ToTG Day 5 - Don't crash don't finish last

Although there is no true shame in finishing last (remember what you call the last place guy to finish the Tour de France -  "Hero")  if you aren't competitive with your class these are reasonable goals.

Craig and Jim achieved these goals on the final stage aka the "Gila Monster" and for the race overall.

Also they can hold their heads up knowing that even in the pro race there were racers who lost more time each day than they did (ie "didn't belong?")

The men's pro field fared less well meeting these basic goals as around 20 riders crashed on the Cat 1 descent to the Cliff Dwellings (Jim and Craig's fields don't do that climb/descent) with the race leader crashing out and another rider suffering possible spinal injury.  That sucks.  Our hearts and thoughts go out to them.

The final stage starts w/ about 1500 feet of climbing in the first 15 miles, making it tough to stay on, which Jim and Craig did not.  They did get into small groups and finish the day, it was very hard with tired legs.  Craig deserves special props for racing even though sick.  His bunkie Wes had a tough night, but recovered an got a training ride in.  They blame Friday nights pasta feed.

Jim was worried about Craig because the last day is so hard.  Unfounded fears as Craig did it and wants to come back next year.

We rolled out of Silver around 3pm with Wes doing most of the driving and hit SA around 3:30am.  Safe trip, no speeding tickets.  Car smelled really bad and may need fumigation.

Hopefully the boys will race again next year.  They won't win the race, but they can certainly achieve improvement goals such as lasting longer in individual stages and moving up daily and overall GC by 1.  losing weight 2.  Toughening up mentally during the hard sections 3.  Riding the bike.

Til next year from the Gila.

ToTG Day 4 - Criterium

Saturday during the Tour of The Gila is crit day.  1 mile circuit with 70 foot climb each lap.  Nice course, a little rough.   Great crowds and announcers.

Craig raced first, at 0830.  He couldn't breath and had came down with a GI bug overnight so only lasted 6/15 laps.  Ate a burrito for lunch, so probably on the road to recovery.

Jim raced at 1030. He lasted 12/18 laps and was happy with that.  You can see where he wasn't able to recover his heartrate during lap 4 so got popped on the steep hill on lap 5.  Fortunately for him, a guy who was stronger had come off earlier so he towed Jim around for the next 7 laps, doing 90% of the work.  They did get pulled at least a lap sooner than they should have, disappointing, but hey, whatever.

Craig did come up with a few new verses for the old "Diarrhea" song.  He substitutes "Balmorrhea" to honor the town in TX near Ft. Davis.

"When you're riding in the crit and your just about to sh__, Balmorrhea.  When you're moving thru the pack and you feel it in your crack, Balmorrhea.  When you're climbing up the mountain and you feel the chocolate fountain, Balmorrhea."

Childish yes, but since when isn't bike racing or dudes on the road together childish.

Craig made the mistake of telling Wes he had diarrhea, so Wes caught the malady instantly.  We returned from the crit to find him still in bed, unable to do his 3 hour monster ride of climbing today.

Tomorrow, the final stage aka "The Gila Monster."  Stay tuned, looks like we survived.

ToTG Day 3 - Same Old Stuff

Today was the "Race of Truth."  16.1 mile time trial on an out and back course.  4 mile Cat 4 climb out, 1.5 mile Cat 3 climb back.  30 mph side wind.

Uneventful day.  Craig and Jim rode their hardest, and ended up in the same spot relative to the other racers in their class, near the bottom.  One thing you find out in a stage race is that each day you pretty much ride with the same people and have similar results to the same people.  Like capabilities tend to layer out together.

Jim gave Craig a semi-deep dish front wheel to ride, then chose not to ride his deep dish rim due to the wind and handling.  He prayed Craig didn't crash or he'd have a lot of 'splainin to do.

Wes has this crazy idea that you should get everything ready the night before, so that you are ready.  He almost proved this theory's validity when Jim was having trouble getting his "jury-rigged" 11-27 cassette to work on the TT bike.  With Wes's help and a few spare cassette cogs we got 'er done.

Tonight the local Lion's club put on a great spaghetti and lasagna dinner.  Definitely need to make this an annual part of this race.  Hopefully the race will continue, we understand there are financial difficulties this year for the event...

Anyone interested to following the race along online (and you can even see Jim and Craig's results if you look down far enough in their respective categories) on CyclingNews.

Thanx for reading.

ToTG Day 2 - Progress

ToTG Stage 2 Ft. Bayard - Ft. Bayard aka "Inner Loop"

Obviously Jim made the time cut because he raced again today.  Not by the rules, because 40 minutes would have been where the cut should have been, and Jim finished 50 minutes behind the winner of yesterday's stage.  Fortunately the race commisare's stretched the rules a bit...

Remembering Wes's encouraging statement that today's stage is harder than yesterday, when the alarm went off Jim didn't spring from the bed with alot of enthusiasm.  Craig had already started his race at 8am and Wes swung back by the hotel to have breakfast and pick Jim up.

Riding out to the start Jim noticed the rolling nature of the first 5 miles or so and said to Wes "look I don't want to be negative, but if they start attacking from the guy and I get dropped before we even get to the first climb (Cat 2 climb of 6 miles starting around mile 7) I'm turning around and meeting you down in the valley to ride...

Well, as soon as the race started the attacks started but the headwind was so ferocious that they didn't go anywhere and Jim could sit in the bunch.  He made it 1/2 way up the first climb before coming off (right at Wendy Road where Matt's Dad used to live) at the Large "W" of whitewashed rocks signifying Western New Mexico College which is in Silver City.

Jim thought he could have gone a little farther with the group, but, didn't want a repeat performance of cramping and total body failure like had happened the previous day.  He waited for a couple of guys behind and caught a guy ahead of him so had a decent little group to do the rest of the race with.

The ride across the valley is beautiful, hard for the first half and easier for the 2nd half as you climb up to then descend from the Continental Divide.  A highlight here was the 6 foot Rattle snake slithering across the road as Jim and his 2 racing companions rode by at around 30 mph.

The last 17 miles included a Cat 3 climb (around 6mi of climbing in 8 miles) and was into the 20-30mph headwind.  By this time the women's Pro race had caught Jim and the other rider that he finished with so riding along side beautiful cyclist who actually smell good made the time fly by.

Wes did a training ride today.  He rode up the Cat 3 climb and stopped at the neutral feed, teaching the cute high school girls there how they were supposed to hand up water bottles.  He also rode beside the Women's Pro race for a little while, chastising them for not racing hard enough.  ("Those B____'s need to race.)  He was a little angry at the woman he was riding up the Cat 3 climb with because he was riding easy and she dropped him.

Craig had a good ride, his first 60 mile race with 4500+ feet of riding.  He actually rode with with an old friend of Wes and Rob, Chris Murphy a former Cat 1.  What he's doing in a Cat 4/5 race is beyond me.

Now Jim and Craig need to see the results and hope they make the time cut so they can do the TT tomorrow.

ToTG Day 1 - Y we race?

Silver City, NM -> Mogollon, NM

Anatomy and physiology of a meltdown.

Today is the first day Jim started the full 5 stages of the Tour of the Gila, racing 35+.  He's raced the 3 stage race as a Cat 4 in the past so he was excited to do the full race this year.  The race has lots of climbing and Jim is a large man, but hey, he likes to climb.

Today's stage was 74 miles from Silver City to Mogollon  Jim had 3 goals.  1.  Not get dropped on the neutral roll out.  2.  Make it with the main bunch to the turn to Mogollon.  3.  Make the time cut.  Goal 1 was met easily, Goal 2 was not met, and at this point we don't know about Goal 3.

Jim probably should have been a bit concerned about his race.  On the way out, Jim, Craig and Wes took turn driving and watched 8 hours of old Zinger Race/Coors Classic videos.   Good buddy Wes mentioned that Mike Carter, a decent pro that we saw in many of those races was racing in Jim's class.  Perfect.

The day started with a tough climb for around 2 miles out of Silver City, but fortunately that was raced neutral at a reasonable pace - Jim only hit a heart rate of 185 - so Jim met Goal 1.  Then 25 miles of mostly downhill to the first feed.  Fortunately Jim was at the front when a large crash happened so Goal 4, not even known about before the race was met - no crashing.

Wes and Craig fed Jim water at the first feed and Jim was comfortable in the bunch.  There were quite a few rollers over the next 5 miles out of the area of Cliff and things were heating up, but Jim was OK.  Then back to the main road and the cross winds hit.  30mph winds today (gusts to 50mph 2nite.)  Jim fought for a while, but got dropped.  There went goal 2.  Jim eased up and let a few guys who had gotten dropped earlier catch him, then they dropped him.  No panic but 30 miles to go, alone, into a headwind.

Before the 2nd feed at mile 65 Wes, who is out here training, not racing, rode toward Jim then turned around and paced him for about 10 miles to the turn off of Mogollon.  Jim's legs were kinda shot by that point and there is 7 miles to go, all climbing, gradients up to 10%.  Just ride easy and make it to the top.

Wes had continued down the main road and planned to turn around in a bit and chase Jim up to Mogollon.  Several Cat 3 racers and a few 35+ racers passed Jim on the climb, but he could only ride his own pace.  He could not join anyone else.  He became worried that he might not make it to the top and might have to turn around and quit the race.  It didn't help his morale when he went by the 2 mile to go sign and descending riders said "your almost there."  Yeah, riding 4 miles per hour thats 30 minutes.  Thanx alot.

Around mile 2 Jim started praying that Wes didn't catch up with him.   Emotionally he was doing OK riding alone, but if Wes caught him Jim honestly thought he would start to cry.  At the 1 mile to go point Jim's legs were cramping and his morale was not good.  He had to get off the bike.  He tried to walk and couldn't so he stood there for a minute or so.  Back on the bike, feeling a little better.  Until the 500 meter to go point.  Off the bike again and seriously considering turning around and going down hill.  He just didn't think he could make it.  Back on the bike and OK until the 200 meter to go mark and he had to get off the bike _again._

Rolled across the line, drank a bunch of Gatorade and ate a banana.  Sat there for 45 minutes hoping his leg cramping would stop (it wouldn't.)  Jim and Wes descended (Craig starts his 4 stage race tomorrow and figured he should only ride the flatter stuff today and not completely up Mogollon - good choice.   Jim had to stand for the first half of the descent due to leg cramping.   That got better.  Back to the car then the hour drive back to town.

Laying on the bed back at the hotel room felt really, really good.  If this is what dying feels like, Jim say's he's ready.

As mentioned we still at this point don't know whether Goal 3 has been met - making the time cut.  The boys have George Heagerty (one of the head USCF guys) and his teammates bikes in the back of their trailer, so the release of their bikes may become conditional on where the line is drawn for the time cut.

So, this is why we race.

A Day Off- The Sights of Mallorca

It really wasn´t a day off, but we only went 55K with 15 Switchbacks of climbing. I did learn that RP descends like crap as he ended up on his ass right after he said he does so like Paolo Salvodelli.

Anyhow, we took the afternoon to get lost a little and hit the town.

MANPRIs, notice I got 3 in one pic, that should tell you how popular they are. So now, can everyone lay off mine when I wear them? I´m just being Euro.

Center of Town

Central looking West

Side road opposite of the town square

For Colby, the RS4 Audi, 0-60 in 4.5s. My favorite car here.

¨View¨from the Hotel Balcony

300K

12 hours, plus stops. (7am-9pm)
308K, 182miles
A crapload of climbing.
I don´t think I´ll ever ride that far again, unless I´m lost.
Too tired for pics, not to mention that I didn´t carry my camera thanks to having my pockets too full.