Cascade Cycling Classic 2011

It’s over…6 days of racing against a tough competition. 2mi prologue, 74mi Road Race, 14mi TT, 71mi Road Race, 50min crit, and 67mi Road Race without a rest day.

Bend is great! The weather was gorgeous and the scenery is incredible. The residents are very supportive of the race. We stayed with a host family, which made it even more fun! You had a choice of 50 neutral bottles in the feed zone, where do you get that! The town is small so no matter where you go you run into other racers. I loved it!

The races were tough! We had all sort of National Champions in the stage race.We started with 105 racers on Tuesday and ended up with 64 by the end of Sunday.

Those girls are no joke! When I thought I have some sort of advantage in a race, I was proven wrong within the first few miles of the race! Any minor weakness became immediately apparent and the list is not short.

But hey, that was the perfect way to see how much training I got to do during the winter. So I am looking for a place somewhere warm, a lot of mountains, and a great cycling scene. (Any recommendations are highly appreciated)

I know what to expect at Cascades and I am coming back next year with a bigger goal in mind.

Thank you, residents of Bend, for your support, especially thanks to Sami F., Liana O., and Chuck M. for host housing and race support!

Stage 1 Cascade- Tough luck, Tougher Course, Toughest competition

74 mi race with 7000 feet of climbing.

The race starts with a 28 mi descent, followed by a 20 mi climb, followed by a 15 mi descent and then another 11 mi climb. Tough course with even tougher competition, probably the strongest field I raced against so far.

Today I learned what speed wobbles are: SCARY! Finally after Toona, I feel more comfortable descending and then my bike plays games on me!

During the first 28 mi fast descent I hit 43mph when suddenly my front tire started shaking. I tried to ignore it first but when it got worse and it became an uncontrollable movement, I had to slow down big time to get control of the bike again.

Since the peloton went over 43mph, I had to watch the gap getting bigger. I had to wait until the road got flatter to chase back to the group. Great! I just used a major amount of energy on a part of the race which shouldn’t require any effort whatsoever. It’s not like that the upcoming 20 mile climb would be challenging….

I don’t need to mention that the 20mi climb was long, like really long. Long enough that you have time to think about how hard this climb is. Long enough that you are debating with yourself why you had to eat so much the past years, if you were only 20 pounds lighter.

Despite the rather lengthy suffering going uphill, once on top of the McKenzie Mountain, you are riding through the lava field, which is spectacular. Very moon-like, only that the gravity part seemed to have the reverse effect.

After another 15mi descent, I timetrialed with 2 other girls for about 10mi and got caught by a group of 10 5 miles before the finish. The end! I finished. It was hard.

Pre-race report: Cascade Cycling Classic

Taking place in Bend, Oregon, the Cascade Cycling Classic starts next Tuesday, has a prologue and five stages. The 34 page tech manual got posted a few days ago which got me all excited. The overview of the stage is as follows:

Tue: 2mi Prologue, out and back

Wed: 74mi Road Race

Thurs: 14mi TT out and back

Fri: 71mi Road Race (Men: 84mi)

Sat: 50min crit (Men: 75min)

Sun: 67mi Circuit Race (Men: 83mi)

I learned from the past few races that either the elevation charts are targeted towards total confusion for the racer or I missed an elevation chart 101 course somewhere.

I always get fooled by those tricky charts for better or for worse! Either I am suddenly surprised by a 2 mi wall ahead of me, which did not even appear after microscopic inspection of the chart or I am fearing that seemingly immense mountain drafted on the chart, and I hit a speed bump in reality.

Figure 1: Stage 1: 74mi Road Race

The real challenge I am facing is the range of the y-axis of stage 1. The average East Coaster is used to an elevation range maybe between 300 feet and 3000 feet.

Cascade starts at 1600 feet and climbs up to 5400 feet which makes me wonder if besides a topographic map and a compass (see Tour de Toona report) I might be better off with an oxygen mask.

People who have been riding with me know that I already sound like a dying train at sea level. Let’s see how many racers I will aggravate with my rather noisy breathing pattern at 5000 feet.

When studying the x-axis of the elevation chart, I happened to find out that one of the climbs stretches to an entire length of 20 mi. How many Old Angler repeats would that be?

In any case, I am sure this will be another exciting week of racing!