Hail to the King

Our very own Adam Switters came out and crushed the SDSR RR yesterday. He attacked early in the race and rolled solo until he was joined by Nathan O’neil and some other crushers. Despite the talent he was riding against he managed to grit his teeth and muscle himself up the climb enough times to take the KOM jersey. With just the crit left that gives him a virtual lock on the KOM competition. This race has over 155 riders from all of the big pro teams in the US and one from Australia. I cannot begin to explain how impressive it is for him to have won the KOM. Switters, you are a hero.

Adam’s race must have been an advanced course in suffering, but how did it all go for the rest of us back in the field? The course itself is a real mother. Each lap is only 7 miles long and its filled with rolling terrain, tight turns, steep descents, coned sections, bad pavement and more road furniture than you can shake a stick at. At a few points in the course all 160 riders got funneled down from 3 lanes to one to get through a park ranger shack or a traffic island. The KOM comes just over a mile from the finish. After a long descent and one lane dam crossing, the course shoots through a narrow gate before making a hard right left chicane into the base of the climb. Hitting the climb on the front is of paramount importance. If you can carry some speed and give yourself room to drift back its not too terrible. If you’re tail-gunning though, you come to almost a complete stop and then have to sprint up the climb full gas to maintain contact. The climb itself is only 2 minutes long, but its steep and hard and you have to hit it 12 times. Ouch.

I’ve been feeling the beginnings of sickness coming on so I decided to take the race pretty easy. I spent the first couple of laps trying to find the best lines and the rest of the race just trying to conserve energy, stay loose, and keep hydrated. At one point I saw Bahati on the climb and decided to start taking my cues from him. He would position himself as far up in the group as he could going into the climb and then ride a very civilized pace up it letting people come around him as they pleased. I was just cruising and conserving from most of the race, but some highlights included a guy stacking it onto a haybaled traffic island, coming to a complete stop and having to unclip on the hill, and seeing Chris Baldwin almost wrap himself around a signpost in a wide open stretch of the course.

With three to go we caught Switters and the break on the top of the climb and things started to get hectic. The peloton split into two groups and while Phil and I were up the road the rest of the guys dropped back to make sure Swit-diggity made the time cut and got the Jersey. The penultimate time up the climb I got stuck in my big ring for the first part and was last wheel and dangling when I finally got it to shift. Yikes!

The race came down to the final time up the climb. I moved into good, but not great, position and hit it as hard as I could. The group split in two and I was the last guy to make it over the top with the front group. We ripped the descent at reckless speeds and then started hammering the flat run-in to the finish. 5 guys had slipped off the front on the climb, but no one was digging deep to catch them. Sitting last wheel was not an option so I made a move to get on Ken Hanson’s wheel. I lost him when he slipped through a tight gap and it was all downhill form there. Instead of manning up and just hitting it (which might actually have worked with the strong tailwind and narrowing finish) I tried again and again to find a good wheel and ended up boxed in and shut down. Looking at the file for the race I can see that I had to hit the brakes 3 times in the final 500 meters. They say if you want to win a sprint you can’t ever touch the brakes. I limped in for 13^th place. I’d like to say that I’m happy that I had the legs to be there, but in reality I’m pretty pissed at myself for missing such a golden opportunity. I was tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about what I might have done differently, but you don’t get any do-overs. Luckily it’s a long season and with a bit of luck I should have more chances to make it happen. Big props again to Switters for a gutsy ride. This is far and away the best result for Yahoo! Cycling thus far and I think it’s a harbinger of results to come.

Just finished spinning the legs on a coffee ride now were prepping for our 3:00 crit. I may get another chance sooner than I’d thought.