lined up for the start, I was on Lallas wheel, and maybe third row. The whistle blew and it was on. I knew with the rain, and water on the course the gaps were going to open up quickly. There were maybe 15-20 in the front group which formed quickly. The Garmin-Slipstream riders, and an Alchemy rider, and PACC keeping the pace with attacks the rest of the group had little chance of catching back on. A few riders would slide out in corners, usually by themselves, but for the most part everyone kept it upright, least that I saw. None of the attacks were sticking though. 

About 30 minutes in we heard the bell when we were on the backside of the course. We came through and saw a 1 to go sign. A few people thought this meant we were at the end of the race. The rain had picked up signifigantly at this point, so maybe they thought that the race was being called because of the rain. Next time through they sprinted for position, but the bell had been for the racers we were about to lap. One less match in their book, and Ricky Randall, of MSU, attacked soon after. They let him creep off the front and dangle. Some slow cornering allowed him to get a decent gap. I knew I could hit the corners faster at the front or by myself, so I attacked on the back straight away. It took me a few laps to bridge up to Ricky, but once I did we settled into a pretty good rhythm. 

We kept the gap at about 10 seconds, He would take the front side of the course, and I would take the hill and back section. I knew that to win I had to go through the last two corners first, especially in the rain. I pulled up the final hill, and through the downhill corner, keeping the speed up on the back straight to discourage Ricky from coming around. We went through the final corners and I buried it to the line. I looked through my legs once, and didn’t see Ricky’s wheels so I knew I had it. 

Post race, we had to get Lalla out of the rain, as his racers build didn’t allow him to retain much body heat. We drove back to the hotel and started getting bikes ready for the TT. There was just enough time between the races, to go back, dry off, eat a little food, and prep the time trial bikes. We got everything loaded into the Merry Miler and headed out. There was limited parking at the TT course, and with the Miler being reverse challenged, we need to choose our parking spot smartly. They wanted to park us in the field, but I didn’t want to risk it. We saw a spot on Hwy180 and parked there. Not much warm up time, due to trying to keep warm in the van, and it was time to be at the starting block

I was 8^th to start, and my 30 second man didn’t look to enthused to be out in the cold and rain. I caught him before the top of the first rise out of the gate. Probably a minute or so in. Now my chase guy was at least a minute up. So I didn’t have much to focus on, no carrot to draw me in. I would eventually pass another guy at the top of a hill, but had issues getting back into my big chainring, so I lost some time there. I got it figured out and got back on it heading down the hill. The next guy I was going for was a ways off, but I knew I could catch him. I had him in my sights on the final hill, I put it into the small chainring and started to spin as smooth and fast as I could. He kept getting closer and closer, and I knew I was almost to the finish. I caught him at about the 200m marker and finished strong, with a 21:06 in 8^th place. Somewhat disappointing for me but I haven’t really had time to work on threshold this year, so my results should improve by the time Fayetteville Stage Race arrives. 

We checked the results and I was in 1^st in the GC, by 3 points and the team was in 2^nd in that points competition. Think Cash Racing had surged infront of us with 3 riders in the top 6 in the time trial. We needed to watch them in the road race, and make sure their rider in second place didn’t get to far away up the road. There were also KOM points and Sprint points to be had. We had a plan for the road race, trying for the KOM points, but we new we weren’t likely to get them, and to make sure we got the sprint points to retain the 1^st place in the General Classification.

The road race started fast and furious, as they moved the KOM points to the first lap instead of the second, so it was a race to the top of the hill that was 13 miles away.  There were multiple atacks and they were all brought back. We were all together at the bottom of the climb but that didn’t last long. Caleb Fuchs was the first to the top and gained himself 5 points putting him 2 points ahead of me. We needed to get the sprint points on the first lap through. We were set up perfectly, but I was not positioned well and got boxed in. Shawn did manage to get 2^nd and gained 3 points for his effort, but Imari Miller got first, and that moved him within 3 points behind me. The next lap was mostly calm, attacks, but they would be neutralized. The climb up the hill was a little more manageable but I would still get dropped a little bit and had to chase back on.

When we came to the sprint point/finish line on the final lap there was a group of 5 or so off the front, so the peleton didn’t get any points out of it, all of the GC contenders were with us, so it was a wash. The last lap there were more attacks before the hill, with some small groups staying off the front for a bit. One of the groups had a Think Cash rider in it(leader of the team competition), so Lalla was at front putting in a hard hard effort to try to bring them back. We couldn’t manage bringing them back, and I was making sure I was fresh for when we got to the hill. We hit the hill pretty hard and the group split pretty quickly. 

Shawn and I started mid group and Lalla a few spots infront of us. Lalla had given it all he had leading up to the climb and was done for the day. Shawn and I made it to the top, got our senses back together, and started to get back to the field. We were about 20 seconds down according to a spectator, so we had our work cut out for us. We took turns pulling each other, with not much time for recovery.

We would pass Caleb Fuchs as he flatted and was was switching bikes with his teammate. We knew that the field was gonna hit it at this point as both race leaders were off the back. We made it back into the group and tried to move up into the middle to avoid being dropped again, and to get a better draft. 

Not to long afterwards up came Caleb, and he went straight through the peleton and headed to the break up the road. I don’t know why no one followed him, but someone sure should have. He rode to the break and eventually through the break, to get the win 8 seconds off the front. Not that we didn’t try to chase him down. Tommy Rushing, another few riders, and I started a rotation at the front, because we knew it was going to take a few efforts to pull them back in. We would catch them eventually and I tried to recover as much as possible from the effort, as well as position myself well for the sprint. Shawn had helped pull the breakaway back with us, but I hadn’t seen him since, so I knew I only had myself to rely on. The finish was pretty fast and furious, with lots of teams taking a turn at the front keeping the pace high. The sprint would make its first kick just inside the 1K flag, and I knew this was too early for me, so I waited patiently. Imari went at 200meters, and it was on, I couldnt catch him, or one other rider, but held my position for 4^th in the road race.

Heres a video from the last 4 minutes of the road race.

http://youtu.be/ZSFnDehHaG8

Once all the points were shaken out I got 2^nd place, with Imari one point behind me in the GC. 

All photos property of Lee McDaniel Photography

I hadn’t been on my cross bike sine the State Championship race in December, and it was looking kind of lonely. So once I realized I would be in town this past weekend I decided to put myself through 90 miles of Denton and Wise county’s finest gravel for The Spinistry’s Texas Chainring Massacre. The event had already been sold out, but I was able to get a transfer from a teammate, so I was in.

There were some big names signed up already, Russ “Big Daddy” Walker, Tom Brandish, Ben Spies and his teammate Simon Essl were also signed up. Eventually Bryan Fawley, and Chris Powers got spots from people who backed out so we were gonna have a pretty good group of strong riders.  

Mike Bohn and I previewed the course on Thursday evening, even though it was night, we got a good feel for what the course was going to be like.  Lots of undulating hills, and plenty of gravel, some sections had gum ball to golf ball sized gravel, so I was certain the course could not be completed on a standard road bike. We made it out of the pre ride without incident, and were feeling pretty good about the upcoming Sunday. 

Sunday morning came and after a slight comedy of errors  we were out of the house and headed north. The temperature was in the high 30’s for the start, and didnt get too much warmer all day. Most folks were bundled up with all the clothing they had. I went with a vest, and knee & arm warmers, as I didn’t want to overheat once we got going. I did however go with a liner in my gloves as cold hands will quickly make a ride quite miserable. 

We rolled out at 9:00 sharp, and I led the way across Hwy 35, I knew there were a few corners relatively soon and didn’t want to be caught up in the group going through them.   It wasn’t long before “Big Daddy” was on my hip ready to go. I was messing with my computer for a bit, and he went up the road a few hundred yards. Bryan, Tom, myself and a few others were ok with letting him dangle there for a few minutes, but not too long. Once we hit the gravel, and the cross wind, and we were all back together, Russ moved to the left side of the road and put everyone in the gutter. Russ and Bryan and two others got a gap, including my teammate Mike Steeves, and I looked around and realized it was up to me get up there. 

We rotated a few times, and then I looked behind me and it was just Russ and I. We rolled away and no one really wanted to give a major chase just yet, as we were only 6 miles into the race. We strolled through a few miles of smooth asphalt and hit the real start of the gravel and were still alone. At the feed zone, at mile 27, we would have 4 minutes on the group. We didn’t know this but kept plugging away, taking turns and keeping a good pace. We were having good luck so far, getting through the water crossings without incident (Russ had 80mm deep dish wheels), and no flats. 

The wind was out of the north so the first “half” of the race was into a headwind. We would keep an eye on who was behind us, and as we entered Muenster Russ could see Bryan Fawley and Tom Brandish about two miles back. So once we made the right turn to head back south and worked our way out of town, we knew we had to hit it. Russ was on his road bike with 27mm Roubaix tires, and a 53x11, so I tucked into his draft and tried my hardest to keep up with him as I had cross tires which provided a much higher resistance than his smooth road tires, and cross gearing(46x11 was my biggest gear). This went on for about the next 20 miles, we would take turns at the front, but I was already tired from pushing just to keep his wheel. 

Just one of the early hills.

The hills seemed to be worse on the way back in once we had passed the feed zone again after mile 71. It may have been the exhaustion setting in, but Russ would gap me on every hill, and it took me longer and longer to get back each time. The final big hill gps at mile 78 is what did it too me. I finally cracked and had no motivation to get back on Russ’s wheel. We would finish solo from here, I sat up for a minute, had a Honey Stinger Waffle, and some water and felt a little bit reenergized. At this point I didn’t know how far back Fawley and Brandish were. I thought maybe 5-10 minutes possibly. Little did I know that they had some tire pressure issues and would finish almost 30 minutes behind me.

Now the goal was to finish the last 10 miles without getting caught, as Russ was no longer in view, and I knew I wouldn’t catch him. The good news was the remaining miles were a gradual downhill back into town, not without some rollers of course though. At point I was catching a few of the last stragglers that were doing the short course, which was slightly motivating, and kept giving me a carrot to chase. 

I finished the 89 mile route in 4 hours and 36 minutes, 6 minutes behind Russ. This was definitely a tough route, with some very well linked together roads that kept you on gravel probably for 80% of the route. This was good training for some of the races I have coming up in Late February and Early March. I may add some of the roads into my regular training route rotation when it gets a little bit warmer. 

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