Image credit: see this and other great rides on www.2450mhz.com/The infamous, the deadly, the truly god damned awful Paris Roubaix of California. I had been hearing about this race for weeks. Every training ride consisted of "are you riding Copperopolis? - well let me tell you how bad it was the year I rode it, stones the size of baseballs, potholes that swallowed whole breakaway bunches, snakes, scorpions blah, blah, blah". Yeh, yeh, yeh. The American bullshit -o-meter was bouncing off the scale. Still I had to go and have a look.
Years spent thrashing myself through the unsealed Makara gorge in pursuit of Andrew and David Meo has to be useful sometime in your life. The Meo's are the only guys I know that were distraught when the council finally sealed the road.
Sea Otter was a few weeks ago, after feeling like crap on race day I came down with a genuine stay home from work for 2 days dose of the flu. I haven't had that pleasure for a few years. Anyway I missed a week or two of racing and while not in that good a shape I couldn't miss it. The advice from Steve the team owner was to ride heavy wheels, training bike and if I didn't have any cyclo-cross tyres use the heaviest things I had. A guy I knew said the same thing, he was a big, heavy boy though.
Only niggle with all of this is that Copperopolis is literally in the middle of nowhere. Never mind - up at 4.00 am and hit the road for the usual 8.00 am start - can't have the 3 locals inconvenienced in any way so starting the race early is the priority. 2 hours later I 'm doing 100mph on the freeway and getting pretty close. Another 40 minutes on backroads and I am right at the bottom of the High Sierra Mountains and its bloody cold but sunny. The race HQ is literally in a one-horse town, it looks over the fence at us with complete disinterest chewing its grass slowly.
I decide that racing in the cat 3's today will be a good look as the fitness is still suspect. I find that most people are using normal race wheels, bikes, tyres, so I go with the Heliums, they have a 23 cog which could get some use.
It's still cold and sunny on the start line - so much for the desert heat. It's a small field 50 guys only. I have never raced with 3's before, there are some big guys here. Yanks are big people, lots of guys at 6'3"+ with those equally big - I can ride the 12 all day legs. I hope its hilly that should sort them out.
Off we go, but we don't really, we are going so slowly, so slowly in fact that I decide that attack is the best form of defense and piss off up the road. I immediately wish I hadn't, but too late now. Unfortunately my plan goes all to shit when unbeknownst to me the valley I'm heading up is the circuits big climb. The road is really rough just like a normal NZ road that has all the last 50 years of potholes sealed over one by one, but nothing like the Belgium cobbles I have been promised. I think oh well it must get really bad round the back of the circuit.
The road just keeps going up and up and up, the 23 gets a workout - in the big ring - then the little ring. I get caught by what's left of the bunch right at that moment and watch the front of the race disappear. I have nothing in the legs at all so I figure I'll see how far I get. The top appears and with a few other guys we spend the next 20km chasing to get back on.
The road is well surfaced so I'm waiting for the pounding to start. As we get on the bunch the other hill appears. I survive that and bounce and crash from pothole to pothole down the long descent that wasn't too bad, kind of like the way the bays road use to be. As we get off the descent there is a small hill which has the finish on top, from there we start the next lap, only 3 to go. So much for the Arenburg Forest a la Paris Roubaix, these yanks need to toughen up - a few laps of the old Makara gorge would fix them.
Its pretty quick up the valley road, a few on the big-legged crew are giving their 12's a good workout. I last almost to the top of the climb, the steep part where the 23 gets engaged is where my legs feel like jelly and cry enough. There are 15 guys left and they get out of sight quickly. I get to the top of the climb and see the bunch way, way up the road. We have just climbed up to a plateau so no descent to get back here.
As I get onto one of the long straights the bunch is in sight, I can't believe it and ride up to them. They are cruising along like a Backhouse Sunday ride. I learn later that that is how the cat 3's race 100mph up the hill and crawl around everywhere else. Still I get to sit on the back for another lap. I give the descent a lash for fun - if the Meo brothers were here they would be complaining bitterly to the race organisers that there was no gravel as promised.
Sure enough the hill sees me go off again so I decide to stop for a call of nature break and cruise the rest of the lap. The car looks inviting and it's sure to be a hell of a long drive home.
I watch my friend Pete win the race in a 3 up sprint. Straight after that I hit the road. What was a 2hr 30min drive out here turns in to an almost 4 hour epic to get home. America does have a fantastic network of freeways 4-8 lanes, only thing is every bastard happens to be using them at the same time. They get packed so a Sunday afternoon resembles the Hutt motorway at 8 in the morning. The yanks also out do Nzers in their love of the fast lane where everyone sees as their god given right to drive at 80kmph. Still everyone is mellow in the best Californian tradition and its best to settle in and just stroll along.
So it was a big day. It was only after I got back and looked at a map that I realized the I had driven the equivalent distance to Taihape and back to go to a bloody race - I must be losing it either that or a bit of the California culture is rubbing off on me - chillin' with the homeboys.
No comments:
Post a Comment