Mike's Bike Blog

I'm not really sure where to start, I had hoped to have a grand report on my first race  in a 3/4 race where I finished with the pack. Heck I'd even settle for finishing but that wasn't in the cards today. There were 64 of us rolling out on one of the windiest days I've seen in Texas. Let me set the scene a little in case you're not familiar with the Manda area. It's about 20 miles East of Austin, it's fairly flat farm land. No trees to provide any protection from the wind.

Before the start I was getting some sage advice from Enrique, Chuck and even Scott stopped to offer some tips for the wind. They all had raced earlier in the day. The main conclusion was the wind was blowing from the worst possible direction for the course. For the first 300 meters there was a crosswind till the right hand turn heading up to the church where it was a blistering headwind. About 3 1/2 miles in during a crosswind section I'm not sure what happened but somebody went flying into the field. There was a scramble and the race was on. We went feverish for the next 2 miles and then guys started to get popped off the back. More and more were losing contact and then it happened, the wheels in front of me were starting to let the gap get bigger and when I was able to get around it was a done deal. The field dangled in front of me, taunting me but I could not muster enough to bridge the gap in the wind.  On the long stretch on Wells Rd I came upon a UT rider all alone, I slowed down and offered my wheel. There was a small group of 4 or 5 between us and the field. I did my best to pull and as I was burning up he would pull we started trading pulls and then I had nothing else in the legs. After the next right turn it was into the wind again head on.

As I rolled through Manda the school house lot was filling up with 3/4's dropping out. I marshaled on, as I turned into the wind there were guys turning around and heading back to their cars. I figured I had 1 more lap in me if I had to solo it the entire time. I made my way all the way through the headwind section again passing a rider or two most were from the shattered Cat 5 field. As I was making the right turn I saw a group of 5 or 6 coming up behind me. I slowed up and caught on. They didn't seem to organized, in fact at first I didn't see any rotation and only a couple riders were pulling through. We finally got organized into a 5 man echelon after we seemed to have lost a guy or two. I did get yelled at for pulling through too hard once. 

On the crosswind on Wells Road I got to witness firsthand on how to gutter someone to get them out of the group. Not sure if this was intentional or not, but after I got done with my pull I fell back but the other 4 fanned out across the road. When I fell back I didn't realize it till I got all the way back and was right at the yellow line. There was no draft and it only took a matter of seconds to completely blow up and lose contact. Like I said I'm not sure if it was intentional or not but it was executed perfectly if it was.

Once again I was on my own. As I passed the School House I stopped when I saw Chuck standing around eating BBQ I suspected. He goaded me to do at least 1 more, even he did 3 laps. I trudged onward for another lap. I made the fateful turn into the headwind. The wind seemed to be stronger this time. I was going down hill and only mustering 11 mph and I was at 150% of my threshold power. The wind hit me with a sucker punch, it whipped up and smacked me across the face. My sunglasses flew off my face. For a brief second I contemplated leaving them, you can't turn around in a race. Since I was practically at a standstill I turned to retrieve them. I could see my car and with the tailwind I figured I had had enough for the day.

You got to know when to fold and this was one of those times. I had already racked up enough of a training stress score (TSS) for the day. One thing I didn't want to do was completely blow my self and leave my body in a state where I'd have to take consecutive days off to recoup plus be vulnerable to any sickness that my kids might bring home.

2009 Ronde Von Manda Report